Coronavirus. The n(in)th sequel.

[Takhisis]

The health authority that are saying it is toxic are lying. Everything is a poison depending on dose. If there is any danger in something people are trying to use against covid due to the way they're using it, have it properly provided in safe dosing. That solves the toxicity problem - it there is a problem after all. Calls inquiring about toxicity does not equal actual intoxication, and this moral panic is designed to produce such calls...I don't kno whta is actually going on but it stinks.

This is a massively available drug in veterinary use, and also very available in human use in large portions of the world. If dosing is a problem MD sould be telling people who want to try it what are the sale levels,not vainly attempt to ban it which results in people using it unsafely.
Do you want a war on drugs, pharmaceutical version? Because the other one worked so well?

I've seen idiocy after idiocy from authorities in this covid drama, should be surprised at this new one.

The other problem is possible ineffectiveness. But then tell me: which effective and cheap treatments are being provided to people infected with covid? Which authorities in the world and giving those treatments to people who want them?

If authorities refuse to make available treatments, if investment in treatments has not produced results after one and a half years of this pandemic being the most important issue worldwide, who is to blame? Of it effective and safe treatments do exist, are they available and cheap? IF not, why?

People in despair for something are being blamed and demonized. The victims of incompetence and greed by the regulatory and pharmaceutical authorities are being demonized and blamed. This stinks.

…that's all a load of waffle to cover up the fact that you have no medical backing for how ivermectin helps against Covid-19 and why people should, therefore, take it.

 

[amadeus]

And yet no one has been able to answer why the big, evil manufacturers of said drug are not fighting tooth-‘n’-nail to get it approved as a treatment. The financial incentives are plenty, and those alleging a conspiracy by the big drug companies (eeeeeeviiiiiiil!) can’t square that circle.

Further still, calling the proven vaccines “worthless” and then peddling all kinds of quack cures from horse pills to herbal teas.

Something is rotten in the state of Denmark!

 

[Birdjaguar]

Something is rotten in the state of Denmark Portugal!

FTFY

 

[amadeus]

FTFY

You as SUPER MODERATOR ought know better than to insinuate that my comment is directed at a single person.

In seriousness though, there is an overlap of right-wing and left-wing cranks in promoting “alternative” “medicine,” suspicions of public institutions*, and being taken in by snake-oilmen podcasters.

*unless they are Beijing or Moscow: their motives are pure and should never be questioned.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Dogs are now detecting corona virus on masks of employees at Miami International airport. Apparently they are 98-99% accurate in detecting the virus.

 

[AmtrakQuebec]

Merck, one of the makers of Ivermectin, says NOT to use it for COVID...

Don't Use Ivermectin to Treat or Prevent COVID-19 - Merck Veterinary Manual (merckvetmanual.com)

 

[Takhisis]

Just while we are detecting the rise of the Delta and Mu variants, we more or less suspend all lockdowns for Sunday's primary election. Discos open, stadia open, schools open, everything in the past two weeks.

And we're still at 100-200 deaths every day.

But wait, there's more! This week infection numbers fell by 75% overnight. The explanation is that the calculations were changed, tl;dr: there was overreporting because the decentralised systems were not reporting discharged/healed patients.
So the options are that 1) we were subjected to society-breaking shutdowns based on fake data, i.e. scaremongering by actual former terrorists who bribed their way out of gaol and back into ‘regular’ politics or -to quote Spinal Tap- b) we are suddenly distorting the numbers right before the election.

 

[FriendlyFire]

Further still, calling the proven vaccines “worthless” and then peddling all kinds of quack cures from horse pills to herbal teas.

Maybe we need an Ad campaign warning the MAGAs not to drink bleach
Then the entire problem will just solve itself.

Florida family indicted for selling toxic bleach as fake Covid ‘cure’

Indictment says the Grenons sold tens of thousands of bottles of ‘Miracle Mineral Solution’ and alleges they received more than $1m
sold the chemical solution that ingested orally became chlorine dioxide, a powerful bleach typically used for industrial water treatment or bleaching textiles, pulp, and paper.”.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/apr/24/florida-man-sons-indicted-selling-bleach-covid

The FDA first warned consumers about the products in 2010. But they are still being promoted on social media and sold online by many independent distributors. The agency strongly urges consumers not to purchase or use these
Some product labels claim that vomiting and diarrhea are common after ingesting the product. They even maintain that such reactions are evidence that the product is working
acute liver failure after drinking these products

https://www.fda.gov/consumers/consu...-miracle-mineral-solution-or-similar-products

 

[r16]

... wait, there's more! This week infection numbers fell by 75% overnight.

the summer is coming . In the Southern Hemisphere . When summer comes , magically every number goes down . Do Goverment Ministers own hotel chains ?

 

[El_Machinae]

And yet no one has been able to answer why the big, evil manufacturers of said drug are not fighting tooth-‘n’-nail to get it approved as a treatment. The financial incentives are plenty, and those alleging a conspiracy by the big drug companies (eeeeeeviiiiiiil!) can’t square that circle.

I think we are well-into the phase of forgetting that the Big Pharma companies are actually evil, and they make money by pretending to be good.

