Coronavirus

[Mr._Clark]

I think it was Mark Twain (could easily be wrong) who said “it is easier to fool someone than to convince them they have been fooled.” I

Interesting. According to snopes there's no evidence Mark Twain said exactly this, but he did apparently state the following which quite similar:

>>>“How easy it is to make people believe a lie, and how hard it is to undo that work again!”<<<

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/did-mark-twain-say-its-easier-to-fool-people-than-to-convince-them-that-they-have-been-fooled/

My suggestions would be to modify it: “How easy it is to make people believe lies that are consistent with their beliefs, and how hard it is to undo that work again!”

Having said that, I suspect that almost everyone is influenced at least a smidgen by confirmation bias (unless my belief in confirmation bias is itself the result of confirmation bias?)

 

[mtrycrafts]

What stupidity is next?

Facebook Post Spreads Bogus Claim About 'Detox' After Vaccination - FactCheck.org

 

[Mr._Clark]

Agreed, complete BS.

I wondered who Lew Rockwell is, because I've never heard of him. But the date on this article, Feb. 18, 2021, some 9 months ago, tells you how invalid this idea was. If there actually was something to this 'Poor Man's Amino Acid cure', we would have heard plenty it about since then. Instead – nothing but crickets & tumbleweed.

And then I looked up Lew Rockwell. Apparently he is a former chief of staff to Ron Paul when he was a congressman, in 1978-82. Now he calls himself an 'anarcho-capitalist' and a 'paleolibertarian'. In other words, a right-wing nut-job.

Lew Rockwell - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Here's the title of the blurb on Rockwell's website: "Virologists Report Poor Man's Amino Acid Cure For Covid-19 Would Abolish Need for Vaccines"

This is the exact opposite of a paper authored by the "virologists": "Both therapeutic and vaccine arms of viral defense should be developed with universality in mind . . . Lysine is a treatment, not a cure"

(PDF) Lysine Therapy for SARS-CoV-2

PDF | On Sep 11, 2020, Christopher Kagan and others published Lysine Therapy for SARS-CoV-2 | Find, read and cite all the research you need on ResearchGate

www.researchgate.net

The article on Rockwell's website was actually written by Bill Sardi. . . . [sarcasm alert] . . . He appears to have discovered numerous simple cures for literally "almost everything":

"The Baking Soda Cure For Almost Everything"

The Baking Soda Cure - LewRockwell

The three trillion-dollar income stream produced by the medical industrial complex is about to come demolished by a home remedy – baking soda. Buy stock in Arm & Hammer. (Church & Dwight Co. Ltd.) Now for the details: Researchers at the Medical College of Georgia have discovered a nerve center...

www.lewrockwell.com

Just in case baking soda doesn't cure cancer, never fear, he's found a cure for that as well:

"We already Know How to Cure Cancer"

Amazon.com

Ahh, but you're still concerned about the age old problem of aging? Ta dah! He has a cure for that as well:

"How to Live 100 Years Without Growing Old"

How to Live 100 Years Without Growing Old: Bill Sardi: 9780970564061: Amazon.com: Books

How to Live 100 Years Without Growing Old [Bill Sardi] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. How to Live 100 Years Without Growing Old

www.amazon.com

I ain't no expert on baking soda or curing cancer, but my BS detector is going off big time.

[edited to point out more clearly that the title of the Rockwell blurb is the direct opposite of what the paper actually says]

 

[MaxInValrico]

Here's the title of the blurb on Rockwell's website: "Virologists Report Poor Man's Amino Acid Cure For Covid-19 Would Abolish Need for Vaccines"

From a paper authored by the "virologists": "Both therapeutic and vaccine arms of viral defense should be developed with universality in mind . . . Lysine is a treatment, not a cure"

(PDF) Lysine Therapy for SARS-CoV-2

PDF | On Sep 11, 2020, Christopher Kagan and others published Lysine Therapy for SARS-CoV-2 | Find, read and cite all the research you need on ResearchGate

www.researchgate.net

The article on Rockwell's website was actually written by Bill Sardi. . . . [sarcasm alert] . . . He appears to have discovered numerous simple cures for literally "almost everything":

"The Baking Soda Cure For Almost Everything"

The Baking Soda Cure - LewRockwell

The three trillion-dollar income stream produced by the medical industrial complex is about to come demolished by a home remedy – baking soda. Buy stock in Arm & Hammer. (Church & Dwight Co. Ltd.) Now for the details: Researchers at the Medical College of Georgia have discovered a nerve center...

www.lewrockwell.com

Just in case baking soda doesn't cure cancer, never fear, he's found a cure for that as well:

"We already Know How to Cure Cancer"

Amazon.com

Ahh, but you're still concerned about the age old problem of aging? Ta dah! He has a cure for that as well:

"How to Live 100 Years Without Growing Old"

How to Live 100 Years Without Growing Old: Bill Sardi: 9780970564061: Amazon.com: Books

How to Live 100 Years Without Growing Old [Bill Sardi] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. How to Live 100 Years Without Growing Old

www.amazon.com

I ain't no expert on baking soda or curing cancer, but my BS detector is going off big time.

