Coronavirus. The n(in)th sequel.

[Gelion]

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03995-1


First step for a long-covid medication, as it seems.

Oh yes please!

 

[Takhisis]

Up from 135 dead yesterday to 185 today! Meanwhile, the entire misgovernment remains paralysed by disputes over power, which might last until at least monday, because who cares about fostering new strains?

 

[stfoskey12]

COVID cases and hospitalizations are starting to trend down in the parts of the country hardest hit by the delta variant. Deaths are still high and will likely take a while to go down.

 

[Birdjaguar]

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

I think it means if you are asked to get two doses, make sure you get the booster too.

Matthew 5:41

is the forty-first verse of the fifth chapter of the Gospel of Matthew in the New Testament and is part of the Sermon on the Mount. This is the fourth verse of the antithesis on the commandment: "Eye for an eye".

Content[edit]
In the King James Version of the Bible the text reads: And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain.
The World English Bible translates the passage as:
Whoever compels you to go one mile, go with him two.
The Novum Testamentum Graece text is:
καὶ ὅστις σε ἀγγαρεύσει μίλιον ἕν, ὕπαγε μετ’ αὐτοῦ δύο.
For additional translations see Matthew 5:41.

Analysis[edit]
The word here translated as compel, angareuo, is a Persian loan word that is a technical term for the Roman practice of requisitioning local goods or labour.[1] Schweizer notes that it specifically refers to the power of the Romans to demand that a local serve as a guide or porter. Later at Matthew 27:32 Simon of Cyrene will be forced by such rules to carry Jesus' cross, the only other time in the New Testament the word translated as compel is used.[2] The Zealots loathed this practice, and their refusal to participate in such tasks was an important part of their philosophy and a cause of the First Jewish–Roman War. According to R. T. France, these commands would have shocked the Jewish audience as Jesus' response to the Roman occupation was starkly different from the other Jewish activists of the period.[3] Jesus says nothing about the propriety of such demands, Schweizer notes that Jesus simply accepts it as fact. Thomas Aquinas wrote that this verse implies that it is reasonable to follow laws that are unjust, but argued that laws that are unconscionable must not be obeyed.[4]

The word here translated as mile refers to the Roman definition of 1000 paces, slightly shorter than a modern mile.[5] The mile was a specifically Roman unit of measure, locally the stadion was used to measure length. Miles would only have been used by the imperial government and the local occupying forces, which further links this verse with imperial repression.[6] This verse is the origin of the English phrase "going the extra mile," which means to do more than is needed. See The Extra Mile (disambiguation) for its usage in popular culture.

 

[Takhisis]

Tucker Power!

Jair Bolsonaro plans to flout New York vaccine rules at UN meeting
Brazil’s president claims he has not received a Covid-19 vaccine – but his immunization records have been locked away for 100 years

The Brazilian president, Jair Bolsonaro, has signaled that he will snub New York City vaccination rules when he travels to next week’s UN general assembly claiming not to have received a Covid jab.

Bolsonaro is the only G20 leader who publicly claims not to have been vaccinated against a disease that has killed nearly 600,000 Brazilians, although the decision to place a 100-year secrecy order on his immunization records means many citizens doubt that claim.

On Thursday night Bolsonaro reiterated his supposed decision to decline a vaccine despite New York City health authorities having said delegates must show proof of vaccination if they plan to eat indoors or enter the general assembly hall.

“Why would I get vaccinated?” Brazil’s far-right president declared during an online broadcast, claiming his antibody levels were so high that it was unnecessary. Bolsonaro tested positive for Covid-19 in July 2020.

“Once everyone has been vaccinated, I’ll decide my future,” Bolsonaro added, using his finger to wipe his nose.

The Brazilian leader’s appearance at the UN meeting appears assured after the secretary general, António Guterres, admitted it would be impossible to deny access to unvaccinated heads of state. Delegates will not be required to show proof of immunization before attending the event, whose opening speech will be given by Bolsonaro on Tuesday.

But Bolsonaro’s decision to brush off Mayor Bill de Blasio’s vaccine mandates has sparked domestic criticism and is unlikely to help the Brazilian leader in his reported quest to win over the world at next week’s assembly.

“Just guess which politician hasn’t been vaccinated and is going to expose his country and citizens to yet another international embarrassment?” tweeted Erika Kokay, a congresswoman from the leftist Workers’ party (PT).

When Brazil’s pro-Trump president made his last in-person appearance at the UN general assembly, in 2019, he offered a cantankerous 30-minute speech in which he attacked the media and the left.

Some reports suggest Bolsonaro plans to strike a softer tone this year as part of efforts to mend relations with Trump’s successor, Joe Biden, and appease the world ahead of November’s Cop26 climate summit. A report from CNN Brasil, whose coverage is often sympathetic to Brazil’s president, claimed Bolsonaro planned to make a “pro-Biden speech” taking in themes such as climate change, sustainable development and the fight against deforestation.

Experts are doubtful such a rhetorical shift will convince the international community given the damage done to the environment since Bolsonaro took office in January 2019. “I really don’t think the world will buy this so easily,” Suely Araújo, the former head of Brazil’s environmental agency, Ibama, said in a recent interview.​

 

[Gelion]

I don't know if I missed something, but vaccinated people still transmit the disease don't they?

 

[FriendlyFire]

I don't know if I missed something, but vaccinated people still transmit the disease don't they?

Yes the vaccines do not guarantee 100% immunity. The infection rate of Delta is about 3.6 times higher, and our vaccines are less effective at prevention compared with Covid19 strain
The result has been vaccinated people getting sick, like the unvaccinated.
Good news is that being vaccinated continues to work effectively at preventing you from getting seriously ill, hospitalized and dying.

