Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!

[jinpa]

@GOG I know of no other forums where you see replies like that.

[LaoC]

@acrow said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:

@LaoC said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:

@acrow said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:

@LaoC said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:

Correct me if I'm wrong but as far as I know the only thing that makes you ineligible for (further) vaccination is anaphylaxis after a COVID shot, which leaves you at least partially vaccinated, or after a component of a shot. Even people with advanced HIV or organ transplants get it, so the numbers of those who can't are clearly in the range of statistical noise, or
"Moon is in the Seventh House and Jupiter aligns with Mars level" as you like to put it.

Seems to depend on the country. Around here, heart issues, certain liver issues, and severe kidney damage all excluded you. (ETA: And are more common here than in Europe in general, nevermind South-East Asia.)

That's Finland? This should be authoritative, right?

THL is technically authoritative, unless they go against STM, in which case they're not legally so. Also, that's the current public stance; it was different back when they tried to push the vaccine on everybody.

Back when they tried to push the vaccine on everybody they had a whole bunch of exemptions that applied to a significant portion of the population, whereas now they're not trying to push it any more and have therefore removed the exemptions?

Depends on your definition of "severely ill".

There are well-established criteria for that.

If there's one thing we've learned from COVID times, it's that "well established" anything will fly out the window the moment it gets in the way of money or pet projects.

I have neither money nor pet projects related to this and unless you do we can just use the established criteria, right?

Please no ing about "prevent", eh? We all know probabilities matter.

Preventing the normal bed-rest -inducing flu symptoms, in otherwise healthy people that won't die of them? No, I don't consider that useful. The discomfort is passing. And the people whose symptoms got suppressed will walk around while ill, spreading the illness more. So reducing non-lethal symptoms gets counter-productive.

That's not how this works. That's not how any of this works.

It's how the world seems to work. The "vaccine" decreases symptoms, but does not prevent infection and forward transmission. Meaning, some percentage of the vaccinated infected will act as near-symptomless spreaders. And the more of them do that, the faster the infection spreads.

Remember how that was exactly the argument for keeping the schools closed because kids are largely asymptomatic but still spread it all around? It's not wrong, but it would only work as an argument in your favor if the peak infectiousness wasn't before symptom onset (which it is, by about 2 days, so symptoms don't prevent you from running around during precisely the period when you're most contagious) and the vaccine didn't significantly reduce infections viral loads (which it does).

Preventing death in the elderly? Sure. But we weren't criticizing the vaccination of the elderly, but the healthy gen-pop.

@GOG said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:

@topspin As things stand, the evidence for covid vaccines actually doing anything useful is... what's the nice word... inconclusive.

"Inconclusive" means that nobody has been able to properly quantify it properly, such as with a properly performed double-blind (by a party without a glaringly obvious conflict of interest).

Is that so. "Inconclusive" in the same sense as the deadliness of ebola hasn't been conclusively established. OK

[GOG]

@jinpa said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:

@GOG I know of no other forums where you see replies like that.

Is that a good thing or a bad thing?

Either way, I'm out for now, because it's all so tiresome.

[jinpa]

@GOG A good thing. It was a post that made clear the single point you were making.

[topspin]

@GOG said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:

@jinpa said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:

@GOG I know of no other forums where you see replies like that.

Is that a good thing or a bad thing?

Either way, I'm out for now, because it's all so tiresome.

Tired from your lame attempts at insulting other people‘s intelligence?
Understandable.

[acrow]

@LaoC said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:

@acrow said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:

@LaoC said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:

@acrow said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:

@LaoC said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:

Correct me if I'm wrong but as far as I know the only thing that makes you ineligible for (further) vaccination is anaphylaxis after a COVID shot, which leaves you at least partially vaccinated, or after a component of a shot. Even people with advanced HIV or organ transplants get it, so the numbers of those who can't are clearly in the range of statistical noise, or
"Moon is in the Seventh House and Jupiter aligns with Mars level" as you like to put it.

Seems to depend on the country. Around here, heart issues, certain liver issues, and severe kidney damage all excluded you. (ETA: And are more common here than in Europe in general, nevermind South-East Asia.)

That's Finland? This should be authoritative, right?

THL is technically authoritative, unless they go against STM, in which case they're not legally so. Also, that's the current public stance; it was different back when they tried to push the vaccine on everybody.

Back when they tried to push the vaccine on everybody they had a whole bunch of exemptions that applied to a significant portion of the population, whereas now they're not trying to push it any more and have therefore removed the exemptions?

Government acts illogically. News at 11.
I notice that there has been a lot of harmonization of the guidelines going on between governments. In my view, this is the most likely cause in this instance.

