outbreak! (ebola, sars, coronavirus, etc)

Was just curious since (so far, knock wood), Lolla did not turn into the gigantic super spreader event I was fearing.

@DrEricDing, can you please keep to facts? At present, there is no evidence that C.1.2 is more transmissible than Delta. On neutralization, we are generating the results now and can work with international agencies & scientific groups that helped with previous variant, Beta. https://t.co/qg8Qmo3AYG

— Tulio de Oliveira (@Tuliodna) August 30, 2021

Unqualified folks like this (yes he’s an epidemiologist but nutritional one, a pro hockey player might not be that great at playing pro football) spouting nonstop doom are just the inverse of berenson, prasad, and battacharya. It’s not useful. https://t.co/aRSeMxV83i

— Tom Wallach, MD (@md_wallach) August 30, 2021

Tulio's was one of the authors of the pre-print that Eric sourced for his tweet-storm. Nice takedown

what the FUCK

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2021/08/30/ohio-judge-orders-hospital-treat-covid-patient-ivermectin/5648583001/

The lawsuit doesn’t mention whether Jeffrey Smith is vaccinated against COVID-19.

Hmm, let me guess. HMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM.

https://www.wowktv.com/news/u-s-world/education-department-opens-civil-rights-investigations-against-five-states-that-bar-mask-mandates-for-schools/

lol is that really a one-sentence news "article"?

since when can a judge order a doctor to treat a patient with a particular medication?

that's what i said!

really hoping there are appeal options or something, because this is an ugly precedent

In a previous case I saw, the hospital was ordered to give ivermectin but individual doctors didn’t have to. They had to bring in an outside doctor to administer it.

look if this idiot wants to shit out his intestines at Menards that's his god-given right

i just don't understand how a judge could say "you must administer this specific drug at this dosage" esp when I doubt the hospital would be absolved of malpractice if he died. I know they sometimes rule on removal of feeding tubes/taking off of life support and things like that, but that's kind of a different thing.

I order Extenz be used to treat the patient

look if this idiot wants to shit out his intestines at Menards that's his god-given right

E Pluribus Poopum

@DrEricDing, can you please keep to facts? At present, there is no evidence that C.1.2 is more transmissible than Delta. On neutralization, we are generating the results now and can work with international agencies & scientific groups that helped with previous variant, Beta. https://t.co/qg8Qmo3AYG
— Tulio de Oliveira (@Tuliodna) August 30, 2021

Unqualified folks like this (yes he’s an epidemiologist but nutritional one, a pro hockey player might not be that great at playing pro football) spouting nonstop doom are just the inverse of berenson, prasad, and battacharya. It’s not useful. https://t.co/aRSeMxV83i
— Tom Wallach, MD (@md_wallach) August 30, 2021
― 𝔠𝔞𝔢𝔨 (caek), Monday, 30 August 2021 15:09 (two hours ago) link

Yes, Ding is notoriously unreliable and jumps at every chance to report doom. He's built his fame on it. It's probably worth noting that (something I only learned during this pandemic) it's not actually that hard to obtain the credentials to call oneself an "epidemiologist" -- it's basically a masters in public health, and the title does not magically confer any expertise in infectious viral pandemics. As with "MD" accounts, it's important to be cautious with epi twitter.

yes I deffo won't be posting any links to that fool again, apologies for that.

new variants and strains are constantly emerging, vast majority are not of any particular significance (which is why they sometimes use the term "Variant of Concern" to describe a new one that might be).

it's also just shitty and irresponsible for him to start the thread with a dire warning about a new variant, only to clarify 2 or 3 tweets later that it, uh, actually isn't.

