Coronavirus

[cardinalkarp]

I’m sorry that I didn’t make it more widely known that I’m disgusted by our healthcare system prior to the pandemic.

Prior to the pandemic I could avoid the system and it’s disfunction, now it’s try to be forced upon me in some gestapo type fashion.

That is a different argument than "big pharma is evil because they profit from this"

Your excuses are all over the place.

Multiple reasons aren’t the same as “excuses are all over the place”.

[AdmiralKird]

I wanted to talk this morning about the prospects of vaccine mixing and matching, and sigh had that nice post a bit before.

But here we are talking about the Gestapo. Is there any way we can keep at least one of these two coronavirus threads clear of this nonsense?

[GeddyWrox]

OK, but like two pages back, you insinuated again that the vaccine was not to be trusted because the companies are motivated by profits. I pointed out that all of healthcare in America is profit driven, and you keep bringing up how it's supposedly being forced on you by the gestapo. That's shifting the goal posts.

[AWvsCBsteeeerike3]

I wanted to talk this morning about the prospects of vaccine mixing and matching, and sigh had that nice post a bit before.

But here we are talking about the Gestapo. Is there any way we can keep at least one of these two coronavirus threads clear of this nonsense?

I don't have any technical information, but it does seem like mixing/matching the vaccines should work perfectly fine. They're essentially getting the body to make the s protein. Differences between the proteins created (via mRNA) I'd think would be pretty minimal and given the overarching function of the immune system as well as real world data as to how the vaccines have handled multiple mutations to the s protein, I'd think the key is to get the body exposure to the protein in general. Training the immune system doesn't really rely on seeing the exact protein multiple times. And, this can also be highlighted with evidence of efficacy natural infections transfer.

[AWvsCBsteeeerike3]

I'm also beginning to think, perhaps too optimistically, the way out of this is going to be people get exposed to the actual virus (preferably after a vaccine to mitigate risk) that further trains the immune system to the rest of the virus, not just the s protein.

What I find particularly odd with the MU variant and the concern it can bypass immunity (both vax and nat. infection) is the lack of traction it has had in the real world. The delta variant is better at infecting than the MU, but with about half the pop vaxxed, and some further percentage previously infected, the delta variant should be running out of people to infect/spread it. We currently have few, if any, restrictions in place. A virus seeing a population with no immunity should be gaining a foothold and really challenging the delta variant (currently responsible for 99%+ infections in the US) for dominance....but it just isn't.

[GeddyWrox]

I'm also beginning to think, perhaps too optimistically, the way out of this is going to be people get exposed to the actual virus (preferably after a vaccine to mitigate risk) that further trains the immune system to the rest of the virus, not just the s protein.

What I find particularly odd with the MU variant and the concern it can bypass immunity (both vax and nat. infection) is the lack of traction it has had in the real world. The delta variant is better at infecting than the MU, but with about half the pop vaxxed, and some further percentage previously infected, the delta variant should be running out of people to infect/spread it. We currently have few, if any, restrictions in place. A virus seeing a population with no immunity should be gaining a foothold and really challenging the delta variant (currently responsible for 99%+ infections in the US) for dominance....but it just isn't.

This makes me wonder too. Perhaps it's that Mu is less transmissible? I thought I've read that it's MORE transmissible, but as you've pointed out, you would think it would be overtaking Delta if this were the case. Shrugs.

[Arthur Dent]

@cardsfantx , you ask another question that keeps me greatly occupied: What does this all mean for the kids? Mine are 6 and 9, still pretty small but school age. For the 6 year old, this pandemic is now 1/3 of her life. Couple that with the fact that nobody really remembers their first two years, and it's half of her conscious existence. We do our best not to live in fear. We wear masks, but we go out. We don't dine in restaurants, but we will sit on a patio at places that are casual, outdoorsy, and spread out. We have traveled, usually by car, but to more remote destinations where we can ride bikes or swim or hike in nature. We're doing our best to enjoy life.

But, we haven't done a ton of seeing friends, or family. We haven't been to a birthday party in 18 months, or had friends over inside our house. They missed almost an entire year of in-person school. Little kids are always listening (we call them our little Alexas), so they no doubt hear Mrs Zeus and I talking in hushed tones about how the hospitals in Austin have 0 ICU beds, or about someone who died or is in the hospital with "it." They know Covid is serious. They trust us to try to keep them safe, and they seem genuinely happy. But it would be naive for me to assume everything's fine.

I’m worried about this. For the most part, I think kids are pretty resilient, but it can’t be good for social development to have so much isolation and to come up in an environment where you’re supposed to view most other people as potentially deadly threats.

On the plus side, new hospital admissions in Austin have been dropping for the last two weeks, which I hope means the worst of the local Delta surge is over.

[Socnorb11]

I’m sorry that I didn’t make it more widely known that I’m disgusted by our healthcare system prior to the pandemic.

Prior to the pandemic I could avoid the system and it’s disfunction, now it’s try to be forced upon me in some gestapo type fashion.

That is a different argument than "big pharma is evil because they profit from this"

Your excuses are all over the place.

This has been the pattern for awhile. He doesn't trust the medical industry, but he wants the medical industry to provide more options to fight Covid.

The truth is that the medical industry is almost certainly making more money off of the unvaccinated than they are the vaccinated. As someone pointed out earlier, one night in the hospital, hooked up to a ventilator............ thousands of dollars. That's going on all over the country, and it's almost all unvaccinated people. If you're really trying to avoid getting "snookered" by the medical industry, you're choosing the greater of two evils by not getting vaccinated. It makes no sense.

[G. Keenan]

I’m sorry that I didn’t make it more widely known that I’m disgusted by our healthcare system prior to the pandemic.

Prior to the pandemic I could avoid the system and it’s disfunction, now it’s try to be forced upon me in some gestapo type fashion.

That is a different argument than "big pharma is evil because they profit from this"

Your excuses are all over the place.

This has been the pattern for awhile. He doesn't trust the medical industry, but he wants the medical industry to provide more options to fight Covid.

The truth is that the medical industry is almost certainly making more money off of the unvaccinated than they are the vaccinated. As someone pointed out earlier, one night in the hospital, hooked up to a ventilator............ thousands of dollars. That's going on all over the country, and it's almost all unvaccinated people. If you're really trying to avoid getting "snookered" by the medical industry, you're choosing the greater of two evils by not getting vaccinated. It makes no sense.

Good point. Not getting vaccinated because you want to avoid the US pharmaceutical industrial complex is probably not the best way to avoid said complex.

[cardinalkarp]

I’m sorry that I didn’t make it more widely known that I’m disgusted by our healthcare system prior to the pandemic.

Prior to the pandemic I could avoid the system and it’s disfunction, now it’s try to be forced upon me in some gestapo type fashion.

That is a different argument than "big pharma is evil because they profit from this"

Your excuses are all over the place.

This has been the pattern for awhile. He doesn't trust the medical industry, but he wants the medical industry to provide more options to fight Covid.

The truth is that the medical industry is almost certainly making more money off of the unvaccinated than they are the vaccinated. As someone pointed out earlier, one night in the hospital, hooked up to a ventilator............ thousands of dollars. That's going on all over the country, and it's almost all unvaccinated people. If you're really trying to avoid getting "snookered" by the medical industry, you're choosing the greater of two evils by not getting vaccinated. It makes no sense.

Good point. Not getting vaccinated because you want to avoid the US pharmaceutical industrial complex is probably not the best way to avoid said complex.

If you’re over 65 and/or have multi co-morbidities I would agree.