Wayland said:

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Daviewolf83 said:

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Very similar to the article Mormad posted, the following article in The Atlantic takes a similar tone, even discussing the idea of "harm reduction." As I have mentioned in a couple of recent posts, the messaging by Dr. Fauci and others really needs to improve and this article makes a very similar case. I encourage you to read this one, along with the article Mormad posted.

How the Public-Health Messaging Backfired

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The damage done by public health officials, politicians, and media is going to take years (maybe even decades, if ever) to unwind. (Not to mention social media).

The cult like absolutism of measures that were nothing more than theater while shaming anyone who tried to identify context or nuance was abhorrent.

There were never simple answers and yet questions and questioners were branded as 'deniers'.

I guess, it is nice to see some voices finally start to speak up with some reasoned takes. But where the hell were they for the last year?

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I think those people were there, but they were drowned out by the people and media who wanted to control the message. For example, you and I have fought the good fight on Twitter for months and months, trying to provide context to the messages on social media, where it was obvious some in the media were bent on selling a scary story to increase social media clicks and eyeballs on the nightly news.

The lie that WRAL continues to beat into people on a daily basis that they actually employee "data trackers" who are helping to provide the truth is one of the areas I have tried to fight. For months and months, I have tried to counter their scary Twitter headlines regarding the reporting of deaths on a daily basis - where they misleadingly report daily reported deaths as deaths in the last 24 hours. I have provided absolute proof in response that this is not the case and many times, their mindless followers attempt to question my data. The thing is - my data comes from NCDHHS, but I actually take the time to understand and analyze it - something WRAL and their "data trackers" never do. Only last night, after almost an entire year of misleading reporting, WRAL ran a story pointing out their "data trackers" just discovered that the daily reported deaths are lagged data and can cover deaths over several months.

Always remember this in the news business - bad news sells and ultimately, news outlets are in the business to make money. The more eyeballs they can generate, the more they can charge for advertising, and ultimately, the more more revenue they can bring in.

Mormad said:

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Dr Gandhi, to her credit, has spoken up since early in the process. She mentions in the interview her dismay over other local scientists not voicing their opinions regarding harm reduction and the criticism she received by speaking out. There have been plenty of voices of reason since the beginning, but those voices were either 1. Chosen to not be heard, 2. Or chosen to be deemed wrong (usually based on party lines, as she rightfully points out)

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Fair enough. Can I continue to blame public health officials, media, and politicians still for being high on the power and spotlight that the pandemic is bringing them.

Propagandizing fear and half truths instead of having a reasoned adult discussion about what we know and don't know at any given time and what the ACTUAL real world consequences of policy are?

Sure. Why not?

Daviewolf83 said:

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Wayland said:

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Daviewolf83 said:

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Very similar to the article Mormad posted, the following article in The Atlantic takes a similar tone, even discussing the idea of "harm reduction." As I have mentioned in a couple of recent posts, the messaging by Dr. Fauci and others really needs to improve and this article makes a very similar case. I encourage you to read this one, along with the article Mormad posted.

How the Public-Health Messaging Backfired

---

The damage done by public health officials, politicians, and media is going to take years (maybe even decades, if ever) to unwind. (Not to mention social media).

The cult like absolutism of measures that were nothing more than theater while shaming anyone who tried to identify context or nuance was abhorrent.

There were never simple answers and yet questions and questioners were branded as 'deniers'.

I guess, it is nice to see some voices finally start to speak up with some reasoned takes. But where the hell were they for the last year?

---

I think those people were there, but they were drowned out by the people and media who wanted to control the message. For example, you and I have fought the good fight on Twitter for months and months, trying to provide context to the messages on social media, where it was obvious some in the media were bent on selling a scary story to increase social media clicks and eyeballs on the nightly news.

