OT: The Official COVID/Omicron Variant+ thread

[Clyde_Style]

Read on Twitter

https://int.nyt.com/data/documenttools/letitia-james-trump-filing-january-18-2022/e4038cab1ecf788a/full.pdf

I said it all the way back in 2017 that Ivanka was at the heart of much of Trump’s real estate fraud. Now it is finally coming to light. This is about false valuations, but she was also at the heart of schemes to launder foreign money using Trump properties. Some of that may come out later. If you start to hear about Felix Sater again, then it could be in the works.

Also, this all should lead back to Justice Kennedy whose son with the primary banker at DB handling the Trump accounts. There is reasonable speculation that Kennedy was bought out in order to retire early so the GOP could fill his seat ASAP. It was always very fishy.

DB made loans to Trump that they knew he would not pay back. Why? Because the theory is they were collateralized by laundered Kremlin money that would cover their losses. In effect, DB funded Trump on behalf of the Russians.

Read on Twitter

Read on Twitter

[Pointgod]

You don’t get a regular flu shot every fall and a tetanus shot every seven?

No. Why would I get a flu shot? It's the flu! Tetanus I get because usually every five years or so I would get hurt at work(construction)...and they would ask. Then I get it. I think I have another year left since my last tetanus actually. I'm due for an injury soon. what's your point? Those things actually work.

If you had just left that part out.

The COVID vaccines actually work at a very high efficiency rate. Where do you get this misinformation from? Post a citation to a legitimate scientific journal that backs you up. I'll wait.

Also, the statistics show that the overwhelming hospitalizations are coming from the unvaccinated. How do you explain that under your theory?

Guys vaccines work. Get vaccinated. It’s pretty simple. Again get vaccinated. Even acting selfishly it’s in your best interest to get vaccinated and boosted.

Read on Twitter

[Clyde_Style]

No. Why would I get a flu shot? It's the flu! Tetanus I get because usually every five years or so I would get hurt at work(construction)...and they would ask. Then I get it. I think I have another year left since my last tetanus actually. I'm due for an injury soon. what's your point? Those things actually work.

If you had just left that part out.

The COVID vaccines actually work at a very high efficiency rate. Where do you get this misinformation from? Post a citation to a legitimate scientific journal that backs you up. I'll wait.

Also, the statistics show that the overwhelming hospitalizations are coming from the unvaccinated. How do you explain that under your theory?

Guys vaccines work. Get vaccinated. It’s pretty simple. Again get vaccinated. Even acting selfishly it’s in your best interest to get vaccinated and boosted.

Read on Twitter

The odds of having complications, especially Long Covid, are comparatively low when you’re vaccinated. The anti-vax arguments repeatedly skirt over this. And some whom are not necessarily anti-vax obsess about who gets infected, but the real story is the efficacy of most of these vaccines IF YOU DO GET INFECTED. That should be the real takeaway.

[Jethrobodine123]

https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/19/politics/supreme-court-trump-white-house-docs/index.html

Supreme Court clears the way for House to get Trump White House documents

This is a big one, they will have access to all those documents and contacts to and from the Whitehouse.

J

[HarthorneWingo]

https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/19/politics/supreme-court-trump-white-house-docs/index.html

Supreme Court clears the way for House to get Trump White House documents

This is a big one, they will have access to all those documents and contacts to and from the Whitehouse.

J

Hopefully they’ve been preserved.

[Jose7]

who ever talked about posting sauces...scientific journals are and always have been financed by people who push what they want to be pushed..their agendas, not necessarily truths...

[Clyde_Style]

https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/19/politics/supreme-court-trump-white-house-docs/index.html

Supreme Court clears the way for House to get Trump White House documents

This is a big one, they will have access to all those documents and contacts to and from the Whitehouse.

J

It’s big also because SCOTUS is not shielding Trump. He’s on his own now

[HarthorneWingo]

I’m hearing rumblings about Biden taking us to war against Russia over Ukraine. WTF? Anyone have more info?

[Clyde_Style]

I’m hearing rumblings about Biden taking us to war against Russia over Ukraine. WTF? Anyone have more info?

I don’t know what’s going to happen, but it is a seriously chitty situation for Biden to be in after Trump destabilized America’s role in NATO and undermined our presence in Europe to appease Putin. When you say go to war there can’t be a unilateral action by the U.S. against Russia. It will still have to involve NATO.

[Pointgod]

I’m hearing rumblings about Biden taking us to war against Russia over Ukraine. WTF? Anyone have more info?

Pretty sure those rumblings you hear is gas.

[Pointgod]

If you had just left that part out.

