Miscellaneous And Off Topic Subjects

[Hannibal]

Excellent video by Paul Joseph Watson on DSLs cultural revoluationary heroes and their similarity with Mao's China.

[Hannibal]

Antifa goons and pro Trump goons .

I must have missed the mobs of pro-Trump goons pulling people from their carsand beating the shit out of them, burning down city businesses, murdering innocent peole, or accosting random people on the stream asking them to engage in a subversive bootlcking ceremoney.

[Ghengis Jon]

Try opening your eyes.

[Dr. Strangelove]

Trump calling for Fox News to fire one of their few credible reporters, Jennifer Griffin, because she confirmed (along with the Washington Post and AP among others) the reports of Trump disparaging POWs and war dead in private. Cancel culture!

[Jeff Buchanan]

Hate in when science gets in the way ........

The study may not be dispositive wrt the contention by some PH officials and augmented by "dire consequences" reporting that SARS-CoV-2 will combine with seasonal flu to eradicate life on planet earth but, it's this balance stuff you NEVER hear about.

The study that looked at the risks to people of suffering increased disease burden from becoming infected with both seasonal colds from Rhinoviruses and SARS-CoV-2 was just completed and reported in The Lancet Microbe. Summary results.......

These findings show that one respiratory virus (e.g., Rhinovirus and possibly SARS-CoV-2) can block infection with another through stimulation of antiviral defences in the airway mucosa, supporting the idea that interference from rhinovirus disrupted the 2009 IAV (seasonal influenza) pandemic in Europe. These results indicate that viral interference can potentially affect the course of an epidemic, and this possibility should be considered when designing interventions for seasonal influenza epidemics and the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

The best way to wade through scientific papers like this is to scroll right to the discussion section at the end of it and read it.

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanmic/article/PIIS2666-5247(20)30114-2/fulltext

[Dr. Strangelove]

Pretty crazy...Gettysburg College has ordered all students confined to their dorm rooms for a week. They're only allowed to leave for the bathroom, pick up food, or go to work if they have a job. Violators could be sent home. Lie at a lot of other schools they're blaming frats and sororities for super-spreader events

https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/09/04/907141666/as-covid-19-cases-rise-gettysburg-college-puts-all-students-on-lockdown

[CGVT]

Pretty crazy...Gettysburg College has ordered all students confined to their dorm rooms for a week. They're only allowed to leave for the bathroom, pick up food, or go to work if they have a job. Violators could be sent home. Lie at a lot of other schools they're blaming frats and sororities for super-spreader events

https://www.npr.org/sections/coronav...ts-on-lockdown

They basically did the same thing at NYU only it was preemptive rather than reactive. All students coming into NY from "hot" states had to quarantine for 14 days prior to the start of classes. They are being very strict in enforcing their mitigation measures. So far, 20 students have been dismissed

[Jeff Buchanan]

DSL, what do you mean by a "super-spreader event." I'm not ragging on you but this term is widely misunderstood and misapplied. It is highly emotive because when you hear it it's like, whoa, that's BAD! The press loves that.

The reality is that there are two measures of a virus's spread; The first is the R factor. We've been over that term exhaustively; w/o age stratification and overall (not a great way to look at it) the R for SARS-CoV-2 is between 1 and 3. One person will infect between 1 to 3 others..... or, it's not as spready as the media, and some health officials, would like you to visualize that it is. As we know, it's not the R factor that contributes to rapid spread so much as it is the principle of geometric progression and population density.

The second, less understood, is the dispersal or K factor. Super Spreader Events have K factors > 0. 1. SARS—which also is caused by a type of coronavirus—was determined to have a k of 0.16, MERS—which is caused by a different coronavirus—had about a 0.25 k number. Both SARS and MERS were viruses where superspreading played a significant role in the disease's spread, MERS much more spready by super spreading events than SARS. OTH, the 1918 Spanish Flu had a k number of around 0.1, meaning superspreading wasn't much of a factor. Its estimated that k for Covid-19 is 0.1 or super spreader events are rare, much like the Spanish Flu.