The lie that WRAL continues to beat into people on a daily basis that they actually employee "data trackers" who are helping to provide the truth is one of the areas I have tried to fight. For months and months, I have tried to counter their scary Twitter headlines regarding the reporting of deaths on a daily basis - where they misleadingly report daily reported deaths as deaths in the last 24 hours. I have provided absolute proof in response that this is not the case and many times, their mindless followers attempt to question my data. The thing is - my data comes from NCDHHS, but I actually take the time to understand and analyze it - something WRAL and their "data trackers" never do. Only last night, after almost an entire year of misleading reporting, WRAL ran a story pointing out their "data trackers" just discovered that the daily reported deaths are lagged data and can cover deaths over several months.

Always remember this in the news business - bad news sells and ultimately, news outlets are in the business to make money. The more eyeballs they can generate, the more they can charge for advertising, and ultimately, the more more revenue they can bring in.

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I think I am just in a mood today as we come up to a year of this.

I have had so many good conversations with people across the political spectrum this year which has made me even more frustrated by our current political climate and its tribalism.


Oddly enough watching the West Wing (I had never seen it, so wife got me to watch it... through 2 seasons so far). I think the show does a pretty good job of (at least so far) in showing respect to disagreement and maybe I just crave more of that in our current society.

Important to remember that not only did some reasonable voices get drowned out they got cancelled. YouTube, Twitter was manipulating the COVID message even before they cracked down on republicans before and during the election.

Glad J&J got approval. Now, could you please ramp up your production and and get to the level you are supposed to be at? We would really appreciate it. Thanks in advance!

https://www.healio.com/news/infectious-disease/20210217/in-midst-of-covid19-us-sees-unusually-low-flu-activity?utm_source=selligent&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=news&M_BT=37352048074

Discusses the low flu rates and its implications

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2777023?guestAccessKey=5995d11c-a324-4be8-8d7a-4b87bfbee284&utm_source=silverchair&utm_campaign=jama_network&utm_content=covid_weekly_highlights&utm_medium=email

Article looking at LTCF vaccination rates among residents and staff

Most of our company got our second shot yesterday. It's collectively put a whooping on us. 2 guys called out with high fevers and flu symptoms. The rest are mostly achy and funky, but no fevers.

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3099(20)30982-8/fulltext

This is a great review of non-pharm interventions for covid, and the importance of viral inoculum.

I think i tried to explain this here months ago when some were arguing that "masks don't work for covid."

Lots of food for thought in this one. Lots of great info.

https://www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-226857/v1

Immunity after vaccination better than natural immunity, especially against the emerging variants.

PackPA2015 said:

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No, I agree. He better start picking up the production or they won't come close.

As far as delaying the first dose, I know the FDA had discussed delaying the second dose. I have not heard anything further than discussion on my end. Not sure if anyone else has any information on that.

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I did see that Pfizer submitted a recommendation to the FDA with regards to the delays between doses. They reportedly submitted this at the same time they submitted their information regarding no longer needing to transport and store the vaccine using ultra-cold temps. The FDA has accepted the cold temperature recommendation and the Pfizer vaccine can now be handled in the same way as the Moderna vaccine.

As to the recommendation regarding spacing out doses, the FDA has not ruled on this yet, as far as the information I can find, but it is supposed to be discussed later today. The spacing out of doses is a key reason why the UK has been able to get more doses into arms faster than the US (based on doses per 100 people measurements). The spacing out of doses topic is included in the following PDF, released ahead of the CDC meeting today:

Implementation considerations for COVID-19 Vaccines

As far as J&J manufacturing is concerned, the issue appears to be with their new Baltimore manufacturing facility. The 3.9M doses being distributed this week came from their Netherlands production facility and not the Baltimore facility. I have read the Baltimore facility, being a new facility, is going through facility start-up issues that are impacting the ability to produce the vaccine. Hopefully, they will get this sorted in the next week and they will begin to meet their commitments for the month of March and future months.

Based on the information that leaked out from insiders back in late December/early January, I am not surprised at all by J&J's production issues. At the time, it was reported they would only have 4-5M doses available and this seems to have been fairly accurate information.

