JUST IN - Federal Court of Appeals just issued a temporary halt to Biden’s vaccine mandate, Texas Governor Abbott announces.

— Disclose.tv (@disclosetv) November 6, 2021

Even some fellow Wolfpackers love this authoritarianism! I can' wait for full vaccination mandates and maybe ole Joe and his Globalist handlers require at least 3 or 4 masks....and children get to wear only 2,.

Daviewolf83 said:

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Wayland said:

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Hotspots are kind of great lakes and northern NE.

I heard a comment recently out of a talking head about low cases in CT and knowing that VT and NH are experiencing major case growth wanted to take a look. And, yes, CT, RI, and MA have not been increasing the way VT, NH, and ME have. Is it because seroprevalence or the seasonality hasn't rolled in yet? Certainly, to this point CT, RI, and MA have been much harder hit. Will be interesting to watch... if CT and RI stay low... could be another sign that broader infection immunity is there.

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I noticed the same thing when I was researching the national rise in cases over the past few days. I was in NY two out of three weeks in October and noticed Fall colors were not any further along than what we see in our area of NC. When I asked, a couple of native NY's told me the Fall colors were behind schedule due to a warmer than normal Fall. I suspect this is what is causing the delay in cases in NY, Conn, NJ and less existing immunity. Also, it does not appear to be related to mask mandates. In both areas of NY I visited, I saw little evidence of mask mandates. It was similar to NC and in Syracuse, I would say it was more similar to towns in Wake Co. that have no mask mandate.

We will see how it goes over the next couple of weeks. Even with higher immunity than last year, I do expect cases to rise as the weather turns cooler, given the amount of testing being conducted around the country. The thing I will be watching more closely than cases, is hospitalizations. This is where I do expect immunity to have more of an impact. Cases will occur, even when there is high immunity from vaccine and previous infection. As I have always maintained, hospitalizations are a much better measure for how Covid might be impacting us than cases. The UK demonstrates clearly that cases can rise, even when there is a high level of immunity, but hospitalizations see less of a rise.

As to the flu, it does appear to be making a comeback. On the State/FSU radio broadcast yesterday (I was listening in the car as I drove back from the Wake/UNC game), Tony mentioned over 20 FSU players were out for the game due to a flu that had been making its rounds through the team. He was not more specific as to the type of flu, but I assumed it was respiratory flu and not stomach flu, but that may be an incorrect assumption.

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For comparison sake, let's take VT... one of the most vaccinated states. 91% of total population > 12 with at least one dose and 80% of total population > 12 with complete series. Still seeing all time case highs (because eventually COVID 'robust' population infection acquired immunity needs to be addressed).

To compare their hospitalizations, if they had a similar size population to NC, they would be floating between 750-1000 over the last couple weeks.

NC is at about 1144 right now as the slow decline continues. So certainly well below NC's peak and even below the current NC per capita as we trend downwards.

But as we can see by VT's vaccination numbers.... cases are going to continue despite super high vaccinations. Public health needs to stop the shame and blame.

Wayland said:

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Daviewolf83 said:

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Wayland said:

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Hotspots are kind of great lakes and northern NE.

I heard a comment recently out of a talking head about low cases in CT and knowing that VT and NH are experiencing major case growth wanted to take a look. And, yes, CT, RI, and MA have not been increasing the way VT, NH, and ME have. Is it because seroprevalence or the seasonality hasn't rolled in yet? Certainly, to this point CT, RI, and MA have been much harder hit. Will be interesting to watch... if CT and RI stay low... could be another sign that broader infection immunity is there.

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I noticed the same thing when I was researching the national rise in cases over the past few days. I was in NY two out of three weeks in October and noticed Fall colors were not any further along than what we see in our area of NC. When I asked, a couple of native NY's told me the Fall colors were behind schedule due to a warmer than normal Fall. I suspect this is what is causing the delay in cases in NY, Conn, NJ and less existing immunity. Also, it does not appear to be related to mask mandates. In both areas of NY I visited, I saw little evidence of mask mandates. It was similar to NC and in Syracuse, I would say it was more similar to towns in Wake Co. that have no mask mandate.

We will see how it goes over the next couple of weeks. Even with higher immunity than last year, I do expect cases to rise as the weather turns cooler, given the amount of testing being conducted around the country. The thing I will be watching more closely than cases, is hospitalizations. This is where I do expect immunity to have more of an impact. Cases will occur, even when there is high immunity from vaccine and previous infection. As I have always maintained, hospitalizations are a much better measure for how Covid might be impacting us than cases. The UK demonstrates clearly that cases can rise, even when there is a high level of immunity, but hospitalizations see less of a rise.

As to the flu, it does appear to be making a comeback. On the State/FSU radio broadcast yesterday (I was listening in the car as I drove back from the Wake/UNC game), Tony mentioned over 20 FSU players were out for the game due to a flu that had been making its rounds through the team. He was not more specific as to the type of flu, but I assumed it was respiratory flu and not stomach flu, but that may be an incorrect assumption.

