Crazy (and not-so-crazy) shit about Covid-19

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Re: Crazy (and not-so-crazy) shit about Covid-19

Postby Peacedog on Wed Dec 09, 2020 1:52 pm

AFA everyone here is concerned, the main take away is that sometime after 1 Mar 2021 you'll probably need to show proof of vaccination to take an international flight of any kind.

I imagine this will eventually result in some kind of standardization, so if you get this early you might need to do it again later on if the first vaccination you received does not end up on the "approved for flight" list.
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Re: Crazy (and not-so-crazy) shit about Covid-19

Postby Ian C. Kuzushi on Wed Dec 09, 2020 3:06 pm

Peacedog wrote:AFA everyone here is concerned, the main take away is that sometime after 1 Mar 2021 you'll probably need to show proof of vaccination to take an international flight of any kind.

I imagine this will eventually result in some kind of standardization, so if you get this early you might need to do it again later on if the first vaccination you received does not end up on the "approved for flight" list.


At least this statement is banal rather than offensive.

So, assuming this is true, which is a lot given your long list of poor prognostications, it doesn't mean anything.

Anyone who is well-traveled will know that many countries already require vaccinations or other medical tests (TB) as requirements to visit or live overseas. The hullabaloo over "vaccine cards" cracks me up because this was the norm in the 90s. I had to take my county issued yellow vaccine notebook with me to many countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. So, nothing new and probably not even true considering that even now one can travel to the most restricted places if one wants.

By the way, Covid is now the #1 killer in the US. I know how you like rankings and hierarchies.
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Re: Crazy (and not-so-crazy) shit about Covid-19

Postby roger hao on Wed Dec 09, 2020 3:28 pm

Steve - you are kidding - right?

So far, though, more than 95% of vaccine recipients have not died.

The covid survival rate is higher than 96%

With the vaccine you might miss a week of work due to the side effects.
15% are experiencing the side effects.

The second dose can result in more severe side effects as the
immune system has been ramped up.
Reactogenicity is over-revving the immune response. High fever - chills
aches/pain - weakness lasting around 3 days. Doctors are being asked to
inform of this so that more informed vaccineers will not shy from the second dose
which is administered a week later. As the first dose may scare them away.
Last edited by roger hao on Wed Dec 09, 2020 3:29 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Crazy (and not-so-crazy) shit about Covid-19

Postby Steve James on Wed Dec 09, 2020 4:01 pm

Steve - you are kidding - right?


Not at all. I'm just pointing out the similarity in the arguments. One: that "the virus has a very low mortality rate, so we shouldn't worry." Someone else might argue, "I'm not going to take the virus because of the (uncertain) isk."

I agree. The risk of death from either is low. I just think the conclusion of those arguments are invalid --if they are that the virus isn't serious or that the vaccine should not be taken.There are people who took/take the virus seriously, but are are against taking the vaccine. Otoh, there are those who didn't take the virus seriously, but are eager for the vaccine.

There is undeniably some risk, and I don't scoff at peoples' concerns. I just see the arguments against the vaccine bein flawed. And, the only people who really Need to get the vaccine are in much greater risk than I am. I also include most of the people on RSF. If they don't want to take the virus, no problem. Somebody will want it. I just wouldn't try to convince anyone against taking the vaccine any more than I'd try to convince anyone that the virus was nothing to worry about.

Afa demanding a covid vaccination for travel abroad, gimme a break, the US is the center of the pandemic. Any country with a low infection rate (or zero cases) would be crazy to allow US travelers to enter without testing, observation, and quarantine.
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Re: Crazy (and not-so-crazy) shit about Covid-19

Postby Finny on Wed Dec 09, 2020 4:15 pm

Most of Australia has zero community cases. Where I am that's for sure. We ain't letting anyone in without quarantine and testing, afaik.
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Re: Crazy (and not-so-crazy) shit about Covid-19

Postby Peacedog on Wed Dec 09, 2020 4:48 pm

Except that's only on a day to basis, not an annual one. Deaths would need to break 500k to get into the top 3, behind heart attack and cancer.

And that seems unlikely to happen in the next 20 some odd days, even if you believe the official death numbers being thrown about. Which you absolutely should not, as many non-Covid cases have already been shown to be counted as Covid deaths strictly for financial reasons by the medical authorities in the US.

As for my prognostication skills, they are hitting on all cylinders as per usual. While I haven't made up for the disastrous collapse of my two start-ups, I've made substantially more than most people here do at their day jobs through online trading in the last 60 days. In a market like this it is pretty easy. Mostly through crypto and manufacturing stocks for those who care. I'd strongly recommend reading Rumor, Fear and the Madness of Crowds by Chaplin.