The COVID vaccines actually work at a very high efficiency rate. Where do you get this misinformation from? Post a citation to a legitimate scientific journal that backs you up. I'll wait.

Also, the statistics show that the overwhelming hospitalizations are coming from the unvaccinated. How do you explain that under your theory?

Guys vaccines work. Get vaccinated. It’s pretty simple. Again get vaccinated. Even acting selfishly it’s in your best interest to get vaccinated and boosted.

Read on Twitter

The odds of having complications, especially Long Covid, are comparatively low when you’re vaccinated. The anti-vax arguments repeatedly skirt over this. And some whom are not necessarily anti-vax obsess about who gets infected, but the real story is the efficacy of most of these vaccines IF YOU DO GET INFECTED. That should be the real takeaway.

Read on Twitter

[HarthorneWingo]

I’m hearing rumblings about Biden taking us to war against Russia over Ukraine. WTF? Anyone have more info?

I don’t know what’s going to happen, but it is a seriously chitty situation for Biden to be in after Trump destabilized America’s role in NATO and undermined our presence in Europe to appease Putin. When you say go to war there can’t be a unilateral action by the U.S. against Russia. It will still have to involve NATO.

I understand that Putin sees America as in a weakened position after 1/6/21. Gee, wonder if there is any connection? (thinking gif)

[HarthorneWingo]

https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/19/politics/supreme-court-trump-white-house-docs/index.html

Supreme Court clears the way for House to get Trump White House documents

This is a big one, they will have access to all those documents and contacts to and from the Whitehouse.

J

It’s big also because SCOTUS is not shielding Trump. He’s on his own now

Trump may be on his own but SCOTUS has now picked up the ball and doing a lot of the dirty work. They don't need Trump anymore to accomplish their goals. Trump served his purpose and now he's expendable. It's that simple.

[HarthorneWingo]

who ever talked about posting sauces...scientific journals are and always have been financed by people who push what they want to be pushed..their agendas, not necessarily truths...

Really? Like the New England Journal of Medicine?

Why don't you be a little more specific?

[HarthorneWingo]

Biden and Schumer are fcking pathetic. If we can't overrule the filibuster for voting rights, then fully enforce the filibuster. There is no "rule" change voted on and adopted by the Senate that the filibuster no longer has to be a spoken filibuster. It's just a practice that they began in the late 70s because they just got tired of the speaking filibuster. But the rule hasn't changed in that regard. Schumer just has to enforce it and he doesn't need a vote by the entire Senate or any portion thereof to do so.

When I said "weak tea" during the primary and general elections when referring to Biden, this is exactly what I meant. At least Bernie publicly called these democratic senators out by name; came up with an alternative plan to get portions of the BBB bill passed; and came up with the plan and authored the legislative bill to provide N95 masks free to the public that's gained a lot of support.

This is how lame, stupid, and out of it Biden is:

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/biden-admits-he-didnt-anticipate-stalwart-gop-opposition_n_61e881b1e4b0a864b07b6d98

President Joe Biden admitted Wednesday he did not anticipate “stalwart” Republican opposition to his presidency, after repeatedly claiming during his presidential bid the GOP would have an “epiphany” during his tenure in office.

“I did not anticipate that there would be such a stalwart effort to make sure that the most important thing was that President Biden didn’t get anything done,” Biden said during a press conference on Wednesday, the day before his one-year anniversary in office.

The man who spent 30 years in the Senate and 8 years in the White House under Obama wants us to believe that he had no clue that Republicans would push to see his administration fail. Biden saw it first hand for 8 years as VP. Did he think that they only did to Barack was because he was Black?

Biden foolishly ran on bipartisanship even though NO REPUBLICANS had indicated that they were ready to drop Trump and work with Democrats. How astoundingly naive can one lifetime politician be?

Edit: I found this video from David Doel after I posted the above comment. Just sayin’

Watch on YouTube

If Marianne Williamson runs as a Democrat, she'll have my vote.

[HarthorneWingo]

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/eric-trump-5th-amendment-trump-organization-probe_n_61e88f07e4b01f707dabfbb7

Eric Trump and Trump Organization Chief Financial Officer Allen Weisselberg invoked their Fifth Amendment rights more than 500 times when questioned by the New York attorney general’s office for its investigation into the company’s finances, according to a Tuesday court filing.

“Eric Trump then invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination in response to more than 500 questions over six hours," the filing says of an Oct. 5, 2020, interview with former President Donald Trump’s son.

