Coronavirus: Free the Jab!

[r16]

annoyance at people , like Bill Gates just as a matter of speech and not exactly a claim that his ilk organized the very thing , will be diluted in a whole lot of issues and while it dedfinitely sank Trump and is not doing exactly wonders for New Turkey , wars are not a solution , unless one is really powerful enough to win them . 10 billion people can be fed by the planet , 15 with a little improvisation , we are quite away from damnation by population / No , still not supporting New Turkey's minimum 3 children per household .

 

[Bamspeedy]

Meh, the US's declared figures are nonsense. The Argies are even worse.

Tak, do we have excess death figures for Argentina?

Based on excess deaths, covid figures for deaths (such as on worldometer) , the US under counted by 10%. Russia covid deaths should be 4x higher than 'official' numbers.

 

[Birdjaguar]

If it is paywalled, find a work around. This study links the genetics of tasting bitter to covid.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/heal...5a366e-c7b1-11eb-81b1-34796c7393af_story.html

The article is long, but here is the beginning.

By Allison Hoover Bartlett
June 12, 2021 at 10:00 a.m. MDT
When the coronavirus began its furious march around the globe, leaving illness, death and suffering in its path, medical researchers urgently set out to understand the disease, known as covid-19. Efforts to explain where it came from, how it affects people in such different ways and what can be done about it have produced more than 475,000 publications supported by about 26,000 organizations in 198 countries, according to the Dimensions covid-19 database.

The scientific research that resulted in all those publications often begins with an observation. In the early days of the pandemic, Henry P. Barham, a 38-year-old ear, nose and throat doctor and researcher at Baton Rouge General, was operating three to four days a week, performing tracheotomies, and the removal of skull-based tumors, and some days did 30 nasal endoscopies — procedures that increased risk of exposure to covid-19 through aerosolization, the broadcasting of viral particles. Despite their protective gear, some of his colleagues got the virus. Barham did not.

He was grateful, but perplexed. Why, he asked, wasn’t he getting sick? That question would put Barham in the company of thousands of researchers trying to unravel the mysteries of the coronavirus. It would keep him awake nights as he developed theories about why some people experience only mild symptoms, while others are hospitalized and still others die of the virus. Barham specializes in rhinology, treating nasal and sinus problems. During his residency, he studied the T2R38 gene, otherwise known as the “supertaster” gene because it affects people’s ability to taste. The term, introduced in the 1990s by Yale psychologist Linda Bartoshuk, is something of a misnomer, since it doesn’t refer to those who have an abundance of taste buds, enabling them to detect notes of, say, cloves, mushrooms and forest floor in a pinot noir.

T2R38 confers only the ability to taste bitterness. Supertasters — and Barham is one — taste the bitterness in coffee or broccoli acutely. A person must inherit the T2R38 gene from both parents to be a supertaster.

 

[Samson]

If it is paywalled, find a work around. This study links the genetics of tasting bitter to covid.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/heal...5a366e-c7b1-11eb-81b1-34796c7393af_story.html

The article is long, but here is the beginning.

I have not figured out how to get round the WaPo paywall. I checked for the gene on google scholar, and there are loads of papers just this year, hot gene. I assume the article is something like this paper:

 

[Zardnaar]

I have not figured out how to get round the WaPo paywall. I checked for the gene on google scholar, and there are loads of papers just this year, hot gene. I assume the article is something like this paper:

Incognito mode on ur phone is how I do it.

Lexicus or Gorbles mentioned it once.

 

[red_elk]

Strange, I don't see any paywall.

14k new cases in Russia, 3-rd wave is apparent. Some restrictions are resumed in Moscow. Mayor offers lottery with possibility to win a car, for those who makes first covid shot.
Putin said we'll make "vaccination tours" official, it will be 3 week long stay in the country with two shots of Sputnik for ~2k USD. Don't know if there will be too many volunteers, but they say it's expected to be several thousands.