Once the hysteria dies down over this disease and the cold cruel eye of reason looks over what happened, many people are going to be very upset with what will have been the intentional destruction of 25-35% of the economies of developed nations and the subsequent mad sailor like running of the printing presses. Anyone working a day job, even if they invested wisely, will see their personal savings essentially gutted by inflation, a few boom/bust investing cycles and predatory taxation over the next few years.

Emotion is a bad driver of a decision making matrix as many are about to find out. It'll take a generation to recover from this debacle and complete giving in to hysteria, which considering the 99.65% survival rate of the disease writ large will be exactly how this will be viewed in hindsight.

Of course, the restrictions on the movements of the plebes, wholesale gouging of privacy, freedom of expression, explosion of government and upcoming financial restrictions will be permanent. Granted it will come from the more vapors prone (as in having a case of the vapors) begging for it. As they say, "people get the government they ask for. They get it good and hard." That will be entertaining to watch.
Last edited by Peacedog on Wed Dec 09, 2020 4:49 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Crazy (and not-so-crazy) shit about Covid-19

Postby Steve James on Wed Dec 09, 2020 5:14 pm

Except that's only on a day to basis, not an annual one. Deaths would need to break 500k to get into the top 3, behind heart attack and cancer.


You mean be in the top two. Deaths of people who've tested positive for the covid virus are now number three.

You're right. It won't beat cancer in the next two weeks., It'll fall way short. But, that doesn't mean that any concern about the virus is hysteria. Besides, it's easy to complain about what was done, since everything was done too late.

Anyway, an ounce of prevention is worth a gallon of vaccine, and worth more than a ton of bs. "If" people wear masks and socially distance, "then" the virus will spread more slowly. Of course, if the argument is that wearing masks is useless, then what? How will we know if not wearing masks works? There were lots of places in the US where the usefulness of masks was doubted, and their use rejected on the basis of "freedom." Well, take the Dakotas and Iowa, etc., how are they doing? Seems to me that much of the country is doing much worse than NYC.

Oh, except Staten Island, where there were lots of conservatives who argued against mask wearing. It had a low incidence in April and May. Now, it's the epicenter with a 20% positivity rate. Fortunately, the rest of the five boroughs takes the virus and mask wearing more seriously. Hey, Google the story.
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Re: Crazy (and not-so-crazy) shit about Covid-19

Postby Peacedog on Wed Dec 09, 2020 5:21 pm

The third leading cause of death annually consists of medical mistakes. CDC does not officially track this for any number of reasons, but it is in the neighborhood of 500k deaths per year in the US.

I’m only aware of it as back when I was treating people, a significant number of my patients were people who had been completely abused by the biomedicine community (botched surgeries, misdiagnosed diseases, improperly administered pharmaceuticals, etc.). It’s a pretty significant problem.
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Re: Crazy (and not-so-crazy) shit about Covid-19

Postby aamc on Wed Dec 09, 2020 5:43 pm

The third leading cause of death annually consists of medical mistakes. CDC does not officially track this for any number of reasons, but it is in the neighborhood of 500k deaths per year in the US.


Here would be will my wild guess, that this stat for 2020 will be significantly higher than anything for 2019, with a significant year on year increase. My hypothesis, is that medical services will be making more mistakes due to being under staffed due to health care workers self - isolating or recovering from COVID infections. The average age for doctors is what 50, chances are you're going to be getting a junior doctor. Interesting to see how the stat for medical mistakes correlates to number of years of practice.
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Re: Crazy (and not-so-crazy) shit about Covid-19

Postby Peacedog on Wed Dec 09, 2020 6:29 pm

My guess is that would be right (re: medical mistakes) and go a little higher due to people not receiving treatment in a timely manner as many forms of treatment were essentially unavailable for a good six to eight months.

How this would even be captured is beyond me at this point, but I suspect it will be significant.

As for me, I'm going on the road for a bit coming up and will come back in the spring to get inoculated and see what happens.

I'm sure plenty of people will still be hiding in their grandmother's basement taking the occasional breather to scream at the sky in the interim.
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Re: Crazy (and not-so-crazy) shit about Covid-19

Postby Steve James on Wed Dec 09, 2020 6:30 pm

Yep, and the problem now is that hospitals are running low on staff. I'm not sure how one gets reliable numbers on deaths caused by doctor error --aopt to nurse, anesthesiologist error, or other accident at a hospital. In addition, every doctor has to have malpractice insurance because ... many of them open up hearts, brains, and human bodies. It's easy to screw up.

