Coronavirus: Discussion and Information

[Haibane]

When Chinese officials will not release raw data one can only draw the conclusion they have something to hide.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-56054468

Its events like that that cause other nations to mistrust China.

[Oniya]

Tell all of your less-tech-savvy relatives and friends.

Some jack-offs are now sending out phishing scams that claim to be vaccination registration sites.

[Haibane]

I don't understand the working's of people's minds who do not trust or want the vaccine, but then they go and make public efforts to dissuade others. If you do not want it, then fine, stay at home, but why try to persuade others? That's such an irresponsible act. I'm reminded of an incident a week or three back where a cavalcade of anti-vaxxers in their cars blocked access to a drive-in vaccination centre in California. What right do you have to do that? None.

I suspect this documentary will not be available to many outside the UK but BBC's Panorama team did an excellent report a couple of nights ago on the anti-vax scam in the UK.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000scy8/panorama-vaccines-the-disinformation-war

[Mechelle]

Peter Hitchens is an outspoken British libertarian right-wing journalist who has been vocal in his opposition to lockdowns and vaccines.

Today, however, he announced that he had received his first dose of the vaccination which he said he had taken for "totally selfish reasons". That was in response to an unusual comment by the Queen, who had said in a zoom call which was widely broadcast,  that people should consider being vaccinated for the sake of other people.

His usual fans seem to be annoyed with him!


https://www.thelondoneconomic.com/news/lockdown-and-vaccine-sceptics-fuming-as-lockdown-and-vaccine-sceptic-journalist-gets-jab-222741/

[RedRose]

You know what I don't get?
"People who vax are dead to me" why? Just don't do it. Let people be, even if you disagree. No?
"Don't talk to me with a mask" again, why? If you don't believe it helps, you surely don't believe it does anything to you if someone wears a mask?
I've witnessed the people all close and without masks here in Paris and believe if we ever have a lockdown again I'll go nuts and it will be because MOST people don't wear a mask at all or correctly now that the weather is nice. My people used to be super pro vax and the doctor is always right. Then internet happened and now so many are anti. I feel alone in the middle.

[Haibane]

I feel the same. If you don't want to be vaccinated or wear a mask, that's your choice, but do not ever try to force your choice on others. Its why I was so incensed a few weeks back when some Californian anti-vaxxers blocked access to a drive in vaccination centre with their cars. Why? What's the point? What do you hope to achieve by stopping others from exercising their freedom to be vaccinated? Are people outside your home waving syringes demanding you be vaccinated against your will? No. So just stop it.

[CopperLily]

Because convalescent plasma has been mentioned: The NIH has halted a clinical trial for treating patients with mild symptoms due to lack of efficacy.

https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/nih-halts-trial-covid-19-convalescent-plasma-emergency-department-patients-mild-symptoms

[Humble Scribe]

Anti-vaxxers are a strange bunch. Jack Posobiec amused me a couple of months back when he inadvertendly anti-vaxxed so hard that he turned inside out and re-invented vaccination:

[Haibane]

LOL, what an ignoramus. When anti-vaxxers reveal that they actually have no clue what they are talking about, you know its not worth engaging with them.

[Oniya]

Anti-vaxxers are a strange bunch. Jack Posobiec amused me a couple of months back when he inadvertendly anti-vaxxed so hard that he turned inside out and re-invented vaccination:

This is the same guy that pushed the Pizzagate conspiracy theory.

[Haibane]

You mean the origins of QAnon?

[Oniya]

Well, conspiracy theories feed on themselves and each other.  QAnon has definitely embraced Pizzagate, though.  My point was that Posobiec isn't just anti-vaxx. 

[Beorning]

Okay, this Posobiec guy and his alternative for vaccines... wow. 

On another note: I'm scared! My father (whom I live with) just went to visit my sister. And, according to my sister, she was at work a week ago - and, in another room, there was an employee who later got diagnosed with Covid! What if my sister got exposed, is incubating Covid and will infect my father? And then, he'll infect me???

We're doomed, just because my father insists on visiting her right now for some reason... 

[Skynet]

That sucks. Friends and family who are insistent on compromising safety are never fun.

Sending well wishes your way.