The simple 'conspiratorial' answer is that the profits that would be derived from a generic treatment are insufficient such that a backroom handshake determines its fate.
Now, the fact that drug companies didn't pursue investigations into a generic is not a surprise, it's not their job. That's the domain of governments, research institutes, and charities. And the fact that there are so few of these, despite the incentives, indicates that there are other reasons the studies aren't being done. On that front, it's actually not unreasonable to assume lobbyists got in the way of public science, since that's their job. But 'interference' would only explain a portion of the absence. We're talking about thousands of institutions here.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Why Covid-19 Shots Don’t Last a Lifetime

Why don’t Covid-19 vaccinations last longer? Measles shots are good for life, chickenpox immunizations protect for 10 to 20 years, and tetanus jabs last a decade or more. But U.S. officials are weighing whether to authorize Covid-19 boosters for vaccinated adults as soon as six months after the initial inoculation.

The goal of a vaccine is to provide the protection afforded by natural infection, but without the risk of serious illness or death. “A really good vaccine makes it so someone does not get infected even if they are exposed to the virus,” said Rustom Antia, a biology professor at Emory University who studies immune responses. “But not all vaccines are ideal.”

The three tiers of defense, he said, include full protection against infection and transmission; protection against serious illness and transmission; or protection against serious illness only. The effectiveness depends on the magnitude of the immune response a vaccine induces, how fast the resulting antibodies decay, whether the virus or bacteria tend to mutate, and the location of the infection. The threshold of protection is the level of immunity that’s sufficient to keep from getting sick. For every bug, it’s different, and even how it’s determined varies.

“Basically, it’s levels of antibodies or neutralizing antibodies per milliliter of blood,” said Mark Slifka, a professor at Oregon Health & Science University. (T-cells also contribute to protection, but antibodies are easier to measure.) A threshold 0.01 international units per milliliter was confirmed for tetanus in 1942 when a pair of German researchers intentionally exposed themselves to the toxin to test the findings of previous animal studies.

“One of them gave himself two lethal doses of tetanus in his thigh, and monitored how well it went,” Dr. Slifka said. “His co-author did three lethal doses.” Neither got sick.

A threshold for measles was pinned down in 1985 after a college dorm was exposed to the disease shortly after a blood drive. Researchers checked antibody concenand trations in the students’ blood donations and identified 0.02 international units per milliliter as the level needed to prevent infection.

With these diseases, the magnitudes of response to the vaccines combined with the antibodies’ rates of decay produce durable immune responses: Measles antibodies decay slowly. Tetanus antibodies decay more quickly, but the vaccine causes the body to produce far more than it needs, offsetting the decline.

“We’re fortunate with tetanus, diphtheria, measles and vaccinia,” Dr. Slifka said. “We have identified what the threshold of protection is. You track antibody decline over time, and if you know the threshold of protection, you can calculate durability of protection. With Covid, we don’t know.” Historically, the most effective vaccines have used replicating viruses, which essentially elicit lifelong immunity. Measles and chickenpox vaccines use replicating viruses.

Non-replicating vaccines and protein-based vaccines (such as the one for tetanus) don’t last as long, but their effectiveness can be enhanced with the addition of an adjuvant—a substance that enhances the magnitude of the response.
Tetanus and hepatitis A vaccines use an adjuvant. The Johnson & Johnson AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccines use non-replicating adenovirus and don’t contain an adjuvant. The Pfizer and Moderna messenger RNA Covid-19 vaccines, which work differently, don’t contain any virus at all.

Complicating things further, viruses and bacteria that mutate to escape the body’s immune response are harder to control. Measles, mumps, rubella and chickenpox hardly mutate at all, but at least eight variants of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19, have been found, according to the British Medical Journal.

“It does make it more complicated for the vaccine to work,” Dr. Slifka said. “You’re chasing multiple targets over time. Flu also mutates. With flu, we’ve adjusted by making a new flu vaccine each year that as closely as possible matches the new strain of flu.” Flu vaccines can offer protection for at least six months. Setting aside the complexities of crafting an effective vaccine to combat a shape-shifting virus, some hope has revolved around the possibility of defeating Covid-19 by achieving herd immunity, but, according to Dr. Antia, the way coronaviruses infect the body makes that challenging.

“Vaccines are very unlikely to lead to long-lasting herd immunity for many respiratory infections,” Dr. Antia said. “The herd immunity only lasts for a modest period of time. It depends on how fast the virus changes. It depends on how fast the immunity wanes.”

Part of the problem is that coronaviruses replicate in both the upper and lower respiratory tracts. “We have good circulation in our lungs and body, but not on the surfaces of our nostrils,” Dr. Slifka said. “We can block severe disease because there are antibodies in the lower respiratory tract.” But the risk of low-level infections in the upper respiratory tract can persist.

Moving forward, Covid-19 vaccines will be updated to combat variants of the virus, and according to researchers at Imperial College London, the next generation of vaccines might also focus on enhancing immunity in the moist surfaces of the nose and lungs.

In the meantime, avoiding the slippery virus might require another shot.