 

[GinandTonic]

I have not figured out how to get round the WaPo paywall. I checked for the gene on google scholar, and there are loads of papers just this year, hot gene. I assume the article is something like this paper:

I'm having a rather vague moment. Could you make the idiots guide an idiots guide to the idiots guide?

 

[Birdjaguar]

I'm having a rather vague moment. Could you make the idiots guide an idiots guide to the idiots guide?

The supertaster gene, T2R38, is part of that innate immune system. Its main functions are to create more hairlike filaments (cilia) to speedily sweep pathogens along; to increase production of mucosa, diluting the invaders; and finally, to create nitric oxide, which kills pathogens. People’s perception of taste (coffee tasting very bitter, slightly bitter or not bitter at all, for example) has been known for over a decade to be associated with their immune response to respiratory infections and sinus infections — stronger perception of bitterness reflects stronger immunity. But past studies of this connection have focused on bacterial infections and inflammation, not viruses. Barham wondered whether taste receptors could be connected to the coronavirus.

If you get copies from both parents you are a super taster. If you get one copy from one parent, you are a taster, and if you don't have the gene, you are a non taster. The test for one's status is a bitterness response to infused paper strips. Genetic testing usually confirms one's status.

In June 2020, he set out to test his hypothesis. Barham, Christian Hall, a fellow rhinologist, and Mohamed Taha, an otolaryngologist and research fellow, did a retrospective study — looking at 100 patients who earlier had tested positive for the coronavirus. They used the same test Barham had given to his friend and his wife: four small strips of paper placed on the tongue, one at a time, after which the patient rated the intensity of flavor from 1 to 10 (mildly bitter to intensely bitter, for example).

None of the 100 patients tested was classified as a supertaster. Seventy-nine patients had mild-to-moderate coronavirus symptoms and they were classified as tasters. And 21, who had been seriously ill and required hospitalization, were classified as nontasters. The study’s findings were published in August 2020 in the International Forum of Allergy & Rhinology.

These results were promising but because loss of taste and smell were common symptoms of the coronavirus, Barham and his team set out to create a study that would be able to account for those losses. As they put it in their study, it wasn’t clear whether a person’s supertaster status predicted the severity of covid-19 or was a consequence of infection severity. They had to test people before they got covid-19, and then again, afterward.

The study tested people for the absence of both prior and current coronavirus-related infection. They then took the paper-strip taste test, and a subgroup also supplied spit samples for genetic testing, which provides greater accuracy.

From July 1 through Sept. 30, 2020, they followed 1,935 patients and health-care workers who had been exposed to the coronavirus but had neither a previous nor current infection. Each was given the paper-strip taste test, and a subgroup also supplied spit samples. About half were classified as tasters, a quarter as nontasters, and a quarter as supertasters. During the follow-up period, 266 of the 1,935 people tested positive for the coronavirus. Nontasters, the researchers found in the study published last month, were far more likely to contract the disease and for their symptoms to last longer: an average of 23.5 days — compared to five days for supertasters and 13.5 days for tasters.

Nontasters were also far more likely to be hospitalized. Of the 55 study participants hospitalized, 47 (85.5 percent) were nontasters. Of the supertasters who tested positive, none needed to be hospitalized. These results indicated the accuracy rate for predicting severity of the disease based on a person’s taster status was 94.2 percent. Barham says the 5.8 percent discrepancy can be explained by the age of some of the participants. The mean age of tasters requiring hospitalization was 74 (the mean age of all participants was 45.5.), and supertasters’ ability to taste diminishes over time.

Does this help?

 

[Takhisis]

I am struck by these few lines:

The G7 promised to release 1bn doses of vaccine to the world’s poorest countries. But as the International Monetary Fund has pointed out, these are simply the doses that have been ordered but are surplus to their needs. This was not a group of leaders making sacrifices for the sake of the world. With the costs of the pandemic estimated to be $28tn, it is incomprehensible that the G7 failed to deliver a serious plan to produce, distribute and finance vaccines globally.

