outbreak! (ebola, sars, coronavirus, etc)

fun fact: the vaccination rate in the villages is among the highest in the country https://covidactnow.org/us/metro/the-villages_fl/?s=22131139.

the median age of that county is FIVE years older than the next oldest-county in the U.S.(!!)

In 2018, the median age for both sexes in The Villages metropolitan statistical area is 67.4, with this being 29 years older than a typical American, and five years older than the median age of residents in the next-oldest county in the United States, which is on the Hawaiian island of Molokai.[23]

well i wasn't going to say anything but there was a lawyer i knew (NOT old, like around my age) who did this repeatedly in his closing arguments to a jury. he would say "i'm from a south, and we have this saying..." where "the south" = fairfax. embarrassing!

juror foreman, i ask you to consider this: where will be dogs be hunting tonight? where will we allow the big dogs to hunt, tonight, here in "the south"? and i submit to you this morning, the dogs will not be hunting here tonight, if you make the right decision. my defendant is not guilty -- let's keep the people in the south safe from dogs. i rest my case

tipsy I think this is your work? from Compass?

re: whether schools are a vector for spread, if kids really get it, etc

Knox County Schools reported a dramatic leap in COVID-19 cases on Wednesday, with cases among students nearly doubling overnight and staff infections soaring.

Active cases among students rose from 276 on Tuesday to 534 on Wednesday — the highest number of the entire pandemic. The school system reported only two cases among staff members on Tuesday, but one day later said 67 staff had active cases. The number of students with active cases is more than twice the number in December when the school system shut down in-person instruction for the remainder of the fall semester.

In an email to students’ families on Wednesday, Superintendent Bob Thomas indicated the surge in numbers is a result of the system’s collaboration with the Knox County Health Department in identifying COVID-19 cases involving students and staff. He wrote that the joint effort would provide greater transparency and help the Health Department with contact tracing.

“Please note that this will result in a significant increase in the number of reported active cases on our dashboard,” Thomas wrote.

Thomas also clarified that while the district can’t move entire schools to online learning — because of state restrictions — isolated or quarantined students will be able to complete assignments through the system’s virtual platform duringthe time they cannot attend classes in person.

Meanwhile, Children's Hospital of East Tennessee released its COVID-19 patient count for the past week on Wednesday. The hospital has treated 11 minors for COVID during the past week — four aged 0-5 years, one aged 6-11 years and six age 12 and older. On Wednesday, four COVID cases were inpatients and one was in the intensive care unit.

well i wasn't going to say anything but there was a lawyer i knew (NOT old, like around my age) who did this repeatedly in his closing arguments to a jury. he would say "i'm from a south, and we have this saying..." where "the south" = fairfax. embarrassing!

― criminally negligible (harbl), Thursday, August 26, 2021 11:32 AM (ten minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer became like ten times funnier to me when I realized how many trial lawyers actually pull this kind of schtick

a) that's authentically good
b) the median age in the Villages is incredibly high, over 70 I think, so I'm not sure whether that statistic reflects high compliance; I'll bet there are tons of places where if you took a sample of population with age distribution like that of the Villages, you'd have well above 80% with at least one dose.

xp OK what Karl said

The Villages can boast of, after Miami-Dade, the highest jab rate in Florida.

xp yes i know. congrats on not being surprised?

Reading about ivermectin is kind of fascinating, not because I'm uncovering government secrets but rather just getting a broad view of how the scientific process works. Also kind of fun to see so many stories of anti-vaxx chuds literally shitting their intestines out in the supermarket because of this stuff

Ultimately the conclusion seems to be: yes, there are studies suggesting that it works, but the vast majority of these seem to have issues in their sample sizes and/or quality of their sample. The most notorious study in favor of it was thrown out for falsifying data. There is currently one large-scale study that recently concluded which tested a variety of approved drugs, unfortunately ivermectin was shown to be ineffective (a different drug showed some promise, however). The bigger issue is that the antiviral properties of ivermectin shown invitro require levels of the drug which you can't really achieve in a human being, unless you're giving them like 15x the recommended dose. It doesn't bind to the cell proteins well. So yes, it's plausible that this could help, but thus far its not really borne out by good data

The part that pisses me off is the idea that the government is "hiding" these studies, or burying/falsifying them because they don't want Covid to be cured by a cheap drug...never mind the fact that poorer countries are already trying this on a large scale, never mind that the US itself has dumped a ton of money into research of existing drugs treating Covid, it's just insane. My last email from my brother ended "good luck with your experimental gene therapy...if Fauci said it's fine it must be okay"

