outbreak! (ebola, sars, coronavirus, etc)

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?

oh yeah, known about that for a while. it's working too, DeSantis's minions are pointing out that we're only 36 in COVID deaths when we aren't.

can't trust data more recent than two weeks re: death in FL

For anybody who wants to reference:

https://www.miamiherald.com/news/coronavirus/article253796898.html

Think he's a bot— two retweets of a single account, no other activity.

nah, check his replies ("Tweets and Replies" at the top, rather than "Tweets"). he's very active. not a bot.

...over the last week at least. weird. who are these dumbasses

hosts at hundreds of local stations have offered messages similar to those of Valentine, Farrel and Bernier.

Christ, how many local right wing radio hosts are there?!

I got hit up for donations for a high school classmate who died and left behind six children under ten. Unvaccinated, got the rural hospital to give him
Ivermectin, died before he could be transferred to a larger hospital.

Absolute fucking waste.

damn those "rural hospitals" to hell for giving patients ivermectin, as well as rogue doctors who do it (and then become sources for others through word of mouth among fools). not only are they doing what they're doing, but it also allows ivermectin idiots to counter with "then why do hospitals give it to people if it's so dangerous???" whenever someone tries to get them not to do it.

it's their lead-in to the "but i did my research and it's better than vaccines!" part of the conversation, after which all hope is lost

"but then why do hospitals give people snake oil then, if it's so dangerous?!?!"

24-year-old Chloe Mrozak from Illinois was arrested after allegedly using this fake #COVID19 vaccine card to enter Hawaii and avoid travel restrictions — it says “Maderna” instead of “Moderna” @KITV4 pic.twitter.com/1EWp3eG3OR

— Tom George (@TheTomGeorge) September 1, 2021

This’ll bring you to a pause

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theatlantic.com/amp/article/619941/

a friend of a friend lives in chilliwack. rural bc, not far from vancouver. real anti-vax country. she is unvaccinated and 5 months pregnant. she has covid and is in a hospital's covid isolation ward. she has a chair and a bag to barf in. everyone who has a bed is moaning and groaning and pressing their help buttons constantly and she hasn't been able to stop crying the whole time she's been in there. she's posting all over social media about how serious covid is and to get vaccinated. i wonder if she'll reach anyone

It's been increasingly obvious since last summer that 'long covid' will create a large number of long term debilitated people who may never fully recover and may have a shorter lifespan as a result. What's not clear is just how big that number might be. Tens of thousands? Hundreds of thousands? But medical systems worldwide are rather preoccupied right now with trying not to collapse entirely, so we'll have to wait a bit longer for answers to such questions.

🐦[24-year-old Chloe Mrozak from Illinois was arrested after allegedly using this fake #COVID19🕸 vaccine card to enter Hawaii and avoid travel restrictions — it says “Maderna” instead of “Moderna” @KITV4🕸 pic.twitter.com/1EWp3eG3OR🕸
— Tom George (@TheTomGeorge) September 1, 2021🕸]🐦

🐦[24-year-old Chloe Mrozak from Illinois was arrested after allegedly using this fake #COVID19🕸 vaccine card to enter Hawaii and avoid travel restrictions — it says “Maderna” instead of “Moderna” @KITV4🕸 pic.twitter.com/1EWp3eG3OR🕸
— Tom George (@TheTomGeorge) September 1, 2021🕸]🐦

What, me, vaccinate?

bitch i'm maderna

Xpost to boring exactly what I thought of

died and left behind six children under ten. Unvaccinated

opposed to any kind of prophylactic treatment, clearly

Q: maderna what?
A: maderna wet hen

Was Colin Hanks being interviewed for the Muppet News Network?

Colin Hanks reacts to his brother Chet's recent comments about not wanting the vaccine: "That's one person's opinion." https://t.co/H4YB8fDng2 pic.twitter.com/4KvrapyRPi

— Variety (@Variety) September 2, 2021

Democrats Refuse To Drink Water As It's Also Prescribed To Horseshttps://t.co/SWgBkrdnSF

— The Babylon Bee (@TheBabylonBee) September 2, 2021

some people say that conservatives aren't funny, I say they just have no idea how comedy works. they're bad at comedy the same way lizards are bad at basketball

lmao

Guys I think you either need some basic information about what prescriptions are or what jokes are.

— Tom Wallach, MD (@md_wallach) September 3, 2021