outbreak! (ebola, sars, coronavirus, etc)

now there's a Donne-worthy conceit

Zeynap is right-on, as usual:

There’s long been an idea that a key problem with digital media has been the echo-chambers it produces, where we only encounter people like us who affirm our beliefs. That’s not false in that we tend to find people like us online, but that’s incomplete—if anything we are even more isolated offline in the United States.

Digital media doesn’t just isolate groups; rather, it helps tribalize us even further. We certainly encounter “the other” online, but usually in caricature form. We seek out these cartoonish people and positions regardless of how frequently they actually occur or what else might be happening.

Both traditional media and social media helps produce the stories, algorithms amplify it, and platforms and media all get an audience out of it, and as individuals we can get attention (from virality) and an outlet for our anger and sense of helplessness.

This is fantastic. A recent study out of the University of Maryland presents the first evidence that full vaccination against COVID-19 actually SUPPRESSES emergent mutations of SARS-CoV-2 Delta variants therefore successfully debunking the myth that vaccines promote mutations.

— Chise 🧬🧫🦠💉 (@sailorrooscout) August 11, 2021

xpost yes, they're otm there. that is basically Twitter to a tee.

Feels like good news, but at this point in the pandemic I'm trained to expect a follow-up in a few days that says the study was flawed or the person who tweeted it drew an incorrect conclusion. Seems to be the pattern, especially in summary tweets like that. Of course it also is why I've learned to take the bad news seeming tweets less seriously until they pick up steam and/or get confirmed elsewhere.

i don't think this one is quite as likely to generate that response.

the biggest divisive topic lately is how effective the vaccines are and how common breaktrhoughs are, and the reason everybody's arguing is the opposite problem - a lack of data in the US, overreliance on other countries's studies that don't use all of our drugs, etc.

i don't see that ending until after the wave does.

just gonna repost this because it doesn't seem like any of you paid attention:

The good news is that the school board still decided to require masks in schools despite the pushback. They received more requests by email in favor of a mask mandate vs. against. It's not surprising that most of the people who chose to attend the meeting in person were loony anti-maskers.

― aegis philbin (crüt), Wednesday, August 11, 2021 10:08 AM (nine hours ago)

see also: recent decisions by many Texas school board to defy the governor and require masks for students this year

Shut the fuck up

Crut's post was fine but who are you to smugly Kool Aid man up in here w a bunch of people who are freaked out and contributing actual content regularly to the thread. Eat a fat one

No no, it's our fault for failing to indicate that we were paying attention.

take a breather everyone, this isn't going anywhere productive

Just a little flu, let’s be cool

Neanderthal u ok hun?

I paid attention.

NOT ALL ILXORS

FYI pretty much no one is OK ATM AFAICT

yet somehow most of us manage not to verbally abuse other posters

Good read, worth sharing with non-psycho relatives:

https://www.tampabay.com/opinion/2021/08/10/what-we-now-know-about-how-to-fight-the-delta-variant-of-covid-column/

that's fantastic, thanks.

Thought this was a good read too, but others may be better equipped to react to the science and conclusions:

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2021/08/delta-has-changed-pandemic-endgame/619726/"> https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2021/08/delta-has-changed-pandemic-endgame/619726/

xp maybe we should be sharing that Tampa Bay Times article with our psycho relatives, the analogy of the vaccine being the "armed homeowner" awaiting the burglarizing Delta virus might hit home with even the most , ahem, virulent anti-vaxxer.

haha I thought of that too

Delta sounds scary, good thing it's totally invented.

(Mostly) outdoors and high vaccination coverage is a strong combo. https://t.co/NGuQ4s9Vca

— Aaron Richterman, MD (@AaronRichterman) August 12, 2021

I figured. Still a huge relief, for I'm going to Pitchfork in a few weeks.

It sounds promising, but I gotta say I'm surprised they announced it today, two weeks from the start of Lolla, as opposed to waiting until Monday after the whole thing was finished for two weeks.

CDC Director Rochelle Walensky, addressing criticism of the agency’s shifting guidance, said she has made the most of available data. “My job is…to do the right thing for health. And so that’s what I did.” https://t.co/VyhqQ1vBxj

— The Wall Street Journal (@WSJ) August 12, 2021

Huh, maybe you should have chilled on that whole "take 'em off folks, the waters fine" shit then. Not a lot of sympathy.