And besides, why is it that it's easier to believe that more people die from a medical mistake than from a disease? Medical mistakes are usually made in hospitals, and patients are there because of problems. How do we know that the person wouldn't have died from what he went to the hospital for, like a heart attack, even if the surgeon forgot a sponge. (Just kidding. One could argue that every time a patient dies in the hospital, it's because of a medical error. How does one disprove it? Or, how do I know that doctor error isn't the number one cause of death in the US? Though, frankly, if covid is number 5 or 6, it doesn't make it any less serious.)
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Re: Crazy (and not-so-crazy) shit about Covid-19

Postby Peacedog on Wed Dec 09, 2020 6:40 pm

FWIW, I'd put my betting money on pharmaceutical mistakes ultimately being the biggest killer (wrong prescription in the first place, polypharmacy interactions, patient/administrator screw ups, etc.). Again how someone captures this is the biggest issue.

The studies argue the number of medical mistakes is between 250,000 and 1.5M (yeah, I know really amazing and God I hope it's wrong) deaths per year depending upon who you look at. Truth is we don't know. The "better" studies seem to indicate it's in the neighborhood of 500K, so I'd go with that.
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Re: Crazy (and not-so-crazy) shit about Covid-19

Postby wiesiek on Thu Dec 10, 2020 1:52 am

@Giles,
Shortly:
My aunt is the medicine Doc. with over 40years of experience in pediatric , her opinion about vaccination doesn`t fit common medical opinion. It doesn`t mean,that she is completely against, but she vaccinated her kids with extremely high precautions.
It is almost impossible to do for "ordinary peps".

Speakin` about "plagues" in general - if you look on biology of the viruses/bacteria, or nature,- in broader sense; its fly like waves, with growing peaks and natural declines.

Vaccine and new drug usage:
here Bao and Trick (I had direct info from Sweden that time) may chime in, `cause around ~`60 -`70 drug prescribed for the pregnant women cost defected new born...
Using vaccine which permanently changing our DNA chain is extremely dangerous, we simply have no idea how it will be workin`in the long time, aka impact for future generation/s/.

btw, and from the SF literature side- did you read Lem`s novel "Robots fairy tales"?, there is funny like hell, story about two kingdoms genetic warfare ;), interesting it is from 1960...
I highly recommended .
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Re: Crazy (and not-so-crazy) shit about Covid-19

Postby Bao on Thu Dec 10, 2020 4:14 am

wiesiek wrote:Vaccine and new drug usage:
here Bao and Trick (I had direct info from Sweden that time) may chime in, `cause around ~`60 -`70 drug prescribed for the pregnant women cost defected new born...


Internationally it's called "the thalidomide scandal." A drug produced in Germany, named "Neurosedyn" in Sweden.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thalidomide_scandal

But we don't need to go so far back in time. Both in 2009 and in 2014-15 hundreds of children only in Sweden got narcolepsy from vaccines.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcolepsy

So this is not far away in history at all, and something that was repeated. The reason? The vaccines went too fast into the market. Anyone that don't believe that something similar or worse could happen now is IMO pretty naive.
Last edited by Bao on Thu Dec 10, 2020 4:15 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Crazy (and not-so-crazy) shit about Covid-19

Postby Steve James on Thu Dec 10, 2020 7:11 am

Thalidomide was a drug given to pregnant women to prevent morning sickness. In that case, the cure was far worse than the disease. However, it turned out that Thalidomide was safe to use to treat leprosy. It just can't be used by pregnant women.

All vaccines can have serious side effects, but it's not useful to compare them to Thalidomide. I was born a few years after the polio vaccine was issued. You can look up the effects of polio at the time. Some people got very sick from the vaccine/s. However, the alternative was spending childhood in an iron lung, or losing the ability to walk without crutches. I have an aunt who was born with polio, and it's handicapped her all her life.

It is rational to be wary of vaccines. It's not crazy to be suspicious of drugs that have been rushed through testing and approval. But, it's got to be considered in light of the problem and what the drug/vaccine was developed to combat. Covid isn't the flu, but it isn't ebola either. If someone can stay relatively isolated, then not taking the vaccine won't hurt anyone. Otoh, if someone doesn't want to take the vaccine, but wants to go to social events, etc., then he's risking everyone else. They'll turn into Typhoid Marys. If I wanted to exaggerate, I'd say they were like people with HIV who don't tell their partners because they feel fine.
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