absolute galore
Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
A term I had not heard until today, “the willingly unvaccinated” from this article in the New Yorker:
Treating the Unvaccinated“The most striking feature of this wave is that “they’re all young,” Edwards said. “I can’t remember treating a single older COVID patient in the past couple months. It feels like they either got it, and they’re gone, or they got vaccinated, and they’re safe.””..
..”“I try not to feel angry, but it’s hard,” he said. “I try to be fair. I know I’m a well-off white doctor who understands science and medicine. The vaccine came to my place of work and I just rolled up my sleeve. I get that it’s harder for other people. But at this point it’s, like, C’mon, man, this is the most important thing you can do for your health.”From the “Free” pandemic coverage by our friends at The Atlantic. You remember, the ones who proudly proclaim after each of these articles, The Atlantic’s COVID-19 coverage is supported by grants from the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
“The hospital is now busier than at any previous point during the pandemic. In just five weeks, it took in as many COVID-19 patients as it did over five months last year. Ten minutes away, another big hospital, Cox Medical Center South, has been inundated just as quickly. “We only get beds available when someone dies, which happens several times a day,” Terrence Coulter, the critical-care medical director at CoxHealth, told me….
…Those ICUs are also filling with younger patients, in their 20s, 30s, and 40s, including many with no underlying health problems. In part, that’s because elderly people have been more likely to get vaccinated, leaving Delta with a younger pool of vulnerable hosts. While experts are still uncertain if Delta is deadlier than the original coronavirus, every physician and nurse in Missouri whom I spoke with told me that the 30- and 40-something COVID-19 patients they’re now seeing are much sicker than those they saw last year. “That age group did get COVID before, but they didn’t usually end up in the ICU like they are now,” Jonathan Brown, a respiratory therapist at Mercy, told me. Nurses are watching families navigate end-of-life decisions for young people who have no advance directives or other legal documents in place.”
Wow. Scary stuff. Here’s the current chart for Missouri from the NYT:
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=Missouri+covid+deaths%5CLooks like the state barely registered a first wave. But they cherry-picked those “five months last year” because they are not near the high. Strangely, while Missouri’s vaccination rate lags behind the Northeast, they are definitely ahead of India. Here’s what India looks like:
Interesting.
@Varnold wrote: …”Now waiting for delivery…how many days, hours, minutes, seconds…until delivery???…
I waited less than two weeks. I’m in New York State. You do realize it doesn’t actually work, right? Bloomberg and The Guardian said so. Maybe you’ll get a placebo effect. One can always hope!;^)
“Then why the fuck are we talking about this stuff? Oh, I know: to whine and commiserate.”
Well, yeah, kinda. We’re in a system, the biggest human system ever. Not everybody gets to throw the winning touchdown in the Super Bowl or be a douche that goes to Harvard and gets on the fast track to Masters of the Universe. Do you really want to be a possum’s A-hole like Adam Schiff or a shiftless industrial grifter like “Joe Biden?” Or a narcissistic vulgarian living the unexamined life a la Mr. Trump? How about a chinless punk like Zuckerberg? That’s what it takes to get to the top these days. It ain’t pretty, folks.
Sorry, those positions have been filled. Anyway, there has to be a hapless hoi polloi, that teeming, unruly cast of extras. And how many of us want to be tossed to the lions? More fun to be a sanctimonious whiner, no?
I mostly blame the vast quantities of energy available that we used so foolishly. And even there, we seem to have this biological imperative to consume. In any case, even if you’d prefer to flame out, we’re pretty much trapped at this stage of the game. Good luck fighting for a seat on the life boat.
I don’t like the term “sheeple.” That’s wearing your sanctity on your sleeve. I’m (sometimes) just thankful that my eyes have opened to the degree they have opened, and I hope others will receive some grace. It certainly does not make life easier, but it does make it more interesting. As others have said here in various ways over the last few months, I do believe a more rigorous spiritual path is definitely called for in these times of ours. Which who knows where that will lead. But I imagine it’s the best bet right about now. Although fuck ’em all in the meantime!;^)
If the study was so blatantly obviously bad, shame on the pro-Ivermectin forces for including it. Almost seems like a set-up in some ways. But that would make me a conspiracy nut, and I’m already an anti-vaxx nut, so I retract that idea. Absolutely.
The efficacy of a drug being promoted by rightwing figures worldwide for treating Covid-19 is in serious doubt after a major study suggesting the treatment is effective against the virus was withdrawn due to “ethical concerns”.
Promoted by rightwing figures worldwide? You mean like the FLCC? Or John Day? or the doctor that the blonde woman interviewed? Countless doctors around the world in places that have limited vaccine access? I had no idea they were right wing figures. But I guess The Guardian did the research, because that was the lead.
“Because the Elgazzar study is so large, and so massively positive – showing a 90% reduction in mortality – it hugely skews the evidence in favour of ivermectin,” Meyerowitz-Katz said.
“If you remove this one study from the scientific literature, suddenly there are very few positive randomised control trials of ivermectin for Covid-19. Indeed, if you get rid of just this research, most meta-analyses that have found positive results would have their conclusions entirely reversed.”
