Coronavirus

[Lord Liaden]

So, I got my first dose of the AstraZeneca vaccine on Tuesday morning. Other people have been sharing their vaccine experiences here, and maybe that helps everyone get a better sense of what to expect, so I might as well join in.

 

No pain, swelling or redness at the injection site or the rest of my arm. No discomfort at all for about twelve hours. Then I started to get the 'flu-like symptoms I'd been told to expect that indicate the vaccine is working: low-grade fever, chills, muscle aches all over, fatigue, mild headache. They peaked over two hours, although never severely, then gradually subsided. Now about thirty hours after the vaccination and eighteen hours after symptoms started, they seem to be pretty much gone.

 

I will probably have to wait three to four months for my second dose. Here in Ontario they're trying to stretch out the followup vaccination to make sure they have enough vaccine to give everyone at least one dose. (Vaccine supply in Canada has not been as initially advertised.) The pharmacist who gave me the shot claimed that delay actually works to my benefit, because research suggests the AstraZeneca is more effective with a few months' delay between doses. I haven't found that research online yet, but I haven't had the time to really search for it. If it is just a line, at least it's a comforting one.

[unclevlad]

I didn't check, but IIRC there was a headline at NYT that the 3 week interval was inherited from the clinical trials.  I believe the thrust was, longer may well be fine, or even preferable.

 

Well, I'm scheduled for the second shot Monday;  it'll be 19 days.

[archer]

3 hours ago, Lord Liaden said:

 

 

I almost never watch videos. I generally have the audio on my computer silenced since noise tends to give me migraines...and video is a really inefficient way for me to absorb information compared to reading.

 

But people post this guy's stuff on a regular basis.

 

Out of curiosity, is he a forum regular or something? I'd be more likely to watch video of him if he had a personal link to these forums.

[unclevlad]

55 minutes ago, archer said:

 

I almost never watch videos. I generally have the audio on my computer silenced since noise tends to give me migraines...and video is a really inefficient way for me to absorb information compared to reading.

 

But people post this guy's stuff on a regular basis.

 

Out of curiosity, is he a forum regular or something? I'd be more likely to watch video of him if he had a personal link to these forums.

 

Not as far as I know.

But listen to this one.  It's short.  The little factoid he drops is a serious jaw-dropper.  Beau makes his case in some compelling ways.

And a lot of his stuff was over in Political Discussion, where many of us agreed with him.  He didn't rant, tho...or not much.  His arguments were substantive.  

[archer]

16 minutes ago, unclevlad said:

 

Not as far as I know.

But listen to this one.  It's short.  The little factoid he drops is a serious jaw-dropper.  Beau makes his case in some compelling ways.

And a lot of his stuff was over in Political Discussion, where many of us agreed with him.  He didn't rant, tho...or not much.  His arguments were substantive.  

 

Thanks for the information. I felt guilty about almost always skipping over his videos because I thought maybe I was shortchanging a forum member by not listening to him. At least I can skip his stuff in the future with a clear conscience.  

 

I listened to about 2/3rds of this one. 

 

They're throwing more money at hiring operators for vaccine and testing appointments than they are at hiring operators for doling out funeral benefits because the vaccine and testing operators are helping to save lives while the funeral benefit operators are not.

 

That makes perfect sense and is appropriate. If he had some great point in the last third of his video, he lost me as an audience member by spending a lot of time pointing out something that should be obvious and appropriate government behavior.

 

In the first days of vaccines being available, it was tough as hell to get through to make an appointment on the phone. There were stories in the papers about people waking up at 2 a.m. to start trying to call the phone lines because they couldn't get through otherwise. 

 

Since then, they've hired more operators and vaccines are available in more locations.

 

Knowing about the existence of the funeral expense phone number could be helpful.

[unclevlad]

But the point is:  available vaccine doses are *not* being used, despite it being much easier to obtain.  He was building the argument to use against the anti-vaxers, one that maybe they'd hear, and some of the other strains of Covid-hoaxers.  That hotline is run by FEMA;  it just opened Monday.  (I hadda google this myself just now.)  20,000 calls the first day...when I don't know how many people knew it existed.

 

 

[Cygnia]

One of my brother-in-laws and one of his kids came down with COVID this weekend -- and he still has no issue with his kid participating in sports, potentially infecting others.  He also has some bug up his butt against Fauci.

