Coronavirus: COVID-19

jadis · 09-08-2021, 02:44 AM

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Originally Posted by adidasss

Also, since when is the liberal left suspicious of governing institutions? Weren't commies all about big government and nationalization and state run companies and the like and it's actually the libertarians who are the suspicious types?

Yes and no. Centralization and nationalization have indeed been central to most socialist* visions and projects, but there's usually the recognition that while the state is run by capitalists, its institutions are capitalist institutions and hence corrupt. It is more or less in this sense that Marx was hailed as one of the great "masters of suspicion" (alongside Freud and Nietzsche): he taught us to see social relations as defined by exploitation, domination, profit etc.

Once said institutions, the story goes, are liberated through revolution and become property of the people, then they are redeemed. But not yet.

Naturally, after the disasters in Eastern Europe and China, greater and greater portions of the left have abandoned the dream of a revolution that would overthrow capitalism and moved on to work on some localized projects while accepting the confines of the capitalist state.

The left after 2008, esp in the US, is a pretty weird creature though.

*In the US liberals and left overlap or are synonymous but in France for instance liberal means the pro-capital center-right. Historically, liberals and radicals are different groups with different goals.

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So your field is humanities and you are not a leftie? Weird.

Tbh I no longer know

Trollheart · 09-08-2021, 05:19 AM

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Originally Posted by The Batlord

Why do you start this post by implicitly trusting Joe Rogan and end by implicitly distrusting every other rich person? Do you not think Joe Rogan is rich?

And you've never heard of hypocrisy? Do as I say not as I do? Even Ron "Come on in Covid, you are welcome make yourself at home" De Santis is vaccinated! These people are happy to risk the health and lives of others, but when it comes to themselves, oh no: that's where they draw the line.

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Originally Posted by The Batlord

Go **** yourself.

Contender for Response of the Year 2021!

Guybrush · 09-08-2021, 05:54 AM

I think the rational approach at the moment is to understand that vaccines are not going to eradicate covid anytime soon and that there are more drugs that can and should be part of the solution.

There's a huge amount of studies going on to check various medications, as there should be. However, that is NOT a reason to skip vaccines.

The mRNa vaccine technology looks to me relatively safe, more so than the old way of making vaccines. Vaccines have the potential to lead to unwanted responses in the immune system, like a flu vaccine might lead to narcolepsis because part of the flu virus may be structurally similar to a protein involved in human sleep regulation. Training the body against that part of the virus may simultaneously train your body to attack itself in such a way that you develop narcolepsis. Side effects like these are typically rare, but sometimes still expected.

This new generation of mRNA vaccines don't use real viruses, instead focusing on mRNA codes for the very specific part of the virus that we want to train the immune system against (spike protein). For that reason, I expect them to be safer than older vaccine technologies.

TLDR; get your vaccine and then hope we can also find other ways to combat covid.

The Batlord · 09-08-2021, 06:02 AM

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Originally Posted by jadis

I've seen "white supremacy" used as one of the (perfectly random, imo) cudgels against those who are critical of some aspect of the authorities' handling of the pandemic. I was trying say that the left, of which you seem broadly representative, could use a bit more of their customary suspicion toward the governing institutions, including medicine. But whatever.

I do like the idea that I'm someone who listens to Joe Rogan though. I sometimes wish I would, seems like a fun way of life, but I can't take more than 15 seconds of his voice. He sounds like some guy on the bus who would sit next to you to start a conversation about car insurance rates and crop dusters.

It's part of the medical community trying to push ivermectin on people. It's not like it's an essential oil or something.

jadis · 09-08-2021, 06:55 AM

I dunno, give me the old school, workmanlike, boring-yet-serviceable Russian vaccine over this newfangled demonic concoction. I really see myself reading a NYT piece on Pfizer in a couple of years and learning from like the 7th paragraph that it was prepared on the basis of Jeffrey Epstein's DNA.

The Batlord · 09-08-2021, 07:09 AM

From what I understand they're not even using a weakened version of the virus in these new vaccines so it's supposed to be even safer? I mean sure "Big Pharma" are some pieces of **** but you have to be just as paranoid about grifters during a pandemic peddling snake oil.

Lisnaholic · 09-08-2021, 08:10 AM

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Originally Posted by Anteater

I apparently give more of a **** than you, since you keep asking stupid questions instead of using Google for more than 3 seconds.

Well, I'm guilty as charged as I haven't been dipping into any reports.

To me, the idea that invermectin can effectively treat covid symptoms is counter intuitive. Vaccines that are specifically designed to guard against an illness have been proved, historically as the best way to fight smallpox, polio, etc.
Why would a horse de-wormer work against a respiratory virus? In the past, who has treated their cold/flu/lung infection with something for (I presume) the bowels? No-one. And what countries or scientific institutes have committed to rolling out an ivermectin program? None, afaik. That's enough for me to trust the CDC (and their equivalents worldwide) to do the science, and their conclusion is that vaccines are the way to go.

Does Guybrush still have his memorable signature, "In the information age, ignorance is a choice." While that is true, one peril of the internet age is the idea that we should all of us be second-guessing every opinion issued from an expert or govmnt institution. From what I have seen of Rand Paul's floundering performances, many people seem to be forgetting this old adage: "a little knowledge is a dangerous thing."

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Originally Posted by Anteater

You are acting like a moron who just regurgitates whatever Pfizer wants you to hear...

This is surely from Conspiracy Theory 101 ? Undermine the other guy's argument by saying that he's being duped by "them" for commercial/political reasons.

