It's been said that infectiousness is at the highest 2 to 3 days before symptoms appear. (High viral load). Hence all the early panic about pre-symptomatic patients. And those who are symptomatic normally take between 5 to 10 days to be symptomatic.
I live and work in a very, very conservative part of an already conservative state. Middle of Trump-land, so we've got a lot of folks who just don't think this is legit and still think the numbers are just "them cooking the books" trying to "gain control" over the population. Case in point: the district I work for just held school board elections and 3 people were elected to the school board (out of 8 total) who are Covid denial types that ran on a platform of ignoring our Dept of Health's data and just sending all kids back to school full time. My wife still has people laying in ICU beds about to go on ventilators due to Covid admitting to her that they didn't "think it was a real thing", "no worse than the flu", "I just can't believe this is happening" etc. The students at the high school my uncle works at, and where I attended, held a 250ish student bonfire over Thanksgiving Break that their parents knew about and were okay with. Now they're starting to have positive cases across all grade levels. Our High School League, the governing body over interscholastic sports, has pushed on with beginning winter sports, so while cases are going through the roof, we are pushing on with basketball and wrestling seasons. It is a truly, truly surreal experience as a wrestling coach preaching to the kids about the need for proper mask procedures and social distancing off the wrestling mat, but then once they get on the wrestling mat, those rules do not apply, per the High School League.
Yeah it does sound surreal. Do you feel in any way compelled to say feck this shit, the regulations don't make sense, I can't allow the kids to do this? Or is it a case of the government approve of this, the kids want to do this, just gotta go with it?
I bet it’s those people who seem to have a wet nose 365 and constantly do those stifled coughs without putting their hand over their mouth.
I mean, the way the head coach and I see it is that we both take Covid seriously in a sea of of folks that don't and if we don't coach the kids, someone else who doesn't take it seriously will. At least when they are with us, we can control as much of the situation as possible.
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That’s so spot on
How are the kids themselves responding? Are they like many of their parents denying or playing down the risks too?
True!
Seemed like he was just doing a bad Boris Johnson impression. Sure let's be a bit jokey about one of the most serious issues of our time, I give handshakes to everyone. They don't seem to realise that not taking themselves seriously means competent leaders also don't take them seriously.
Yeah, I mean... this is where we are from. Our parents and grandparents are still living here and all that. Plus it is expensive as all hell to move since property values in S.C. are relatively lower than most other places, and I would lose my retirement basically because I’m in the SC Pension Plan, so leaving would be a massive financial decision. And that is on top of the student loans from my masters and my wife’s nurse practitioners degree... we just can’t afford to leave even if we want to.
Most kids are doing really well with masking and distancing. But then, like I said, you’ve also got that group that isn’t that does things like a 250+ person bonfire party over Thanksgiving Break. And ultimately, even if we’re able to make every kid to do exactly what they’re supposed to while at school, if they don’t outside of it, it won’t matter. Which sucks.
Ffs
Just got around to reading this and the original review. Thanks for sharing! The Twitter thread definitely does a good job at bringing out the salient points for the layman. The diagrams of the different vaccine types in the main article is especially helpful though! I can kind of see how it works now.
The effectiveness number was based on symptomatic subjects only. I can't find where I saw that now, but it was confirmed by the Oxford team.
Thanks.
Can you please provide a source for your comments on the Chinese vaccine? I have a friend who has access to Sinopharms vaccine but is still deciding if he should sign up for the jab, would be useful to know some info.
Here's a recent article discussing it in Nikkei Asia (maybe a bit gleefully?) and here it is in the Washington Post a little earlier. They both relate to this journal in the Lancet about Sinovac rather than Sinopharm. From this journal comparing the phase I/II results of the main vaccines, Sinopharm did perform notably better than Sinovac in the phase II trials, but we don't know the phase III results yet. I wouldn't take a vaccine until they've released phase III and it has been assessed by experts. That's when they thoroughly assess its safety and its efficacy. What we know so far is it generates some immune response and it is safe enough to continue testing, like Sinovac, but we don't know how well it performs.
What Sinopharm are saying is particularly strange, assuming it's not being mischaracterised. They haven't released phase III results but they're happy to say it's safe because they've just done an uncontrolled trial on over a million people and...no problems so far? But then maybe there's been no problems because they're not actually following up to check? It's all a bit curious.
Thanks. Appreciate the detailed reply and citations.
I don't understand what sinister gains Bill Gates would get out of this?
So this has been doing the rounds on social media lately. And sadly, it was shared by a bloody doctor. He's pentecostal, so that explains a lot, I guess. Sigh ..... disappointing to know i have friends like this. He was also one those who were complaining that people are going to die anyway and that we should reopen.
I don't know what to do with these kinds of lunacy. I just shared that twitter thread shared by Pogue and hope his medical training can understand what the guy was tweeting and hopefully realise what an idiot he is.
I know, right? It's all so disappointing to see a not only a doctor, but a friend regress like that.
Typically it comes down to two main explanations; it's an attempt at depopulation or a plan to put microchips in your body for either surveilleance or control. The notion of depopulation isn't that conspiratorial given what has happened before, the conspiracy aspect tends to be that it's disguised as a vaccine and dictated by a shadowy cabal of elites. Which then tends to get tied in with the Gates foundation being "on trial for illegal vaccination" and another web of loosely related and mostly false ideas.
Ah yes the Pentecostal Christians who preach that all lives matter when it comes to abortion but are more than happy for people (particularly poor people) to die unnecessarily when they feel their own rights are being infringed upon.
So this has been doing the rounds on social media lately. And sadly, it was shared by a bloody doctor. He's a born again pentecostal, so that explains a lot, I guess. Sigh ..... disappointing to know i have friends like this. He was also one those who were complaining that people are going to die anyway and that we should reopen.
I don't know what to do with these kinds of lunacy. I just shared that twitter thread shared by Pogue and hope his medical training can understand what the guy was tweeting and hopefully realise what an idiot he is.
Yeah. I was initially tempted to just drop an insult, but in the end, I felt it was counter productive and decided to leave the link from Pogue instead. I can only hope that it changes his mind. Or even if that fails, at least stop his misinformation from spreading to other people in that group.
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Yes. Those Pentecostals. I really should not be surprised by him anymore.
I don`t know about Harrods but I have noticed a lot more people not wearing masks this last week or so .
Sorry I only seen this. One my colleagues who got it also had back pains.
I think mainstream science has a problem in these situations. It talks about probabilities, statistics, risks. It admits weaknesses (like animal trials not necessarily offering guarantees in humans) but keeps coming back to square one and a balance of evidence. It's a bundle of maybes that still (in the eyes of the specialists) add up to a definite yes, or more commonly to a yes, but - like no pregnant women, no under 13s etc etc - and a promise to keep an eye on adverse reactions, unexplained events, and to keep looking even if they appear to be unfortunate coincidences.
just take a look at the picture
Average age of that crowd looks about 14 too.
Little wankers will be spreading it round schools just before Christmas
Wow, Have people given up ?
I've read my share of misinformation, and leaving some key info out allows them to tell the truth and still mislead people, I've seen a lot of that in regards to the effectiveness of masks. Makes it harder for people to come to the right conclusion. Like they will fail to mention that people who get SARS-COV-2 while wearing a mask almost always get an asymptomatic or mild case, they just point out people in masks are still getting infected and perhaps point out how they're less effective than a N95, then conclude you shouldn't wear one.