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For comparison sake, let's take VT... one of the most vaccinated states. 91% of total population > 12 with at least one dose and 80% of total population > 12 with complete series. Still seeing all time case highs (because eventually COVID 'robust' population infection acquired immunity needs to be addressed).

To compare their hospitalizations, if they had a similar size population to NC, they would be floating between 750-1000 over the last couple weeks.

NC is at about 1144 right now as the slow decline continues. So certainly well below NC's peak and even below the current NC per capita as we trend downwards.

But as we can see by VT's vaccination numbers.... cases are going to continue despite super high vaccinations. Public health needs to stop the shame and blame.

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There will definitely be breakthrough cases, but doesn't a look into the details of VT's cases show a very clear benefit to vaccination?

As of Nov 3:
467,000 fully vaccinated, 1.3% have had a breakthrough
Of 6011 breakthrough, 163 hosp (3%), 72 deaths (1%)
The overwhelming majority of deaths are >80
80% of hosp are unvaxxed
84% of icu unvaxxed
Highest case rate is by far the 0-11 yos, with 45/10000 whereas older than 60 is 20/10000
Kids are 25% of their current cases, with a fifth of them part of an outbreak
Case rates are much higher in non-white vermonters, and maybe they're less likely to be vaxxed?

The majority of the breakthroughs have been the last 3 months, maybe suggesting waning immunity and seasonality, but i think those stats, if accurate, are still clearly in favor of vaccination. If the increase in breakthrough numbers are indicative of waning immunity, it would support the at risk considering a booster.

VAERS is a great tool when used and interpreted correctly.

I think an interesting side by side comparison would be VAERS to a Covid Adverse Event Reporting System. That would make VAERS look like child's play.

This is a bad place to hold such an opinion, but i feel quite confident saying the vaccines have saved more lives and more adverse events than they've taken/caused.

I had an unvaxxed young healthy friend die last week of a very rare complication of covid and it's outpatient treatment. So many are devastated. Maybe it was preventable. Maybe it wasn't. Idk. But it sucks, man.

We love to talk about vaccines, all the while disregarding the adverse events of the disease and the available treatment options. Dexamethasone has side effects that cause adverse events. Remdesivir, molnupiravir, ivermectin, and the newbies will all have adverse events, as even a simple aspirin or penicillin may. And their effectiveness won't near 90% once used on a broad scale. If they do, I'll buy the first second and third rounds. They too will be over promised only to under perform (though I'm in no way saying they are not wonderful options and much appreciated by my peers, just like the vaccine).

THE BEST THING YOU CAN DO IS AVOID GETTING IT.

Human behavior is paramount. Probably THE most important variable in this whole mess. Fck, human behavior likely CAUSED this whole mess. The only guarantee is complete abstinence from human interaction and that's just untenable. I'm with Davie, the next best option is vaccination and it's not even close.

Civilized said:

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But again, the comparison to make would be Sweden handling Covid the way they did versus other countries handling it the same way as Sweden. That's a direct comparison we will never be able to make.

Maybe other countries would've had similar results to Sweden but with Sweden being small, relatively ethnically and culturally homogenous, affluent, healthy, likely more compliant with government recommendations, and with universal healthcare, those are multiple big assumptions.

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I read that and I just hear excuses for and defense of the actions the U.S. took where there are none to be had... including unnecessarily locking children out of school.

The majority of interventions put in place were pure theater and did nothing to stop the overall trend of the pandemic but did place a massive and unnecessary additional toll on the country, ESPECIALLY the children.

Maybe Sweden had lower mortality because they are in better health overall. Sure, I won't dispute that (although I would think that related to their continental neighbors they still did ok in OVERALL excess mortality).

Would the U.S., having taken the same measures as Sweden have greater COVID mortality than Sweden? Sure, likely!! U.S. is overall is worse health (obesity!! elder care!!)!! I mean, there are certainly exceptions, but the we have a good idea of those that are at primary risk.

Would the U.S., having taken the same measures as Sweden have greater EXCESS mortality than the U.S. taking the measures they did? I am not so sure, I think both in the short term (excess mortality that already occurred) AND long term (excess mortality that WILL occur to to loss of life years from delayed care, economic impacts, reduced education, etc. etc) the U.S. will be WAY worse off.

And again, we can banter back and forth. The full results are yet to play out, but I still think my hypothesis is entirely predictable and remain disturbed that public health has been so short sighted for the last 2 years to not understand the broader complexity to policy impact.

We have paid a MASSIVE non COVID cost the last two years (and this will continue into the future) by policy CHOICE of authoritarian leaders and failed public health covidphobics who couldn't view public health and policy outside the scope of COVID prevention (as a stepchild of zeroCOVID).

That is a FAILURE by choice.... not by virus.