Depends on your definition of "severely ill".

There are well-established criteria for that.

If there's one thing we've learned from COVID times, it's that "well established" anything will fly out the window the moment it gets in the way of money or pet projects.

I have neither money nor pet projects related to this and unless you do we can just use the established criteria, right?

Please no ing about "prevent", eh? We all know probabilities matter.

The probability of a healthy working-age person getting "severy ill", that is, pneumonia, was very low to begin with. And most of the deaths occurred because the doctors were skimping on steroid anti-inflammatories, which are the normal treatment for that. Meaning, virtually all working-age cases are treatable.

So, no, I don't see a benefit for vaccinating the whole population on tax money. Much less forcing the vaccine on everybody.

Preventing the normal bed-rest -inducing flu symptoms, in otherwise healthy people that won't die of them? No, I don't consider that useful. The discomfort is passing. And the people whose symptoms got suppressed will walk around while ill, spreading the illness more. So reducing non-lethal symptoms gets counter-productive.

That's not how this works. That's not how any of this works.

It's how the world seems to work. The "vaccine" decreases symptoms, but does not prevent infection and forward transmission. Meaning, some percentage of the vaccinated infected will act as near-symptomless spreaders. And the more of them do that, the faster the infection spreads.

Remember how that was exactly the argument for keeping the schools closed because kids are largely asymptomatic but still spread it all around? It's not wrong, but it would only work as an argument in your favor if the peak infectiousness wasn't before symptom onset (which it is, by about 2 days, so symptoms don't prevent you from running around during precisely the period when you're most contagious) and the vaccine didn't significantly reduce infections viral loads (which it does).

That's still people running around when they're ill. And viral loads hardly matter if the difference is between noticing you're sick after 2 days, or going to visit grandma for coffee and cake on the 4th day.

And viral loads don't matter little if there's still enough to contaminate every surface you touch.

But neither of us is an epidemiologist, so this is likely to get us nowhere. And one of the reasons we're having this conversation is the epidemiologists were sidelined for the whole COVID panic.

[LaoC]

@acrow said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:

@LaoC said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:

@acrow said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:

@LaoC said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:

@acrow said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:

@LaoC said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:

Correct me if I'm wrong but as far as I know the only thing that makes you ineligible for (further) vaccination is anaphylaxis after a COVID shot, which leaves you at least partially vaccinated, or after a component of a shot. Even people with advanced HIV or organ transplants get it, so the numbers of those who can't are clearly in the range of statistical noise, or
"Moon is in the Seventh House and Jupiter aligns with Mars level" as you like to put it.

Seems to depend on the country. Around here, heart issues, certain liver issues, and severe kidney damage all excluded you. (ETA: And are more common here than in Europe in general, nevermind South-East Asia.)

That's Finland? This should be authoritative, right?

THL is technically authoritative, unless they go against STM, in which case they're not legally so. Also, that's the current public stance; it was different back when they tried to push the vaccine on everybody.

Back when they tried to push the vaccine on everybody they had a whole bunch of exemptions that applied to a significant portion of the population, whereas now they're not trying to push it any more and have therefore removed the exemptions?

Government acts illogically. News at 11.
I notice that there has been a lot of harmonization of the guidelines going on between governments. In my view, this is the most likely cause in this instance.

What makes you say then that they were pushing it on everybody back when?

Depends on your definition of "severely ill".

There are well-established criteria for that.

If there's one thing we've learned from COVID times, it's that "well established" anything will fly out the window the moment it gets in the way of money or pet projects.

I have neither money nor pet projects related to this and unless you do we can just use the established criteria, right?

Please no ing about "prevent", eh? We all know probabilities matter.

The probability of a healthy working-age person getting "severy ill", that is, pneumonia, was very low to begin with.

Depends on your definition of "very low". In the US, the 18-64 age group accounts for about a quarter of all deaths which is not "very low" in my book.

And most of the deaths occurred because the doctors were skimping on steroid anti-inflammatories, which are the normal treatment for that. Meaning, virtually all working-age cases are treatable.

Where are you getting this from? Steroids were an obvious choice from the beginning and "strongly recommened" by WHO at least since September 2020.
Not that blaming the doctors changed anything about the fact that those people did in fact die no matter what would theoretically been possible in hindsight.

So, no, I don't see a benefit for vaccinating the whole population on tax money. Much less forcing the vaccine on everybody.

The claim was that there was "inconclusive evidence evidence for covid vaccines actually doing anything useful".

