Coronavirus

[Black Shepherd Carnage]

I am on board with challenging governments over their response to the situation though. I saw this the other day, and can only commend this Michael McNamara for his articulate argumentation. I know nothing about him though, so apologies if he's articulate here but a drooling loony on social media:
https://www.facebook.com/MichaelMcNamaraTD/posts/4677253715637461

Interesting Lancet report out re impact on younger people up to 39 with no previous underlying issues, despite it being a cold apparently
https://www.rte.ie/news/coronavirus/2021/0716/1235436-covid-complications-study/
My brother in law's heart is messed up since contacting covid through work at the start of the year as one chamber is working at a different rate for some reason. Life long meds are what the doc is suggesting to regularise things. He's in late 40's though so not really relevant to the study above.

I've done some training stuff with one of the principal authors of that study, and in neuroscience at least she's a force to be reckoned with. I'm not going to give my thoughts on long COVID, because they're just thoughts, but the study does highlight again that merely totting up deaths is not, as the COVID skeptics implicitly insist, the only bottom line here.

[astfgyl]

Interesting Lancet report out re impact on younger people up to 39 with no previous underlying issues, despite it being a cold apparently
https://www.rte.ie/news/coronavirus/2021/0716/1235436-covid-complications-study/
My brother in law's heart is messed up since contacting covid through work at the start of the year as one chamber is working at a different rate for some reason. Life long meds are what the doc is suggesting to regularise things. He's in late 40's though so not really relevant to the study above.

Funnily enough my father in law's heart is doing the same thing since taking the vaccine, as well as my friend's father. Probably unrelated as they are both in their 60s but it's as you describe, with one chamber being inflamed and going at a different rate with the heart alternately racing and slowing down, but none of the usual signs of a heart attack.

I've been looking at some things about long covid as well and a lot of different people are claiming several different types of cures for that. I've seen several things saying that the Ivermectin helps with long covid but I'd be skeptical about that because like all things touted as a potential cure, only time will tell if there is anything in it. There is some other group of doctors looking into long covid who believe they have a combination of things like steroids and antibiotics which gets rid of it as well. I can go back and dig out some of this stuff if you have any interest but I'm not claiming that anyone has a cure for long covid (and I don't doubt it's a thing) but I like reading about potentially positive things instead of constant misery so I don't mind finding a few links if you like.

[astfgyl]

Australia also run their test at such a high ct value that most of the positive results could be dismissed as noise.

This is the claim you made. So sure, the chance of noise increases with the sensitivity of the test and the sensitivity increases with the number of cycles. BUT, nothing about those facts allows you per se to say that "most of the positive results could be dismissed as noise." Scientifically speaking, that claim is HUGE, and I'm not seeing the science to back it up. I'm seeing a lot of general claims about the biomechanics of PCR tests, but I'm not seeing anything that actually studies the positive results and concludes, based on analysis of these positive samples, that significantly more than 50% (i.e. "most) can be dismissed as noise.

Here's a satirically head-lined article high-lighting how noise amplification is something that exists everywhere...including in inter-human communication:
https://www.mcgill.ca/oss/article/covid-19-critical-thinking/covid-19-pcr-test-reliable-despite-commotion-about-ct-values

Should cycle thresholds be set lower? Sure, maybe, I dunno, in any case I'm not an expert. But can most positive cases be dismissed as noise? That specific claim requires targeted scientific backing I haven't yet seen anywhere.

You're right there, because the values are not published with the results in most places. Florida does it but I don't know of other places. Even the WHO clinical guidance says that positive results obtained over about ct30 should be considered along with clinical symptoms and in the absence of same should be confirmed with a second, and preferably different test. As far as I know, each test comes with its' own recommended ct value and some recommend up to 45, which is far too high to judge anything on. Pre test probability is a big thing, too, which is to say false positives are not a guarantee but far more likely in a situation of low prevalence. So unless someone starts publishing the values at which they find the positive results, the absolute numbers should be taken with a pinch of salt. Only testing people with actual symptoms would soon put paid to a massive amount of cases and bring the fear factor down a few notches, but you are technically right to pull me up on the wording there. I should have said "could possibly be"

I am on board with challenging governments over their response to the situation though. I saw this the other day, and can only commend this Michael McNamara for his articulate argumentation. I know nothing about him though, so apologies if he's articulate here but a drooling loony on social media:
https://www.facebook.com/MichaelMcNamaraTD/posts/4677253715637461

Interesting Lancet report out re impact on younger people up to 39 with no previous underlying issues, despite it being a cold apparently
https://www.rte.ie/news/coronavirus/2021/0716/1235436-covid-complications-study/
My brother in law's heart is messed up since contacting covid through work at the start of the year as one chamber is working at a different rate for some reason. Life long meds are what the doc is suggesting to regularise things. He's in late 40's though so not really relevant to the study above.

I've done some training stuff with one of the principal authors of that study, and in neuroscience at least she's a force to be reckoned with. I'm not going to give my thoughts on long COVID, because they're just thoughts, but the study does highlight again that merely totting up deaths is not, as the COVID skeptics implicitly insist, the only bottom line here.

Michael McNamara is a very rational and balanced chap who seems only to want to question the response of the government rather than simply agitate. He headed the Dail committee on the covid response and despite the recommendations made, the government ignored every single one. He's a decent chap all the same.

