Coronavirus. The n(in)th sequel.

Status
Not open for further replies.
I wonder if we will be able to tally the death toll from covid by political party.
 
Idaho and Alaska are now rationing health care because their hospitals are completely overrun with COVID.
Others in dire need but with lower chances of surviving will be given “comfort care” to help keep them pain-free whether they succumb to their illnesses or recover.

I’m trying to phrase this without sounding sarcastic or condescending, because I mean to be neither: the functional ability to exercise one’s civil rights, with regard to vaccine skeptics, seems to come into conflict with some existing realities; by the stroke of a doctor’s pen some of the severely ill are effectively condemned to an unnecessary death—a death that could have been prevented had the simplest of available precautions been taken. By force or not, these are the facts.

Now is there no price too great that some restriction of liberty, no matter how trivial and benign, that must under no circumstances ever be paid? Will those who are “anti-society,” will they volunteer to die at home?
 
I wonder if we will be able to tally the death toll from covid by political party.

Tally. Probably not

But it's going to be weighed one way.

https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Ff1f2103d-a208-49f7-953b-82bc13ba1fc0_2300x1809.png


The problem, is that it isn't even across a population in a county. Most of the deaths in a Democratic county might be the Trump Cultists. Or most of the deaths in a Republican county might be the poorer minorities, who have previous worse health outcomes due to poverty and American Healthcare.

My personal guess is the early pandemic hit Democratic voters harder. New York and New Jersey got hit hard early before there was a great idea what to do, and it hit service workers and minorities harder.

The mid pandemic it probably became more even as it spread out into the suburbs, small towns and rural areas, and there was social distancing and masking as factors, that sane people followed, and conservatives rejected.

Now the vaccination available pandemic seems to be hitting the Republicans far harder.

Mississippi just overtook the top per capita spot from New Jersey, and Louisiana isn't that far behind. Other Southern states are moving up the rankings, as their pandemic keeps burning. And even in the Blue States, the toll is uneven. California has the third most deaths recently (and not by a lot, Georgia isn't that far behind), despite by far being the biggest state, and you can see by the maps I've posted, most of that is in rural California, particularly areas of Northern California.

It's makes no logical sense. But the grip of the Dealth Cult is too powerful to share them from this path.

Others in dire need but with lower chances of surviving will be given “comfort care” to help keep them pain-free whether they succumb to their illnesses or recover.

I’m trying to phrase this without sounding sarcastic or condescending, because I mean to be neither: the functional ability to exercise one’s civil rights, with regard to vaccine skeptics, seems to come into conflict with some existing realities; by the stroke of a doctor’s pen some of the severely ill are effectively condemned to an unnecessary death—a death that could have been prevented had the simplest of available precautions been taken. By force or not, these are the facts.

Now is there no price too great that some restriction of liberty, no matter how trivial and benign, that must under no circumstances ever be paid? Will those who are “anti-society,” will they volunteer to die at home?

I don't care what you really call yourself. But isn't this just being a Liberal? Believing in personal liberty, but knowing the government has a important role to play in maintaining Liberty.
 
Last edited:
Back to one of my two pet irritations with covid - the other is the vaccine dosing thing.

It's literally on the front page of this preprint website that these papers have NOT been peer-reviewed. The faulty Ivermicten study was also a preprint but then was pulled for straight up making up data. Do you have a single pre-reviewed study? The vaccines do.

You used the old tired "it's not a peer-reviewed paper" objection to the preview paper showing an effect of artemisia extract on sars-cov2 replication. Actually it was a preprint because it contained new results, the original had already been published.

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

Here's one place where you can refresh your memory.

Miracle cure' without evidence
At the end of April, Madagascar's President Andry Rajoelina touted a potion containing an Artemisia extract and other herbs as a "miracle cure" for the coronavirus.
Since then, media in Africa have plugged the drink's potential, and several African countries have placed orders for the herbal tonic, sold under the name COVID Organics.
[...]
WHO warns against untested remedies
The World Health Organization, however, warns on its website that there is "no evidence to suggest that COVID-19 can be prevented or treated with products made from Artemisia-based plant material."
While it's possible new treatments might come from traditional medicines, says Michel Yao from the WHO Regional Office for Africa, people should refrain from using untested remedies for coronavirus.
"There is no evidence. We do not know how these traditional medicines, which are recommended by countries or authorities, are actually effective and whether they are harmless to human health," he told DW.

