NON_POLITICAL China Coronavirus THREAD

[zinfamous]

A big complaint of people was why do they have to wear the mask if they're vaccinated. With Alpha this was much less of a problem because the vaccines induced enough immunity to be basically sterilizing against it. So guidance on mask wearing was relaxed to encourage vaccination. Enter Delta and the picture has changed making that no longer advisable.

It does not make sense to me to complain about changing guidance in a clearly changing situation. What was true before might not hold and adjusting instead of pretending otherwise is sound.

The way science works--adjusting guidance and implementing based on acquiring new, better information--doesnt' square with the depressingly large percentage of our population that works with Bible thinking--the truth is always what it is and immutable from the time 5000 years ago that some white deity killed all the followers of the other deities and thus gained the "right" to the real truth.

These people are a threat to humanity. It would be justice that they wiped themselves out with a highly preventable disease simply because they refuse to adapt to the previous 5 centuries of advanced knowledge and methods gained through human ingenuity and dedication. I've pretty much lost all empathy for such people. Talked to my step mother last night, who is an infectious disease physician on one of the transplant teams at Mayo, Jax--and they are having to turn away actual patients because all of the MAGAT retards are taking up their ECMO machines. Marching in demanding full medical treatment for the disease that they don't believe they have. Some of these people are actually getting new lungs. I can't fucking believe that. ....though, it seems mostly the youngest (yes, they are doing lung transplants for 20 year-old covid patients--so you know, knuckle-dragging pus-brained MAGATS can go eff themselves thinking they are immune to this because they are young and immortal), and if young enough, I don't really begrudge someone that acquired an infection because their death-cult parents forced it upon them, getting a new organ. ....but real patients need organ transplants.

It's simply mind-boggling that we continue to tolerate these suicidal assholes that throughout their lives and especially now--are proven to be nothing but a leach on society and a dumpster for resources and gained human knowledge. It absolutely never had to be this way, save for a cult of brainwashed Drano-huffers that worship an orange Idol (and they are global. You can find the same lack of participation in actual humanity among the Modi supporters, and all other like-minded fascists of the world)

 

[Kaido]

Obesity & COVID deaths are closely linked:

Obesity And Covid Death Rate Closely Linked In New Study

Analysis of Covid-19 mortality data found obesity to be the second greatest predictor of hospitalization and high risk of death after age.

www.forbes.com

FWIW, I have a tutorial on macros here:

https://www.reddit.com/r/bodyweightfitness/comments/d0rxv6/_/ezebxg9

I was overweight twice in my life, 60 pounds being the highest. I had grew up skinny, got married, got a desk job, and blew up haha. I had no idea how to get in shape because it had never been a problem before. The first time I got in shape, I lost 50 pounds (thread is around here somewhere!) through "clean eating", which is a myth that isn't sustainable for most people, so I blew up again. Second time I lost 60 pounds using macros. It's annoying & a pain to do at first, but then it becomes second-nature. I eat like a king now & use a couple toys (Instant Pot & Sous-Vide, and more recently a Sous-Vide Oven) to make the job easier. So for anyone looking for an escape route from the fog of getting in shape, macros provides a clear path out!

 

[Kaido]

C.S. Lewis has a great quote from 1948 regarding stressing out over the latest ways the world offers us to die, i.e. just because a method (nukes, pandemic, etc.) is prominent in the social sphere, doesn't mean it has to saturate our thoughts. I tend to get overly-wound-up about things & found this quote comforting:

“How are we to live in an atomic age?’ I am tempted to reply: ‘Why, as you would have lived in the sixteenth century when the plague visited London almost every year, or as you would have lived in a Viking age when raiders from Scandinavia might land and cut your throat any night; or indeed, as you are already living in an age of cancer, an age of chronic pain, an age of paralysis, an age of air raids, an age of railway accidents, an age of motor accidents.’

In other words, do not let us begin by exaggerating the novelty of our situation. Believe me, dear sir or madam, you and all whom you love were already sentenced to death before the atomic bomb was invented: and quite a high percentage of us were going to die in unpleasant ways.

It is perfectly ridiculous to go about whimpering and drawing long faces because the scientists have added one more chance of painful and premature death to a world which already bristled with such chances and in which death itself was not a chance at all, but a certainty.

