OT: COVID-19 thread #4

[Dresden]

I think there appear to be good reasons to want more of an investigation into the origins - however, it’s also incredibly reasonable to not want people jumping to conclusions.

There are a lot of people who want the lab-spread theory to be (or not be) true in order to perpetuate their own personal political narratives - and that’s unhelpful.

Most people i heard theorizing about this early on had little to no understanding of genome sequencing, virology or human-to-animal transmission - they just hear something and decide “that sounds good to me”, and go with it. So it makes complete sense to be reserved in our approach. there are legitimate concerns. Because even if this originated in a lab, it won’t justify the amount of anti-Asian and anti-Chinese hate crimes that sprung up as a result of these narratives

Totally agree that nothing can justify the anti-Asian or anti-Chinese actions of a few morons. Anybody who takes out their anger or frustrations on Asian-Americans or Chinese-Americans or the innocent people in those Asian countries or China should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. I think all that sentiment was fueled by Trump and some of his anti-Chinese rhetoric. It's unfortunate that many people want the lab leak theory proven true to justify their bigotry or anti-Asian sentiments, however, by the same token, a great number of people want it proven false just because they don't want Trump (or a number of other right wing politicians or Fox News) to be right about it. We just need the truth and for all the politics to be put aside.

and then there are those of us who don't particularly care about the truth, think that wuhan/china bear some responsibility for irresponsible practices either way, and don't think that discovering the true origin will likely matter when it comes to preventing future pandemics

there's no doubt in my mind that the public thirst to find an answer is largely a product of primal revenge bloodlust. as opposed to some noble pursuit of truth/prevention

That's undoubtedly part of the equation, just as the effort to "prove" Iraq had WMD's was propelled by our desire to lash out at someone over 9/11, which blinded many to the facts, even those who should have known better, like our policy makers.

[Dresden]

The only thing I believe right now, is there is someone out there right now who has a pretty good idea how this all started.

If it started with a lab leak, then yes. If it came from the wild, then it's quite possible no one really knows yet the true source, or who "patient zero" is.

[dice]

Totally agree that nothing can justify the anti-Asian or anti-Chinese actions of a few morons. Anybody who takes out their anger or frustrations on Asian-Americans or Chinese-Americans or the innocent people in those Asian countries or China should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. I think all that sentiment was fueled by Trump and some of his anti-Chinese rhetoric. It's unfortunate that many people want the lab leak theory proven true to justify their bigotry or anti-Asian sentiments, however, by the same token, a great number of people want it proven false just because they don't want Trump (or a number of other right wing politicians or Fox News) to be right about it. We just need the truth and for all the politics to be put aside.

and then there are those of us who don't particularly care about the truth, think that wuhan/china bear some responsibility for irresponsible practices either way, and don't think that discovering the true origin will likely matter when it comes to preventing future pandemics

there's no doubt in my mind that the public thirst to find an answer is largely a product of primal revenge bloodlust. as opposed to some noble pursuit of truth/prevention

That's undoubtedly part of the equation, just as the effort to "prove" Iraq had WMD's was propelled by our desire to lash out at someone over 9/11, which blinded many to the facts, even those who should have known better, like our policy makers.

the search for bin laden and invasion of afghanistan should've satisfied that urge. the reality is that the neocons were looking for an excuse to take out saddam and gain a foothold in the middle east long before 9/11. 9/11 and WMDs were always just a transparently pathetic and fraudulent excuse, it's probably a good thing that we effed up iraq so badly, or it would've been on to iran after that. and that's a much bigger can of worms

[Dresden]

and then there are those of us who don't particularly care about the truth, think that wuhan/china bear some responsibility for irresponsible practices either way, and don't think that discovering the true origin will likely matter when it comes to preventing future pandemics

there's no doubt in my mind that the public thirst to find an answer is largely a product of primal revenge bloodlust. as opposed to some noble pursuit of truth/prevention

That's undoubtedly part of the equation, just as the effort to "prove" Iraq had WMD's was propelled by our desire to lash out at someone over 9/11, which blinded many to the facts, even those who should have known better, like our policy makers.

the search for bin laden and invasion of afghanistan should've satisfied that urge. the reality is that the neocons were looking for an excuse to take out saddam and gain a foothold in the middle east long before 9/11. 9/11 and WMDs were always just a transparently pathetic and fraudulent excuse, it's probably a good thing that we effed up iraq so badly, or it would've been on to iran after that. and that's a much bigger can of worms

Not to get too far off topic here, but no matter what the underlying reasons policy makers had for invading Iraq, they still had to sell it to the public, and one of the arguments they made was that Iraq was hosting Al Queda members. they also used the idea of a WMD attack against the US mainland, which has special resonance coming so soon after 9-11.