That Max Plank Institute study? Oddly it seems that the results were very discreetly announced. No publication in any journal I can find. You can just find some secondary news about them:

Chemists at the Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces (Potsdam, Germany) in close collaboration with virologists at Freie Universität Berlin have shown in laboratory studies that aqueous and ethanolic extracts of specially bred sweet wormwood plants (A. annua) are active against the new coronavirus that has caused the COIVID-19 pandemic. Human clinical trials to test the efficacy of both teas and coffee containing A. annuas well as the anti-malaria drug artesunate are about to begin at the University of Kentucky's academic medical center.

This was June 2020. So what of the human clinical trials? The study was announced. Was it quietly dropped because of unpromising results? If so, what's with the lack of published negative results? Negative results are as useful to advance science as positive ones. If now, why are there no results after over one year?
But there are (one example above) other publications, not linked to the MPG, showing encouraging results. So there is some evidence, but... still, over one and a half years later, nothing solid got done!

This is one example of the kind of think that pisses me off. So much talk about science fighting covid, and there's a crappy job of doing it. Lack of published results, lack of research on antiviral therapies. Lack of investment. It seems it got all channeled towards the vaccine response. That's no enough!

Unrelated to the artemisae extract thing, but another example of the lack of attention to this faced of fighting covid. Plenty of possibly useful compounds have already been found, here you go now, have a peer-reviewed published paper on several. In-vitro study showing clear dose-dependant effects on viral inhibition. And, funny thing: one of the compouds having an effect, amodiaquine, is yet another anti-parasitic/anti-malarial drug. Those just keep popping up...

It does look like there are plenty of possible anti-viral therapies against covid. It's just that people really, really, don't seem to want or be able to follow-up on research about these to find out which to use. No encouragement for it? No profit in it? Bad for one's career?

"Science" keeps being invoked by authority figures, on covid issues., But imo "science" is not in the driver's seat, instead it's being used as a fig leaf to justify policy decisions post-hoc. For the scale of the disruption caused by covid, the resources employed in researching solutions for it have been miserably small. And the winners and losers for those resources seem to have been selected based on political criteria: "get me a quick fix to justify doing nothing now". Or, stop worrying and love living with the virus. Some things never change...
 
Last edited:
Now is there no price too great that some restriction of liberty, no matter how trivial and benign, that must under no circumstances ever be paid? Will those who are “anti-society,” will they volunteer to die at home?

Pfff. They will rush to the hospitals until all of them are full and everyone else that needs hospital care are unable to receive treatment.
You think that they care that other people are going to die as a result of their actions ? These people dont operate in a logical manner
 
"Science" keeps being invoked by authority figures, on covid issues., But imo "science" is not in the driver's seat, instead it's being used as a fig leaf to justify policy decisions post-hoc. For the scale of the disruption caused by covid, the resources employed in researching solutions for it have been miserably small. And the winners and losers for those resources seem to have been selected based on political criteria: "get me a quick fix to justify doing nothing now". Or, stop worrying and love living with the virus. Some things never change...

Clearly it is based on "Political criteria" and not "Science"
Like reading the opposite of what actually happened and then concluding that science is wrong.

Malaria drug hydroxychloroquine
Emergency authorisation for malaria drugs pushed by US President Donald Trump to treat coronavirus has been withdrawn by US regulators amid growing evidence they could have serious side effects.
On May 25, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced it was suspending testing of hydroxychloroquine due to its own safety concerns.

Dr Peter Lurie, a former FDA associate commissioner, said the agency had tarnished its reputation by clearing the drugs based on scant evidence and under apparent political pressure.
Rick Bright, the former director of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), said he was fired in April for resisting Mr Trump's push to use hydroxychloroquine as a coronavirus treatment

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-06...nald-trump-hydroxychloroquine-pulled/12358554

Hydroxychloroquine in the prevention of COVID-19 mortality
These findings are not surprising given the mounting body of literature suggesting no clinical benefit for hydroxychloroquine use against COVID-19

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanrhe/article/PIIS2665-9913(20)30390-8/fulltext
 
Last edited:
As a side-announcement, next month’s Whitey Society meeting will be held at Pat Boone’s house—Donny Osmond is having his garage re-stuccoed and the work crew in taking up the driveway. November’s meeting will proceed as scheduled at the Lawrence Welk Memorial Center and Mayonnaise Factory.
 
We're gonna win!

