Bad News Thread

dad4 said:
It’s just basic politeness. It you see someone with a mask, you know that they, in their view, consider it appropriate. So you put yours on as you pass.

It doesn’t really matter whose risk assessment is most accurate.
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I carry mine when outside. I only put it on if I can't get far enough (at least 6 feet) away from someone who is wearing a mask or I happen to be passing near a crowd, which is almost never. I won't wear a mask when outside and no one is near me or when in my car by myself. I have enough neuroses. I don't need another.
 
So I am sitting here in a zoom meeting with the chief med officer of a pub traded company right now.

Regarding rmna vaccines and if covid drifts.

-According to him if a new variant comes out with the current rmna vaccines it would only take roughly 3 months to get a new vaccine out. Essentially the foundation is there and the mechanism to make a variation of the vaccine that uses rmna is rather easy.

-He indicates boosters are probably something that is going to be part of life going forward.

-About 140 million doses moderna/phizer out. They have found very very few issues so far. Amazingly small amounts of issues. IE nothing is popping up out of the ordinary.
 
Desert Hound said:
So I am sitting here in a zoom meeting with the chief med officer of a pub traded company right now.

Regarding rmna vaccines and if covid drifts.

-According to him if a new variant comes out with the current rmna vaccines it would only take roughly 3 months to get a new vaccine out. Essentially the foundation is there and the mechanism to make a variation of the vaccine that uses rmna is rather easy.

-He indicates boosters are probably something that is going to be part of life going forward.

-About 140 million doses moderna/phizer out. They have found very very few issues so far. Amazingly small amounts of issues. IE nothing is popping up out of the ordinary.
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This deserves to be in the "Good News Thread".
 
kickingandscreaming said:
I am not sure how to take this. So, if I criticize Trump, or any politician, I am undermining all politicians? This IS personal - for Osterholm. He's a guy that Cuomo attempted to use for credibility in his policymaking and he has our current President's ear. He deserves some scrutiny. If the "eggheads" who are doing good work don't call out the ones getting all the attention with wildly incorrect predictions, someone has to do it. Also, it's not over. He was the one who said 6-14 weeks, not me. Maybe that was his strategy though. If he's right, he's amazing, if he's wrong, so much time has gone by no one has the attention span to follow through. My guess is the media generally loves him so few will remind everyone of this very bad miss.
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It was a bad prediction, and Osterholm lost credibility by making it. Journalists may not remember it, but researchers will. People within the academic community have memories far longer than 6-14 weeks.

If his goal is to be a talking head, he may be ok. If his goal is to actually be an epidemiologist, this will hurt.

I care more about how we all react to what we do and don’t know about disease. We know enough to be killing this thing by now. Basic small things like masks indoors and when near other people. Like avoiding bars and restaurants if you are not vaccinated.

We know what we need to do. Focusing on a narrative of “Osterholm made a bad prediction” does not help us get there.
 
Desert Hound said:
The problem is the media loves the body count graphic. They like the scary headline..ie 6-14 weeks out we are in trouble.

The rarely ever circle around to see what happened regarding these various pronouncements.
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The media care about the body count, mostly because it’s so large. Covid has killed over three million people around the world in the last year. That’s about 8 times as many as malaria. It isn’t unimportant.

There is no need for the 6-14 week scare prediction though. The real problem is bad enough without exaggerating it to grab our attention. He could have said “We will have another one or two hundred thousand extra deaths if we relax our guard before we are vaccinated. That phrasing is perfectly accurate.
 
dad4 said:
It was a bad prediction, and Osterholm lost credibility by making it. Journalists may not remember it, but researchers will. People within the academic community have memories far longer than 6-14 weeks.

If his goal is to be a talking head, he may be ok. If his goal is to actually be an epidemiologist, this will hurt.

I care more about how we all react to what we do and don’t know about disease. We know enough to be killing this thing by now. Basic small things like masks indoors and when near other people. Like avoiding bars and restaurants if you are not vaccinated.

We know what we need to do. Focusing on a narrative of “Osterholm made a bad prediction” does not help us get there.
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I believe everyone's masking behavior is pretty much "baked-in". All these studies you refer to won't move the needle in the behavior of the general public IMO. If leadership and what the media promotes matters at all, it's important to identify poor examples and make sure we don't make the same mistakes. Also, by far, the thing most hindering the US drive to herd immunity was the pause on J&J. Focus should be on mitigating that damage.

Again, I believe you don't fully comprehend the diversity of our culture and how difficult it is to even get decent information in certain areas that would even have the chance to drive behavior changes. You heard what KM2 said about the areas where we have migrant farmworkers. That's just one example. There's no control unless you are able to do what Australia did at the beginning. You see how crazy they go in Australia when they find one case - one case. How are we going to manage that here? There are WAY too many cases everywhere in the US. You keep saying people can change their behavior, but behavior IS culture. Nothing about our national "salad" culture promotes doing things as one - especially behavior changes like you are suggesting where many people just don't see the benefit you see or the risk you see.

