outbreak! (ebola, sars, coronavirus, etc)

Good reporting on the battle between teachers and the federal govt in the US

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/07/teachers-back-to-school-protests.html?

⚠️Cautionary Tale!
60 y.o. John McDaniel died from #COVID after calling it a "political ploy"

He called the #Ohio shutdown "bullsh-t" "Does anyone have the guts to say #COVID19 is a political ploy? Asking for a friend. Prove me Wrong"

McDaniel leaves behind a wife and 2 sons. pic.twitter.com/jbIMdw4nmT

— Cleavon Gilman, MD🌵 (@Cleavon_MD) July 12, 2020

is anyone going to compile all these at the end of the year

this fucking fuck face

Georgia @GovKemp: "I am a believer that kids need to be in classrooms...every new school year has a challenge. We're gonna have cases that break out in the schools, either with personnel or perhaps students, just like you do with a stomach bug or a flu or anything else..." pic.twitter.com/qW9MhIWN1M

— CSPAN (@cspan) July 17, 2020

needs to meet the kids from Village of the Damned

school, where they freak out about head lice outbreaks, but a new novel coronavirus = "just a thing we have to live with"

Kemp is just unbelievably execrable.

PBKR - yes I know this. I am not arguing around against wearing a mask just thought you all might like a look at the conflicting evidence for it.

― xyzzzz__, Friday, July 17, 2020 8:13 AM (three hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

I read the thread. to be clear the evidence is not really “conflicting”, it is just weak by the standards medical scientists are accustomed to, due to the restrictions in study design inherent to mask-wearing — is it is impossible to use placebo, people in mask groups may not wear them while people in no-mask groups may wear them, etc. (this guy is a health economist, which instantly raises a red flag in my head, though he seems to have a good head on his shoulders.)

in medicine we are used to putting forth statements and drawing a distinction between the strength of the recommendation and the quality of the underlying evidence. taking a cholesterol pill after having a heart attack is a 1A recommendation: strong recommendation, good-quality evidence. wearing a mask in the midst of a pandemic caused by a respiratory virus would be something like a 1B recommendation: still a strong recommendation with moderate-quality evidence. it is a strong recommendation because the theoretical risks of wearing masks — I am struggling to really think of any legitimate ones, perhaps complacency with distancing and supply-chain disruptions — are so outweighed by the benefits even with only moderate-quality evidence.

it is regrettable that agencies like the WHO and CDC have so thoroughly bungled the messaging with masks when the recommendations should have been clear 4 months ago, and it is interesting (and possibly good, I’m still on the fence tbh) that laypeople have taken such a new interest in medical evidence, but really just wear a motherfucking mask

Great that you are not restricting your insuffferabilty to ILB, xyzzzz__. Don't hide your light under a bushel.

Haven't kept up with the thread, so apologies if this was already posted:

https://www.livescience.com/hair-stylists-infected-covid19-face-masks.html

Kev otm - as far as this extremely easily implemented policy is concerned the ~evidence~ is more than satisfactory, it’s great, beautiful, that evidence. “Oh but how many robust studies are there that conclusively prove not slowly filling a room with my spittle prevents the spread of this aerosol-transmitted disease” is such a non-starter. (& the subtext is usually “is it guaranteed to stop me, the protagonist of the universe, from personally getting it”)

hey americans your graph looks rly bad. seriously

Great that you are not restricting your insuffferabilty to ILB, xyzzzz__. Don't hide your light under a bushel.

― Isolde mein Herz zum Junker (James Redd and the Blecchs), Friday, 17 July 2020 bookmarkflaglink

Just doing what I do best, James. Will keep at it, thanks for the encouraging words.

I despair over the culture of indifference and entitlement that the other party has preached. Often from actual pulpits.

I lived through Iran-Contra and impeachments over blow-jobs and the Iraq war marketed with lies and the mortgage derivatives collapse and ongoing climate agreement obstructionism. But I've never been as ashamed of my country.