[stormwyrm]

And now it seems we have some good news. There is some preliminary evidence that the vaccines, at least Pfizer's and Moderna's, can actually reduce the risk of spread of COVID-19:

https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/covid-vaccines-probably-prevent-spread/

This is a big deal if it pans out. If the vaccines can give us sterilising immunity, we can potentially eradicate SARS-CoV-2 for good, if we can get enough people vaccinated faster than mutant strains with resistance to the vaccines can arise. We are in a race against vaccine hesitancy.

[Blythe]

And now it seems we have some good news. There is some preliminary evidence that the vaccines, at least Pfizer's and Moderna's, can actually reduce the risk of spread of COVID-19:

https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/covid-vaccines-probably-prevent-spread/

This is a big deal if it pans out. If the vaccines can give us sterilising immunity, we can potentially eradicate SARS-CoV-2 for good, if we can get enough people vaccinated faster than mutant strains with resistance to the vaccines can arise. We are in a race against vaccine hesitancy.

...that makes me remarkably happy that I got my 1st dose of the Moderna vaccine yesterday. 

[Regina Minx]

I got my first shot of the vaccine today, y'all. Pfizer. I am seriously about to start crying.

[Beorning]

...that makes me remarkably happy that I got my 1st dose of the Moderna vaccine yesterday. 

I got my first shot of the vaccine today, y'all. Pfizer. I am seriously about to start crying.

You can't imagine how I envy you. It seems it'll half a year at least before I get my shot 

And now it seems we have some good news. There is some preliminary evidence that the vaccines, at least Pfizer's and Moderna's, can actually reduce the risk of spread of COVID-19:

https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/covid-vaccines-probably-prevent-spread/

This is a big deal if it pans out. If the vaccines can give us sterilising immunity, we can potentially eradicate SARS-CoV-2 for good, if we can get enough people vaccinated faster than mutant strains with resistance to the vaccines can arise. We are in a race against vaccine hesitancy.

I say, then: purge the hesitants!!!!!! 

[Haibane]

I say, then: purge the hesitants!!!!!! 

Joking aside, this is where the anti-vax bullshit stops being bullshit and really begins to affect the world's population... and economy.

[Lilias]

Meanwhile, a little light reading. We're all mush-for-brains right now.

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2021/03/what-pandemic-doing-our-brains/618221/

[Azuresun]

I've assembled something of a file of quick debunk links for anti-vaxxers on Facebook:

The virus was, in fact, isolated.

No, it doesn't cause Bell's Palsy

There was no animal testing!

There was no animal testing: the saga continues.

No, the vaccine won't make you infertile

How an RNA vaccine works, and why it can't alter your DNA.

The use and abuse of Koch's Postulate

ZOMG, what about the INGREDIENTS?!

Why deaths and serious reactions reported on VAERS are not reliable.

No, the vaccine isn't killing hundreds of Scandinavian pensioners.

No, Bill Gates never said anything about depopulation.

The inventor of the PCR test never said it wasn't designed to detect viruses.

No, the PCR tests are not generating false results based on "cycles".

The Nuremburg Code does not apply to vaccination.

[Oniya]

I've assembled something of a file of quick debunk links for anti-vaxxers on Facebook:

The Nuremburg Code does not apply to vaccination.

Point 2 seems to give a good argument in favor of the process, even so:

https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/nejm199711133372006

2. The experiment should be such as to yield fruitful results for the good of society, unprocurable by other methods or means of study, and not random and unnecessary in nature.

I think 'not having a perpetually uncontrolled pandemic' is going to outweigh quite a bit.

[stormwyrm]

I've even seen some idiots refer to the Nuremberg Laws... 🤦‍♂️ Did Germany win the war, such that those awful laws now apply everywhere?! In any case the Nuremberg Code is not law anywhere, though it influenced legislation regulating human experimentation around the world, such as that of the US. It would be more relevant to refer to the actual laws on the books rather than the ur-text that at most guided their writing.

One weird thing about the inventor of the PCR test, Kary Mullis. He supposedly encountered what he called "a standard extraterrestrial racoon" at his cabin in 1985. So he saw Rocket out there?

[Oniya]

One weird thing about the inventor of the PCR test, Kary Mullis. He supposedly encountered what he called "a standard extraterrestrial racoon" at his cabin in 1985. So he saw Rocket out there?

A 'standard' extraterrestrial raccoon.  As opposed to a non-standard one?  O_o  How many exemplars make a standard?

[Beorning]

Maybe there's something we don't know? Maybe there are extraterrestial raccoons hiding all around us, directing things secretly...