(…)

Over the past 18 months, the pandemic has reaffirmed the centrality of nation states in human affairs, with little international coordination and the sidelining of multilateral institutions. Nations with the capacity to act globally seem to lack the ambition beyond the pursuit of their narrowly defined national interest. Those with the ambition lack the means or commitment. And so the G7 meeting reflects the reality that we now live in a G-zero world.

Source: This G7 reflects our G-zero world, ruled by self-interest instead of global ambition, by Tom Kibasi​

 

[Birdjaguar]

Judge tosses hospital workers’ challenge to vaccine requirement

178 employees face loss of employment: No vaccine, no job

ASSOCIATED PRESS
HOUSTON — A federal judge threw out a lawsuit filed by employees of a Houston hospital system over its requirement that all of its staff be vaccinated against COVID-19.

The Houston Methodist Hospital system suspended 178 employees without pay last week over their refusal to get vaccinated. Of them, 117 sued, seeking to overturn the requirement and over their suspension and threatened termination.

In a scathing ruling Saturday, U.S. District Judge Lynn Hughes of Houston deemed lead plaintiff Jennifer Bridges’ contention that the vaccines are “experimental and dangerous” to be false and otherwise irrelevant. He also found that her likening the vaccination requirement to the Nazis’ forced medical experimentation on concentration camp captives during the Holocaust to be “reprehensible.”

Hughes also ruled that making vaccinations a condition of employment was not coercion, as Bridges contended.

“Bridges can freely choose to accept or refuse a COVID-19 vaccine; however, if she refuses, she will simply need to work somewhere else. If a worker refuses an assignment, changed office, earlier start time, or other directive, he may be properly fired. Every employment includes limits on the worker’s behavior in exchange for remuneration. That is all part of the bargain,” Hughes concluded.

Jared Woodfill, a Houston lawyer representing Bridges and the other clients, promised an appeal. “All of my clients continue to be committed to fighting this unjust policy,” Woodfill said in a statement. “What is shocking is that many of my clients were on the front line treating COVID positive patients at Texas Methodist Hospital during the height of the pandemic. As a result, many of them contracted COVID-19. As a thank you for their service and sacrifice, Methodist Hospital awards them a pink slip and sentences them to bankruptcy.”

Employees had a June 7 deadline to complete their immunization.

In a Tuesday memo, the hospital system’s CEO, Marc Boom, said that 24,947 employees had complied with the vaccination requirement and that 27 of the 178 others had received the first of a two-dose vaccine and wouldn’t be fired if they got their second. The rest are subject to termination.

People protest Houston Methodist Hospital system’s rule of firing any employee who was not immunized by June 7. A federal judge threw out the employees’ lawsuit. YI-CHIN LEE/HOUSTON CHRONICLE

 

[Rashiminos]

Those silly nurses thought they could stand on their personal convictions without having to bear a personal cost or complicating the staffing of the healthcare sector in their area.

 

[Arwon]

This doesn't seem especially difficult, in some states health workers here already have Hepatitis and MMR vaccination as a condition of employment, and some employers have already required flu vaccines in like childcare and aged care. The case law comes down to whether the requirement is reasonable and relevant to the job and the practicality of other potential control measures.

And of course you have to prove vaccination status for a lot of international travel, so adding COVID vaccination to that isn't really even an extension of any existing practice, just application of the same practice.

 

[EnglishEdward]

Strange, I don't see any paywall.

14k new cases in Russia, 3-rd wave is apparent. Some restrictions are resumed in Moscow. Mayor offers lottery with possibility to win a car, for those who makes first covid shot.
Putin said we'll make "vaccination tours" official, it will be 3 week long stay in the country with two shots of Sputnik for ~2k USD. Don't know if there will be too many volunteers, but they say it's expected to be several thousands.

You were right. Russia has overtaken Italy.

Deaths so far:

UK: 127,907
Russia: 127,180
Italy: 127,038

 

[Zelig]

This doesn't seem especially difficult, in some states health workers here already have Hepatitis and MMR vaccination as a condition of employment, and some employers have already required flu vaccines in like childcare and aged care. The case law comes down to whether the requirement is reasonable and relevant to the job and the practicality of other potential control measures.