[death tribble]

America through 32 million, India through 14 million, Turkey through 4 million and the Lebanon through 500,000 cases

[Old Man]

18 minutes ago, Cygnia said:

he still has no issue with his kid participating in sports, potentially infecting others. 

 

This sounds illegal, though I'm sure it matters what state they're in.

 

One wonders how many Americans are dead now as a direct result of deliberate covid misinformation campaigns.  But this is not the thread.

[Cygnia]

Ohio. AKA the state that its own Repulbicans wants to impeach DeWine for actually trying to be the barest amount of sensible.

[Lord Liaden]

3 hours ago, archer said:

 

Thanks for the information. I felt guilty about almost always skipping over his videos because I thought maybe I was shortchanging a forum member by not listening to him. At least I can skip his stuff in the future with a clear conscience.  

 

I listened to about 2/3rds of this one. 

 

They're throwing more money at hiring operators for vaccine and testing appointments than they are at hiring operators for doling out funeral benefits because the vaccine and testing operators are helping to save lives while the funeral benefit operators are not.

 

That makes perfect sense and is appropriate. If he had some great point in the last third of his video, he lost me as an audience member by spending a lot of time pointing out something that should be obvious and appropriate government behavior.

 

In the first days of vaccines being available, it was tough as hell to get through to make an appointment on the phone. There were stories in the papers about people waking up at 2 a.m. to start trying to call the phone lines because they couldn't get through otherwise. 

 

Since then, they've hired more operators and vaccines are available in more locations.

 

Knowing about the existence of the funeral expense phone number could be helpful.

 

2 hours ago, unclevlad said:

But the point is:  available vaccine doses are *not* being used, despite it being much easier to obtain.  He was building the argument to use against the anti-vaxers, one that maybe they'd hear, and some of the other strains of Covid-hoaxers.  That hotline is run by FEMA;  it just opened Monday.  (I hadda google this myself just now.)  20,000 calls the first day...when I don't know how many people knew it existed.

 

 

 

"That makes perfect sense and is appropriate." When do the anti-vaxxers ever make perfect sense? The issue isn't the reason why this is happening. The issue, which Beau concludes in his video, is that many, many people have already died from COVID-19, and there's an overwhelming demand for government compensation for the disposition of their bodies. That compensation is therefore very time-consuming and stressful to obtain at a time when family members someone left behind because they weren't protected, are already dealing with grief and unexpected expense. OTOH there's lots of easily and relatively quickly obtained vaccine to save your loved ones from going through that. Beau is formulating an argument to persuade the reluctant to get vaccinated by engaging them on the emotional level, the same as the anti-vax movement does.

[archer]

1 hour ago, Old Man said:

 

This sounds illegal, though I'm sure it matters what state they're in.

 

One wonders how many Americans are dead now as a direct result of deliberate covid misinformation campaigns.  But this is not the thread.

 

I think we can do basic math without being political.

 

South Korea and the USA each had the first identified case of COVID on the exact same day. South Korea is widely acknowledge to have had a good response to the disease and much better than the USA.

 

South Korea today lists 1770 deaths from COVID since the beginning and has a population of 51,303,892. That gives a death rate from a country with a good response to the disease as 0.0000345003065265.

 

The USA has a population of 332,526,757. 

 

If it had that same death rate due to having a good public response to the disease, the USA would have 11,472 who are dead from COVID today.

 

In real life, the USA has had 578,058 deaths. So the number of actual deaths 578,058 minus the number of deaths we should have had under a good response scenario, that 11,472 number, shows the USA has 566,586 deaths which can be reasonably attributed to having a poor response to the disease rather than a good response.

 

Now how much of that you attribute to particular politicians, to a fractured healthcare system, to an inadequate healthcare system, to deliberate disinformation, to pig-headedness of Americans, and to a dozen other things is a discussion for the political thread rather than here.

 

(stats from https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries )

 

But in your own mind you can certainly determine a percentage of those 566,586 excess deaths which you think should be attributed to deliberate COVID disinformation campaigns. 

 

One percent would be 56,658 deaths.

Fifty percent would be 283,293 deaths.

[Terminax]

I dunno if I've mentioned this, but I was among the first in Ontario, Canada to get Covid-19 back in mid-December 2019. Couldn't prove it at the time, because tests didn't exist yet at that point and I've since had two more bouts (both with positive test results). I worked as a cleaner regularly up to March 2020, and very infrequently on a temp basis since. Always wore protection and kept my distance, but my cleaning jobs have always been at the commercial/industrial variety. The first time, I was very ill and bedridden for ten days and have never quite recovered physically from it. The two later times weren't half as bad but still not fun. Pretty similar if you got the worst pneumonia ever combined with flu. It's a misery and I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy.