Weisselberg reportedly did so during an interview on Sept. 24, 2020: “After answering a number of preliminary questions, Allen Weisselberg invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination to more than 500 questions over five-and-a-half hours.”

[RandlesCornrows]

Us been fighting commies the last 300 years to only become one

[Appleshampoo]

Us been fighting commies the last 300 years to only become one

Tell us where the commies touched you

[Appleshampoo]

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/15/health/mrna-vaccine.html?searchResultPosition=1


I read this in the paper Sunday. The print had a better headline: Decades of Discovery Before Sprint to Vaccine.

I never knew the vaccine was an accumulation of a bunch of different studies in different fields, including research on a cure for AIDS, and spanned so many years. I wish I had understood this while anti-vaccine friends told me they don’t trust how quickley the vaccine developed.

NYT might still give 5 free articles a month. Interesting info that I will try to summarize:

1. Discovery of mRNA 60-years ago. A genetic molecule that helps cells make protein. Decades later scientist pursue using mRNA to make tiny pieces of viruses that strengthen the immune system.

2. Meanwhile, gene therapy biotech look for a way to protect fragile molecules and safely deliver to human cells

3. 1996 USA. AIDS has killed 350,000 Americans and 6 million people worldwide. Bill Clinton invites crazed Aunts arch nemesis, Anthony Fauci, for a briefing. Clinton said to Fauci “you’ve known about AIDS since 1981 how come there is no vaccine yet.” Fauci says efforts are unorganized, pitches a research lab, and Clinton agrees. The Vaccine Research Center in Maryland is born.

4. They detail atomic structure of a HIV spike that allows it shape shift and spread to more human cells. They look for parts of the spike the immune system best recognizes and can block. Try to recreate it. The research failed to find a vaccination for HIV.

5. HIV cells rapidly change. In 2008, a scientist decided to take the research to a more manageable virus. Teams with a scientist working on HIV and a respiratory illness called R.S.V.. they research a protein that helps viruses merge with cells and learn how to contain it.

6. Flashback to 1950, mRNA molecule is known to help make protein but they don’t know how the genetic code finds the cell database. In 1960, scientists figure out the messenger is a molecule called X. pronounced Eeks because these scientist were from Fournier’s homeland.

7. X carries copies of the DNA code to ribosomes, cell components that read code and pump the decoded proteins. Molecule messenger RNA. It is difficult to isolate and easily falls apart. The research sits for decades because of this.

8. It is 1998. Up to that point commercial vaccines carried modified viruses or pieces of them to train the immune system to attack it. A Hungarian scientist studying at Penn theorizes mRNA can coerce a cell to create any type of protein, insulin to the spike of a virus, as long as they know it’s genetic code. She teams with a PENN virologist and they feel they're on to something. mRNA vaccines could carry instructions that teach body cells to pump their own viral proteins. This could better mimic a real infection and prompt the immune system to build stronger defense.

9. Eventually mRNA becomes easier to isolate but is making test rats sick. The immune system sees mRNA as an evading pathogen. The rats become ill and the mRNA destroyed.

10. They discover cells protect their own mRNA with a chemical modification. They tried making the same modification to the mRNA before injecting it into cells. It worked. They successfully got cells to accept mRNA. *I would like to learn more about the chemical modification.

11. Drs Kariko and Weissman knew the molecules must be shielded in the bloodstream to prevent degradation and work as a vaccine.

12. Team in Vancouver, led by Dr Culliss studies biological membranes. The outer layer of fat, called lipids, encases trillions of cells. They want to create their own lipids to encase drugs and genetic material to transport to cells.


13. The test fat was way bigger then body cells and some of the man made lipids had electric charges with a form of toxicity that ripped cell membranes apart. They found a way to manipulate the positive charge to disappear once injected into the bloodstream. *reasonable to have questions about this

14. Kariko and Weismann hear about this but are the midst of business disputes with each other. Cullis reluctantly agreed to allow vaccine creators to use the lipids. They encase vaccines but still nobody knows the precise genetic code needed for a MERS vaccine.

15. The team from 5 at the Vaccine Research Center are focused on coronavirus in 2013 with MERS and SARS and HBU1 before it. MERS spiked a lot like HIV meaning it shape shifts and is difficult to isolate and harder to find an effective vaccine. So they looked at electron images of frozen HBU1 proteins. The first time seeing a coronavirus before it latched onto cells.

16. Loose joints are identified and two stiff amino acids are inserted in this model. The entire thing became more rigid. MERS disappears before they could use the info and the entire thing was buried in a 2017 patent filing.

17. Covid-19 entered the world. The same type of pathogen. Decades of work provided a framework for effective covid vaccines.