Troubling if true. But how could removal of a single study completely reverse the meta results? Didn’t the Frontline Covid meta study use something like 80 studies? Could one really be that weighted? Interesting that it is discovered now, just as Ivermectin is getting some mainstream attention. I almost feel it is being done to intimidate the Oxford scientists. Or else we’re all TAE nutjobs.
That Bloomberg piece that prof posted back on page 2 was definitely condescending and misleading, as he said. Extremely annoying read, even if you don’t think Ivermectin is what its been cracked up to be here on TAE. The idea that time healed them, as though all the meta studies were just based on anecdotes. No, they were based on false studies by Egyptian doctors. (kidding).
We seem to be hitting some sort of crescendo or tipping point. Something be going down.
All I know is what I see. I see people I do not trust telling me to get vaccinated. I see smart people, on the front lines, telling me Ivermectin works.These people seem more credible to me, and with nothing to gain other than saving lives. But maybe they are just sickos and its all an illusion, ‘ cause time heals all wounds. Even if Ivermectin doesn’t work, at this point I say Go Fu^k Yourself to every single one of them. Fu^k these fu^king fu^kers.
I’ve never seen a better description of my ex than Dr.D’s excerpt of The Brothers Karamazov posted above.
Of course it fits most of our politicians and “business leaders” like a glove, too.
The idea that it is Republicans resisting the vax is strange. Tucker Carlson posted a figure saying 23% of African Americans had been vaccinated.
I suspect they are working even now on ways to justify pushing up the approval date. Once it gets full approval, a lot of people are going to lose their reason for hesitating. At the same time, it will give private businesses the justification for firing people who refuse to cooperate with the government’s mass GMO plan.
I think they think if they just stay on this and completely ignore and or censor all the dissenting voices, they will emerge with the win.The fact that news cycles last about 3 minutes greatly helps their cause.
Gotta love the clip of K Harris dissing the vaccine during the debates. I might have to save that on my phone to play for the “respected community leaders” who come knocking to tell me to get vaccinated for the good of all. After I cough on them profusely, of course. Kidding. But I will tell them masks are not permitted on my doorstep or in my yard. I might invite them in for some milk (vitamin D) and a couple of Apple Horse Paste Cookies (I can afford to now that I have the form made for humans).
Mississippi health officials warn about delta ‘surge’ as 7 children in ICU due to COVID-19
Two of the patients are on ventilators, officials said.So here we go. Mississippi is one of the most unvaxxed states. Here we see unvaxxed adults being blamed for causing children to fall ill.
What I would like to know: Were these kids already sick with something else? Were they in the hospital already? If not, what co-morbidities do they have, if any? Or were they each vibrantly healthy children struck down by Covid?
I ask because almost every time the news media reports that people in their 20s, 30s are being hospitalized, we get no further info in terms of the risk factor. Obesity is the number one risk. We know this is a big problem in the U.S. We need to understand if these patients have other risks.
I pray that these children get well. I hope their illness is not being used as propaganda in the vaccination campaign.
By introducing these experimental vaccines into the early stages of a pandemic, we have created an ever-changing dynamic that may or may not follow the normal course of how pandemics work through to become endemic. It is an experiment we have no control over and cannot gather any really useful data from at this point. I suspect this is one of the reasons they want everyone vaxxed, to try to reset to ground zero and march onward–probably with boosters forever. What. A. Freaking. Poop. Show.
“But people need to understand that the amount of data right now that shows a high degree of effectiveness and a high degree of safety is more than we’ve ever seen with the emergency use authorization, so these vaccines are as good as officially approved with all the I’s dotted and T’s crossed. It hasn’t been done yet because the FDA has to do certain things. But it’s as good as done. So people should really understand that. But they are waiting now until you get an official approval before. And I think when you do see the official approval, you’ll see a lot more mandates.”
Well the EUA has never been granted for a brand-new vaccine–AVA, the anthrax vaccine given an EUA in 2005 was already approved for other use, so it was a case of “off label” use. During the Swine Flu pandemic, only antiviral meds were approved. His statement is A. misleading, and B. comparing apples to kiwi fruit. Dr. Dissembler.
I loathe the phrase “people need to understand.” It is used by smug and contemptuous prigs who are full of themselves.
“…these vaccines are as good as officially approved…it’s as good as done”
That’s the scary part. It’s like they are going to give an emergency full approval to a drug that has an emergency use authorization.We are truly into an Orwellian existence. I’m not so sure you can ever get back out without a lot of violence happening first.
“Meanwhile, at the Conservative Political Action Conference, author Alex Berenson called out the vaccination efforts as a scam. “The government was hoping that they could sort of sucker 90% of the population into getting vaccinated,” Berenson said. “And it isn’t happening.” People in the audience cheered when they heard that. On the other hand, Fauci called the reaction “horrifying.”
When the pandemic first started and I was refusing to wear a mask outdoors and questioning the scope and the subsequent government reaction, a good friend of mine said I should meet this friend of his who lives in the next town over. It was more of an aside to let me know he knew of others who were of a similar opinion.