The first action to be taken is to pull ourselves together. If we are all going to be destroyed by an atomic bomb, let that bomb when it comes find us doing sensible and human things—praying, working, teaching, reading, listening to music, bathing the children, playing tennis, chatting to our friends over a pint and a game of darts—not huddled together like frightened sheep and thinking about death. They may break our bodies (a microbe can do that) but they need not dominate our minds.”

 

[K1052]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1435962142251913220

 

[Kaido]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1435962142251913220

United Airlines staff who are granted religious exemptions to vaccine mandate will be put on unpaid leave

United will give employees whose request for an exemption is denied will have five weeks to get vaccinated or face termination.

www.cnbc.com

 

[allisolm]

United Airlines staff who are granted religious exemptions to vaccine mandate will be put on unpaid leave

United will give employees whose request for an exemption is denied will have five weeks to get vaccinated or face termination.

www.cnbc.com

I like their solution. "employees who are granted exemptions to a company vaccinate mandate for religious reasons will be put on temporary unpaid leave starting next month..." "Pilots, flight attendants, gate agents and airport customer service agents who interact with customers who are granted those exemptions can return to work 'once the pandemic meaningfully recedes,' United said, without specifying the timeframe."

"Staff who are given medical exemptions for not getting the vaccine will be put on temporary medical leave." AFAIK, medical leave is usually unpaid.

So, I read it as you can try for an exemption and, if granted, you won't be working and won't be paid.

It does say that It is "still determining safety measures for office workers with exemptions and whether they need to come in at all."

 

[Perknose]

DavidE. Martin testifies at the German Corona Inquiry Committee July 9th,2021

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-Pg2jVwDhopxK_c75vG63A

That video is the most idiotic thing I have ever listened to. I can't imagine anyone listening to that and not seeing the obvious intentional mistakes he is making over and over again.

1. He constantly conflates the originally recognized coronavirus, and the specific iteration of COVID-19, and ignores the mountains of evidence and research showing that they are distinctly different. He conflates the research into treatment for the first and pretends that it applies to COVID-19. Here's a question: if we knew how to cure coronavirus, why did millions of people die to this pandemic? Oh yeah, because COVID-19 is distinctly different. Different treatments. Different infectious capabilities. Different mortality rate.
2. He has the audacity to say that 'Anthony Fauci financed research to create the coronavirus' when, of course, he did no such thing. He read one inflammatory research title which had nothing to do with creating the virus (which already existed, obviously), and decided to go after one of the leading experts on infectious desease. He even says that 'we' created the coronavirus. Did he think that infectious desease scientists don't study existing viruses?
3. He again talks in generalities, saying that there are all of these patents published from 2008-2019 that specifically discuss modifying the virus to include features found in COVID-19. Oh, so now we are to take his word that he discovered all of these patents showing COVID-19 is a manufactured virus, but somehow NO ONE ELSE has pointed this out? No other experts in the field have NOTICED that we PATENTED creating COVID-19? Sorry, but that defies any semblance of truth. Why hasn't he published all of this information? It would obviously make us accountable for the pandemic! Right? Just ignore all of the peer reviewed studies into COVID and take him at his word that HE has found out this truth, and which patents are those that show we developed the virus/well we won't talk about any specific patents, just say that they are there, right?
4. He quotes a very normal person who says that we need more research into the coronavirus from 2017, and makes the allusion that the person was talking about creating a pandemic, not developing a treatment for the already existing coronavirus. Only someone who already believes there is a conspiracy afoot would read into a quote like that and think it has anything to do with creating a pandemic and not developing a better treatment for the already existing virus. (30 minutes)
5. He has some problem with the NIH appropriating the right to research a coronavirus vaccine in 2019, after just saying that it was their right under US law. Here's a hint, if the pandemic were a planned operation they wouldn't have needed the patent in 2019, because the vaccine would have been ready to go.
6. He has some problem with Moderna amending some patents in March 2019 pertaining to Coronavirus vaccines. Here's a hint, Moderna has been doing research into coronaviruses (and many other viruses) for a long time, and is constantly filing patents relating to their research into virus treatments and vaccines. So I guess a corporation doing what it already was doing, what it has been doing for a long time, now means that the pandemic was a conspiracy.