Preventing the normal bed-rest -inducing flu symptoms, in otherwise healthy people that won't die of them? No, I don't consider that useful. The discomfort is passing. And the people whose symptoms got suppressed will walk around while ill, spreading the illness more. So reducing non-lethal symptoms gets counter-productive.

That's not how this works. That's not how any of this works.

It's how the world seems to work. The "vaccine" decreases symptoms, but does not prevent infection and forward transmission. Meaning, some percentage of the vaccinated infected will act as near-symptomless spreaders. And the more of them do that, the faster the infection spreads.

Remember how that was exactly the argument for keeping the schools closed because kids are largely asymptomatic but still spread it all around? It's not wrong, but it would only work as an argument in your favor if the peak infectiousness wasn't before symptom onset (which it is, by about 2 days, so symptoms don't prevent you from running around during precisely the period when you're most contagious) and the vaccine didn't significantly reduce infections viral loads (which it does).

That's still people running around when they're ill. And viral loads hardly matter if the difference is between noticing you're sick after 2 days, or going to visit grandma for coffee and cake on the 4th day.

It's not like most vaccinated people were completely unaware of an infection. And we've known what to do when visiting at-risk people while feeling even just a little unwell for a few years now.

And viral loads don't matter little if there's still enough to contaminate every surface you touch.

That's not how statistics works. But we've had that before:

@acrow said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:

FFP2 only requires 99% filtration, down to a certain particle size. 1% of what you might be breathing in during a cramped bus ride is easily enough to infect you 10 times over.

If 1% of what you might be breathing in during a cramped bus ride is easily enough to infect you 10 times over, then 100% of the people on that cramped bus ride would obviously be infected. But they aren't. The chance is <100% and by masking up you're reducing that chance. Similarly, there is a <100% chance of infecting grandma over coffee, and if you're shedding half as many viruses, that chances is roughly halved. Which is the case for vaccinated people.

But neither of us is an epidemiologist, so this is likely to get us nowhere. And one of the reasons we're having this conversation is the epidemiologists were sidelined for the whole COVID panic.

[acrow]

@LaoC said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:

@acrow said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:

@LaoC said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:

@acrow said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:

@LaoC said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:

@acrow said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:

@LaoC said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:

Correct me if I'm wrong but as far as I know the only thing that makes you ineligible for (further) vaccination is anaphylaxis after a COVID shot, which leaves you at least partially vaccinated, or after a component of a shot. Even people with advanced HIV or organ transplants get it, so the numbers of those who can't are clearly in the range of statistical noise, or
"Moon is in the Seventh House and Jupiter aligns with Mars level" as you like to put it.

Seems to depend on the country. Around here, heart issues, certain liver issues, and severe kidney damage all excluded you. (ETA: And are more common here than in Europe in general, nevermind South-East Asia.)

That's Finland? This should be authoritative, right?

THL is technically authoritative, unless they go against STM, in which case they're not legally so. Also, that's the current public stance; it was different back when they tried to push the vaccine on everybody.

Back when they tried to push the vaccine on everybody they had a whole bunch of exemptions that applied to a significant portion of the population, whereas now they're not trying to push it any more and have therefore removed the exemptions?

Government acts illogically. News at 11.
I notice that there has been a lot of harmonization of the guidelines going on between governments. In my view, this is the most likely cause in this instance.

What makes you say then that they were pushing it on everybody back when?

The news being full of doctors and nurses that say "everybody must take the jabs, or you'll kill grandma"? Vaccine passports mandated everywhere except work? Some countries actually mandated vaccination if you wanted to go to work. Finland thankfully backed off just before they went there.

Depends on your definition of "severely ill".

There are well-established criteria for that.

If there's one thing we've learned from COVID times, it's that "well established" anything will fly out the window the moment it gets in the way of money or pet projects.

I have neither money nor pet projects related to this and unless you do we can just use the established criteria, right?

Please no ing about "prevent", eh? We all know probabilities matter.

The probability of a healthy working-age person getting "severy ill", that is, pneumonia, was very low to begin with.

Depends on your definition of "very low". In the US, the 18-64 age group accounts for about a quarter of all deaths which is not "very low" in my book.

And the <40 age group is less than 10% of all deaths, IIRC. The lethality rises sharply with age and comorbidities, as you should well know.

You're not trying to troll outside the garage, are you? Because lumping 18-64 year olds together in illness statistics is a bit like lumping 10-20 year olds in STD statistics; there's quite the difference in incidence between the ends of the bracket.

And most of the deaths occurred because the doctors were skimping on steroid anti-inflammatories, which are the normal treatment for that. Meaning, virtually all working-age cases are treatable.