Sometimes I feel the only good that might come of this is reeducation camps. Teach the masses what the exponential function means....

At no stage did I say not to wear a mask, but that thread does highlight that a lot of ppl are still in the dark with a lot of this. Locking down with distancing has been the thing that has definitely worked.

k3vin thank you for that post, I just shared it on FB in a thread where there was some (legit) confusion

It annoys we that the debate has been allowed to be skewed to absolutes about what stops covid from spreading.

Masks and hygiene and distancing and testing etc all contribute to reducing the risk and keeping the numbers down. That is enough for me to follow the guidance. I can do that and still accept that at some point I'll be exposed and could get ill.

I'm hopeful that enough of us doing so will keep the hospital beds clear for others and buy crucial vaccine/treatment time.

This 'infringing on my constitutional right to cough on baristas' nonsense can fuck right off and it's worrying that it's spread to the UK. I literally see people saying Nicola Sturgeon is imposing masks as a sinister government control measure. Like, to what end? What does a government get out of that?

Uk government has paused announcing daily Covid death totals to give them time to cook the books.

The guy that wrote a thread I linked now has an article on masks and compliance and the gaps in information on how best to use it.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jul/18/face-masks-public-health-campaign

Very thorough summary of vaccine progress from the CBC website in Canada.

http://newsinteractives.cbc.ca/coronavirusvaccinetracker/

that's a fantastic page, thank you

Uk government has paused announcing daily Covid death totals to give them time to cook the books.

― American Fear of Scampos (Ed), Saturday, 18 July 2020 bookmarkflaglink

What's the official bullshit for this?

Ok just saw yes cooking books

Feel like governments are really just burying their heads in the sand and refusing to engage with the real issue here, that operating an economy reliant on social consumption might just be fundamentally incompatible with keeping a highly contagious and deadly virus under control. If these things meet head on there's no competition, the virus wins.

Until there's an acceptance of this then governments won't be able to even start on the task of ensuring the wellbeing of their citizens over the longer term, it appears they don't believe it's even possible.

― Matt DC, Friday, July 17, 2020 2:18 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

Matt DC I've been thinking about your post, and want to understand better what you mean by "social consumption". Can you say a little more?

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jul/20/oxford-coronavirus-vaccine-triggers-immune-response-trial-shows

Fingers crossed…

the power of positive thinking

Gov. Mike Parson: “These kids have got to get back to school.... And if they do get COVID-19, which they will — and they will when they go to school — they’re not going to the hospitals.... They’re going to go home and they’re going to get over it.” https://t.co/yEtHbYf3sZ pic.twitter.com/SzoieUGPOh

— St. Louis Post-Dispatch (@stltoday) July 20, 2020

"getting over it"....

https://english.elpais.com/science_tech/2020-07-17/over-half-of-coronavirus-hospital-patients-in-spain-have-developed-neurological-problems-studies-show.html

Kids only infect other kids, it's like a game of tag.

Fuck this fucking country. Just awful.

On the bright side, you'll be ahead of the curve and achieve herd immunity as early as 2030.

who will win, the governors trying to force kids to go to school, the protesters trying to prevent kids from school, the protesters trying to force kids to go to school, a named US military branch, an unnamed US covert ops squad, the mayors trying to force the governors to stop forcing the kids to go to school, dr manhattan, or nikki haley

sorry to make light of it - i am very lucky to not have to deal with this right now, directly. i know so many ilxors are - teachers, those of us with kids. it's such a fucking mess. :(

Feel like i want to page k3v every time there's news on any vaccine dev and have him de-spin it for us

my partner is definitely stressing about what's going to be asked of her in terms of going back to classes; schools are paralyzed waiting for governor/DOE to make a pronouncement. Seems likely they will wait until two weeks before classes start and union will strike. Administration is asking educators to prepare for both remote learning AND in person classes, which complicates things considerably. Teachers gonna get stuck in the middle of an unnecessarily political shitstorm.