Anyway, this friend of my friend, who I have not met, is Alex Berenson, who I had never heard of to that point. I’m fairly indifferent about going out of my way to meet him, but anybody who The Atlantic calls “the pandemic’s wrongest man” or who elicits a “horrifying” from Dr. Dissembler is doing something right. This is the highly respected, ethical, unbiased journal which proudly announces “The Atlantic’s COVID-19 coverage is supported by grants from the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.”
Hey, at least they come out and admit it, unlike most of the other “news sources” out there.
Holy cow. This might not be an echo chamber but it sure is set on repeat a lot. We are going over the same exact stuff we discussed weeks and months ago. We are parsing delivery styles. We are dissecting nuances and rehashing old studies. As Charlie Brown would say, ‘Aaaarrrghhh!’ (I paraphrase.)
Meanwhile, back at the shale play, our energy situation would seem to be poised to create some havoc. This whole push to de-invest in fossil fuels, the idea that we will soon all be driving electric cars (even peakoil.com thinks this!), etc., etc. complete fantasyland etc.
One thing that struck me as odd is the report of several “activists” getting on the board of ExxonMobile IIRC. Seriously? They just slipped in? And what will they be doing, voting for the company to screw shareholders? On the other hand, when the tar sands hit the fan, they sure would be handy scapegoats.
But this idea that Big Oil is shrugging its shoulders, along with car makers, and saying whelp, I guess the jig is up,boys. We’d better start importing Chinese solar panels, I’m not sold on that one.
I subscribe to to Tom Whipple’s Energy Bulletin Daily and it is chaotic right now from what I can tell. It seems like half the articles he links to directly contradict the other half. This tells me something might be happening soon. But who knows anything any more.
I’ve been exploring this website: https://surplusenergyeconomics.wordpress.com/ I discovered it by way of JK’s Kunstlercast podcast, when he chatted with Dr. Tim Morgan. It’s not necessarily earth-shattering news to most TAE denizens, but the way he combines things and the new metrics he comes up with I find useful in further understanding some of the underlying mechanisms of the energy economy.
It’s another way of looking under the hood, similar to Gail Tverberg at Ourfiniteworld, but with more emphasis on the way the energy system (ie, the real economy) interacts specifically with the financial system, using the aforementioned novel formulas to try to parse out the wheat from the chaff in that complex overloaded basket of information, much of it misleading or useless.
Re: The elites or the ruling class,TPTB, or, my least favorite, our overlords. I am not a believer in a fully functioning cabal of global elites, complete with secret handshakes. Also, using any kind of title like that does not sit well with me. The guy I work for is not my boss, he’s the son of the guy who started the company. Call them what you will, but personally I avoid any suggestion that they are somehow superior. It’s really just dumb luck, fate, and/or an unfortunate abundance of psychopath genes.
Okay I mangled that post, I am rushing out to meet a friend for a bike ride early a.m. The idea was to substitute U.S. for China….
“Even before the crisis, the U.S. has had serious structural economic problems that are finally catching up with it. Re: China: Fragile Giant
“The U.S. is so heavily indebted that it’s at the point where more debt does not produce growth. Adding additional debt today slows the economy and calls into question the ability of the U.S. to service its existing debt. China also confronts an insolvent banking system and a real estate bubble. Up to half of the investments in the U.S.are a complete waste.”
Re: Photo in Chile. So cool. I feel like there is an entire novel in the story behind the people driving in that car.
re: “Fiji’s government has announced it will make Covid-19 vaccinations a mandatory condition of work for civil servants and staff in the private sector, with some people liable to lose their jobs if they do not comply.”
In the U.S., they are–so far–leaving it up to the private companies to exert that kind of pressure. For example, a friend of mine owns a restaurant/bar. The cook does not want to get jabbed, so unlike everyone else, he must wear a mask. My friend is unhappy because if the guy gets sick, he must shut down his restaurant for minimum 2 weeks.
It’s this kind of regulation, entirely not base on “science,” that ostracizes a segment of the population, makes it okay to pressure and discriminate against them. Free choice my ass. Once they push through full approval (based on science, natch) it will get 10x worse.
Fauci: “Get over it. Just get over this political statement.”
Said while appearing under a banner reading Republicans Against Public Health and talking to some bobblehead MSM pr mouthpiece for the Democrats/Wokes/Progressives/Liberals or whatever the hell they are. Kinda priceless.
How does this jackass fool aka lutum lapides sacculi, still have a job? What happened to the information tying him to gain of function research? Where has all of that gone?
Into the same “nothing matters, anything goes” hole that swallowed Hunter Biden’s depravities, Cuomo’s harassment accusations, Joe Biden’s mental health questions, voting fraud, etc.etc etc etc and many more etc’s , back to the financial crisis and zero accountability for that mess, etc. It makes one weary. It truly does.
Fauci is the classic example of a low level, low intelligence career bureaucrat who suddenly has a bright light shone on his molding, useless self and is milking it for all its worth. Send him back to his desk in the basement.
Hows about Avarus bastardis for the genus. Then you can further categorize into handy subgroups–psychopols, academia nuts, charlatiods, pilfering douches, and the all-encompassing sakoúla vromiás (lutum lapides sacculi) when the particulars are not clear.