Where are you getting this from? Steroids were an obvious choice from the beginning and "strongly recommened" by WHO at least since September 2020.
Not that blaming the doctors changed anything about the fact that those people did in fact die no matter what would theoretically been possible in hindsight.

There was some crappy study claiming that anti-inflammatories aggravated COVID. So hospitals stopped using those, and just patients in ventilators. Then the study was deemed crap later, and use of steroids continued. In between, we had cartloads of grandmas die in Italy.

It's all documented upthread, I believe.

So, no, I don't see a benefit for vaccinating the whole population on tax money. Much less forcing the vaccine on everybody.

The claim was that there was "inconclusive evidence evidence for covid vaccines actually doing anything useful".

The discussion has drifted, and to go dig through it. You know my point, and neither one of us going to convince the other of anything here.

Preventing the normal bed-rest -inducing flu symptoms, in otherwise healthy people that won't die of them? No, I don't consider that useful. The discomfort is passing. And the people whose symptoms got suppressed will walk around while ill, spreading the illness more. So reducing non-lethal symptoms gets counter-productive.

That's not how this works. That's not how any of this works.

It's how the world seems to work. The "vaccine" decreases symptoms, but does not prevent infection and forward transmission. Meaning, some percentage of the vaccinated infected will act as near-symptomless spreaders. And the more of them do that, the faster the infection spreads.

Remember how that was exactly the argument for keeping the schools closed because kids are largely asymptomatic but still spread it all around? It's not wrong, but it would only work as an argument in your favor if the peak infectiousness wasn't before symptom onset (which it is, by about 2 days, so symptoms don't prevent you from running around during precisely the period when you're most contagious) and the vaccine didn't significantly reduce infections viral loads (which it does).

That's still people running around when they're ill. And viral loads hardly matter if the difference is between noticing you're sick after 2 days, or going to visit grandma for coffee and cake on the 4th day.

It's not like most vaccinated people were completely unaware of an infection. And we've known what to do when visiting at-risk people while feeling even just a little unwell for a few years now.

Less aware is all it takes. Also, the lie about how vaccines "will prevent infection" made people think that their fever and snot could not be caused by COVID.
(And yes, that's how they were marketed both here and in the U.S.. I wouldn't know about wherever you live.)

People at-risk for medical reasons knew they were at-risk, and didn't take ill visitors, since forever. And overall we've known we should not go visit grandma when feeling ill since forever; nothing about that has changed in the last couple of years. Not in Finland at least.

But neither of us is an epidemiologist, so this is likely to get us nowhere. And one of the reasons we're having this conversation is the epidemiologists were sidelined for the whole COVID panic.

In Finland, the epidemiologists were against the "button down" and "extinguish covid" strategies from the start. But they were completely ignored. I understand the same happened in other countries too; the governments worked according to what was fashionable, instead of listening to actual experts. Some doctors were listened to, but they were either GPs or experts of other fields, not epidemiologists.

But this goes to politics, and as such Garage territory.

[boomzilla]

@LaoC said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:

Depends on your definition of "very low". In the US, the 18-64 age group accounts for about a quarter of all deaths which is not "very low" in my book.

That's an amazingly dishonest way to bin the ages, there. How long did it take you to come up with that?

COVID-19 deaths by age U.S. 2023 | Statista

Between the beginning of January 2020 and June 14, 2023, of the 1,134,641 deaths caused by COVID-19 in the United States, around 307,169 had occurred among those aged 85 years and older.

		Deaths	%
0	17	1,596	0.14%
18	29	6,926	0.61%
30	39	19,662	1.74%
40	49	45,870	4.07%
50	64	201,260	17.84%
65	74	253,466	22.47%
75	84	294,459	26.11%
85	+	304,616	27.01%
Total		1,127,855

[jinpa]

@boomzilla Even the 50 - 64 range is a little odd. The ranges immediately before and after are 10 years each.

[boomzilla]

@jinpa yes, probably because 65 is kind of special, somewhat traditionally viewed as retirement age.

[Luhmann]

@boomzilla
same goes for 0-18 ... making the next go from 19-30

[boomzilla]

@Luhmann for sure. There are definitely some important breaks to be made in there for all sorts of reasons, but when the numbers are that low, meh.

The other stuff the table omits are the population figures for the groups, which would make @LaoC's statistic look even worse.

[topspin]

@boomzilla said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:

That's an amazingly dishonest way to bin the ages

It was in direct response to:

a healthy working-age person

[LaoC]

@acrow said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:

Depends on your definition of "severely ill".

There are well-established criteria for that.