 

[Arwon]

It's been about a month and our Reff has sat at basically 1 the whole time, between 1 to 2 dozen cases a day, a handful having been in the community rather than isolated as a close contact.

That last little part of transmission is turning out very stubborn, even in a population ideally suited to effective lockdown in just about every measure you can come up with.

Thankfully vaccines are motoring along, we're at 75% one dose and 51% both doses, and about 10% a week are getting a jab. So hopefully only five or six weeks until the outbreak largely stops mattering even if it's still rolling along by then.

 

[AmazonQueen]

We're at about 90% 1-dose, 80% 2-dose and 100+ deaths a day, plus predictions of a tough winter. I suspect its far from over.

 

[Zardnaar]

We're at about 90% 1-dose, 80% 2-dose and 100+ deaths a day, plus predictions of a tough winter. I suspect its far from over.

Country?

 

[Takhisis]

Ingerland and Whale.

 

[AmazonQueen]

Country?

UK.
140 deaths per day on average over past week.
Schools only just gone back so full effects of that still to be seen.

 

[Berzerker]

All but one scientist who penned a letter in The Lancet dismissing the possibility that coronavirus could have come from a lab in Wuhan were linked to its Chinese researchers, their colleagues or funders, a Telegraph investigation can reveal.

The influential journal published a letter on March 7 last year from 27 scientists in which they stated that they “strongly condemned conspiracy theories” surrounding Covid-19.

It effectively shut down scientific debate into whether coronavirus was manipulated or leaked from a lab in Wuhan.

On Friday, researchers who tried to investigate a link but were stonewalled and branded conspiracy theorists called it an “extreme cover-up”.

Despite declaring no conflicts of interest at the time, it has since emerged that the letter was orchestrated by British zoologist Peter Daszak, president of the US-based EcoHealth Alliance, which funded research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, where the leak was suspected.

However, The Telegraph can disclose that 26 of the 27 scientists listed in the letter had connections to the Chinese lab, through researchers and funders closely linked to Wuhan.

from yahoo news...and I guess the Telegraph

 

[amadeus]

Well, at least they're not as bad as that one journal that said vaccines cause autism.

 

[innonimatu]

Nope, I don't remember that. Is this actually a response to something you can show from back then, or are you just desperate enough for an "I told you so" to try and create one retroactively?

The paper linked, for what it's worth, is a study of a South East Asian herbal tea (not African, but what's a continent when it comes to accuracy). They report activity against Covid, at active ingredient concentrations far too high to be of any clinical relevance. Against most Covid strains, it's an even weaker effect than was seen in the in vitro studies with Ivermectin. At least the authors of the Ivermectin study noted the problem that you'd need concentrations far beyond what is safe, or even achievable, in vivo to be in the range that would effect the virus. This preprint hasn't been peer reviewed yet, so hopefully a reviewer will make the authors of this artemisinin paper address that point.

I do recall that artemisinin use was an hypothesis advanced early on, and immediately decried as quack herbal medicine from backwards places. That kind of thing - hasty dismissals of allegedly shoddy medicines, the dismissals themselves based on shoddy or outright false claims, has been happening time and again. Instead of researching hypothesis, they're immediately attacked as false with the effect of suppressing possible research.

…that's all a load of waffle to cover up the fact that you have no medical backing for how ivermectin helps against Covid-19 and why people should, therefore, take it.

The ivermectin thing: time and again it has been observed that the stuff has anti-viral properties. There are plenty of studies showing it. If the mechanisms are unknown, more the reason to research further.

Merck, one of the makers of Ivermectin, says NOT to use it for COVID...

Don't Use Ivermectin to Treat or Prevent COVID-19 - Merck Veterinary Manual (merckvetmanual.com)

That the veterinary formulation. Absent from the hysteria that someone is promoting within the USA, there are formulations and dosings for humans. And if people in some places are going after veterinary drugs, it is first and foremost because of unavailability of the formulation for humans. An unavailability that this hysteria seems to be designed to induce. This is no conspiracy theory: it's obvious, in plain sight. Humans take veterinary version of drug because human version is made unavailable to them, because it god demonized as a "animal medicine". The people causing the "poisonings" - in any poisoning at all is happening now - how many and where, where is the evidence? - are the ones who made it impossible for people who want to use this to get the version of medication approved by humans, and who have intimidated medics to not even speak of it, therefore preventing them from intervening inn attempting to at least control dosing.

Repressing drugs does not work. I thought that was a universally acknowledged idea among "liberals"? That the wars on drugs always fail. Then why are they brainlessly jumping on the bandwagon of whomever is directing a campaign to repress this one?
What works is availability combined with education about the bad effects of the drugs. Of course, if a drug does not have bad effects then it's hard to sue that strategy. And on to repression we go...

Sane overviews of the ivermectin controversy can easily be found. Why are people just regurgitating soundbites? And who planted them? No, I do not believe in accidents, not on this scale. Hysteria is not organic, it's pushed.

 

[sendos]

I got my first dose of Pfizer today. So thrilled to have it. I will be fully vaxxed in a month.