The one big glitch in China nuking us out of existence is that we do happen to be a pretty decent customer of all the crap they churn out over there. Maybe someone will whisper that little tidbit in his ear? Then again, if they get rid of us, they have the domestic marketplace all to themselves. They can have everything made in Taiwan and Hong Kong, and put all the mainlanders on Universal Income. Cause, you know, robots.
Just like they did a high-speed industrial revolution in 20 years time, complete with the now famous “China used more cement in 3 years than the U.S. did in the entire 20th Century” fast fact-o-the-day, it seems they will complete a nice nuclear arsenal arms race in short order as well. Hurray for sanity.
Meanwhile, today is laundry day here at absolute galore world headquarters…ugh. It’s one of the few things I miss about owning my own home (and one of the reasons I bought one in the first place.) Washing machine plus clothesline. Now that’s civilization.
Reminds me of that old riddle. A plane crashed on the border of the United States and Mexico. Where were the survivors buried?
I was about to post that Vice article that Dr. D linked to, but wanted to get my Kunstler fan boy post up on its own first.
Anyway, the Vice article has a fairly hysterical (in both senses of the word) headline:
‘So, So Angry’: Reporters Who Survived the Capitol Riot Are Still Struggling
The reporters who survived the insurrection are still covering Congress. But things don’t feel normal.Gosh, how many reporters were killed during that battle?! But the bravery! To see your comrades in journalism fall before your eyes and yet have the courage, the bravery, the patriotism, to continue covering Congress. I am overwhelmed and speechless. Can we please just say it: Front Line Heroes! We Salute You!
Maybe things don’t feel normal because they ringed the place with troops and barbed wire?
I would like to clarify a comment I made yesterday about James Kunstler, since it was perhaps interpreted in a way I did not intend.
@laffin_boy wrote: My thanks to absolute galore for zeroing in on JK’s “special genius”. Which is to:
— predict the imminent collapse of… everything – (pretending that collapse is ALWAYS just around the bend)
— entertain your readers (because they’ve spent their entire lives being distracted, titillated, enraged, scared, and otherwise manipulated by our 24/7/365 global propaganda system and we don’t know any other way to exist without continuous external stimulation.)In other words JK is, like every other Well Known Figure, just an Entertainer. Someone who’s real job, while pretending to talk about Serious Issues, is to divert you from your responsibility to yourself & your family to try to solve those very issues.
…I remember when JK, who use to be an unknown architectural critic, “discovered” collapse and jumped aboard the gravy train.
In my opinion, this is not only unfairly disparaging, but completely wrong. I’ve had the pleasure of meeting Jim a couple of times, first driving up to Troy to hear one of his lectures. He took the time to speak with me one on one “backstage.” I subsequently went to visit him at his home in Greenwich, NY, where I interviewed him for a blog I was doing at the time.
He is not only gracious and generous with his time, but also someone who “walks the walk”, preparing as best as any of us can for coming hard times. To say that he is “pretending” and “jumping about the [collapse] gravy train” is simply not true.
Remember, his seminal book about our modern day troubles is called “The Long Emergency.” Sure, he has managed to make some kind of living while focused on this topic–and one reason he is successful at it is because he believes it one hundred percent. Good for him that he is able to do this.
I think one reason his predictions don’t materialize in the timeframe he suspects they would has to do with one of his own catchphrases–we are living in a time where anything goes and nothing matters. So the disturbances and facts of the matter that are plainly visible to him–and “us”–are simply ignored, while the deck chairs get rearranged so that the vast unsustainable business that he is such an admirable and entertaining critic of can float along for another few weeks or months or years.
It’s the same phenomena that has me turning to the MSM each day, expecting to finally see Ivermectin vindicated as a potent salve for Covid or reading about Hunter Biden’s long jail term. Nope. Not today. Not tomorrow. But at some point the whole mess will definitely hit the fan hard.
By the way, Kunstler is also a talented painter, and has documented his small town on the Battenkill over the years. Personally, I am indebted to him, along with John Michael Greer, Ivan Illich, and Gail Tverberg (and to a lesser extent Orlov) as having a big influence in how I see the world these days.
From the Dove intro on Quercetin: The current antivirus agents being used, including hydroxychloroquine, ivermectin, lopinavir/ritonavir, have not shown any conclusive benefits.5
Why do the study’s authors feel it necessary to throw shade on these drugs? How curious can they be if they do not see the apparently amazing effectiveness of Ivermectin around the world? Unless we here at TAE are just a bunch of silly old fools falling for the latest “cancer cures” down Mexico way?
Maybe. But the people who promote it and believe in it that I have come across (Kory, Martinsen, that doctor that gets interviewed all the time and anything to do with Ivermectin gets cut from the story, despite him giving it full credit, our own Dr. Day, etc.) A. have no financial incentives, and B. seem a lot smarter and more sincere and more on the front lines than the people I see pushing the vaxprop on us.
From NYT front page today (BTW, thanks for the tips on how to get around paywall. I’ve been doing it via various methods for years, but they have increased the effectiveness over the years. Most of them no longer work, and the ones that do require multiple devices, and those expire after a couple of articles too–and you need to sign up to keep reading, which has the effect of helping them track you on different devices. I’m sure it’s possible, but increasingly time consuming.)