Cheater.
Stop hording all the Pfizer for yourselves (joke but not really a joke)

Given the small size, and rather dense city ACT had a geographic and demographic advantage over the rest of the states.
But its good to see that we getting to high vaccine rates in all the states
 
Last edited:
This was June 2020. So what of the human clinical trials? The study was announced. Was it quietly dropped because of unpromising results? If so, what's with the lack of published negative results? Negative results are as useful to advance science as positive ones. If now, why are there no results after over one year?
But there are (one example above) other publications, not linked to the MPG, showing encouraging results. So there is some evidence, but... still, over one and a half years later, nothing solid got done!

This is one example of the kind of think that pisses me off. So much talk about science fighting covid, and there's a crappy job of doing it. Lack of published results, lack of research on antiviral therapies. Lack of investment. It seems it got all channeled towards the vaccine response. That's no enough!

Unrelated to the artemisae extract thing, but another example of the lack of attention to this faced of fighting covid. Plenty of possibly useful compounds have already been found, here you go now, have a peer-reviewed published paper on several. In-vitro study showing clear dose-dependant effects on viral inhibition. And, funny thing: one of the compouds having an effect, amodiaquine, is yet another anti-parasitic/anti-malarial drug. Those just keep popping up...

It does look like there are plenty of possible anti-viral therapies against covid. It's just that people really, really, don't seem to want or be able to follow-up on research about these to find out which to use. No encouragement for it? No profit in it? Bad for one's career?

"Science" keeps being invoked by authority figures, on covid issues., But imo "science" is not in the driver's seat, instead it's being used as a fig leaf to justify policy decisions post-hoc. For the scale of the disruption caused by covid, the resources employed in researching solutions for it have been miserably small. And the winners and losers for those resources seem to have been selected based on political criteria: "get me a quick fix to justify doing nothing now". Or, stop worrying and love living with the virus. Some things never change...

Pretty sure it's none of the points you list. Finding a good treatment would be beneficial for everyone.
They're probably hit road blocks in the ongoing research, or it even is ongoing, and you simple don't know about it (unless you want to dig through the clinical trial registry).
I've also had one article posted in the last thread, where it was shown that hydrychloroquine indeed does work in some cell cultures, but does not in people, due to the cell cultures simply being different types of cells. Which tells us: This is complicted. Valid preliminary results might simply not translate into anything useful at the end, and that without anyone being wrong.
 
Is it really so hard for people to grok the idea of 'live in society or get the boot'?

You pay your taxes (unless you are rich) or you get locked up eventually.

You wear your seatbelt, or you get locked up

You wear your pants in public, or you get locked up.

America has plenty of backwoods to live in if you don't like it.

Also, this Serbian cave monk got vaccinated. A guy who lives like this is more pro society than a bunch of you.

Where do you draw the line between laws you follow or laws you don't follow?
 
Matthew 5:41 suggests pretty strongly that if you're unjustly commanded to get two jabs that you doctor-shop until you can get a fake medical exemption

They're probably hit road blocks in the ongoing research, or it even is ongoing, and you simple don't know about it (unless you want to dig through the clinical trial registry).
If someone intends for a clinical trial to be useful, they preregister it. So, 'puffs' of trials showing up and then not being completed show that the treatment itself wasn't promising. More than once we've abandoned a 28 day trial at day 18 because we'd blind someone to analyse the data to see if there's signal. And when we abandon a trial, we have no incentive to even do a write-up, unless some statistical anomaly present and we use it as 'suggestive pilot data'.


I'm starting to have my opinion changed on herd immunity and even who causes spreading. I think that Delta is so contagious that we're all gonna catch it eventually. Right now, Alberta is having to Flatten the Curve really hard, but all of the effort is to slow the ICU admissions. Because we're not tracking the vaccinated as aggressively, I don't think we're going to get any good R data comparing the two cohorts.
 
That Max Plank Institute study? Oddly it seems that the results were very discreetly announced. No publication in any journal I can find. You can just find some secondary news about them:

Judging from the names involved it's likely this paper from BMC Virology journal that came out a week or so ago. It's been sitting around on the preprint server since February, so looks like they were having trouble finding a journal that would take it. Nothing particularly odd about that though - it's not a particularly interesting paper. In vitro cell assay. Compound of interest inhibits viral replication only at concentrations way too high to be clinically relevant (mg/ml range). You know the drill by now. They do put this as an acknowledgment of that:

It remains unclear whether peak plasma concentrations in humans can reach levels needed to inhibit viral replication following consumption of teas or Covid-Organics. Clinical studies are required to evaluate the utility of these drinks for COVID-19 prevention or treatment in patients.