Even the best, most sober, most highly reliable experts have been wrong enough times in this ever-evolving pandemic, so anyone wedded to one side of things is going to be wrong a lot.

xp calzino i would go one step further and figure out who was boosting Dr Ding on twitter. whoever it is isn't reliable

one by one we shall eliminate all sources of untruth, until we get to dr truth

And then just a bit further until we emerge out the other side at Dr. Teeth.

https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/muppet/images/2/26/Dr_Teeth_pink.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20150625152503

Goddam it.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CHEiqhOUgAAe4jd?format=jpg&name=small

this is getting reposted all over my timeline (which has many covid survivors etc who are always posting about covid. covid. covid. covid!!!!!)

New CDC study finds that 36% of COVID patients *never seroconvert*, meaning they NEVER make antibodies! #LongCovid

This is a huge finding which we need to amplify broadly! Please retweet & send to providers, patients, support groups, #MedTwitter, etc.https://t.co/gEne4dE0TQ
1/

— Hannah Davis 🌈 (@ahandvanish) August 30, 2021

am i wrong in thinking that "New CDC study finds that 36% of COVID patients *never seroconvert*" is a very misleading/wrong way to interpret the research?

https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/27/9/21-1042_article

"We studied 72 persons, all of whom had a previous positive RT-PCR test but were symptom-free for >3 weeks before blood was collected for testing (Table). Only 2 persons (3%) reported no symptoms, whereas 13 (18%) persons reported mild disease, 48 (67%) reported moderate disease, and 9 (12%) reported severe disease (Appendix Table 1).

We tested plasma samples (n = 144) collected at enrollment and follow-up visits for antibodies to the spike protein by using a validated ELISA (Appendix). Only 46 of the 72 participants had detectable IgG responses, IgA responses, or both (Table); reciprocal endpoint titers ranged from 182 to >312,500 (Appendix Table 2). Analysis of the same samples for receptor-binding domain (RBD) and nucleocapsid (N) antibodies yielded very similar results (Appendix Figure 1). All persons with spike protein antibodies also had detectable RBD (IgG, IgM, or both) or N (IgG) protein responses, except for 1 participant whose spike protein endpoint titers were very low (Appendix Table 2). In contrast, 26 participants remained seronegative, despite the testing of up to 3 samples per person for IgA, IgM, and IgG against multiple antigens as well as neutralizing antibodies. Thus, 36% of our cohort represented serologic nonresponders."

that's where she got it from.

I would not put a lot of stock in that person's interpretation of the research - they have no apparent background in immunology (at least not in their twitter bio), the study sounds small, she is insisting on drawing certain conclusions even where she *admits* that certain findings are statistically insignificant, and she seems mission-driven (i.e. to get recognition of long covid in people who lack a positive COVID test or antibody test).

also, it's not a "CDC" study. it was published in the Emerging Infectious Diseases journal, and none of the authors have appear to be affiliated with CDC. I mean, maybe CDC funded it or something, but. there's just way too many warning signs like that.

but it's a long-ass tweet thread! and it gets shared hundreds and hundreds of times, by all these people i know.

let me be the millionth person to be annoyed by the growing trend of people being experts on everything all of the time

btw, sorry if this was already posted but another right-wing disinformation host died

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/08/30/covid-delta-variant-live-updates/#link-6374MPAX5VBAPKFIRI6GJIY52E

Conservative radio host who compared vaccination push to Nazism dies of covid-19

Marc Bernier’s last tweet, on July 30, derided his state’s agriculture commissioner’s call for people to get vaccinated against the coronavirus.

“The greatest generation had to defeat the Nazis to preserve our way of life,” the Florida commissioner had tweeted. “[Y]ou’re only being asked to get a shot. So be a patriot.”

“Should say, ‘Now the US Government is acting like Nazi’s. Get the shot!’ ” responded Bernier, a longtime talk radio host at WNDB in Daytona Beach.

This weekend, the station where Bernier worked for decades announced that he had died of covid-19. It was the latest instance of the virus striking conservative media figures who once broadcast doubt about the vaccines to their audience.