 

I'm in my mid-40s, so I'm not going to see a vaccine for at least a month, probably well into June at the rate my area of the Province is going. Anti-Mask/or anti-vaxx people are idiots at best, and complicit killers at worst to me. The governments could do a hell of allot better but it could have done allot worse too. The CERB saved me economically when it came out, but the inability to continue onto the follow up program has forced me to work dangerous gig stuff and my Province is doing it's best to even make that impossible. So it's all a very mixed bag here but it could be allot worse.

[unclevlad]

The anti-vaxers are a mixed group;  I think a good chunk of em are simply dupes who've drunk the Fake News Kool-Aid.  The anti-maskers seem to be more consistently opposed to anyone dictating their behavior in any way, shape, or form.  But that could be mostly that I hear consistent "you're infringing on my rights" arguments from the anti-maskers, while the anti-vaxers can be much more passive about it.  They don't need to say anything...

[archer]

52 minutes ago, Lord Liaden said:

Beau is formulating an argument to persuade the reluctant to get vaccinated by engaging them on the emotional level

 

Ah, thank you for the explanation. 

 

"Emotional level" things don't penetrate the ol' noggin every time. Sometimes I just get irritated that someone is trying to manipulate me emotionally and I don't adequately process why someone is trying to manipulate me emotionally. (Or understand how someone could be manipulated emotionally with that particular message, but that's another matter....)

 

[Cygnia]

Argentina closes schools, imposes curfew in Buenos Aires as COVID-19 cases spike

[Cygnia]

[unclevlad]

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/14/us/politics/republicans-covid-vaccines.html?action=click&module=Top Stories&pgtype=Homepage

 

Couple polls give very similar numbers:  about 45% of Republicans don't plan to get vaccinated.

 

It's not clear how this will ultimately translate into numbers, tho, as there will likely be pushbacks such as schools that require proof of vaccination.  So it's possible the adults pass, but the kids can't.  It's also possible the kids guilt the parents into doing it.  

[Pariah]

An article I read last week reported that 14% of respondents in a poll in Utah said they would never get any version the COVID-19 vaccine.

 

If that number is real, I don't know how we're ever supposed to reach herd immunity.

[BarretWallace]

1 hour ago, Pariah said:

An article I read last week reported that 14% of respondents in a poll in Utah said they would never get any version the COVID-19 vaccine.

 

If that number is real, I don't know how we're ever supposed to reach herd immunity.

 

...after a significant number of anti-vaxxers die off, unfortunately, probably taking a number of innocent casualties with them.  I wonder if it's even possible to contain this anymore, or if we just have to buckle down for what will essentially be several bad flu seasons.

[Starlord]

Studies from the Starlord Research Institute (SRI) show that stupid people have remarkably strong immune systems.  Our scientists theorize that 'stupid people' immune response has adapted to keep the stupid gene alive.

[Old Man]

1 hour ago, Pariah said:

An article I read last week reported that 14% of respondents in a poll in Utah said they would never get any version the COVID-19 vaccine.

 

If that number is real, I don't know how we're ever supposed to reach herd immunity.

We’re not going to reach herd immunity. That’s been clear for a while now since most polls I’ve seen show way more than 14% of respondents have no intention of getting vaccinated. 

[tkdguy]

It's National Poetry Month. Here's a selection of poems from people of all ages, expressing both the positive and the negative.

 

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2774325

 

https://cmsw.mit.edu/student-poems-pandemic-spring-covid-19/

 

https://www.independent.com/2021/04/15/poems-from-the-pandemic/

 

https://datebook.sfchronicle.com/books/poems-on-our-times-bay-area-readers-share-words-on-covid-zoom-and-the-future

[assault]

"Mr Morrison said Australians had become used to recording days of zero community transmission but that would need to change.

"If we were to lift the borders and people were to come, then you would see those cases increase," he told 6PR radio.

"Australians would have to become used to dealing with a thousand cases a week or more.""

 

Australians warned to prepare for ‘1,000 virus cases a week’ if international borders reopen

[death tribble]

3 million total deaths from the virus (at least). France reaches 100,000 deaths.