If there's one thing we've learned from COVID times, it's that "well established" anything will fly out the window the moment it gets in the way of money or pet projects.

I have neither money nor pet projects related to this and unless you do we can just use the established criteria, right?

Please no ing about "prevent", eh? We all know probabilities matter.

The probability of a healthy working-age person getting "severy ill", that is, pneumonia, was very low to begin with.

Depends on your definition of "very low". In the US, the 18-64 age group accounts for about a quarter of all deaths which is not "very low" in my book.

And the <40 age group is less than 10% of all deaths, IIRC. The lethality rises sharply with age and comorbidities, as you should well know.

You're not trying to troll outside the garage, are you? Because lumping 18-64 year olds together in illness statistics is a bit like lumping 10-20 year olds in STD statistics; there's quite the difference in incidence between the ends of the bracket.

If that is so, just don't make claims about working age, which happens to be roughly 18-64 depending on the country. Get your goal posts straight. And @boomzilla, just read the thread, eh?
Which percentage is the under-40s is completely irrelevant to that claim. And with obesity as a significant comorbidity and and 42% obese among the US population (rather more among the younger, dunno about Finland and ) 9% asthmatics, roughly 2% cancer survivors and >3% heart diseased among <64yo—even considering some overlap, how many count as "healthy working age" anyway?

And most of the deaths occurred because the doctors were skimping on steroid anti-inflammatories, which are the normal treatment for that. Meaning, virtually all working-age cases are treatable.

Where are you getting this from? Steroids were an obvious choice from the beginning and "strongly recommened" by WHO at least since September 2020.
Not that blaming the doctors changed anything about the fact that those people did in fact die no matter what would theoretically been possible in hindsight.

There was some crappy study claiming that anti-inflammatories aggravated COVID. So hospitals stopped using those, and just patients in ventilators. Then the study was deemed crap later, and use of steroids continued. In between, we had cartloads of grandmas die in Italy.

Good to hear those cartloads were not fake after all. Not so good not to get any reference to back up your claim that this had anything to do with not giving steroids—either there were two 180° turns in recommendations between March and September 2020, or those doctors were going specifically against WHO recommendations, so it's rather unlikely it was even a majority of doctors who did that. But that's only speculation until you come up with more than vague allusions.

It's all documented upthread, I believe.

Your claim, your to-do.

Preventing the normal bed-rest -inducing flu symptoms, in otherwise healthy people that won't die of them? No, I don't consider that useful. The discomfort is passing. And the people whose symptoms got suppressed will walk around while ill, spreading the illness more. So reducing non-lethal symptoms gets counter-productive.

That's not how this works. That's not how any of this works.

It's how the world seems to work. The "vaccine" decreases symptoms, but does not prevent infection and forward transmission. Meaning, some percentage of the vaccinated infected will act as near-symptomless spreaders. And the more of them do that, the faster the infection spreads.

Remember how that was exactly the argument for keeping the schools closed because kids are largely asymptomatic but still spread it all around? It's not wrong, but it would only work as an argument in your favor if the peak infectiousness wasn't before symptom onset (which it is, by about 2 days, so symptoms don't prevent you from running around during precisely the period when you're most contagious) and the vaccine didn't significantly reduce infections viral loads (which it does).

That's still people running around when they're ill. And viral loads hardly matter if the difference is between noticing you're sick after 2 days, or going to visit grandma for coffee and cake on the 4th day.

It's not like most vaccinated people were completely unaware of an infection. And we've known what to do when visiting at-risk people while feeling even just a little unwell for a few years now.

Less aware is all it takes.

Remember, probabilities matter. Neither vaccinated nor unvaccinated will generally have symptoms during their period of highest contagiousness, but unvaccinated are about twice as infectious during that period. A small number of vaccinated will never notice their symptoms but are still less infectious during that time.

Also, the lie about how vaccines "will prevent infection" made people think that their fever and snot could not be caused by COVID.
(And yes, that's how they were marketed both here and in the U.S.. I wouldn't know about wherever you live.)

That's because it's true:

The combined efficacy of full vaccination was 44·5% (95% CI 27·8–57·4) for preventing asymptomatic infections, 76·5% (69·8–81·7) for preventing symptomatic infections, 95·4% (95% credible interval 88·0–98·7) for preventing hospitalisation, 90·8% (85·5–95·1) for preventing severe infection, and 85·8% (68·7–94·6) for preventing death.

44.5% is not very good compared to other vaccines, but reducing your probability of infection is all vaccines do anyway.
If people have false beliefs about that, that's hardly the vaccine's fault, nor a reason to vaccinate less rather than educate more.