I don't think anyone is going to start a war with China over the Covid pandemic, but I do think the lab origin theory is being used by the right to further demonize China. We've seen the results of this in the increased attacks against Asian Americans in the US.

Also, while there has been a lot of evidence pointing to the lab leak hypothesis in the press lately, it's overlooked that there is also a huge amount of evidence pointing to the origins of Covid occurring "naturally", the same way every other pandemic in human history has started.

Dr. Shi is being cast almost in the same light as "Chemical Ali", which is a shame. She and her team were the ones that discovered the origins of the SARS outbreak, and have been working tirelessly since that time to research coronaviruses and the bats that host them. They've done a lot of hard, dangerous work collecting samples throughout China. And the studies they conducted were no more risky than those being done at NIH labs here in the US. Because of her prior knowledge of coronaviruses she was also the first to decode the Covid 19 genome, which has allowed vaccine to be developed. Her work was so important that she was elected to the US Academy of Microbiologists, a high honor for a Chinese scientist. Maybe it will turn out that she has been part of a vast coverup, but until more proof exists for that, I think she deserves the benefit of the doubt.

[Dresden]

The report from the US about the origins of Covid is due any day now, and more articles will be coming out soon:

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/24/health/coronavirus-origins-alina-chan.html

[Dresden]

Curious if anyone who has been vaccinated has contracted Covid, and if so, how bad was it?

[Bullflip]

Curious if anyone who has been vaccinated has contracted Covid, and if so, how bad was it?

I haven’t but a friend of mine did. She actually got it twice. The first time she got it, she was not vaccinated yet and she ended up staying in the hospital for almost a week, with the first day in the ICU. She recently got it a second time but she has been vaccinated already so she basically just had a slight fever and a cold for like two days. The first time she got it, it was very hard to breathe.

[DuckIII]

Curious if anyone who has been vaccinated has contracted Covid, and if so, how bad was it?

Not me but I know a few vaccinated people who have since gotten COVID. They all had the same symptoms. Felt like a cold for a few days accompanied by terribly painful headaches. Passed in 3-4 days.

[Michael Jackson]

Curious if anyone who has been vaccinated has contracted Covid, and if so, how bad was it?

Not me but I know a few vaccinated people who have since gotten COVID. They all had the same symptoms. Felt like a cold for a few days accompanied by terribly painful headaches. Passed in 3-4 days.

Yeah I had two friends who were vexed and got Covid since then. Neither were too bad but obviously had to quarantine away from work. My one friend lost taste for 3 days and was congested sounding for a week. He did not get tested until after he quarantine to go back to work and he tested negative at that point, but symptoms say it was Covid.

[Dresden]

Glad to hear that nobody has gotten seriously ill who was vaccinated.

Meanwhile, the report delivered to Biden appears to be inconclusive, as was likely:

"The director of national intelligence on Tuesday delivered a report to President Biden on the origins of the coronavirus epidemic, according to U.S. officials, but the nation’s spy agencies have not yet concluded whether the disease was the result of an accidental leak from a lab or if it emerged naturally in a spillover from animals to humans."
...
"Current and former officials have repeatedly warned that finding the precise origins of the pandemic may be more of a job for scientists than spies."

From the NYT...

[TheStig]

The only thing I believe right now, is there is someone out there right now who has a pretty good idea how this all started.

If it started with a lab leak, then yes. If it came from the wild, then it's quite possible no one really knows yet the true source, or who "patient zero" is.

Watch on YouTube

[TheStig]

This won't be popular but this thing will continue to get worse. We have a vaccine that doesn't kill the virus, it weakens its effects. This virus will continue to mutate and get worse. It will only get better when we develop heard immunity or have a vaccine that kills the virus.

[TheEndIsNigh]

This won't be popular but this thing will continue to get worse. We have a vaccine that doesn't kill the virus, it weakens its effects. This virus will continue to mutate and get worse. It will only get better when we develop heard immunity or have a vaccine that kills the virus.

Vaccines don't kill virus'.

Vaccines do help prevent run away replication of the virus, which reduces the potential for mutation.

Vaccines do in fact reduce the probability of infection as well, I've been watching the regional data in my are and this is very clear.

Virus when they do mutate tend to mutate into more transmissbale and less dey variants. Unfortunately D variant is extraordinarily transmissbale already, so it doesnt have the same kind of environmental pressure to mutate that way.

Almost every statement you made is wrong.

[TheStig]

This won't be popular but this thing will continue to get worse. We have a vaccine that doesn't kill the virus, it weakens its effects. This virus will continue to mutate and get worse. It will only get better when we develop heard immunity or have a vaccine that kills the virus.