Any more conservative talk radio guys you want me to aim this 5G havana syndrome heart attack gun at

— warrior cop (@wyatt_privilege) August 29, 2021

C'mon do Dan Bongino next

And again.

https://www.houstonchronicle.com/lifestyle/renew-houston/health/article/Real-conversations-between-a-Houston-doctor-and-16417251.php

These stories on some level are variations on:

“The streets are extended gutters and the gutters are full of covid and when the variants finally take over, all the unvaccinated people will get delta. The accumulated filth of all their Trump and 5G will foam up about their waists and all the QANON and "libertarians" will look up and whimper 'VACCINATE US!'...and I'll look down and whisper 'No.”

By noontime the dock
is a-swarmin’ with men
comin’ out from the ghostly freighter
They move in the shadows
where no one can see
And they’re chainin’ up people
and they’re bringin’ em to me
askin’ me,
“Kill them NOW, or LATER?”
Askin’ ME!
“Kill them now, or later?”

Noon by the clock
and so still by the dock
You can hear a foghorn miles away
And in that quiet of death
I’ll say, “Right now
Right now!”

Then they’ll pile up the bodies
And I’ll say,
“That’ll learn ya!”

Actual photo accompanying article about ivermectin (potentially very mildly NSFW): https://cdn.iflscience.com/images/295db5d7-a160-51a2-9b72-f598d498c93d/medium-1630098921-cover-image.jpg

So so grim

"green list countries" https://t.co/CnD0JN822q pic.twitter.com/ocCs8UBsC0

— Peregrine falcon fan (@nrgsrhc) August 31, 2021

Svalbard here I come!

i hear the Arctic is nice this time of year

i hear the Arctic is nice this time of year

is there a speculative fiction thing where the poles of the earth are not exactly reversed but are kind of orthogonal, so that the poles tilt until they become the equator, and the former equator becomes the poles?

because that would be cool

I literally just read a novel where that happens (The Hearing Trumpet by Leonora Carrington).

i knew it! what happens?

xp to karl, that is kind of what happened on uranus maybe (though it was likely caused by a massive impact), so it has faint rings that go "up and down" rather than around the middle as one would expect, and it rotates on its side, and the magnetic pole is actually on the side of the planet that faces the sun iirc, been awhile since i've read deeply about it?

xp The inhabitants of the insane spiritualist old folks home just kind of make do, it’s not particularly scientific.

A variant a day keeps the doomers in play.

— Prof Francois Balloux (@BallouxFrancois) September 1, 2021

Among DeSantis' other top donors are St. Louis Cardinals owner Bill DeWitt Jr., Los Angeles Chargers owner Dean Spanos, Hall of Fame baseball pitcher Nolan Ryan, UFC President Dana White, Jimmy John's founder Jimmy John Liautaud, Jack Link's CEO Troy Link and disgraced Papa John's founder John Schnatter. Each has donated $5,000 to $100,000 this year.

A real murderers' row.

Four conservative radio talk-show hosts bashed coronavirus vaccines. Then they got sick.

nothing new, just more embarrassing things about the rightwing radio blowhards who died, but not before trying to persuade an untold number of (very gullible, very low-information) listeners that covid was a joke.

Marc Bernier was adamant: He was not going to get a coronavirus vaccination.

“I’m Mr. Anti-Vax,” he told listeners of his talk-radio program in Daytona Beach, Fla., after the federal government provisionally approved the first vaccines in December. He later declared that the government was “acting like Nazis” in urging people to get vaccinated.

But in early August, WNDB, Bernier’s radio home for more than 30 years, announced that the 65-year-old host was being treated in a hospital for covid-19. On Saturday, the station said that Bernier had died.

Bernier was at least the fourth talk-radio host who had espoused anti-vaccine and anti-mask sentiments to succumb to the virus in August. There was also Phil Valentine, 61, a popular host in Tennessee; Jimmy DeYoung, 81, a nationally syndicated Christian preacher also based in Tennessee; and Dick Farrel, 65, who had worked for stations in Miami and Palm Beach, Fla., as well as for the conservative Newsmax TV channel.