Although the claim it's "unclear" whether you can get to those plasma concentrations is straining credulity - it's very clear from their own results that it won't.

This was June 2020. So what of the human clinical trials? The study was announced. Was it quietly dropped because of unpromising results? If so, what's with the lack of published negative results? Negative results are as useful to advance science as positive ones. If now, why are there no results after over one year?
But there are (one example above) other publications, not linked to the MPG, showing encouraging results. So there is some evidence, but... still, over one and a half years later, nothing solid got done!

No such trial registered with the NIH, so must have been scrapped before ever really starting. Or quite possibly retooled into this study, which is still at recruitment phase. It's by the same university, looking at various artemisia derived stuff ("ArtemiCoffee"), but they're looking at it for ovarian cancer rather than Covid. In fact, given that I see they're normally cancer researchers from that press release, I suspect this was a case of trying to graft a Covid angle onto an already planned study. Was a lot of that going on a year ago, as that was where the funding was. And a lot of those studies are getting quietly dumped or pushed out in low ranked journals now the initial rush has worn off.
 
Last edited:
I think that Delta is so contagious that we're all gonna catch it eventually.

Well, this is my opinion. I cannot see any alternative to general vaccination with occasional boosters, and aiming for a healthy diet and lifestyle that will help build resilience.

People with weak immune systems may die, but then they may die of plenty of other diseases that healthy people fight off.

As for anti-viral medicines, well I understand that a high enough concentrated dose of U235 is guaranteed to plasma-rise the coronavirus.
 
Unrelated to the artemisae extract thing, but another example of the lack of attention to this faced of fighting covid. Plenty of possibly useful compounds have already been found, here you go now, have a peer-reviewed published paper on several. In-vitro study showing clear dose-dependant effects on viral inhibition. And, funny thing: one of the compouds having an effect, amodiaquine, is yet another anti-parasitic/anti-malarial drug. Those just keep popping up...

Some interesting compounds there. Most promising result is for panobinostat, a not particularly nice chemotherapy drug, so I expect there'll be some reluctance to start giving that to patients just on the off chance. If it is genuinely effective at as low concentration as that data implies, it would be worth looking at.

It's not the first time amodiaquine has come up. This "throw everything at an assay and something's bound to stick" paper flagged it last August. But it's precisely because it's yet another of this group of anti-malarials that there's not going to be that much research interest in it. Half of the structure of amodiaquine is literally identical to that of our old friend hydroxychloroquine. HCQ shows some antiviral activity in vitro, but in vivo and in clinical trials? Totally useless. Amodiaquine's dose response curve looks suspiciously similar to that of HCQ in vitro studies. So Occam's razor is pointing very firmly towards the identical parts of the molecules having the same mechanism of inhibition (or interference with the assay...), and so the same red herring effect that looks good in vitro and goes nowhere in clinical trials. The authors of this screening study are aware of this - notice that in the discussion section they go over the background and potential of most of their other hits, but they don't even mention amodiaquine? They know that one's not going anywhere.

It does look like there are plenty of possible anti-viral therapies against covid. It's just that people really, really, don't seem to want or be able to follow-up on research about these to find out which to use. No encouragement for it? No profit in it? Bad for one's career?

There's plenty of anti-viral trials going on as well. Don't confuse research not giving the results we'd like with it not being done. Possible leads are being followed - some of them long, long after they cease to be promising. There's a staggering number of studies of HCQ which are evidently still going - the research equivalent of zombies given the existing results.

Most preliminary in vitro studies don't work out in clinical trials. It's why researchers don't get that excited by a report that some drug inhibits the virus in a petri dish. We've already got loads of those, and most of them don't do anything therapeutically useful.
 
Today we had a ‘low’ 135 deaths added, but on Monday we had ~270 (this would compensate for the sudden suspicious dip in the day before the election, when there were only 70).
Which means that still a thousand people or more are dying every week while the original wave recedes and Delta and Mu are gathering strength and spreading covertly.

But that does not worry the misgovernment, which has devolved into open warfare after Sunday's electoral defeat, with half the Cabinet offering to resign to actually try to force the other half to do so. Meanwhile the crisis continues, but the myopic authoritarians without moral authority are too busy fighting for power to try and co-ordinate the response against the virus.


It's a bit like Brazil, where they stand to pass 590,000 deaths by next Monday if not earlier and everybody's busy fighting for or against Bolsonaro's crazy ‘only God can remove me from power’ plan.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top Bottom