He doesn't understand that the CDC, the NIH, and big pharmaceutical companies are doing research into treatment and vaccines all the time. Everything he brings up was already known, and the specific evidence that he thinks proves COVID-19 was a manufactured virus was of course for his eyes only.

He's a quack. Very obviously. He presented no evidence of specific acts that would prove his claims, but instead just brings up interesting circumstances-circumstances that go on ALL THE TIME in this field. He of course can't prove anything.

And then the panel goes on into more conspiracy theories, such as saying that COVID is a 'population control' tool. Serious people don't talk about such things. Serious people would ASK HIM FOR HIS EVIDENCE instead of listening to him and accepting him at face value.

He says that the COVID-19 vaccine is a 'pathogen stimulating' treatment (51 minutes). I'm sorry, what? Of course, it only makes sense to a conspiracy theorist that the vaccine that has saved countless lives somehow is 'pathogen stimulating'.

53 minutes-he says 'there is no such thing as different variants of COVID-19'. WHAT? He is OBVIOUSLY WRONG. What is WRONG with his brain? Of course there has been documentation of different variants of COVID-19. I could link literally dozens of peer reviewed studies showing the different variants. We have in this thread statistical analysis of the effectiveness of the vaccine against different variants.

I can't take any more. He is spreading conspiracy theories, that are obviously false. He has presented no EVIDENCE of his claims. And this panel just takes him as an expert at his word without any requests for evidence.

Thank you @hardhat for taking the time and effort to conclusively show the unsupported BS David E.. Martin was putting forth. You know it and I know it. But those who need to know it can and will remain in his enthrall if they don't or won't bestir themselves to look closer. I'd be interested to hear from @wty if they have read your rejoinder and if they still believe Mr. Martin has made any valid and factually supported points, and if so, what those are, and why.

 

[Kaido]

I like their solution. "employees who are granted exemptions to a company vaccinate mandate for religious reasons will be put on temporary unpaid leave starting next month..." "Pilots, flight attendants, gate agents and airport customer service agents who interact with customers who are granted those exemptions can return to work 'once the pandemic meaningfully recedes,' United said, without specifying the timeframe."

"Staff who are given medical exemptions for not getting the vaccine will be put on temporary medical leave." AFAIK, medical leave is usually unpaid.

So, I read it as you can try for an exemption and, if granted, you won't be working and won't be paid.

It does say that It is "still determining safety measures for office workers with exemptions and whether they need to come in at all."

It's hard because if you offer paid leave, everyone would be taking advantage of that lol. We've had a ton of people on $600-per-week paid leave for ages now...why would you go back to work if you're getting paid $2,400 a month to stay home? I wish I could have taken advantage of that!! lol. The hospitalization rates for unvaccinated people is out of control:

CDC study shows unvaccinated people are 29 times more likely to be hospitalized with Covid

The new CDC study also found that unvaccinated people were nearly five times more likely to be infected with Covid than vaccinated people.

www.cnbc.com

And I say that as someone who was (and still is) vaccine-hesitant. I got mine, but only after my kidney doctor was like get it or have fun dying painfully lol. I didn't have such a good experience last time I had a somewhat untested dose of antibiotics a number of years ago, so I kind of shy away from things without extensive long-term results-proofing, but the need to get it now outweighed the long-term risk, so I did it earlier this year & based on what I'm seeing now with hospitalizations, I'm sure glad I did!

 

[K1052]

wow

https://twitter.com/x/status/1436051222562279425

 

[JM Aggie08]

wow

https://twitter.com/x/status/1436051222562279425

It just went from 6 to midnight

 

[pmv]

The way science works--adjusting guidance and implementing based on acquiring new, better information--doesnt' square with the depressingly large percentage of our population that works with Bible thinking--the truth is always what it is and immutable from the time 5000 years ago that some white deity killed all the followers of the other deities and thus gained the "right" to the real truth.

I do wonder if that's one reason why there was so much upset in the US about Pluto being downgraded from being a planet. That people took what they were taught at school about astronomy in the same spirit they took what they were taught in Sunday school. i.e. a set of fixed, eternal truths.