People at-risk for medical reasons knew they were at-risk, and didn't take ill visitors, since forever. And overall we've known we should not go visit grandma when feeling ill since forever; nothing about that has changed in the last couple of years. Not in Finland at least.

How do you explain so many old people died of COVID way before vaccinations then?

[topspin]

@acrow said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:

You're not trying to troll outside the garage, are you? Because lumping 18-64 year olds together in illness statistics is a bit like lumping 10-20 year olds in STD statistics; there's quite the difference in incidence between the ends of the bracket.

That's impressive. You start with "working age person", then complain he's trolling when responding to your claims.

[acrow]

@LaoC said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:

44.5% is not very good compared to other vaccines, but reducing your probability of infection is all vaccines do anyway.

No. Just no. If something is marketed as "makes sure you won't infect grandma", then it needs to be rounding errors away from 100%. That is what a "vaccine" means in common parlance, and used to be the medical definition.

If people have false beliefs about that, that's hardly the vaccine's fault, nor a reason to vaccinate less rather than educate more.

This was not "people's false beliefs" but just plain false advertising by government entities. The only percentage touted was 96%, which was pulled from Pfizer's marketing slide.

And, again, a "vaccine" in English means something that gives total sterilizing immunity. Anything less is called a "prophylaxis". Were the COVID vaccines ever marketed as a "prophylaxis"? No, they were not.

People at-risk for medical reasons knew they were at-risk, and didn't take ill visitors, since forever. And overall we've known we should not go visit grandma when feeling ill since forever; nothing about that has changed in the last couple of years. Not in Finland at least.

How do you explain so many old people died of COVID way before vaccinations then?

1. Old people die all the time. Every flu season kills them in droves. COVID was worse than the average flu season, but IIRC only by 3x or something.
2. The society didn't protect them especially. We didn't see any public assistance for getting groceries, so they all had to go to the local market anyhow. Old people protected themselves as well as they could. But we have the means we have.

[boomzilla]

@topspin said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:

@boomzilla said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:

That's an amazingly dishonest way to bin the ages

It was in direct response to:

a healthy working-age person

Yes, exactly. He adequately addressed one of those two adjectives, which applies equally to that range, and seemingly ignored the other, which certainly changes by age.

[boomzilla]

@LaoC said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:

And @boomzilla, just read the thread, eh?

Just stop lying with statistics, eh?

[LaoC]

@boomzilla said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:

@LaoC said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:

And @boomzilla, just read the thread, eh?

Just stop lying with statistics, eh?

What exactly is your problem with @acrow's binning of ages?

[boomzilla]

@LaoC said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:

@boomzilla said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:

@LaoC said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:

And @boomzilla, just read the thread, eh?

Just stop lying with statistics, eh?

What exactly is your problem with @acrow's binning of ages?

Just read the thread, eh?

[jinpa]

@acrow said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:

2. The society didn't protect them especially. We didn't see any public assistance for getting groceries, so they all had to go to the local market anyhow. Old people protected themselves as well as they could. But we have the means we have.

I guess it depends where you were. My local grocery store made a big deal about their delivery service and streamlined it. To this day they also still reserve the dozen best parking spaces for people who pre-ordered online and just need an employee to bring their order out to their car.

[HardwareGeek]

@jinpa said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:

guess it depends where you were.

And when. Early in the pandemic, Walmart made a big deal about their delivery and contactless store pickup services. However, the availability was very limited. You couldn't schedule more than 48 hours in advance, and the timeslots filled very quickly.

Let's say you wanted to make a grocery order on Saturday. You could schedule delivery or pickup on Saturday or Sunday, except there weren't any available. Slots for Monday would become available at 00:00 on Sunday, and would be filled by 00:05. Repeat for Tuesday at 00:00 Monday. If you weren't available to place your order at exactly midnight, too bad.

Eventually, they streamlined it so that you could schedule delivery/pickup up to two weeks in advance, but it wasn't really necessary. Either they increased the supply of available slots and/or the demand fell to the point you could nearly always get a same-day slot, as long as you didn't wait until almost closing time, and often even then, if you were willing to pay extra for express service. (They also streamlined it so that you could get both groceries and non-grocery items in a single order. Previously, this required placing two separate orders on two separate websites (groceries.walmart.com and www.walmart.com, or something like that).)

I no longer shop at Walmart for reasons. The Texas-based grocery chain I shop at now isn't quite as convenient. I generally have to shop fairly early to get same-day pickup, and there's no free delivery. (Walmart's delivery was free with a Walmart+ membership; if you planned on getting groceries delivered more than once every couple of weeks, the membership was a good deal. Too bad Walmart went woke.) They have a much smaller selection of non-grocery items. OTOH, they have a great selection of gluten-free foods and much higher quality fresh produce than Walmart ever dreamed of.