Biden Makes New Push for Vaccinations, but Experts Say More Is Needed
Some experts worry that the administration is not being aggressive enough in waging what President Biden calls a “wartime effort” to vaccinate the U.S.Those experts sure are busy, and everywhere these days! Combine this with the article about mandatory military vaccines–with the implicit assumption that they will gain full approval from the FDA by September!!!) and we are heading for problems for us unvaxxed.
I was speaking with a friend last night who recently completed a degree in bioethics. She is a lawyer. She is was not overtly critical of my decision to not get vaccinated, but she said I should “thank everyone who did because you no longer need to wear a mask or social distance.”
I replied that I had not seen much convincing evidence that masks did a whole hell of a lot, and never wore one except where absolutely mandated. It was weird walking through town on a crowded weekend where everyone was wearing one–good practice in feeling “other”. I mentioned that the claim the unvaxxed were breeding grounds for variants was also lacking in much hard data. While conceding vaxxed might also transmit variants, she thought it was mostly unvaxxed.
I pointed out that regardless of who does what, it’s a moot point, since a vast percentage of the world is not, and will never be, vaccinated,due to logistics of deep freeze, distribution, money. And our business executives must visit those places so we can have our fast fashions and cheap gadgets and auto parts and anything requiring toxic manufacturing processes. So there is that.
If I really thought that A. I stood a decent chance of definitely dying a la Spanish Flu, or becoming disabled by getting Covid and/or B. I could potentially be a serious vector for killing others (not including old or compromised people, who I could stay away from), and C. there was no such thing as Ivermectin, I would certainly entertain getting vaccinated. She had never heard of Ivermectin. Nobody I have discussed it with has heard the word Ivermectin. Not one person.
Thanks whoever posted that George Carlin snip yesterday. After many years of having an “activist” bent, I have adopted that same approach to life–getting emotionally involved in the larger workings of the world will do neither you nor the world a smidge of good. Looking at things dispassionately actually gives you the room to accept others, with all their foibles, less judgmentally, more gracefully. I look at us as being part of a system that has followed a path and has now taken on a life of its own. Things will play out as they play out.
This does not mean throwing up our hands and staying in bed or walking into the woods and disappearing. On the contrary, it gives us greater energy to carry out simple acts of kindness and consideration toward the earth, toward the people in our lives. In the end, there is not much more than that we can do. And in the end, that’s good enough. Plus riding my bicycle.
Is it just me having deja vu again, or did you choose this Manet once before? Don’t tell me on top of everything else we’re running out of classic art!;^)
From James K: Since we no longer have much of a manufacturing economy, the only thing left would be Wall Street — which was originally designed to raise money for the manufacturing and service sector but now only raises money for itself via the seemingly magical mingling of “leverage” with “liquidity” to conjure profit from black holes where the ghosts of productivity howl.
Gotta love sentences like that. Brilliant. Jim has been predicting the imminent collapse of… everything….in pretty much every column for years. His special genius is writing about it in a unique and entertaining way each week (x2!). And of course,IMO, the scenario he envisions draws closer each day…remember, they said Malthus was wrong, too.
Based on how our leaders have reacted to previous natural and unnatural disasters, it becomes a question of logistic and control. How do you distribute enough daily bread to the populace, and how do you keep people from expressing dissatisfaction with their portions by way of the huge stash of firepower around the country.
The only way would seem to be some kind of domestic military intervention. Imean, if they called out the troops and barb-wired the capitol after Jan 6, it won’t take much. Then the question becomes, who would be running that show, and which ideology would be setting the rules? Would there be more disturbance in red or blue states? Would there be some combo of the worst of both parties? Is there even enough cohesion within the military to make it “work.” Will other nations kick us while we are down? (Rhetorical.) I fear JK is about to earn his seer degree in full for reals some time soon.
It’s the first of the month, so I get to read two or three articles from the august NYT.
Here is the latest way to attack Ivermectin. Slip a single mention of it in an article about the most far-fetched claims to damn it by association.Note that the author dwells on Hydroxychloroquine, since that medicine will probably never make a comeback, but only mentions Ivermectin once in the entire piece. Note “early treatment” in scare quotes, as though that were simply beyond the pale–there is no answer except the high tech vaccines, brought to you by Big Pharma. Shame on the president for even suggesting other approaches. Note the smarmy “OK, Miracatu does not have a hospital. But still…” Miracatu is a municipality with about 20,000 residents, would not be surprising if it did not have a hospital, although google maps says it does. Nonetheless, there are hospitals nearby. It’s a cheap shot that only weakens her “reporting.”
Lots of ridicule of people’s various beliefs. Can you blame them, what with all the official propaganda and flipflopping BS? Author, who is not a medical expert but “a contributing Opinion writer who focuses on Brazilian politics, culture and everyday life” reports only 13% of Brazilians are vaccinated.
Miracle Cures and Magnetic People. Brazil’s Fake News Is Utterly Bizarre.
SÃO PAULO, Brazil — Hydroxychloroquine is not effective against Covid-19. No. Definitely not. But Brazilians still aren’t sure. After all, just the other day a friend’s cousin forwarded a headline on WhatsApp claiming that all I.C.U. beds in the city of Miracatu are empty because the mayor adopted President Jair Bolsonaro’s “early treatment” — consisting of hydroxychloroquine, ivermectin and azithromycin — for Covid-19. OK, Miracatu does not have a hospital. But still: How can we be sure?