Nutters will advocate anything.

 

[Swerd]

I think it was Mark Twain (could easily be wrong) who said “it is easier to fool someone than to convince them they have been fooled.”

Here's two more on the same subject.

The first principle of scientific inquiry is that you must not fool yourself – and that you are the easiest person to fool. – Richard Feynman

It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble.
It's what you know for sure that just ain't so. – Mark Twain

 

[Swerd]

I ain't no expert on baking soda or curing cancer, but my BS detector is going off big time.

 

[Kvn_Walker]

There is some breaking news here, that is creating a lot of interest. As yet the significance in unknown, but may well prove very significant.

As I stated in previous posts, we do not have a good lab test for immunity. They are crude antibody test, and do not measure T-cell response.

It has come to attention, that the UK has a steady high level of cases. They are not seeing the wave that Europe is seeing so far. This is particularly true for serious cases and the hospitals are not over loaded with Covid-19 like continental Europe.

One other thing stands out, that the elderly, who were primarily vaccinated with the AstraZeneca vaccine, are not seeing a spike.

Even more attention has been paid to India, where the population has almost exclusively been vaccinated with the AstraZeneca vaccine. The serum institute of India at Pune, have done a phenomenal job of producing the vaccine in the billions of doses. 81% of the population have had one dose and 42% two doses.

India has escaped subsequent waves, despite two large festivals and lots of mixing of the population.

Here is what it looks like.

So there have been preliminary studies of the T-cell response of the AstraZenca vaccine. It turns out that although this vaccine produces an inferior antibody response that wanes over time, it produces a good and prolonged memory T-cell response.

So it is possible and plausible, that this vaccine could be the way out of this fix.

India is now receiving a lot of attention. In addition India has supplied a vast amount of vaccine to the third world and continues to do so.

So watch this space!

I have a co-worker who is convinced that the drop in India cases was due to ivermectin.

I tried to explained that India gave up on horse paste back in the spring, when they found it to be useless.

...but the Epoch Times said otherwise, so you know.

 

[Swerd]

I have a co-worker who is convinced that the drop in India cases was due to ivermectin.

I tried to explained that India gave up on horse paste back in the spring, when they found it to be useless.

...but the Epoch Times said otherwise, so you know.

You can lead a horse to water … but you can't make the horse drink.

And you can't remove the head of a horse's ass from said ass – with or without horse paste.

 

[GO-NAD!]

There is some breaking news here, that is creating a lot of interest. As yet the significance in unknown, but may well prove very significant.

As I stated in previous posts, we do not have a good lab test for immunity. They are crude antibody test, and do not measure T-cell response.

It has come to attention, that the UK has a steady high level of cases. They are not seeing the wave that Europe is seeing so far. This is particularly true for serious cases and the hospitals are not over loaded with Covid-19 like continental Europe.

One other thing stands out, that the elderly, who were primarily vaccinated with the AstraZeneca vaccine, are not seeing a spike.

Even more attention has been paid to India, where the population has almost exclusively been vaccinated with the AstraZeneca vaccine. The serum institute of India at Pune, have done a phenomenal job of producing the vaccine in the billions of doses. 81% of the population have had one dose and 42% two doses.

India has escaped subsequent waves, despite two large festivals and lots of mixing of the population.

Here is what it looks like.

So there have been preliminary studies of the T-cell response of the AstraZenca vaccine. It turns out that although this vaccine produces an inferior antibody response that wanes over time, it produces a good and prolonged memory T-cell response.

So it is possible and plausible, that this vaccine could be the way out of this fix.

India is now receiving a lot of attention. In addition India has supplied a vast amount of vaccine to the third world and continues to do so.

So watch this space!

I wonder what the pattern will be for those of us who received mixed doses of AZ/mRNA vaccines.

 

[TLS Guy]

I wonder what the pattern will be for those of us who received mixed doses of AZ/mRNA vaccines.

The probability is that it will be a very good outcome. That combination of mDNA and mRNA is likely the very best. It is not just me saying that, but dame Sarah Gilbert of the Oxford Jenner institute.