(Though I suppose the other possible reason is that Pluto was, in a sense, an American discovery, so there was a patriotic angle to it - that seems more understandable, to me)

I do wonder whether that kind of Christian attitude pervades a lot of US culture.

For example, the attitude to things like drugs and pornography. I don't mean so much just the idea that they are 'bad' (which I think people can believe quite independently of Christian teachings), as the distinctive way they seem often to be thought of as Satanic substances, that 'corrupt' people by the merest of contact with them - as if the issue is the devil getting into people's souls, rather than it being a rather prosaic process of socialisation and experiences affecting people's attitudes and behaviour.


Also, there's a bit of a cult of the 'born again' 'repentant sinner' about the way things are addressed in US culture.

American conservatives love themselves a repentant sinner. If you have an ideological product to sell, you best exaggerate how wicked and depraved you were before you embraced that belief system.

 

[pmv]

Wondering, how much do you trust the official # from around the world? To me I can mostly trust Canada/US/Aussie/NZ/EU(union)/UK/Singa/Taiwan/Jap/SK, the rest are crap shot. Like how can India go from 400k to 40k in a matter of couple weeks? Africa/Brazil/Peru/Mexico/South Asia/China/Russia/East EU likely way under report.

You mean the reported COVID stats?

Pretty obvious that many, many countries can't or don't want to, report accurate numbers. We won't know how many died of COVID till long after. But the Economist has been updating the data on 'excess deaths', which gives a big clue to how massively places like India are undercounting. In the case of India it's probably not intentional, just a matter of infrastructure and capacity. I do wonder (on the basis of no good evidence, other than the odd shape of the graph, to be clear) about Russia's numbers. Just look at the reported daily deaths for that country - they were shooting up and then suddenly flat-lined about about 800 a day. It's as if someone shaved the peak off of the graph.

 

[nakedfrog]

Obesity & COVID deaths are closely linked:

Obesity And Covid Death Rate Closely Linked In New Study

Analysis of Covid-19 mortality data found obesity to be the second greatest predictor of hospitalization and high risk of death after age.

www.forbes.com

FWIW, I have a tutorial on macros here:

https://www.reddit.com/r/bodyweightfitness/comments/d0rxv6/_/ezebxg9

I was overweight twice in my life, 60 pounds being the highest. I had grew up skinny, got married, got a desk job, and blew up haha. I had no idea how to get in shape because it had never been a problem before. The first time I got in shape, I lost 50 pounds (thread is around here somewhere!) through "clean eating", which is a myth that isn't sustainable for most people, so I blew up again. Second time I lost 60 pounds using macros. It's annoying & a pain to do at first, but then it becomes second-nature. I eat like a king now & use a couple toys (Instant Pot & Sous-Vide, and more recently a Sous-Vide Oven) to make the job easier. So for anyone looking for an escape route from the fog of getting in shape, macros provides a clear path out!

I did kind of a greatly simplified version of this when my weight loss stalled out around 220 (down from 290-300), I only pay attention to total calories and protein. If my lunch doesn't have at least 20-30g of protein in it, I know making it to dinner time without a snack is gonna be rough.

 

[ElFenix]

Saw on the news tonight that we have 4x as many people in ICUs right now (I presume with covid) in the USA than we did at the same time last year.

last year at this time most of us were taking masking and not going places you don't need to pretty seriously (no in person sporting events remember?) and even shitbirds like greg abbott had said 'aha you discovered the loophole i left!' to allow mask mandates

but now we've got in person damn near everything and anti-mask mandates from shitbirds like greg abbott

so we go from 90 hospitalizations a week here in houston to 377.

 

[Muse]

but now we've got in person damn near everything and anti-mask mandates from shitbirds like greg abbott

I was WTF last night when I saw video of greg abbott speaking into a microphone saying that the lack of allowances for abortion in Texas (in the case of rape) were just fine because there will be "no rape in Texas." Just incredible that he said that. The hubris, the shear stupidity. WTF is wrong with Texans? How can they vote for that man?

And if a woman is raped in Texas, what's her recourse? None. She's told "you weren't raped. Thars no rape in Texas!"