"suggesting that it works"

But even then "works" is going to mean something like "reduces duration or severity of symptoms to some measurable degree," not "cures COVID"

Like, who is out there saying "Who needs a vaccine, with ivermectin I'll be out of the hospital after 4 days instead of 6"

My last email from my brother ended "good luck with your experimental gene therapy...if Fauci said it's fine it must be okay"

BREAKING: ILX's "frogbs" now owns U.S. COVID response, will be responsible for any consequences hereafter

i took frogbs's advice and consumed 15x the recommended dose of ivermectin

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nBCJhNiKhFE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJsrFO1bUQM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQ5_1XRPL0I

But even then "works" is going to mean something like "reduces duration or severity of symptoms to some measurable degree," not "cures COVID"

I **think** the line of reasoning is, Covid will always be around (probably true), so its better to achieve herd immunity by exposing everyone and finding a reliable treatment to reduce symptoms rather than use experimental vaccines (citation needed), as these vaccines cause the virus to mutate uncontrollably and modify your cells and suddenly instead of praying to Jesus you're praying to...**record scratch** OBAMA!??

despite being completely incorrect it's kind of the pro-vaxx argument too, most vaccinated people I know are just saying "fuck it, Covid is inevitable at this point, I'm not punting my social life anymore, at least now if I get it I probably won't get too sick".

Like, who is out there saying "Who needs a vaccine, with ivermectin I'll be out of the hospital after 4 days instead of 6"

I am from rural Wisconsin, I can give you plenty of names if you like

fwiw, there's good reason to believe that the delta mutation was induced by antibody therapies (e.g. regeneron), not any vaccine. https://science.sciencemag.org/content/371/6531/850

Oh, how sad:

https://www.wpr.org/report-state-sen-andre-jacque-breathing-ventilator-after-hospitalized-covid-19

Christ on a crutch, I remember when the antibody therapies had maybe the MOST hope for a cure or at least some relief for the suffering patients, probably oh last spring? And now it turns out we actually sowed the seeds of our next and larger crisis, the delta variant, by exploring them. Great. This timeline is truly cursed.

tipsy I think this is your work? from Compass?

Yep, that's ours. We are wrapping up the third week of the school year here and it is basically chaos. COVID numbers are huge, contact tracing is so slow it's almost useless, there is zero guidance about whether or how people are supposed to quarantine their kids if they're exposed (assuming they're even notified), parents are setting up their own voluntary contact tracing Facebook groups to try to keep track of who's tested positive, the school system keeps saying there are all sorts of things the state won't let them do (like moving to virtual school, reporting school-level data) that then state officials come out and say, "No, you can do that if you want to, mostly, probably." Basically no one in authority taking any responsibility at all. A big-ass mess. And totally different from last year, when they had all kinds of protocols in place and actually did a pretty good of following them. They just gave up under the endless pressure of the anti-mask parents and Republican legislators.

Basically no one in authority taking any responsibility at all.

It's easy to see where their reluctance comes from. When those people do take responsibility, at a minimum they get yelled at a lot, but the levels of harassment can get much more serious, including harassment by people in even higher levels of authority, like state legislators and governors.

Fauci said in the WH press thing yesterday that they're seeing 70-80% reduction in chance of hospitalization when at-risk people get monoclonal antibody treatment early in the course of infection -- that's pretty good and Fauci was kind of complaining that this stuff is underutilized and certainly I had no idea we had a treatment that good. Also, there are a bunch of these treatments from a bunch of companies, not just Regeneron's, which I also didn't know.

a buddy of mine turned up positive and at the one week mark of a serious illness they called him in for the monoclonal thing and he was markedly better a day later.

Lord.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/08/27/florida-woman-covid-dead-husband/

"She plans to finish the home the couple were remodeling in honor of her husband. That’s what he would have wanted her to do, she said.

“That was Ron’s dream,” Lisa told The Post."

the banality of Ron and Lisa

Ron from the afterlife: Lisa! Lisa! Can you hear me?!

Lisa: Yes Ron, oh my god, thank you!

Ron: I don't have much time.

Lisa: I miss you Ron! Ron, I love you!

Ron: Lisa...please....finish the remodeling...I don't have much time

Lisa: Ron, wait, don't go! Wait!

Ron: ...finish the remodeling...

I like how that Washington Post article (for me at least) is filled with interstitial ads for a t-shirt that says "I'm pretty confident my last words will be 'well shit, that didn't work'"

More like:

Ron from the afterlife: Lisa! Lisa! Can you hear me?!