Gee, now that you put it like that, I guess it was all planned out.
Just kidding!
I’m sticking with my position in this here thread.
The vaccines are not an evil conspiracy, They represent the hubris found throughout the United States’ professional classes. They would have been 2nd or 3rd rate at some point, but they’ve hoisted themselves up on their mediocrity and lack of morals and are now “in charge.” Hang on while these clowns take us down another few steps on the stairway of decline. The less stupid ones have getaways in New Zealand or wherever, but quite a few of them will probably feel the heat at some point.
Bill7 wrote: It’s not seeming like “incompetence” to me; not when the “oopsies” inevitably benefit the same, tiny Class.
“Incompetence, greed, stupidity.” That would be the greed part, undeniably a big part. And often run by people way less stupid than, say, your average politician. But ultimately, considering where all this is going, quite incompetent. Think of it as them being too smart for their own good–and, unfortunately, almost everybody elses. We will all be the beneficiaries of the mess as this house of joker cards continues to come apart.
How dangerous is The Fauci variant?
“The Fauci variant is currently the greatest threat in the U.S. to our attempt to eliminate COVID-19,” Fauci said. The Fauci variant, first identified by Fauci, is the most contagious yet and, among those not yet vaccinated, may trigger serious illness in more people than other variants do, he said.“Even though they’ll gain some protection from the immunit
y of others,”
Right. So not only are the unvaxxed responsible for the potential variants that will break through the vaccines, forcing boosters (later in the piece) but we should be thankful for the protection that we are getting from the heroes/good citizens/comrades who were vaccinated.
Thank you, comrades! I humbly apologize for my weakness and cowardice in not submitting to the holy jab, the consecrated mRNA vaxx, gift of the mighty priesthood of
Big Phhero scientists.Vaccinated people are safer than ever despite the variants. But unvaccinated people are in more danger than ever because of the variants. Even though they’ll gain some protection from the immunity of others, they also tend to cluster socially and geographically, seeding outbreaks even within highly vaccinated communities.
The U.K., where half the population is fully vaccinated, “can be a cautionary tale,” Hanage told me. Since Delta’s ascendancy, the country’s cases have increased sixfold. Long-COVID cases will likely follow. Hospitalizations have almost doubled. That’s not a sign that the vaccines are failing. It is a sign that even highly vaccinated countries host plenty of vulnerable people….
So I’m reading this article, noting the many inconsistencies and the nothingburger aspect to the whole thing, when I make it to the very end and I see this (spoiler alert):
The Atlantic’s COVID-19 coverage is supported by grants from the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
Ed Yong is a staff writer at The Atlantic, where he covers science.Are you kidding me? Are you kidding me?
They could at least put it at the top. That way I would not waste my time reading the damn thing looking for a smidgen of truth that might have gotten through. Crazy.Re: Delta Case Fatality Rate in UK appears 8 times higher among the fully vaccinated than the unvaccinated
I must be getting dumber as I get older, but I can’t really make sense of this graph. In any case, I doubt it matters, since it does not include important variables such as age of cases/deaths, percentage of that cohort vaccinated/unvaccinated, how “cases” are being determined, etc etc.
First, despite initial reports that Delta OMG!! was MORE contagious!! and MORE DEADLY and DANGEROUS! it now appears that while easier to catch, it is a milder form and less likely to kill you.
Second, IIRC, it has been reported that the older you are, not only is the disease more dangerous, but, unfortunately, your body does not respond to the vaccine as robustly. This makes sense, right? As we get older, systems wear down and get tired, including the immune system. When prompted by a vaccine, the response in creating antibodies will be different in a 30-year-old than in someone who is 78.
I would not be surprised if those vaccinated dying of Delta were mostly in their 70s and 80s, likely by that age with at least one comorbidity. The older you get, the more likely it is you are going to die of a disease or some failure of your body. This Is What Is Supposed To Happen. We are supposed to die of something when we get older. Yet even in this high risk group, most people, vaccinated or not, Do Not Die From Covid.
Also, the overall numbers of deaths look pretty low to me, but again I don’t understand that graph.
This is not some evil, high level, powers-that=be mastermind to reduce the population. It is stupidity, greed, incompetence performed at a high level of expertise. To suggest otherwise is to give these reigning idiots waaay too much credit. All you need to do is look at the actions and statements from people like Fauci, the Bidens, Pelosi, the cast of characters in all the “intelligence” agencies, the talking heads in the msm, etc.to see that clear as day.
Combine that with the cowardice of most who have something to lose by pointing out the fact that we are being run into the ground by an idiocracy–doctors who won’t doctor, or speak out, reporters who don’t report, etc., and, while it may smell like a conspiracy, nope, just plain old insanity.
Sure, there are plenty of coverups, that goes with the territory of greed, incompetency, stupidity–there is at least some need to cover your tracks. Although as we all get stupider, that gets easier and easier, to the point that simply ignoring the herd of elephants stomping through the room, or flipping the narrative with no further explanation, will suffice these days.