And of course you have to prove vaccination status for a lot of international travel, so adding COVID vaccination to that isn't really even an extension of any existing practice, just application of the same practice.

I expect that the most pronounced effect of requiring covid vaccination for employees would be to avoid employing some crackpots, rather than a direct health effect.

 

[amadeus]

As a thank you for their service and sacrifice, Methodist Hospital awards them a pink slip and sentences them to bankruptcy.

.

See that . ? It’s the world’s tiniest violin playing the world’s saddest song.

 

[innonimatu]

I am surprised this is going on still. I do wonder at what point (2 years? even more?) having any sort of lockdown/masks/other will be impossible in non-dictatorships.
I expect the aftermath to be terrible, and maybe a world war will help ease the depression and excess humanity.

Depressions do not dispose people to go to war.

My guess is, unfortunately, that we'll see a new big wave in the autumn, vaccines or no vaccines. More restrictions., more unwillingness to do what it takes to end this, more of the same. Vaccines are not working as well as was sold.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Vaccines are not working as well as was sold.

In the US, in states with high vaccination rates they are working as expected so far. States with low vaccination rates will still suffer. We will, of course, know more in the fall.

 

[Samson]

A window into open source COVID drug development - The COVID Moonshot::

Nearly 15 months ago, a large, fast-moving and unscheduled experiment began: probing a key protein of the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 to find chemical starting points for drug discovery. The end point was to develop pills that people could take to treat COVID-19 and related diseases.
This experiment pulled together a spontaneous, open, global, Twitter-fuelled collaboration called the COVID Moonshot. Urgency and a commitment to working openly recruited more than 150 active participants, spanning a huge range of expertise and technology across academia, biotechnology, pharmaceuticals and more, all working without claiming intellectual property. Open drug-discovery efforts are invariably super slow — ours has been an express train on tracks we have laid down as we go. It is a way of working that none of us realized was possible.

Disappointingly, from the start of the COVID-19 fight, international funders decided to support only the development of repurposed small-molecule drugs and monoclonal antibodies to deliver treatments quickly, neglecting other approaches. The world seemed to give up on new antivirals before they even started, agreeing on a self-fulfilling prophesy that such drugs would take years to develop. Few seemed willing to contemplate such a timescale for this pandemic. Our first grant proposal was rejected, so we had to find a different way to press on.

By June 2020, the Zoom-based collaboration had identified sets of molecules that clearly inhibited a crucial viral protein. The next step was to test antiviral activity in living cells. These are complex experiments, requiring level-three biosafety labs certified for airborne pathogens.
By September, we had reached a milestone with a chemical series that instilled confidence: the compounds inhibited enzymes at submicromolar concentrations, and blocked viral activity at single-digit micromolar concentrations.

Since then, for the past nine months, the project has entered familiar territory in medicinal chemistry: we have been tweaking and testing compound designs, and optimizing early lead molecules so that they behave like drugs — entering the blood and staying there without being toxic. Potency against the Mpro enzyme has improved 100-fold, as has antiviral activity, and we are honing compounds’ solubility and rate of metabolism by the liver.

We are approaching the capital-intensive, highly regulated phases of animal studies, producing kilograms of substance for clinical trials and, beyond that, worldwide manufacture and distribution of billions of pills. Our initial goal of delivering a drug straight from the discovery pipeline, free from patents and available for anyone to manufacture, cannot offer investors any conventional return on investment. Yet COVID-19 is not conventional, and vaccines have elevated the normally arcane question of intellectual property into a major political concern. Perhaps the COVID Moonshot can also shape how open drug discovery reaches patients.
​

Had we done it for SARS in 2003, we would have had a drug for COVID:

 

[EnglishEdward]

The death gap is closing for 6th place:

6: UK 127, 917
7: Russia 127, 576
8: Italy 127, 101

 

[Kyriakos]

Italy cannot (back) into first in Europe.