What's meaningful about the K factor is that allows officials to determine post event, lets say an event of 100 people, if there were 50 people at that event that tested + and you could track that to one person, that's a super spreader and a super spreader event. IOW, it has less to do with total numbers of positives and more to do with an event where one person infected a whole bunch of others. That, to my knowledge, is not what is happening on college campuses with fraternities and sororities. Officials are reporting X number of people were identified as getting infected at venue A, B or C. From a single super spreader? Don't know and I don't think campus officials know to that level of detail either. It's more likely that at densely occupied bar A or frat party B a lot of people who were unknowingly infected where there and each of them infected one other person and on and on.

As usual, devil's in the details but the media doesn't care and that term get's thrown around a lot, incorrectly, because it sounds scary.

[Hannibal]

Gotta shut people indoors to make sure that they don't get the flu that only kills 85 year old cancer-surviving diabetics.

[Hannibal]

Day 170 of "fifteen days to flatten the curve".

We are still all in semi lockdown for a disease that doesn't kill you unless you are older than 75 and have multiple pre-existing conditions.. At this point, if you are still a Corona Bro, you have forfeited your right to make fun of Flat Earthers, 911 Truthers, and Creationists.

[Dr. Strangelove]

Day 170 of "fifteen days to flatten the curve".

We are still all in semi lockdown for a disease that doesn't kill you unless you are older than 75 and have multiple pre-existing conditions.. At this point, if you are still a Corona Bro, you have forfeited your right to make fun of Flat Earthers, 911 Truthers, and Creationists.

So are you refusing to even wear a mask at this point? Are you urging everyone you know to refuse the vaccine when it comes because the disease is "harmless" unless you're 85 and 'morbidly obese"?

[Dr. Strangelove]

Jeff- Call it a cluster outbreak then. Whatever. Colleges are clearly zeroing in on frats, and probably frat parties, rightly or wrongly, for sparking outbreaks on campus.

[Dr. Strangelove]

Multiple boats sink as God disapproves of the latest "Boaters For Trump" parade

https://www.foxnews.com/us/boats-sink-trump-boat-parade-texas

[Jeff Buchanan]

My point on the K factor thing is this ....... I don't think college officials making public health decisions on mitigation measures in the face of increased numbers of their students testing positive for COVID are acting on facts that support a particular measure. This isn't new and I've made the case that there are lots of examples of poorly thought out mitigation measures that have no basis in COVID facts ...... these officials just care more about the optics and avoiding getting hammered by the press, uninformed parents, what-have-you.

That officials are doing this is a huge deal because it is perpetuating the false narrative from many sources that is permeating the public view and the publicly articulated views of scientist and medical professionals inside the HHS community - a community that should be entirely fact based. After 6 months of experience with this thing, after tons of data suggesting otherwise, we're still treating SARS-CoV-2 pandemic as if it will wipe out life on this planet if it spreads. It's crazy.

The net result is that no one who should be speaking out is speaking out. The political consequences of articulating a fact-based COA or publically articulated position that seriously questions the predominant COVID narrative and then having the slightest bad outcome occur in pursuit or articulation of it, the optics of that, are too great. The details of how ND handled their outbreak and the criticism of mine that they abandoned an otherwise good plan is just one example of many.

Yet, the costs as compared to the PH benefits of the continuation of poorly thought out mitigation measures, unprecedented in modern times, get scant attention. That's why I jump on every opportunity to pour cold water on misleading or factually incorrect COVID related stories. That includes pointing out unreasonable opinions, like I believe Desmond Howards' statements made today on ESPN were, that only perpetuates unjustifiable COVID fear.

[Hannibal]

Now that Outkick is getting popular, the mainstream media has begun the hit piece assault.