Yet more big news!

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/supreme-court/supreme-court-rejects-challenge-indiana-university-s-vaccination-requirement-n1276714?

Looks like ol' Ron is realizing this isn't playing out to his benefit.

.@GovRonDeSantis office acknowledges state has no control over local employees' pay, calls on "activist" school board members who defy governor on school masks to dock their own salaries if state follows through with financial sanctions against district.https://t.co/M2W6IqZq0h

— Ana Ceballos (@anaceballos_) August 12, 2021

You're saying he told them to go dock themselves?

The 'deeply evil' and 'deeply stupid' axes intersecting once again there, I see.

I was going to post. He caved once he saw the resistance and the obvious illegality.

when yr an anarchist it's pretty weird to be fully behind govt mandates but yeah, fuck these people

"Two and a half weeks ago, as the next school year approached, a pediatric cardiologist from Louisiana headed into the Georgia mountains with her husband, their three young children, and their extended family. It was, in many ways, a fairly pandemic-sanctioned vacation: All nine adults in attendance were fully vaccinated. The group spent most of the trip outdoors, biking, swimming, and hiking.

Then, on the last night of the outing—July 27, the same day the CDC pivoted back to asking vaccinated people to mask up indoors—one parent started feeling sick, Katherine J. Wu reports.

A test soon confirmed a mild breakthrough case of COVID-19. None of the other adults caught the coronavirus on the trip, the cardiologist told me, which she points to as “total proof that the vaccine worked.” (The Atlantic agreed not to name the cardiologist to protect her family’s privacy.) But within a week, six of the eight kids on the trip—all of them too young to be eligible for vaccines—had newly diagnosed coronavirus infections as well."

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2021/08/delta-variant-covid-children/619712/

https://www.salon.com/2021/08/12/its-ok-to-blame-the-unvaccinated--they-are-robbing-the-rest-of-us-of-our-freedoms/

many conditionals in that story xpost

Wonder if it naive to assume that this is correlated with the symptom of loss of smell that so many of us experienced.

If anyone knows how bad delta is it's the company that has all of our data... https://t.co/kIG4XxBj10

— Jena Friedman (@JenaFriedman) August 13, 2021

grim chuckle, good one.

spicy https://laist.com/news/education/all-lausd-staff-will-be-required-to-be-vaccinated-by-october-15

(no option to opt-out through weekly testing)

^tough love! as in "some day you'll understand I'm only doing this for your own good" you'd think conservatives would lap that up, but since it doesn't involve whipping children with belts, locking them in their rooms, or depriving them of food, they won't approve.

great for LAUSD. btw, no opt-out through weekly testing is required by law (the exemptions for health or religious reasons are required by law).

Stupid-ass WaPo headline: "Iceland has been a vaccination success. Why is it seeing a coronavirus surge?"
Smarter WaPo headline: "Iceland vaccination success keeps coronavirus surge in check. Here's why histrionic headlines don't help."

probably old news for most of you, but

The Biden administration is planning to announce that most Americans who have received the coronavirus vaccine will need booster shots to combat waning immunity and the highly transmissible delta variant that is sparking a surge in covid-19 cases, according to four people familiar with the decision.

The administration’s health and science experts are coalescing around the view that people will need the boosters eight months after being fully vaccinated, according to the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a decision not yet public. The move is likely to be announced as soon as this week.

Administration of boosters would not occur until mid- or late September, after an application from Pfizer-BioNTech for the additional shots is cleared by the Food and Drug Administration, the individuals said.

Whew. My left arm wasn't getting stuck to the fridge door like it used to.

wait

any chance the booster might significantly reduce breakthrough cases?

As I understand it, the vaccines that have been developed don't really stop the virus from latching onto your nasal passages. What they do is stop it from getting into the rest of your body. So you don't get many symptoms, if any, and the virus dies out after about 5 days, instead of having this nice big body to circulate in. But you CAN pass it on, because it's in your nose. The booster will just boost the defences that are already there - it won't do anything dramatic apart from that.

Fortunately every breakthrough case I've known in the last two weeks have been the mildest of mild: sniffles and slight discomfort, even in a 74-year-old woman.

have=has

Yes. The vaccine doesn’t destroy the virus but it prevents serious illness in almost all cases. If everyone gets vaccinated and later boosted this is over.