All four men had publicly couched their opposition to mainstream public health efforts in the typically hyperbolic and sometimes paranoid rhetoric of conservative talk radio. Farrel, for example, called coronavirus mitigation efforts “a scam-demic” and described the government’s top infectious-disease expert, Anthony S. Fauci, as “a power-tripping, lying freak.” At one point earlier this year, DeYoung, host of the “Prophecy Today” program, asked a guest whether the vaccine rollout could be “another form of government control of the people.”

Valentine’s sentiments took the form of a song parody — a format that had also been a favorite of the late talk-radio titan Rush Limbaugh. Valentine’s tune was called “Vaxman,” based on the Beatles’ “Taxman.”

https://soundcloud.com/philvalentineshow/vaxman

To some observers and critics, the hosts’ deaths highlighted talk radio’s often overlooked role as a vector of vaccine resistance and coronavirus misinformation. While several nationally syndicated hosts, such as Hugh Hewitt and Ben Shapiro, have spoken out to advocate for vaccines, hosts at hundreds of local stations have offered messages similar to those of Valentine, Farrel and Bernier.

“The vaccine isn’t the problem. Talk radio is,” said Jerry Del Colliano, a professor at New York University and publisher and editor of Inside Music Media, which covers the radio industry. Radio companies, he said, “are risking the health of their audiences even as anti-vaxxer bloviators continue to die.”

Del Colliano faulted lax oversight by the Federal Communications Commission and indifference by major radio station owners, such as iHeartRadio and Cumulus Media, the two largest talk-station companies.

Cumulus — which owns more than 400 stations in 80 cities, including the station that aired Valentine’s program — has mandated vaccination for all of its 4,000 employees; iHeart has no such mandate. The companies did not respond to requests for comment.

In July, after Valentine was hospitalized for complications from covid-19, his brother Mark went on air and said on Valentine’s behalf: “For those listening, I know if he were able to tell you this, he would tell you, ‘Go get vaccinated. Quit worrying about the politics. Quit worrying about all the conspiracy theories.’ ”

His family later issued a statement indicating that Valentine had changed his mind about the vaccines he had mocked.

“Phil would like for his listeners to know that while he has never been an ‘anti-vaxer’ he regrets not being more vehemently ‘pro-vaccine,’ and looks forward to being able to more vigorously advocate that position as soon as he is back on the air, which we all hope will be soon,” the statement said.

Valentine never returned to the air.

If you try to cry
I’ll block your tweet.
If you ask me why
I’ll block your street.
If you try to fly
I’ll block your flight.
If you try to lie
I’ll take your rights.
Vaxman.

‘Cause I’m the Vaxman.
Yeah, I’m the Vaxman.
And you’re living for no one but me.
Vaxman.

- Vaxman, by Phil Valentine, who was never an "anti-vaxxer"

Just finished an exhausting 7 days of treating patients in the ICU in Southern California. Many patients admitted for COVID-19 - none vaccinated. Intubating on average 1-2 a day because they don't have the strength to continue breathing on their own.

— Roger Seheult, MD (@RogerSeheult) August 30, 2021

What are their supplement routines? Do they have critical nutritional deficiencies? How often do they exercise? How is their sleep? Can we talk about that or is everything always about the vaccine?

— Luc Vareilles (@LucVareilles) September 1, 2021

ARE THEY DRINKING BULLETPROOF COFFEE AND IF NOT WHY NOT

Just started the countdown clock on the inevitable premature end of Luc Vareilles' life

FL's 7-day case average will fall below 20,000/day for the first time in a while. new reported cases today were 7k less than last Wednesday.

nice! Florida deserves a little bit of a breather before they start voluntarily building the next big wave of covid

you saw the story about the state playing around with the way it reports deaths?