I think one reason the vaccine effort was initially so successful is our faith in the myth of progress. It’s taken a beating, but we are still hanging on. Most people still think we have the technology to “solve” the “climate crisis” if we could only get the deplorables to understand. The deplorables believe that oil is a renewable resource. And how else explain the fawning over billionaire charlatans and their space programs and Club for the Future and living on Mars by 2030.
Still, there are enough people growing skceptical that when along came the miracle cure from “science”–all the better never done before!–they hopped right on board. Yay! Humans are so smart! We will not lose to some nasty, evil virus! We can manipulate the building blocks of life! And if it does go a little sideways, Michael Moore can do a documentary and Hulu will make a miniseries, no problem!
My latest column for the local paper has a long digression about corn. I’ve never seen King Corn but I imagine it goes into how much of the stuff goes into ethanol, which is a giant racket in at least three different ways. Between ethanol, feedstock for cows,pigs,chickens, HFCS and other stuff like cosmetics and compostable plates, we actually eat less than 10% of the 366 million metric tons we grow annually. (90 million acres. I suspect BG owns a bunch of it by now.)
BTW, 92% is GMO–over 70% is Roundup ready–that is,genetically made to work with Roundup. It’s a great example of the dysfunction of the whole industrial operation, from subsidies to poisoning the earth to the extreme waste of using it for feed and fuel. Insane. Most of the farmers at my farmers market don’t offer it, because it’s just too hard to compete with the cheap ears trucked in to the supermarkets.
“Those findings suggested that immunity might last years, possibly a lifetime, in people who were infected and later vaccinated. But whether vaccination alone might demonstrate the same power was unclear.”
Jumped out for me as well. I suspect they just can’t admit out loud that “God’s vaccination” alone will keep you good for many years. If the vaccination alone does not “demonstrate the same power” then either natural immunity is responsible for the many years of protection, or somehow the combo offers this long-lasting protection.
In other words: BAU, obfuscation central
From yesterday’s NYT Opinion page:
Guest Essay
Vaccine Mandates Are Coming. Good.
June 28, 2021“……
When the United States was fighting smallpox long ago, it took mandates to get enough people vaccinated. To eradicate polio, the same was true. Nearly all major infectious diseases in the country — measles, mumps, rubella, pertussis, diphtheria and more — have been managed through vaccine mandates by schools. The result is that the vast majority of children are vaccinated, and in time, they grow into adults who are vaccinated. That’s how the country achieves real herd immunity.But this process can take decades. Covid-19 is an emergency, and we don’t have that much time.
The mRNA vaccines, made by Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech, will likely get full approval for use from the Food and Drug Administration soon, which may be necessary for broader vaccine mandates. Although the vaccines are already known to be safe and effective, after being given to hundreds of millions of people, with full approval, more groups will begin mandating that their employees get vaccinated. It’s unlikely the United States can overcome the pandemic without such actions….”
Don’t worry, he says this does not mean they will hold you down–just take away your right to go most places. And hey, he’s fine with some medical and religious exceptions.
I’m waiting for reports of the first stonings of the unvaxxed.
If this was a disease that was causing 5% of the general working age population to drop dead, you can bet 99% would be in line to get vaccinated. But it’s not. And why, between all the people vaxxed and all the people previously infected and the apparently large percentage of the population not affected, don’t we have the mysterious “herd immunity?”
Why are they discussing vaccinating every child and college student without discussing the actual dangers presented to these demographics by the disease itself? Oh, right, George Washington. And science.
Let’s see the coverage of World Ivermectin Day. I like the idea, but man, the wall around the MSM is proving to be virtually impenetrable by facts.
@Mr. House wrote: I believe i had covid in Feb of 2020. Was miserable… i started to feel better…cold and flu meds were all i took, but i was also 36 at the time so if i’d been in my 60’s or 70’s good chance i might not have made it.
Actually, if you were, say,61,there is a 98.3% (or greater, depending on damn facts and stats) that you would survive. And that’s Without Taking Ivermectin.
Note how CDC chooses to present the same info ( I typed chance of surviving covid by age)
@madamski wrote: While I can’t certify that Putin is hysteria-free, his ordering a distrustful populace to trust him on this is the kind of gamble a person like Vlad doesn’t take unless there’s an urgent need and/or the odds are in his favor.
SO I still think there’s more to this than standard government incompetence.
I tried to find my comment made several days/weeks/amonth? ago about Russia’s reaction. I felt a slight unease that Russia’s response seems to be along similar lines to everyone else. I agree it does not quite add up given how astute and well-informed Putin is in most matters involving world leadership–especially compared to the hairbrains running most of the West. Then again, it’s hard to make sense out of any of this nonsense.
I suppose I’m a TAE centrist in matters of Covid and the vaccine.
@upstateNYer wrote: “Why is it when a person decides to stop visiting a website they feel the need to make a public statement and leave in a huff, slamming the door on their way out? Just curious …”
The technical term for this is “flouncing out.” But welcome back, democritus. I can relate little to your frustration at the constant stream of similar info from the world wide web presented here–I’ve pushed back a bit myself, though of course in a more mature, erudite, humorous, attractive manner. Must be my personality.
think it has a to do partly with the echo chamber effect discussed yesterday. It can get a little claustrophobic in here. Especially if you keep thinking any of this will leak out to the wider world–I’m looking at you, Ivermectin. And even when it does, it goes away with a whimper–Hello lab escape theory, we hardly knew ye.