Vaccines don't kill virus'.

Vaccines do help prevent run away replication of the virus, which reduces the potential for mutation.

Vaccines do in fact reduce the probability of infection as well, I've been watching the regional data in my are and this is very clear.

Virus when they do mutate tend to mutate into more transmissbale and less dey variants. Unfortunately D variant is extraordinarily transmissbale already, so it doesnt have the same kind of environmental pressure to mutate that way.

Almost every statement you made is wrong.

https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.1002198#sec002

[coldfish]

This won't be popular but this thing will continue to get worse. We have a vaccine that doesn't kill the virus, it weakens its effects. This virus will continue to mutate and get worse. It will only get better when we develop heard immunity or have a vaccine that kills the virus.

I have posted this before but I'll repeat. If you want to know the future, look to the past.

In 1890, the russian flu pandemic was most likely the coronavirus OC43 jumping from cows to humans. When you read the reports, it looks identical to today. It hit older people the hardest. People died of pneumonia. Same symptom list including loss of taste and smell. Long haulers.

The pandemic lasted for 5 years circulating the globe in waves and basically "disappeared". Except it didn't. OC43 is still around and infects people every few years and shows up as the cold that Duck just mentioned above although it can kill when it gets in a nursing home.

That's probably what is going to happen here.

Side note, they also studied the coronavirus 229E. They found that it infects the average person every 2 to 3 years. Its mutation rate is such that antibodies from 18 years ago no longer work against the current circulating version. Again, this can probably be expected for SARS-Cov-2.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7252012/

[DuckIII]

Do any of you guys have kids who attend “mask optional”
schools in Illinois who play sports?

We have an interesting thing going on in my region of Southern Illinois. One school district in our conference, Vandalia, rejected the mask mandate and went mask optional at all their schools. The IHSA just announced that any school rejecting the ISBE/IDPH mask mandate cannot compete in any state-series tournaments and any team playing a conference game against such a school can simply choose to not play them and card a forfeit win.

Just curious if anyone is living this issue right now and if you have any indication whether those schools are going to accept the mask mandate.

[ATRAIN53]

Curious if anyone who has been vaccinated has contracted Covid, and if so, how bad was it?

a couple of my friends are starting to get it from their kids that can't get vaccinated yet.

both of them will tell you they are glad they got vaccinated and didn't get any sicker than they did.
one of them is a iron man/triathalon dude and in the best shape of any person I've seen. He said it kicked his ass but knows it could have been much worse if he wasn't vaxed.

my kid is 14 and vaxed, but my wife teaches middle school with kids ages 11-14, so about 1/3 of her school isn't vaccinated due to the ages. i think it's only a matter of time before she gets it and brings it home. dozens of cases already at the school. we're counting on the vax to do it's job because I really don't have any other option.

[Dresden]

I wonder if getting COvid after you have been vaxed is like getting a booster shot of the vaccine. Your body should develop even more resistance to it based on that exposure.

[Chi town]

From family and friends...

- Had a 42 yr old healthy friend get COVID and was knocked out for over two weeks. Could barely get out of bed. Lots taste for a couple months. Fully recovered.

- 75yr old mother in law had COVID and she was tired for a week. Lost taste and still has not gotten it back 9 months later.

- My parents in mid 60s both had COVID and were tired for a couple days. No issues since.

- Lots of healthy friends in 20s, 30s, and 40s have had COVID without any major symptoms or hospitalizations

- Know several healthy friends in 30's and 40's that have been vaccinated and then gotten COVID. Same symptoms but less harsh. One cousin had COVID, recovered, got vaccinated, got COVID again and the symptoms were worse the 2nd time

- Lots of vaccinated friends have said they had 24hr strong reactions on the 2nd shot. Fevers etc. Doctors have said this is good for antibodies

- Had a client go MIA last week... was with his nephew in the ER. Healthy 30 year old who got the vaccine and within 24 hours had a blood clot in his hit lungs go straight to his brain. He is now paralyzed from the neck on down. Doctors believe he will regain movement in the next month

- Had two family friends in their mid 70s get the vaccine and within 3 days had a blood clot in their lungs... both past.

I'm talking to lots of medical professionals working on the front lines. What is always communicated to me is what is killing people is COVID combined with pneuomonia. Mostly people don't treat COVID right away and then it grows/becomes pneomonia which takes their breathing.

The other thing always mentioned is obesity. I read 80% of the people hospitalized and deceased have been obese.

[Chi town]

I wonder if getting COvid after you have been vaxed is like getting a booster shot of the vaccine. Your body should develop even more resistance to it based on that exposure.

I read an Israeli study that showed 7x's stronger antibodies from getting COVID over getting the vaccine.