Civilized said:

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I do think I'm willing to be extend those in public health more grace for terribly challenging decisions, with no precedent, in real time, without the benefit of hindsight, than you and some on here.

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I'm not. It is their ****ING job to make these decisions. Many were made due to politics NOT overall outcomes and that is unforgivable in a time of crisis.

If you take it upon yourself, to put yourself in such a place of power where such decisions are asked of you, you BETTER be up to the task.

I have asked over and over, to what extent did any of these people do a broad cost-benefit analysis of policies and their impacts? Where was the consideration of negative impacts away from COVID?

Keeping schools closed was a NO BRAINER bad decision.

Was their ever a CBA done? Did I miss it? Was it released to the public to explain policy decisions that spit in the face of a centuries worth of pandemic planning?

No, actions were taken without thought of consequence and without considering the broader impacts. I afforded grace in March 2020.... by June 2020 that grace was gone because the broader implications were obvious by then. I gave all of them grace in those first few months, I understood the initial decisions and the policy by peer pressure. It was when they refused to stop the insanity and the walls started to crack about what was really going on that fired me up.

It was about power, politics, and control at that point. No longer was it about minimizing the overall impact a novel respiratory virus would have on broader society.

Wrong? DOUBLE DOWN ON BAD POLICY!!!!

Things still not going your way? Blame the people!!! Because you know COVID is like Santa. It knows when you've been bad or good... so be good for goodness sakes.

All these *******s in charge, have egg on their face. We can all see it (except the devout believers for whom zeroCOVID and cleanliness is now a religion).... and yet they go back to the well over and over to failed policy and ignore any costs and damage they have already done.

If there was a modicum of humility showed by these authoritarian ass-clowns and internet famous panic porn epis, then maybe I could squeeze one out.

But any bit of grace I have for these charlatans is long since gone (almost 2 years in and our own CDC Director's main job is misrepresenting data and creating propaganda).

I was screaming about myopic policy well over a year ago. We could all see these things coming a mile away.... but somehow I must have missed the conversation public health had with us about the trade offs?

I get none of us expected quite the disease burden we got.... but we got that anyways. And yet still will have to face the consequences of all these bad policies ON TOP of the disease.

Wayland said:

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Civilized said:

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I do think I'm willing to be extend those in public health more grace for terribly challenging decisions, with no precedent, in real time, without the benefit of hindsight, than you and some on here.

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I'm not. It is their ****ING job to make these decisions. Many were made due to politics NOT overall outcomes and that is unforgivable in a time of crisis.

If you take it upon yourself, to put yourself in such a place of power where such decisions are asked of you, you BETTER be up to the task.

I have asked over and over, to what extent did any of these people do a broad cost-benefit analysis of policies and their impacts? Where was the consideration of negative impacts away from COVID?

Keeping schools closed was a NO BRAINER bad decision.

Was their ever a CBA done? Did I miss it? Was it released to the public to explain policy decisions that spit in the face of a centuries worth of pandemic planning?

No, actions were taken without thought of consequence and without considering the broader impacts. I afforded grace in March 2020.... by June 2020 that grace was gone because the broader implications were obvious by then. I gave all of them grace in those first few months, I understood the initial decisions and the policy by peer pressure. It was when they refused to stop the insanity and the walls started to crack about what was really going on that fired me up.

It was about power, politics, and control at that point. No longer was it about minimizing the overall impact a novel respiratory virus would have on broader society.

Wrong? DOUBLE DOWN ON BAD POLICY!!!!

Things still not going your way? Blame the people!!! Because you know COVID is like Santa. It knows when you've been bad or good... so be good for goodness sakes.

All these *******s in charge, have egg on their face. We can all see it (except the devout believers for whom zeroCOVID and cleanliness is now a religion).... and yet they go back to the well over and over to failed policy and ignore any costs and damage they have already done.

If there was a modicum of humility showed by these authoritarian ass-clowns and internet famous panic porn epis, then maybe I could squeeze one out.

But any bit of grace I have for these charlatans is long since gone (almost 2 years in and our own CDC Director's main job is misrepresenting data and creating propaganda).

I was screaming about myopic policy well over a year ago. We could all see these things coming a mile away.... but somehow I must have missed the conversation public health had with us about the trade offs?

I get none of us expected quite the disease burden we got.... but we got that anyways. And yet still will have to face the consequences of all these bad policies ON TOP of the disease.

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Hell we were mid-pandemic and the anointed ones were giving themselves awards for a job well done.

Who remembers this one from Sept 2020? Because I should ****ing do.

Quote:

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"[Cohen's] strong leadership during the COVID-19 pandemic response, including her use of data and ability to communicate calmly and with empathy, compassion, and transparency, led many North Carolina citizens and elected officials to band together, such that the state was called one of five that will recover from the pandemic," said the School of Public Health in a release.

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Seriously, **** right off with that ***** She should return it and publicly beg for our forgiveness for her hubris.