Upstater: yes, I’m Downstate, Hudson Valley. Weirdly, the supermarket in question is mostly the “old city” residents shopping here, not so much the folks up from the city in the last decade. So doesn’t quite compute, as the bigger supermarket out on the highway strip mall had many more maskless, even a week ago.
…”In a future sane world, people will view the orchestrated panic of the COVID era with the same bemused condescension we might view the supposed War of the Worlds radio invasion scare of 1938, or the bygone use of leeches for seemingly every ailment…”
Uh, what sane future world would that be? Based on energy, finance, drought, heat waves, war, infrastructure, ransomware, disease, civic strife, and all around general idiocy, I fail to spot a sane future in my crystal ball that would have the capability of looking back with condescension.
Here is some MSM on Covid breakthrough. I pulled a couple of interesting sentences.
“You are just as likely to be killed by a meteorite as die from Covid after a vaccine,” Dr. Peter Chin-Hong, an infectious disease expert at the University of California San Francisco, told CNBC. “In the big scheme of things, the vaccines are tremendously powerful.”
The article says 750 people have died after being fully vaccinated (most however are over 65, which makes sense.) I have not seen the articles about people being killed by meteorites. Probably just on the local stations, it being so common.
This was also interesting:
Most Americans have received at least one shot of the two currently authorized mRNA vaccines. The U.S. has administered 178.3 million shots and fully vaccinated 46% of its population.As used in that sentence, right or wrong, it implied to me a large number, perhaps 80% or more. I realize it does not mention how many received one shot. Why not just report that percentage,like the 46% that have been fully vaccinated, instead of using “most.”It’s kind of like when you are at the supermarket trying to compare prices, and one beer price is listed in ounces, and another is in, I swear, pounds. Take a look at unit pricing next time you go. If it’s anything like my store, it is completely useless.
I have to go to a retina specialist every three months to check on eye surgeries I’ve had. Friday the nurse doing my initial eye scan asked if I was vaccinated. I said yes.
She said which one? Phizer? I said no.
She said Moderna?
No, uh,Johnson & Johnson.About a minute goes by.
I say, Actually, I’m not vaccinated.
Oookay.
It’s the first time someone aksed me directly, and I guess I was worried I wouldn’t get the checkup.
We don’t care. The doctor just likes to know.Fair enough. I like the doctor. He did not bring it up. We chatted about my kid and his first grandchild. But I suspect I will be getting that question more often going forward. (It was doubly embarrassing because I came in without a mask–I thought the sign said wear one if you have a cough. But as I walked into the waiting room, they immediately told me to mask up–and then found out I wasn’t vaccinated!
I guess I will base my response on the particular circumstance,but hope to use “I have God’s immunity” at least once. God in this case being Ivermectin, which, even if I said it, nobody has heard of, even the few people I know who are not vaccinated. Meanwhile, went to the local supermarket on Main Street again, and I am still the only person in there not wearing a mask.
The Jim Bovard piece on conspiracy theories is excellent. Even if I’m not all in, the way the term is deployed, and the history of its development, is fascinating. Raul’s comment as to why Putin’s Puppet was never labeled such tells you exactly which cohorts are running things at the momen–and why it takes forever, if ever, to get to the bottom of any of this B.S. Exhausting.
Just got my Friday dose of my favorite wordsmith, James Howard Kunstler. It’s genius how,for some time now, he puts “Joe Biden” in quotes whenever he uses the name. I crack up every time. Works on a few levels for me. Gotta get our giggles where we can these days! ;^)
I’m sure y’all know where to find him, but Justin Case:
Re: Groundbreaking SuperHero Vaccines: What could go wrong? Lets just start with the idea of keeping everyone around past their natural expiration date on an already overcrowded planet. But I suspect we needn’t worry, as most will be wiped out by a SuperVillain Virus created by a genius in one of our war laboratories that will make Covid look like a runny nose. Or a nuclear war. Or a worldwide famine. Or…whatever.
Not feeling pain?! Ivan Illich is rolling in his grave. It was bad enough when we started messing with tomatoes and corn. Man are we stupid.
The likelihood of a “superhero” vaccine relies on finding real-life superhumans whose genes are uniquely resistant to disease, or those more capable of fighting them. An example is the Finnish Olympian Eero Mäntyranta, who was found to have an unusually high level of hemoglobin, indicating an excess of oxygen-carrying red blood cells, which boosted his endurance levels.
Other examples include American Sharlayne Tracy, who was found to have unusually low cholesterol levels, and an unnamed Pakistani boy who could not feel pain. The exact number of people with superhuman genes remains unclear, but is thought to include several million people worldwide.
Prof. Ashley believes genetic databases such as the UK BioBank, which currently holds health and genetic information on more than 500,000 people, will play a crucial part in genetic vaccine development. They have already uncovered superhuman genes for heart disease, liver disease, and Alzheimer’s disease, and could hold the key to cancer prevention and other terminal diseases in the future.