 

[Mr._Clark]

View attachment 51757

Yeah, that’s it!

 

[TLS Guy]

This is preliminary data, but at the same time very worrying. Our very worst fears may be being realized.

There has been a worrying increase in cases in South Africa and its neighbors. The case rate in South Africa is going up dead vertical.

The UK have decoded a new genome: - B.1.1.529. They say it contains 32 new mutations. The WHO will likely name this variant, the Nu variant.

Porton Down are actively involved. Numerous UK virologist have called this the most dangerous yet, and one horrific.

The variant is thought to be more transmissible, and cause more serious disease.

The UK government have acted swiftly. They have reintroduced the red travel zone, and closed borders to Southern Africa. 700 people a day travel to the UK from Southern Africa. The authorities are actively tracing new arrivals and placing them under quarantine with massive fines for evasion.

There is a definite opinion of many UK virologists that this requires an immediate robust world wide response.

One said we need to react as if terrorists have released a highly dangerous and lethal virus.

This data is early and could well be not as bad as feared. However the wise response is to take maximum world wide containment responses immediately pending further evaluation. This probably is not a time to contemplate navels. I should add that no cases have been detected in the UK, as of this time.

 

[shadyJ]

This is preliminary data, but at the same time very worrying. Our very worst fears may be being realized.

There has been a worrying increase in cases in South Africa and its neighbors. The case rate in South Africa is going up dead vertical.

The UK have decoded a new genome: - B.1.1.529. They say it contains 32 new mutations. The WHO will likely name this variant, the Nu variant.

Porton Down are actively involved. Numerous UK virologist have called this the most dangerous yet, and one horrific.

The variant is thought to be more transmissible, and cause more serious disease.

The UK government have acted swiftly. They have reintroduced the red travel zone, and closed borders to Southern Africa. 700 people a day travel to the UK from Southern Africa. The authorities are actively tracing new arrivals and placing them under quarantine with massive fines for evasion.

There is a definite opinion of many UK virologists that this requires an immediate robust world wide response.

One said we need to react as if terrorists have released a highly dangerous and lethal virus.

This data is early and could well be not as bad as feared. However the wise response is to take maximum world wide containment responses immediately pending further evaluation. This probably is not a time to contemplate navels. I should add that no cases have been detected in the UK, as of this time.

Here is a virologist's twitter feed that talks about this new strain and has details for those who can understand this stuff.

 

[TLS Guy]

Here is a virologist's twitter feed that talks about this new strain and has details for those who can understand this stuff.

Yes, many seasoned scientists are very worried. This virus could plausibly wipe out 2000 years of civilizations progress.

What needs to happen is stay at home, get all planes out of the air immediately. The vaccines need to be modified pronto and all resources devoted to production on a scale never ever seen or envisages, and the whole world vaccinated pronto, with NO right of refusal. This has the potential to be a race for humanities survival.

 

[TLS Guy]

This is now a fast moving story.

This nu variant is worrisome. It has major changes to the principle spike antigen that is the target of the current vaccines. Biontec, who designed the Pfizer vaccine are urgently studying whether the vaccine need to be reformulated.

Unfortunately a case has already been found in Belgium. This was an unvaccinated women who travelled from Egypt via Turkey. She has no connection to any country in the African Southern peninsular where the virus seems to be spreading fast.

Israel has identified a case and called a state of emergency.

The UK health secretary, has made a statement to House of Commons, reassuring members that no case has yet been found in the UK. He did state the situation is serious, and warned people to be prepared for travel restrictions. If more cases are found, I suspect the UK will seal its borders, which will bring great hardship.

At this time I have to say, I have a bad feel about this development. My advice to members is to do as little travel as possible. I strongly advise against travel outside the US at this time, and avoiding anyone that has travelled outside the US. The nearer you stay home the better pending further evaluation and assessment of this evolving situation.

 

[highfigh]

Assuming you can build up enough money in one to be able to use the investment features they offer. Our HDHP has a max yearly out of pocket of $7000, with a $4000 deductible. Max I can put into the HSA in a year pretax is $7300. So that leaves $300 for dental and vision use if we hit our out of pocket maximum in any given year. Our other healthcare choice is a traditional PPO with an FSA. The HDHP saves me about $500/yr if we reach the out of pocket maximum versus if we chose the PPO and hit the out of pocket maximum.

I know someone whose ex-wife is a normally intelligent woman, but she just couldn't understand that they would have saved a lot of money by having a deductible- she wanted a zero deductible plan, possibly because he paid the health insurance bill and they were gradually heading toward divorce. Once the ACA's Cadillac Plan was announced, he said he was looking at paying close to $30K/year because of the proposed penalty which, in anyone's mind, is f&cking ludicrous. IIRC, it would have cost half of that with a $5K deductible.