The one study I'd like to see is the one where the desire to enforce the behavior changes you promote is correlated to a person's ability to attend work, have their food, etc. delivered.
 
kickingandscreaming said:
I believe everyone's masking behavior is pretty much "baked-in". All these studies you refer to won't move the needle in the behavior of the general public IMO.
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Masks may have some effectiveness depending on the situation and type of mask; however, mask mandates clearly don't work.

kickingandscreaming said:
Also, by far, the thing most hindering the US drive to herd immunity was the pause on J&J. Focus should be on mitigating that damage.
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By far? I disagree. I think Biden's optics of continuing to wear a mask outside and panicking when he can't find a mask is undermining the message that vaccines are effective, at least as much as the J&J pause.

 
watfly said:
Masks may have some effectiveness depending on the situation and type of mask; however, mask mandates clearly don't work.


By far? I disagree. I think Biden's optics of continuing to wear a mask outside and panicking when he can't find a mask is undermining the message that vaccines are effective, at least as much as the J&J pause.

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I take Biden’s mask to be more about politeness. It would be impolite to ask others to do something he is not willing to do himself. He is asking us to wear masks, therefore he wears one.

I suspect he will lose the mask when cases are low enough and vax rates are high enough that he isn’t asking others to wear one.

But it isn’t time yet. We still have almost 1000 deaths a day and less than 1/2 of people have had even their first shot. Wait and see if he still has a mask once deaths are below 10 per day and second shots are over 70%.
 
Breathing Physiology
Breathing is one of the most important physiological functions to sustain life and health. Human body requires a continuous and adequate oxygen (O2) supply to all organs and cells for normal function and survival. Breathing is also an essential process for removing metabolic byproducts [carbon dioxide (CO2)] occurring during cell respiration [12], [13]. It is well established that acute significant deficit in O2 (hypoxemia) and increased levels of CO2 (hypercapnia) even for few minutes can be severely harmful and lethal, while chronic hypoxemia and hypercapnia cause health deterioration, exacerbation of existing conditions, morbidity and ultimately mortality [11], [20], [21], [22]. Emergency medicine demonstrates that 5–6 min of severe hypoxemia during cardiac arrest will cause brain death with extremely poor survival rates [20], [21], [22], [23]. On the other hand, chronic mild or moderate hypoxemia and hypercapnia such as from wearing facemasks resulting in shifting to higher contribution of anaerobic energy metabolism, decrease in pH levels and increase in cells and blood acidity, toxicity, oxidative stress, chronic inflammation, immunosuppression and health deterioration [24], [11], [12], [13].

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7680614/
 
watfly said:
Masks may have some effectiveness depending on the situation and type of mask; however, mask mandates clearly don't work.


By far? I disagree. I think Biden's optics of continuing to wear a mask outside and panicking when he can't find a mask is undermining the message that vaccines are effective, at least as much as the J&J pause.

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You apparently have a very low threshold for "panic".
 
dad4 said:
I take Biden’s mask to be more about politeness. It would be impolite to ask others to do something he is not willing to do himself. He is asking us to wear masks, therefore he wears one.
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I'm glad you appreciate his politeness. You know what I'd appreciate? LEADERSHIP, that's what I'd appreciate.

So troubling that we've moved from self reliance, individual innovation and addressing obstacles head on, to hiding and relying on the government to take care of us.
 
Argentina is the perfect example of lockdown fatigue. Some of the longest, strictist lockdowns, very rigorous mask mandate. When they eased, they didn't go full Florida/Sweden. But as everywhere, eventually they had to ease or the country would collapse. They got this....
www.worldometers.info

Argentina COVID - Coronavirus Statistics - Worldometer

Argentina Coronavirus update with statistics and graphs: total and new cases, deaths per day, mortality and recovery rates, current active cases, recoveries, trends and timeline.
www.worldometers.info www.worldometers.info
 
South Dakota suing the admin for cancelling the fireworks show. You'll recall last year Trump went to the show despite COVID. Biden admin is citing COVID (as well as tribal land concerns and environment) despite the ceremony being outdoor.

 
Grace T. said:
South Dakota suing the admin for cancelling the fireworks show. You'll recall last year Trump went to the show despite COVID. Biden admin is citing COVID (as well as tribal land concerns and environment) despite the ceremony being outdoor.

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Just reclassify as a BLM protest. Then not only will you get crowds there, but you will get the Dem politicians showing up for the celebration.
 
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