nojokes

If you value the existence of your own civilization then the only winning strategy to answer to a nuclear threat is counter threat with MAD. You have to be willing to go to the end with this. You really have to be willing to destroy yourself to destroy the one that is threatening you. There is no way around this or you loose everything.

I will cancel all my Patreon subscriptions (sorry collateral damage).

I am sorry for your loss.

I lost my father early. Much earlier than you did. I am sure his death could have been avoided by different life decisions. I have also lost my friend. In the end the end is end and regret does not bring anybody back. Still feeling sad is humane. You probably need some time for mourning. To not forget but to accept the new reality without him.

I think this is a response to this piece https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-plus-ca-chang... "Plus ça change: How some COVID-19 issues are eerily similar to Quebec’s 1885 battle with smallpox" 11. February 2022.

This bullshit is an example of anti-vaxxer mind to the core and shows the tactics used by them - fear mongering against vaccines and misuse of data.

Here is an perfect example, I quote: "In the 1844 smallpox epidemic, about one-third of the vaccinated contracted a mild form of smallpox, but roughly 8 percent of those vaccinated still died".

Does this show the efficacy of the vaccine or the lack of it?

You guess. Smallpox is known to kill 30% of the infected. This makes the vaccination of that time roughly 73% efficient against death. Well, not great but much much better than what is claimed here - i.e. nothing or worse. It is probably better because it does not account for avoided infections.

Does improvement of living conditions lower smallpox rate? Sure, if you have less people together, it definitely will. Better ventilation will too. Does it eliminate smallpox without any other intervention? Highly unlikely because it is highly infectious disease.

Did vaccination against it play major role in eradicating it? Definitely. How do we know this? Because we eradicated it regardless of living conditions of the billions of the people in poorer nations.

You still do not believe that this is a very cruel and stupid anti-vaxxer manipulation? Well, it talks about acquiring natural herd immunity against smallpox. Wait what? Is it possible? Sure, definitely! All you have to have is acceptance of 30% death rate and major life long deformations of others and willingness to not intervene.

Is this problem that this piece of garbage was written? No. The problem is that people are not educated about basics of epidemiology and do not understand how full of shit it is. This is what allows these lying bastards to survive.

For some reason they have dragged this study for quite long time without any interim results.

As far I am aware of, this study could progress forever till the end of pandemic and then conclude that it was effective all along (or perhaps not). They have not published any stopping criteria for the trial so far.

Actually the time is not the factor. Number of people involved is. These vaccine trials were large but you could not find something more after just waiting when something you are looking for is very rare. Should we have tested the vaccines on millions of people before rolling them out? How is it different from just rolling it out? Do you think that the approval would not have been given if current issues would have been found?

Depending on ventilation and table layout, it makes sense. When you walk to your table, you are contaminating the air in wider area while sitting. So it is logical but how big is the effect I do not know really.

Actually small children with their snotty noses are huge spreaders of everyknd of respiratory diseases. So they were not technically wrong.

The study was not powerful enough to conclude any of this.

Who was wrong, UK or Sweden? Both, of course. Both tried to archive herd immunity in 2020 spring by mass infection till they realized that they are wrong. Then they continued to let people to die for months from 2020 fall till 2021 spring (Sweden even till summer 2021) until vaccines arrived.

Only this was a turning point for UK and Sweden because they managed to vaccinate relatively fast the people who really needed protection from vaccines.

If you want to learn from somebody, learn from Denmark.

Here is Our World in Data comparison between 3 countries https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/coronavirus-data-explor...

TL;DR

Math is actually very simple. If you are not vaccinated and you are concerned about getting infected (as you should be) then stay the heck away from others. There is no way around this.

Society can't babysit adults indefinitely. Vaccines are available for everyone. Take it or leave it. Also Paxlovid is very potent antiviral against SARS-Cov-2 (at least on paper) so that is an alternative by now (not sure if available yet on NZ but it will come).

It may be though necessary to set limits on available care and triage base on vaccination status when these personal choices start to endanger health care for other people. It is hard and not welcomed choice but again, why should minority dictate life and death of others?

Second chart is from here https://www.immunisationcoalition.org.au/diseases/covid-19/

Very often the narrative is that X does not work because there was no meaningful difference between multiple places. But it is forgotten that there are so many confounding factors in play. When it works then it is not because of X, it is because of X, Y, Z, W, ... applied at the right moment of time.

The place where education takes place is not the key. Content is. Children should be educated to evaluate information.

I not believe in this with progression of echo chambers.

A poison that only works against a person with specific genes. Hopefully still science fiction today but probably feasible in near future.

As you do not elaborate any further, your comment has very little value.

There are other more realistic concerns like surveillance by DNA sampling and framing by DNA planting. Genetically specific poison could be also possibility.

Right. I do not see any contradiction between using masks and freedom. During difficult times some changes are necessary so we could return back to normal faster and with less impact.

And? Pants clearly restricts many important functions in human life. Do you feel somehow restricted that you have to take them off to perform them? Does this somehow restrict you that you can't go nearly anywhere without pants? No, because you are used to them, as you are correctly stating.

Yes, masks are new and I completely understand that wearing a mask in public is a nuisance. But that is all. There is no need to have complete mental meltdown because of it like too many people appear to have. It is all in heads. There is no need to stress about it. People in Japan have mask wearing custom for long time and they do just fine and we would also survive this. Eventually it will be over. Very likely soon because the cases are going down almost everywhere by now.

In principle, it is not more a restriction that government forcing you to wear pants in public (and they will force you if you try to challenge this).

Not allowing you at all to somewhere or not after some time is a real restriction.

I live in EU but not in the country of origin. But I keep close eye on it. People are tired of some regulations (I could not call mask requirement a restriction, it is mostly common sense to wear it currently) but the overblown optimism about mildness of omicron makes me worry because of older people who are still not vaccinated (an there are plenty of them) have similar risk to end up in hospital than before but it is completely not discussed at all. If they were vaccinated, it would be really possible to leave this damn thing behind at the moment regardless of high infection rates (it will still hurt economy when too many people are on the sick leave but it would be a different problem then).

Isn't this then good that this kind of condition gets more attention?

I think it is because there is then hope that some remedies are actually looked for.

One interesting finding shows that virus replication in various tissues was detected months after initial replication. Perhaps it is common for other viruses too and this could be one reason behind prolonged difficulties. Perhaps there is something else in play but with such attention, maybe something finally settles.

I hope that people realized that this means that fentanyl is horrible, not that covid is mild.

I honestly do not get what is the reasoning behind this. If a person gets infected after the first infected has been cleared, it is the second infection.

Is their intention to mess with statistics or what is the reason behind this sudden change not consistent with previous practice worldwide?

Can you point to some longer explanations of this process?

Menstrual cycle and immune system are very closely connected. It is good that possible effect of inflammatory process on menstrual cycle gets more attention and research.

What do you mean by relying on own immune system? Do you believe that with vaccination your own immune system is switched off?