 

[highfigh]

Here in Minnesota, we have the 10th highest positivity rate in the world, according to Dr. Michael Osterholm of the University of Minnesota and director of cidrap at UMN.

UMN streamed a conversation today between Dr. Osterholm, and Andy Slavitt, former senior advisor to the Biden administration's Covid-19 response team.

OTOH, if the video I watched is accurate, MN has death rate of 0.0%/100K patients among the infected who are >/= 50 years of age. I don't like the way they expressed the number, but even if it's .01%, that's much lower than it had been.

 

[highfigh]

I always thought "accidental death and dismemberment" had a nice ring to it...

"Aw, it'll grow back- it's only a flesh wound".

 

[Mr._Clark]

Here is a virologist's twitter feed that talks about this new strain and has details for those who can understand this stuff.

I noticed a Jeffrey Barret also has some tweets of interest. He seems to be quite knowledgeable (His twitter account says: "Chief Scientific Officer, Nightingale Health. Also leading the Covid-19 genomics initiative @sangerinstitute")

Apologies in advance for the long post, but I thought this was worth a read.

.>>>First the obviously bad stuff (red): nine mutations seen in previous VOCs. There's a lot of overlap already among VOCs (convergent evolution), but this variant has an unprecedented sampling from mutations previously seen in Alpha, Beta, Gamma and Delta separately.<<<

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1463975711153262594

>>>Took a look at the spike mutations in B.1.1.529 this evening, and colour coded them (details below)...there is...not much green.

In orange are three mutations that are probably meaningful biological changes for the virus, but not previously seen in VOCs. Two from VUI level lineages that likely had modest advantages over original virus, and E484A which is at a key site in the receptor binding domain.

Next eleven things seen rarely or never before (blue) that may be functional and just new to us, or may be a side-effect of whatever process led to so many mutations in this lineage (i.e. either neutral or mildly deleterious). Need more data on these.

In green is just D614G, which has been fixed in all SARS-CoV-2 since early 2020.

Finally, three shades of purple which are new (not in previous VOCs) but have some other data to suggest they may be functional. First is a deletion/substitution/insertion hotspot in the N terminal domain, that may be further remodelling the protein structure there.

Then there's a group of 4 nearby substitutions (3 in the space of 5 amino acids) that have not been seen before, but are so close together that I doubt its coincidence. They are also very close to the (previously conserved) binding site of sotrovimab, a therapeutic antibody.

Finally S477N and Q498R, predicted in an experimental evolution paper to substantially increase ACE2 binding together with N501Y, but only seen in the wild separately or rarely. Seeing this full combination now (along with everything else) is grim.

<<<

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1463975708770897923

 

[Mr._Clark]

At this time I have to say, I have a bad feel about this development. My advice to members is to do as little travel as possible. I strongly advise against travel outside the US at this time, and avoiding anyone that has travelled outside the US. The nearer you stay home the better pending further evaluation and assessment of this evolving situation.

I also have a bad feeling about this. The recent spike in South Africa may be a coincidence, but it certainly altered my perception of the situation.

South Africa: the latest coronavirus counts, charts and maps

Tracking the COVID-19 outbreak, updated daily

graphics.reuters.com

According to Reuters only about 21% of the population of South Africa is vaccinated so that could be a factor (i.e. it seems to me that a spike in cases could occur even if the vaccines are at least somewhat effective against this variant)

>>>Data shared by South Africa's Department of Health on Thursday showed that B.1.1.529 made up about 75% of cases detected in Gauteng province on November 22, just two weeks after the variant first emerged. Its ascent was much faster than that of the Beta and Delta variants, which each took months to become dominant . . .<<<

BioNTech says it will know in 2 weeks whether the COVID-19 vaccine it developed with Pfizer works against the new variant rapidly spreading in southern Africa

The B.1.1.529 variant has been detected in South Africa, Botswana, Hong Kong, and Israel, and it's spreading rapidly.

www.businessinsider.com

The feeling I get reminds me of the title of the Tom Clancy novel "The Sum of All Fears."

Apparently it will be about 2 weeks before preliminary information concerning the effectiveness of the vaccines is available, and modified vaccines could be start becoming available.

BioNTech says it will know in 2 weeks whether the COVID-19 vaccine it developed with Pfizer works against the new variant rapidly spreading in southern Africa

The B.1.1.529 variant has been detected in South Africa, Botswana, Hong Kong, and Israel, and it's spreading rapidly.

www.businessinsider.com