 

[FriendlyFire]

Obstruct <--- we are here now
I suggest the GOP repeal all vacccine mandates in their own states, so that they can own the us even more. And show the WHO who is boss by legalizing the eating of wild bats.

'Tremendous hypocrisy': All the GOP governors banning COVID-19 vaccination mandates require other vaccines
https://www.businessinsider.com/gop...ne-mandates-all-require-other-vaccines-2021-9

 

[amadeus]

Arrest Bonoznaro if he thinks he can violate my country’s rules.

 

[Drakle]

Mississippi Number 1 spot, is similar to the ratio of US total deaths to population from WW2

407,300 Military deaths from all causes
12,100 civilian deaths due to military activity
419,400
/131,028,000 US Population in 1939
x 100
=0.320084257 / 0.32%

Mississippi's current death toll is 1/327
x 100
=0.305810398 / 0.305%

So Mississippi's COVID response is likely to end up deadlier than US participation in WW2.

 

[stfoskey12]

I don't know if I missed something, but vaccinated people still transmit the disease don't they?

If they get sick, yes, but they're less likely to get sick in the first place.

 

[Gelion]

Yes the vaccines do not guarantee 100% immunity. The infection rate of Delta is about 3.6 times higher, and our vaccines are less effective at prevention compared with Covid19 strain
The result has been vaccinated people getting sick, like the unvaccinated.
Good news is that being vaccinated continues to work effectively at preventing you from getting seriously ill, hospitalized and dying.

That is true, I was under the impression that they don't affect the chance to become a carrier of the disease.

 

[Zardnaar]

That is true, I was under the impression that they don't affect the chance to become a carrier of the disease.

They more resistance to getting sick or really sick vs immunity.

 

[Verbose]

That is true, I was under the impression that they don't affect the chance to become a carrier of the disease.

If one wants to think of transmission and a digital yes/no to whether someone is infected and can spread the virus, then in a way there is "no difference" once the infection has taken hold. They're contagious.

Then again there is still this analog aspect where people have always been variably contagious depending on how well their immune systems cope with the virus, and how much virus they have been exposed to, where vaccines prime the immune system against the virus leading to lower virus loads in these people even when infected and transmitting the disease. (And then there is also the aspect of varying efficacity of the different vaccines.)

So, unvaccinated individuals who get infected can be assumed to probably have a bigger virus load than vaccinated people who get an infection despite a primed immune systems trying to fight off – i.e. probably more virus to spread around, in higher concentrations. But mileage will still vary.

 

[Gelion]

Thanks guys, hopefully we'll have medication for this thing one of these years even though its hard to make.

 

[El_Machinae]

I don't know if I missed something, but vaccinated people still transmit the disease don't they?

They seem to reduce the odds of catching the disease in the first place. If Delta is contagious as I think it is, then this is better represented as a delay before which you'll catch the disease. For the very-old this is significant, but for the young we will look back at that delay as a statistical blip.

The ability to spread to others is a different question, and it's very hard. It's the Area Under the Curve (amount of particle * time emitting) of infectious particles being emitted (and this is confounded by whether those particles are 'healthy') * the amount of the above is spent being asymptomatic. If an unvaccinated person is contagious but symptomatic, they will behave differently from a vaccinated person who's asymptomatic.

I've seen some talk about how it matters if you're producing antibodies in your respiratory system, but I don't know much about that except literally the words at the beginning of this sentence.

 

[El_Machinae]

I think it means if you are asked to get two doses, make sure you get the booster too.

That's how a heathen would read it. I'm tapped into the Evangelical community, which relies on the Holy Spirit to help interpret the word of God. I'm really sure my reading is correct, based on behavior.


As an aside, it's sometimes a little tough comparing stats between regions. Right now, Alberta has the same death rate and a lower case rate than Israel. It does not bode well for incomplete vaccine coverage or the ability of the vaccine to protect the population for very long. If the scales weren't very different, it looks like India is just outright missing another wave.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/world/canada-covid-cases.html
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/world/covid-cases.html

 

[Takhisis]

Well, we have a new cabinet. The health minister stays, the foreign minister was fired as he was arriving at a climate change conference in Mexico, and the new one is the utterly incompetent now former Cabinet Chief. So actual international co-operation (geting vaccines and medical supplies) remains hampered.

The interesting is the new cabinet chief who, as provincial health minister, ‘solved’ several problematic social indicators by personally tampering with the figures.
A harbinger for the future?

 

[Gelion]

They seem to reduce the odds of catching the disease in the first place. If Delta is contagious as I think it is, then this is better represented as a delay before which you'll catch the disease. For the very-old this is significant, but for the young we will look back at that delay as a statistical blip.

Thats not very encouraging....

The ability to spread to others is a different question, and it's very hard. It's the Area Under the Curve (amount of particle * time emitting) of infectious particles being emitted (and this is confounded by whether those particles are 'healthy') * the amount of the above is spent being asymptomatic. If an unvaccinated person is contagious but symptomatic, they will behave differently from a vaccinated person who's asymptomatic.

I've seen some talk about how it matters if you're producing antibodies in your respiratory system, but I don't know much about that except literally the words at the beginning of this sentence.

Either way, if it helps other people - good. If it doesn't then the resources being thrown at this thing could be used somewhere else...

Something like that

 

[El_Machinae]

Well, it keeps people out of the hospital and delays the rate at which the unvaccinated enter the hospital ... so there's those benefits.