Its amazing how scientist remain persistent. They have theories and convictions that take years to prove. More years to see real life application. Some don't see any recognition. Kind of like Knicks fans.

Also I see how my parent's kind of rich friend got his theory that Covid was Fauci's next hit job after inventing AIDS and SARS to get wealthy. It's a lazy interpretation of details that strokes ego and sells humanity short. Amazing things and good people are possible.

I am not a scientist or virologist or anything close. I sell IT for a living. Just a dude with the Sunday paper and a highlighter. Much of the points are direct from passages in the article. This summary was longer than I anticipated.

[ellobo]

Latest overview from Katelyn Jetelina, aka Your Local Epidemiologist:
https://yourlocalepidemiologist.substack.com/p/state-of-affairs-jan-18

Some key points:

Last week the World Health Organization reported more than 15 million cases of COVID19, which is so high that they had to change the y-axis scale of their epi curve. During the WHO press conference, one advisor said, “In 30 years working on infectious diseases we have not seen an epidemic curve like this before.”

But, no matter where Omicron goes, it’s clear that these severe cases are largely among the unvaccinated. For example, the Intensive Care National Audit & Research Centre in the U.K. updated their analysis of COVID-19 patients in the ICU in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland. The figure below says a thousand words. (For those of you looking for absolute risks, go here. For example, the 5-year risk of ICU among boosted is less than 0.01% across all age groups now).



Our World in Data reports the death rate of 15 countries by vaccine status. It doesn’t take too long on this page to see how well vaccines are working, even during the Omicron wave. For example, Switzerland now reports deaths by booster status and the story is also clear.

And, just like other countries, vaccines continue to work. For example, the graphs of daily hospitalizations in New York State and Nebraska are worth a thousand words. Hospitalizations and deaths among the vaccinated aren’t even a blip on Oregon’s graph, too.

New York State:


Nebraska:

And here's a very interesting post about the most recent research regarding rapid antigen tests and how to use them.

https://yourlocalepidemiologist.substack.com/p/antigen-tests-real-world-data

Key quotes:

Be careful with negatives in the beginning of infection
...This study tells us that we need to be super careful when using rapid tests in the first few days of exposure or infection. To get the most from your rapid test, wait at least 48 hours after symptoms and 5 days after exposure before taking an antigen test. If you’re negative, test again 24 hours thereafter. You can certainly test sooner, but any negative results will be unreliable. A positive antigen test result, on the other hand, is very reliable right now, especially after exposure or with symptoms.

(For the record, the CDC rapid testing website FAQ section advises testing 5 days after close contact or as soon as you begin feeling symptoms. We think it’s better to wait a bit longer after symptoms.)

Antigen tests work really well thereafter

The second “real world” study compared nasal antigen tests with nasal PCR tests among 731 people in San Francisco from January 3-4, 2022. The scientists evaluated how well the BinaxNOW rapid antigen tests performed compared to PCR at a community-based testing site. What did they find?

Overall, 296 of 731 (40.5%) tested positive on the PCR.

Among people with a positive PCR with no symptoms (59 people), antigen tests detected 53 positive. This equated to a sensitivity of 89.8% .

Among people with a positive PCR who were symptomatic, the sensitivity of antigen tests was 97.6%.

The likelihood of a false positive was very small (432 of 435 PCR negatives were correctly identified as negative by rapid tests).

You’re infectious for longer than 5 days

The third study evaluated how Omicron infection was (or was not) different from Delta infection among National Basketball Association players—a highly vaccinated population that is tested daily. Specifically, scientists evaluated 97 tests confirmed from the Omicron variant and 107 from the Delta variant and compared how the tests varied on a myriad of factors (viral load, length of infection, etc.). Samples were all collected using dual swabs (nose and throat) and evaluated with PCR. What did they find?

Omicron infection lasted, on average, 10 days. This is comparable to Delta infections which lasted, on average, 11 days.

Many people cleared the virus faster and others clear the virus much slower.

Roughly 50% of people still had a high viral levels at Day 5 (meaning they were likely infectious).

[From a separate modeling study from the UK]:

Bottom line: Use antigen tests. Use antigen tests. Use antigen tests. Do so wisely.

Be aware of false negatives in the early stages of infection, and know that it can take several days after symptoms for the virus to take hold in your nose. Once you reach the tipping point, rapid tests are a reliable way to detect and monitor your infection.

Trust your positive test during the Omicron wave.

If at all possible, do not leave isolation without testing (I don’t care what the CDC says). If you can’t access tests, assume you are contagious for 10 days, and act accordingly.