[Kamil Podlesak]

@acrow said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:

No. Just no. If something is marketed as "makes sure you won't infect grandma", then it needs to be rounding errors away from 100%. That is what a "vaccine" means in common parlance, and used to be the medical definition.

And, again, a "vaccine" in English means something that gives total sterilizing immunity. Anything less is called a "prophylaxis". Were the COVID vaccines ever marketed as a "prophylaxis"? No, they were not.

That ship sailed long, long time ago. Have you never heard about flu vaccines?

Although TBH most people haven't. I would not either, if my mom weren't nurse in a nursing home. The push for old people and medial personnel to be vaccinated against flu came around 2000, so over 20 years ago. And it was quite controversial among nurses, because most doctors weaseled out. In the end, the push kinda fizzled on financial grounds.

[Bulb]

@Kamil-Podlesak My understanding is that the flu vaccines actually work well against the strains they are made from (i.e. actually sterilizing), but because of how fast the virus mutates, there is always significant risk a new strain will start making rounds in the half a year it takes to make the vaccines, and you get it. Which is different from covid, which has other means of evading the immune system so that the vaccine is not sterilizing even against the original strain.

[Kamil Podlesak]

@Bulb said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:

@Kamil-Podlesak My understanding is that the flu vaccines actually work well against the strains they are made from (i.e. actually sterilizing), but because of how fast the virus mutates, there is always significant risk a new strain will start making rounds in the half a year it takes to make the vaccines, and you get it. Which is different from covid, which has other means of evading the immune system so that the vaccine is not sterilizing even against the original strain.

That's not what I heard, and quick google tells me

recent studies show that flu vaccination reduces the risk of flu illness by between 40% and 60% among the overall population during seasons when most circulating flu viruses are well-matched to those used to make flu vaccines

Might be better than COVID-19, but nothing even remotely close to "sterilizing immunity"

[LaoC]

@Kamil-Podlesak said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:

@acrow said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:

No. Just no. If something is marketed as "makes sure you won't infect grandma", then it needs to be rounding errors away from 100%. That is what a "vaccine" means in common parlance, and used to be the medical definition.

And, again, a "vaccine" in English means something that gives total sterilizing immunity. Anything less is called a "prophylaxis". Were the COVID vaccines ever marketed as a "prophylaxis"? No, they were not.

That ship sailed long, long time ago. Have you never heard about flu vaccines?

Or hepatitis B, or pertussis (I was one of those who still got it despite vaccination), or mumps, or chickenpox …

[Kamil Podlesak]

@LaoC said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:

@Kamil-Podlesak said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:

@acrow said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:

No. Just no. If something is marketed as "makes sure you won't infect grandma", then it needs to be rounding errors away from 100%. That is what a "vaccine" means in common parlance, and used to be the medical definition.

And, again, a "vaccine" in English means something that gives total sterilizing immunity. Anything less is called a "prophylaxis". Were the COVID vaccines ever marketed as a "prophylaxis"? No, they were not.

That ship sailed long, long time ago. Have you never heard about flu vaccines?

or pertussis (I was one of those who still got it despite vaccination),

Hmm, 80-90%, I have expected better. TIL

or mumps

Also disappointment: 88% against the standard strain, almost no protection about the really nasty one
At least the other parts of MMR work better (although 3% is nothing to sneeze at)

[boomzilla]

James Morrow  /  Jun 14, 2023  /  News

Covid’s ‘Patient Zero’ identified, adds weight to ‘conspiracy’

The Covid pandemic’s patient zero may have been identified – and he was not the unlucky consumer of a dodgy soup at a Wuhan wet market.

https://archive.is/UCPt0

The Covid pandemic’s patient zero may have been identified – and he was not the unlucky consumer of a dodgy soup at a Wuhan wet market.

Instead, according to new reports this week three separate Chinese government officials have all named scientist Ben Hu, who was in charge of gain of function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, as the first human to be infected with the new disease.

I would say that the Chinese have pretty much confirmed that it was a lab leak.

[Gustav]

@boomzilla assuming (1) government officials are telling the truth, and (2) journalists didn't mess something up while relaying the news.

[HardwareGeek]

@Gustav Both of which are, in general, very poor assumptions.

[LaoC]

@Gustav said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:

@boomzilla assuming (1) government officials are telling the truth, and (2) journalists didn't mess something up while relaying the news.

Never believe the Chinese! Unless you want to.