[Black Shepherd Carnage]

Ted Cruz pandering to the glut of anti-vaxxers in his state a couple of months ago:
https://twitter.com/tedcruz/status/1398269941242077186

And now blaming a rise in cases there, not on their comparatively low vaccination rate, but rather on...no prizes for guessing...immigration!
https://twitter.com/SenTedCruz/status/1415401043291148289

[astfgyl]

Ted Cruz pandering to the glut of anti-vaxxers in his state a couple of months ago:
https://twitter.com/tedcruz/status/1398269941242077186

And now blaming a rise in cases there, not on their comparatively low vaccination rate, but rather on...no prizes for guessing...immigration!
https://twitter.com/SenTedCruz/status/1415401043291148289

Idiots will remain idiots no matter what. I feel like I should pull you up on the language used though, as the term anti-vaxxer is a load of bollix for the most part. I don't eat human (yet) but I'm not a  vegetarian. My kids have all of their regular shots got and it was me that brought them for them. Everyone and their dog knows that there is decent evidence for vaccinations working and yet many don't trust the latest batch. Are they all anti vaxxers? Use your brain. I know you have one.

I've an honest question for you. Where would the cases be without the test? This whole illusion is based on the test which in so many ways is built on a foundation of sand, and if you like I would love to discuss why, but everyone runs a mile from the elephant in the room so I suppose we'll have to go on arguing the toss over the other finer points instead. The trick to all of this is the test though.

[Giggles]

I hate the term "anti-vaxer". It's usually used to discredit somebody for saying something that people don't want to hear. And then getting lumped in with the 5g, tin foil hats and lizard people shite.

There's absolutely noting wrong with being hesitant of wanting to take a trial vaccine that has been rushed out which, in my opinion, wasn't rushed out to "save lives" but to make $$$$.

Doesn't mean I don't believe in vaccinations.

[Giggles]

I don't watch the news, but is anybody talking about how some families are being nazi cunts towards other family members that won't get the vaccine?

A friend of mine is fairly vocal about not wanting the vaccine on her social media, she's getting a lot of messages from people who are being outcast by their families. They are not allowed to visit their parents, their brothers/sisters or nephews/nieces, and are generally being treated like some sort of criminal because they don't want the vaccine.
Some have been denied access to family gatherings, birthdays, weddings and funerals, EVEN if they volunteer to sit outside like a leper and wear a mask at all times.

Disgusting behaviour.

[Black Shepherd Carnage]

Ted Cruz was pandering to anti-vaxxers long before COVID appeared.

[Black Shepherd Carnage]

I've an honest question for you. Where would the cases be without the test? This whole illusion is based on the test which in so many ways is built on a foundation of sand, and if you like I would love to discuss why, but everyone runs a mile from the elephant in the room so I suppose we'll have to go on arguing the toss over the other finer points instead. The trick to all of this is the test though.

Ask yourself this: when cases increase, in the UK, in the Netherlands, wherever, after a long slump, what is it that brings people to go to get tested? You say the test is the trick to all of this, but in saying that you negate the free agency of the individuals who decide, either because they are feeling unwell or because they have been in contact with someone who was, to go and get tested. And then you always say, "Ah yes, there's been an increase in cases, but also an increase in testing!" as if some secret causation has been uncovered. The secret is this: the more people who go to get tested, the more testing is done.

Edit: Thinking about it, maybe you think most of the testing is forced upon people by work obligations and the like...? I don't know, in the people around me, in research and at the hospital, that doesn't seem to be the case, but I guess it's an argument that can always be fallen back on and would be very difficult to disprove.

[blessed1]

I don't watch the news, but is anybody talking about how some families are being nazi cunts towards other family members that won't get the vaccine?

A friend of mine is fairly vocal about not wanting the vaccine on her social media, she's getting a lot of messages from people who are being outcast by their families. They are not allowed to visit their parents, their brothers/sisters or nephews/nieces, and are generally being treated like some sort of criminal because they don't want the vaccine.
Some have been denied access to family gatherings, birthdays, weddings and funerals, EVEN if they volunteer to sit outside like a leper and wear a mask at all times.

Disgusting behaviour.

Noticed quite a bit of that myself.
If you want to get it great, if not I couldn't give a shit either.
Didn't the government say at the start that they wouldn't make people take the vaccine and now they are pretty much saying you can't do anything unless you do get it.
I'm not a fan of that.

[Blackout]

Yet protesters - as usual - get labelled as anti-vax loons. The problem in this country is the complete apathy we have towards incompetent governance and the condemnation of any type of protesting.

[Giggles]

The likes of Gemma O Doherty and Dolores Cahill are doing no favours for our image either.

[Black Shepherd Carnage]

I don't watch the news, but is anybody talking about how some families are being nazi cunts towards other family members that won't get the vaccine?

A friend of mine is fairly vocal about not wanting the vaccine on her social media, she's getting a lot of messages from people who are being outcast by their families. They are not allowed to visit their parents, their brothers/sisters or nephews/nieces, and are generally being treated like some sort of criminal because they don't want the vaccine.
Some have been denied access to family gatherings, birthdays, weddings and funerals, EVEN if they volunteer to sit outside like a leper and wear a mask at all times.

Disgusting behaviour.

Another way of looking at this is that those ostracizing the unvaccinated are only doing it out of an equally poor understanding of the science as those who refuse to get vaccinated. In that respect, it's two sides of the same coin.

[Blackout]

The likes of Gemma O Doherty and Dolores Cahill are doing no favours for our image either.

Can you name a few others?

[Black Shepherd Carnage]

Apparently test positivity rate in the Netherlands at the moment is 15%, and there's a backlog in testing since the peak came in at such a vertical rate the labs didn't have time to upscale to greet it. Another element to put the lie to the idea that it's testing that drives the case rate up. Small but significant increase in hospitalizations in the last few days, but it'll be from the next few days onward that the now well-characterized time lag from the start of a case surge to its related serious condition surge will be caught up. So far, most of those hospitalized (one would imagine, having directed themselves to the hospital) have been unvaccinated, similar to what's being seen in the US.