Yes, but think of what it is doing to the Right-Wing gene pool.
2 Likes
In Israel, up to 50% of the new Delta cases were fully vaccinated. So I’m skeptical that the unvaccinated are the only ones spreading it. The Delta variant has over1,200 times the viral load as the original strain. And people test positive 2 days faster with the Delta strain. Yes, the vaccinated didn’t get as ill, but they were still infected and undoubtedly spreading it also.
I read where someone speculated why the UK dropped from 50,000 cases daily back down to around 20,000 new cases is because many people quit testing because a positive test meant a ten day quarantine. If they didn’t feel very sick, they just avoided testing.
Many red states are not reporting daily numbers anymore. This is from June 11th:
At least two dozen states that have stopped updating daily the number of people catching the virus, being hospitalized and dying, according to Johns Hopkins. Some stopped reporting anything over weekends. Others cut back to just a few times a week. Florida is the latest state to go to just once a week — Oklahoma is another one that has reduced to once a week reporting.
And testing in many red states has fallen way off.
4 Likes
It certainly wouldn’t be an infringement of free speech to require the largest social media platforms to be >required< to report the number of incidents and accounts of fake information that spread health misinformation…
2 Likes
I saw the headline and was thinking, cool, Texas is going to do something about their every given sunday mini-sturgis superspreader events. Nope. It’s just a school wanting to change conferences for bigger bucks (and bigger infection count).
2 Likes
They also are more susceptible to advertising, and thus monetize better, at least while still alive. Shortly after death the monetization curve drops sharply.
3 Likes
So… not in Texas. Facts are what legislature says are facts.
1 Like
Yesterday, NYC offered $100 after the unvaccinated get their first shot. Today, Minnesota follows.
I would think 50 bucks after the first shot and the other 50 bucks after the second shot would be better instead of giving them the full amount after just one shot.
5 Likes
Then you monetize martyrdom. The old “widows and orphans” play.
1 Like
Does it though? It is the nature of viruses to mutate. This is why we do not have a cure for HIV/AIDS. While individuals with HIV/AIDS have an array of great medications to treat their illness, if they don’t take them properly to get undetectable viral suppression the medication regimen will fail and they will have to try something else. The virus will mutate because of insufficient suppression. In the old days many ran out of options. I get that HIV and covid are different viruses but I see so many of the same parallels. In the early days of HIV/AIDS (I’m old enough to remember) the researchers were grasping at straws and information changed weekly. I really don’t think the powers that be know what we’re dealing with.
1 Like
Problem: Only 50% of the US population is fully vaccinated, and 58% have received one dose. So either Independents are major anti-vaxxers, or CNN is full of shit and needs to fire the intern that put that stat out there.
1 Like
Would seem that there is jumbling of data … mixing harder data officially reported with softer info from surveys & doing some extrapolation… for example
Kids under 12 count in the gross total of unvaccinated population… but no real way to call them Democrats, Republicans or independent.
Accurate documentation requires a level of information -and a uniformity of the format- that we do not possess … and because of opposition, obstruction, and competing agendas ( there are groups who do not want the truth to br known)… it will be next to impossible to obtain a truly precise accounting of all of the details.
1 Like
Remember when you asked if it was possible that vaccines could be causing mutations? There really may be something to that. But more so likely that a weak vaccine or just having one shot and not getting the second dose may be more harmful than helpful.
Excerpt:
When weak vaccines are used, however, or the second dose is delayed for too long, the vaccine has the exact opposite of the desired effect. That’s what Pennsylvania State University virologist Andrew Read warns against. In 2001, his research with poultry viruses led him to the conclusion that low-efficacy vaccines could even promote the development of more dangerous virus strains.
That’s why some experts view delaying the second dose of the vaccine, which the UK is already implementing and the US might soon, critically. Their argument: More people will build up initial protection this way, but they won’t be able to develop a sufficiently strong immune response. The body will fight the more dangerous virus strains longer, giving the virus more time to evade death through vaccination. When people who have yet to be vaccinated encounter this type of virus, there could be deathly consequences.
And this is why he US should not be reliant on one type of vaccine:
One of the great things about having a lot of vaccine options is we might end up with a population which is heterogeneously vaccinated. You might get the AstraZeneca. And I’m going to get one of the mRNA ones. That’ll really help hinder the spread of mutants that are good at any one of those.
HARRIS: A virus that has evolved to get around one vaccine is likely to be stopped by another. And that will limit the spread of mutant strains. Drugmakers are also keeping a close eye on mutants and are already formulating new vaccines that will be more effective if it turns out the original vaccines weaken too much. Paul Bieniasz says, this is not a crisis.
We should have more than just the mRNA vaccines. Yes, we have the J&J, but only 13 million have been jabbed with it. Novaxx and AstraZeneca should be approved also. But I’m afraid people within our FDA, CDC, and others in the decision making process have ulterior motivations regarding which vaccines are preferred.
And that is why I think we’re screwed. The numbers being reported are most likely under reported. At least a dozen states no longer report new cases daily and many have cut back on testing.
2 Likes
Bullshit. Crosscheck your data, and if there is a structural reason for inconsistency, explain it. Or do not publish because the data is crap.
point is that a true precise accounting of all details will be difficult because of the typical discrepancies / mismatches inherent in a demographic data collection process - the means of testing, the populations examined, the timing of the data events - all can get fuzzy in the best of worlds - and can become a nightmare when elements of the process (the data or the data gatherers) behave a bit like a hostile witness.
But yes - you are correct in that when people report the information that they have - it is their responsibility to work extra hard to provide transparency & clarity - and to also make clear where they have essentially “glued elements together” via subjective / imprecise surveys.
With our unfortunate experience with HIV/AIDS we already know this to be true. Insufficient viral suppression results in virus mutations, which, in turn, causes treatment failure. Fortunately, patients with HIV/AIDS today have an array of options but there was a time when they didn’t. It’s also worth mentioning that those with HIV/AIDS benefit from combination therapy, or drugs that are in different categories, so that they hit the virus at different angles.
People who had insufficient viral suppression could pass on that mutated virus. I think we’re seeing the same thing here with covid, so until we come out with better treatments people should really just mask up and socially distance vaccinated or not. Just like people who didn’t want to get AIDS stopped having sex.
It’s not particularly encouraging that the drugs that finally turned HIV/AIDS into a manageable condition did not come on the scene until 1996, almost 20 years after AIDS first made its appearance.
1 Like
While Vaccines and antibiotics are entirely different - I believe that this correlates with the logic behind what your physician is saying when they give you a Rx for antibiotics and tell you to:
take the entire dose for the entire duration of the Rx -
you have to entirely defeat the infection - you should not just make it retreat - so that it can fall back, regroup & re-attack in a stronger and more deadly way …
Taking the logic here of utilizing vaccines in each individual that are strong enough to comprehensively deny the virus the ability to replicate in that host…
and then extrapolating said logic to a macro-level of entire populations -
… it makes the argument for achieving as close to 100% vaccination level as possible with effective vaccines - place the damn virus in the dead-end position of being unable to find any hosts within the population that will support the virus’s replication process … and since every instance of the virus is working against a rapidly moving clock - if it is stranded in an inhospitable host & has nowhere to go … it is “show’s over” for that instance of the virus
… and based upon what we know now - an individual who has been effectively vaccinated - can encounter the virus - but typically not become critically ill …
3 Likes
Approximately 24% of Americans self-identify as Republican, and approximately 31% self-identify as Democrats, while 41% self-identify as Independents.
What about those of us who got shots without being bribed? I want my $100, too.
2 Likes
Control group: Sad, but funny, too.
2 Likes