Anteater · 09-08-2021, 08:24 AM

Lisna, the reason they're looking at ivermectin (for humans) is that the first two studies in Australia produced results. If they didn't, nobody else would have bothered launching large scale studies. It isn't counter-intuitive - anything that someone could take which could inhibit Covid-19 further even if you are vaccinated and still experience symptoms or have to get hospitalized is a good thing to have.

Also, it appears Rand Paul was actually right and that Fauci was not forthcoming about what was funded and why in regards to GOF research. The Intercept - New Details Emerge About Coronavirus Research at Chinese Lab

The Batlord · 09-08-2021, 09:05 AM

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Originally Posted by Lisnaholic

Well, I'm guilty as charged as I haven't been dipping into any reports.

To me, the idea that invermectin can effectively treat covid symptoms is counter intuitive. Vaccines that are specifically designed to guard against an illness have been proved, historically as the best way to fight smallpox, polio, etc.
Why would a horse de-wormer work against a respiratory virus? In the past, who has treated their cold/flu/lung infection with something for (I presume) the bowels? No-one. And what countries or scientific institutes have committed to rolling out an ivermectin program? None, afaik. That's enough for me to trust the CDC (and their equivalents worldwide) to do the science, and their conclusion is that vaccines are the way to go.

Does Guybrush still have his memorable signature, "In the information age, ignorance is a choice." While that is true, one peril of the internet age is the idea that we should all of us be second-guessing every opinion issued from an expert or govmnt institution. From what I have seen of Rand Paul's floundering performances, many people seem to be forgetting this old adage: "a little knowledge is a dangerous thing."

This is surely from Conspiracy Theory 101 ? Undermine the other guy's argument by saying that he's being duped by "them" for commercial/political reasons.

The horse paste thing is because it's a cheap, over the counter drug you can get for animals which is how a lot of people have gotten it, but it is a drug used for humans via prescription and is a general purpose anti-parasitic, not just a de-wormer. It has in fact been adopted by several poorer countries for covid bust mostly because those countries don't have widespread access to vaccines for obvious bull**** reasons.

As to its efficacy for covid it doesn't look great so far and several of the studies have been retracted and heavily criticized for being fraudulent and manipulating data. What is going on with these studies isn't clear at this point unfortunately. This is a pretty decent rundown.

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-02081-w

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The paper’s irregularities came to light when Jack Lawrence, a master’s student at the University of London, was reading it for a class assignment and noticed that some phrases were identical to those in other published work. When he contacted researchers who specialize in detecting fraud in scientific publications, the group found other causes for concern, including dozens of patient records that seemed to be duplicates, inconsistencies between the raw data and the information in the paper, patients whose records indicate they died before the study’s start date, and numbers that seemed to be too consistent to have occurred by chance.

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The paper’s withdrawal is not the first scandal to dog studies of ivermectin and COVID-19. Hill thinks many of the other ivermectin trial papers that he has scanned are likely to be flawed or statistically biased. Many rely on small sample sizes or were not randomized or well controlled, he says. And in 2020, an observational study of the drug was withdrawn after scientists raised concerns about it and a few other papers using data by the company Surgisphere that investigated a range of repurposed drugs against COVID-19. “We’ve seen a pattern of people releasing information that’s not reliable,” says Hill. “It’s hard enough to do work on COVID and treatment without people distorting databases.”

Lisnaholic · 09-08-2021, 09:07 AM

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Originally Posted by Anteater

It isn't counter-intuitive...

Well, it's still counter my intuition I'm afraid, Anteater

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- anything that someone could take which could inhibit Covid-19 further even if you are vaccinated and still experience symptoms or have to get hospitalized is a good thing to have.

Yes, no argument about the "good thing" sentiment.

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Also, it appears Rand Paul was actually right and that Fauci was not forthcoming about what was funded and why in regards to GOF research. The Intercept - New Details Emerge About Coronavirus Research at Chinese Lab

Yep, I'd accept that RP may score an occasional win, but more often we see Fauci teaching an eye surgeon about infectious diseases. Here's a clip I chose ,just because it's a short one....

EDIT: thanks for your more in-depth run down, Batlord. TBH, I'm surprised at your patience in looking into this issue in such detail. As is probably obvious, my attention span on the subject is best measured in nanoseconds.

09-08-2021, 05:54 AM	#3983 (permalink)
Guybrush Juicious Maximus III Join Date: Nov 2008 Location: Scabb Island Posts: 6,525	I think the rational approach at the moment is to understand that vaccines are not going to eradicate covid anytime soon and that there are more drugs that can and should be part of the solution. There's a huge amount of studies going on to check various medications, as there should be. However, that is NOT a reason to skip vaccines. The mRNa vaccine technology looks to me relatively safe, more so than the old way of making vaccines. Vaccines have the potential to lead to unwanted responses in the immune system, like a flu vaccine might lead to narcolepsis because part of the flu virus may be structurally similar to a protein involved in human sleep regulation. Training the body against that part of the virus may simultaneously train your body to attack itself in such a way that you develop narcolepsis. Side effects like these are typically rare, but sometimes still expected. This new generation of mRNA vaccines don't use real viruses, instead focusing on mRNA codes for the very specific part of the virus that we want to train the immune system against (spike protein). For that reason, I expect them to be safer than older vaccine technologies. TLDR; get your vaccine and then hope we can also find other ways to combat covid. __________________ Something Completely Different

09-08-2021, 06:55 AM	#3985 (permalink)
jadis Music Addict Join Date: Jun 2021 Location: dont ask Posts: 1,232	I dunno, give me the old school, workmanlike, boring-yet-serviceable Russian vaccine over this newfangled demonic concoction. I really see myself reading a NYT piece on Pfizer in a couple of years and learning from like the 7th paragraph that it was prepared on the basis of Jeffrey Epstein's DNA.