 

[ultimatebob]

wow

https://twitter.com/x/status/1436051222562279425

Sorry, but this is the wrong way to do this. I haven't stepped foot in the office where I work for the last 18 months, and it really shouldn't be their job to insure that I'm vaccinated. Because, frankly, it shouldn't matter to them if I'm vaccinated or not.

I see a court fight on this one.

 

[Red Squirrel]

wow

https://twitter.com/x/status/1436051222562279425

Basically what they're doing here in Ontario, specific types of businesses will be required to check vaccine IDs, which are coming. It's going to be a phone app. Not a fan of that at all. Probably safe to assume non compliant businesses will get huge fines too. For now I think it's non essential stuff like gyms, restaurants, air travel etc but I'm sure eventually it will be more widespread. Some doctors are even refusing to see non vaccinated patients.

I hate that all of us suffer with this, because it's basically another license we need to have now.

 

[brianmanahan]

i'm back to full mask in public + don't go inside stores or restaurants + don't do anything entertaining that involves other people

will check back in march and see how it's going

 

[ElFenix]

I was WTF last night when I saw video of greg abbott speaking into a microphone saying that the lack of allowances for abortion in Texas were just fine because there will be "no rape in Texas." Just incredible that he said that. The hubris, the shear stupidity. WTF is wrong with Texans? How can they vote for that man?

And if a woman is raped in Texas, what's her recourse? None. She's told "you weren't raped. Thars no rape in Texas!"

we famously had a gubernatorial candidate tell women that they should relax and enjoy it.

 

[Kaido]

I did kind of a greatly simplified version of this when my weight loss stalled out around 220 (down from 290-300), I only pay attention to total calories and protein. If my lunch doesn't have at least 20-30g of protein in it, I know making it to dinner time without a snack is gonna be rough.

I get sleepy if I eat a big plate of food, so I do 3 meals, 3 snacks, plus dessert. Basically a breakfast snack, breakfast (usually like a breakfast burrito), brunch snack, lunch, afternoon snack, dinner, dessert. But none of them are very large. I get hungry too often to go between meals without eating haha.

 

[PingSpike]

I'm not sure I agree with that rule, but still understand it. It seems extreme on the surface. And vaccine cards are easy to fake anyway since no one even kept great records. And since businesses with under 100 employees don't even have to do it, I'm not even sure of the effect. At the same time I can understand why the administration felt the need to do it, things are going in the wrong direction and the vaccine is absolutely our best available weapon (which is frustratingly not even being fully utilized).

 

[Red Squirrel]

lmao now they want to start testing our sewage, because there's not enough cases so they need to bring the numbers up I guess.

I might have to start flushing down some of my cat's turds down the toilet just to mess with the system.

 

[zinfamous]

Sorry, but this is the wrong way to do this. I haven't stepped foot in the office where I work for the last 18 months, and it really shouldn't be their job to insure that I'm vaccinated. Because, frankly, it shouldn't matter to them if I'm vaccinated or not.

I see a court fight on this one.

Of course it should matter to your employers if an asshole like you is trying to kill your coworkers.

Do you think they should be concerned if you carried in a loaded gun with the announced intent to murder people?

It's literally the same thing. It boggles the mind that you can't understand that you have an actual responsibility to not callously kill or injure or maim your fellow humans.

 

[ultimatebob]

Of course it should matter to your employers if an asshole like you is trying to kill your coworkers.

Do you think they should be concerned if you carried in a loaded gun with the announced intent to murder people?

It's literally the same thing. It boggles the mind that you can't understand that you have an actual responsibility to not callously kill or injure or maim your fellow humans.

Like I said, I haven't stepped foot in my office for the past 18 months. I have ZERO physical contact with my clients, customers, or employees. Why does my vaccination status matter to them? While I already got vaccinated, it shouldn't matter to them either way.

Reading skills are important, zin.

 

[zinfamous]

lmao now they want to start testing our sewage, because there's not enough cases so they need to bring the numbers up I guess.

I might have to start flushing down some of my cat's turds down the toilet just to mess with the system.

testing the sewage is a good backup data point to compare to individual testing data. You can get a viral load for the areas sewage and compare it to what one should expect from individual rates in the same population, if those individual reports are within what should be expected by that population-wide data point.