As to overall supply, the US should receive a total of 240M doses by the end of March. This includes the 96M doses already distributed to the US and it includes the 20M dose estimate for the J&J vaccine.

Last, but not least, here is some good news on efficacy. Reports out of England, based on some new studies, indicate the AstraZeneca and Pfizer vaccines are reducing hospitalizations by 80% among those 70 years of age and older. Additionally, the Pfizer vaccine has reduced deaths by 85%. This is all really good news.

I'd consider almost 50% a good thing and it would seem to contradict dr. Fauci and his doom and gloom message.

And that doesn't count those that have at the very least some natural resistance due to having already been infected, which is an additional 28 million people (with there obviously being potential for overlap between those two groups). I made a similar point about a month ago, it's hard to look at those numbers and not feel as though we are very quickly approaching the back side of all of this.

Mormad said:

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https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3099(20)30982-8/fulltext

This is a great review of non-pharm interventions for covid, and the importance of viral inoculum.

I think i tried to explain this here months ago when some were arguing that "masks don't work for covid."

Lots of food for thought in this one. Lots of great info.

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The masks-don't-work crowd were/are angry about the guilt, virtue signaling, politicization and/or other fraught messaging or negatively impactful countermeasures like too-draconian shutdowns.

It was never about the science of mask-wearing, or the common sense conclusion that any physical barrier that cuts down on virus-out and virus-in is going to help even if you don't know exactly how much.

I think a small fraction struggle with uncertainty and fall into the "if you can't PROVE the true efficacy, then I'm going to assume the efficacy is zero" camp but I think they're a small portion.

I'm seeing nothing but good news unless I were to turn on the TV. I think we're about to kick this thing in the ass but our ruling class and media would rather us not know or feel that way. Power trip?

ncsualum05 said:

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I'm seeing nothing but good news unless I were to turn on the TV. I think we're about to kick this thing in the ass but our ruling class and media would rather us not know or feel that way. Power trip?

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I tell you what man, the media makes a living off of taking short positions on everything. It kills me.

If something is good, they'll report on all the things that MAY happen to make it go bad; if it's bad they'll report on all the things that MAY happen to make it worse.

Last week it was homebuilding (which is humming right now). The headline was screaming something like WORRIES START TO MOUNT FOR HOMEBUILDERS. And I was thinking, ***, I'm in the thick of the industry every damn day and have my ear to the ground and colleagues, while cautious, are not seeing warning signs around every corner.

Then you click on the article, and it was a description of all the positive signs in the industry, with a few caveats like "oh but, things won't be as positive if x or y goes in a different direction." There was literally not one worry on the part of homebuilders based on the current reality, just what-if scenarios that could upset the apple cart.

With Covid, if numbers are trending up it just means that things are terrible; if numbers are flat then they need to trend down; if they're trending down then variants or easing restrictions or whatever are just bound to make the trajectory of the virus take a sharp turn for the worse soon.

It's so negative and it honestly drives me ****ing crazy.

"It's so negative and it honestly drives me ****ing crazy. "

On that I think we all agree.

Cthepack said:

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What did the leading expert in the US say about masks in March 2020? Was he following science at the time or using common sense? You would have thought this would have been thought out prior to having an outbreak, again if just common sense.

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I wouldn't call Fauci the leading expert, although he is clearly the most visible government spokesman for the effort.

And he wasn't alone; the WHO and CDC had similar stances before changing course.

My strong suspicion is that they feared a catastrophic shortage of PPE for front-line medical staff if the virus surged exponentially and everyone panicked and gobbled up every N95 in sight. They therefore hedged, and issued guidance that didn't recommend mask-wearing unless you had COVID or were caring for someone who did.

Nothing else makes sense; we've worn masks for decades in surgical settings and when patients with infectious diseases are being cared for. We know masks are beneficial in these settings, so what would the impetus be for the CDC/WHO to issue alternative guidance, if not to try to ensure that front-line staff had the protection they desperately needed?

Good thing that we all were wearing masks (for almost a year now) and the virus did what the virus was going to do anyway...