Lisa: Yes Ron, oh my god, thank you!

Ron: I don't have much time.

Lisa: I miss you Ron! Ron, I love you!

Ron: Lisa...please....get vaccinated...I don't have much time

Lisa: Ron, wait, don't go! I need to know what tile to pick!

Ron: ...vaccinated...

Lisa: I'll finish the remodeling

Neither Ron, who died of covid-19 complications, nor Lisa had been vaccinated, Lisa said. Both had agreed they would wait longer to schedule their shots. Lisa rarely got sick and left her house only for work, and Ron, who was in charge of running the couple’s errands during the pandemic, always wore his mask and stayed away from large crowds, Lisa said.

“Both of us thought that [the vaccine] came out so fast. How could they have done so much testing on it? I was just cautious about it,” she said. “It’s not that I was against vaccines.”

The couple, who met through a Christian dating website

Lisa rarely got sick and left her house only for work, and Ron, who was in charge of running the couple’s errands during the pandemic, always wore his mask and stayed away from large crowds, Lisa said.

sorry to bring this whole thing up again, but this is pretty much an exact description of what my mom said, and says, about her and my dad's habits before they got covid

and because they got sick anyway, it proves that the whole thing is a hoax and vaccines don't work and everyone is going to get it

but sorry - it's not real people that think that. that's only a small percentage of people. the vast majority of unvaccinated people are incredibly smart people that have many good reasons for not getting vaccinated. the "total fucking christian idiot" percentage is so very small

too much attention is focused on the total fucking christian idiots. instead we need to be focused on joe carwash, who just doesn't know about medicine and can be convinced using reason and patience

and how fucking true is it that Lisa "left her house only for work" and Ron "always" wore a mask

Joe Carwash is running for the House in Ohio, iirc.

I’ve heard that one too, from an aunt - “I never really get sick”. Stupendous logic, good luck with that.

xp - Right, and did Lisa wear a mask at work, or no, because "work is safe, right"? So much left unsaid.

Going to work is surely a massive risk factor, depending on your job/ how you commute?

Various people in my family think that "just popping" somewhere is scientifically proven to be zero risk, compared with the only alternative which is shutting yourself in a crowded room full of coughing people, which is to be avoided. And if you avoid doing that you should pat yourself on the back and allow yourself a couple of 'popping out to's a day

and how fucking true is it that Lisa "left her house only for work" and Ron "always" wore a mask

you'll never know, because they've been lying for years about absolutely everything

I basically never have an upset stomach. (chugs gallon bottle of raw sewage)

I've never been on fire in my life. (douses self with kerosene and dances around wildly-flaming barrel)

"I'm a good Christian!!"

*hates poor people, everyone who isn't white*

whatever. what's the point? what is the point? there is no point. i have no point. sorry

yeah I realize how close this must hit for you, I'm sorry man

“I did what I thought was best for me,” Lisa told The Post. “Even if you don’t agree with me that I didn’t get the shot earlier, you don’t say, ‘I bet you wish you would have gotten the vaccine so your husband wouldn’t be dead.’ ”

on the contrary...

xp

oh, it's ok. i mean, i don't have to read this thread. but...it's everywhere. it's really hard to have a normal day and just not think about it. and it feels worse than just having something happen that is also happening elsewhere. like, if my dad died in an auto accident, and having to be in cars and drive in cars after that. that would be bad. but it's worse, because it's preventable and it can be stopped and there is very much a correct answer and a wrong answer (for the vast majority of people - I'm not talking about people who can't get vaccinated for medical reasons or aren't cognitively equipped to understand covid). it's really hard to just be surrounded by news all the time about people that are doing the exact same thing my parents did, and that my mom is still doing today. it's just fucking obnoxious. i really want to scream

imagine hating tucker carlson even MORE than you already do. maybe that's the best way to describe it

“I did what I thought was best for me,” Lisa told The Post. “Even if you don’t agree with me that I didn’t get the shot earlier, you don’t say, ‘I bet you wish you would have gotten the vaccine so your husband wouldn’t be dead.’

irl, the idiots just don't say anything at all to the survivor. they have nothing, and then they just go back to what they were doing like nothing happened, learning nothing at all

sorry, too real. this is what i'm like during my 1 hour of sobriety in the morning when i wake up. it's hard! not trying to harsh the mellow or anything -- i often bump this thread with total covid idiots. you have to, sometimes. or i have to, at least. to pretend it's not there is even more maddening