Oddly, cucumber.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEl8xWJ-CF0

“You’re lying to the public! Shame one you!” Protestors disrupt DeSantis press conference today pic.twitter.com/m9YASa01WD

— Daniel Uhlfelder (@DWUhlfelderLaw) July 20, 2020

I've seen a lot of people wringing their hands about COVID antibodies dropping off after 3 months, screeching things like "immunity doesn't last". @DKThomp called up the experts, and explains why you shouldn't be wringing your hands and screeching.https://t.co/RyeiKu7Zsb

— "Rabbit = good friend" Smith 🐇 (@Noahpinion) July 20, 2020

desantis is such a chucklefuck

Feel like i want to page k3v every time there's news on any vaccine dev and have him de-spin it for us

― Lady Antibody (Neanderthal), Monday, July 20, 2020 11:36 AM (three hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

haha. I’m honestly not following the vaccine data too closely yet. the studies they’re doing now are early-stage where they determine whether the body makes antibodies to the vaccine, which is the bare minimum for an effective vaccine. when they start the real phase 3 studies where they see if it prevents infections, I’ll start to really pay attention. I’m hopeful though! for now I have enough to worry about

The oxford vaccine is in stage 3 IIUC

Was just looking at this tweet from Oxford and the replies of no we are not going to take it.

Oxford’s Covid-19 vaccine produces a good immune response, reveals new study.
Teams at @VaccineTrials and @OxfordVacGroup have found there were no safety concerns, and the vaccine stimulated strong immune responses: https://t.co/krqRzXMh7B pic.twitter.com/Svd3MhCXWZ

— University of Oxford (@UniofOxford) July 20, 2020

it's what dee snider would've wanted

anyone who initially refuses to take this vaccine is not crazy imo. i mean they might be, but there are good reasons to be cautious.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/18/health/coronavirus-anti-vaccine.html

“The bottom line is I have absolutely no faith in the F.D.A. and in the Trump administration,” said Joanne Barnes, a retired fourth-grade teacher from Fairbanks, Alaska, who said she was otherwise always scrupulously up-to-date on getting her shots, including those for shingles, flu and pneumonia. “I just feel like there’s a rush to get a vaccine out, so I’m very hesitant.”
...
“The trust issues are just tremendous in the Black community,” said Edith Perry, a member of the Maryland Community Research Advisory Board, which seeks to ensure that the benefits of health research encompass Black and Latino communities.
...
“If you’re smart, you’re worried we won’t have a vaccine, and if you’re smart, you’re worried that maybe we’ve moved so fast that we’ll accept a level of risk that we might not ordinarily accept,” said Sandra Crouse Quinn, a professor of public health at the University of Maryland.

i've posted elsewhere that i personally do not consider the FDA under trump in these circumstances trustworthy at all. i'm not 100% sold on the MHRA in the uk under johnson tbh. i'm waiting to see what better-run countries do (e.g. germany, south korea). if it's only recommended by the FDA, and especially if it's before the november election, i'm not touching it with a bargepoll.

yes I'm very much in the camp of "getting the vaccine but I wanna wait a few weeks first" right now

I'll wait for the 1.01 update to get pushed out.

I signed up as a trial volunteer https://www.coronaviruspreventionnetwork.org

i did too. hope I get selected

Yes obviously when you scroll down from that vaccine tweet it's just hundreds of people telling the University of Oxford that it's dumb and wrong.

yes I'm very much in the camp of "getting the vaccine but I wanna wait a few weeks first" right now

― frogbs, Monday, 20 July 2020 bookmarkflaglink

Really? I think it will undergo thorough testing. Looks like by the time it is tested, goes into production and we get it will be this time next year or maybe late spring but I don't see the testing being rushed.

I'm eager for a SARS-CoV-2 vaccine that doesn't have hypersensitivity issues upon viral challenge, which prevented the world from getting a SARS-1 vaccine. I salute those of you who have volunteered for early stage tests, you are heroes.