[Applied Mediocrity]

@boomzilla said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:

three separate Chinese government officials have all named

Cui prodest?

[Bulb]

@Applied-Mediocrity said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:

@boomzilla said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:

three separate Chinese government officials have all named

Cui prodest?

… if I can wager a guess, whatever really happened is so bad that even admitting a lab leak is less shameful.

[jinpa]

@boomzilla said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:

I would say that the Chinese have pretty much confirmed that it was a lab leak.

It was maybe in March 2020 that they threw a doctor in jail for not keeping quiet about it, so it seemed pretty likely even back then.

[jinpa]

“[The suspects said] they were doing some testing on laboratory mice that would help them support, developing the COVID test kits that they had on-site,” said Joe Prado, Assistant Director of the Fresno County Health Department.

According to court documents, the Centers for Disease Control tested what they could and determined that at least 20 potentially infectious viral, bacterial, and parasitic agents were present including E. Coli, malaria, and even COVID.

Marc Sternfield  /  Jul 28, 2023  /  California News

Illegal medical lab discovered in Central California

An investigation at a Reedley, California warehouse uncovered a large-scale illegal medical lab with bioengineered mice and infectious agents, KTLA sister station KSEE/KGPE reports. The disturbing …

[Carnage]

@jinpa I think it'd be a good idea to look for these staging pointslabs on this side of the pond as well.

[LaoC]

Florida man goes to eat a batwrestle an armadillo because who ever heard about a zoo with noses anyway?

Aug 24, 2023  /  United States

Floridians should avoid wrestling armadillos unless necessary

Leprosy is still rare, but is spreading in Florida and the south-east

[dkf]

@LaoC Who necessarily wrestles with armadillos? Even in Florida, that's gotta be unusual.

[HardwareGeek]

@dkf said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:

Even in Florida, that's gotta be unusual.

Don't underestimate Florida Man.

[jinpa]

The numbers are in, and we can say it with certainty: Lockdowns were worse than useless - Washington Examiner

[lolwhat]

Sep 12, 2023  /  us-news

CIA tried to pay off analysts to bury findings that COVID lab leak...

The CIA offered to pay off analysts in order to bury their findings that COVID most likely leaked from a Wuhan lab, new whistleblower testimony to Congress alleges.

[lolwhat]

Sep 25, 2023

Long Covid impact ‘exaggerated with major flaws in claims’

Misdiagnoses may have fuelled anxiety and diverted health funds, a study has suggested

[lolwhat]

Sep 24, 2023

Scientists ‘shocked’ and ‘alarmed’ at what’s in the mRNA shots | The Spectator Australia

Early in 2023, genomics scientist Kevin McKernan made an accidental discovery. While running an experiment in his Boston lab, McKernan used some vials of mRNA Pfizer and Moderna Covid vaccines as…

[lolwhat]

Military Agrees to Pay $1.8 Million to Settle Lawsuits From COVID Vaccine Mandate

[lolwhat]

Oct 8, 2023

New-Onset Rheumatic Immune-Mediated Inflammatory Diseases Following SARS-CoV-2 Vaccinations until May 2023: A Systematic Review

A comprehensive, up-to-date systematic review (SR) of the new-onset rheumatic immune-mediated inflammatory diseases (R-IMIDs) following COVID-19 vaccinations is lacking. Therefore, we investigated the demographics, management, and prognosis of new R-IMIDs in adults following SARS-CoV-2 vaccinations...

[jinpa]

https://www.oann.com/newsroom/fauci-run-lab-in-montana-experimented-with-coronavirus-strain-from-wuhan-a-year-before-pandemic/

[LaoC]

@jinpa said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:

https://www.oann.com/newsroom/fauci-run-lab-in-montana-experimented-with-coronavirus-strain-from-wuhan-a-year-before-pandemic/

OANN, eh? The Scientific Science thread is and the is somewhere else.
But it's smart wording, I have to give them that: "Wuhan Coronavirus Strain". Who wouldn't think of SARS-CoV-2, right? Small detail, it was Bat SL-CoV-WIV1 that happened to be isolated first in Wuhan.

The phylogenetic tree analysis of SARS-CoV-2 shows that, like SARS-CoV, it belongs to a different clade from MERS-CoV. Based on the genomic sequence comparison, SARS-CoV-2 shares about 79.6% and 50% overall genomic similarity with SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV, respectively. [nih.gov]

Under 80% genomic similarity is about as similar as a human and a bat.

[Zerosquare]

https://www.reuters.com/world/china/who-asks-china-details-respiratory-illness-outbreaks-2023-11-23/

[HardwareGeek]

@Zerosquare in