Coronavirus thread

[MusicTurner]

Yes, but its probably going to take more time, before any good results appear, and as it is known from previous developments, initial surveys/hypotheses may contradict each other. Currently, media stories about omicron often do. 15 sewage sample stations around the country will now be mapping tendencies too.

Virus cases still going up here in DK generally, in spite of new restrictions as per Nov. 12th and Nov. 26th ... they'll probably introduce more today, though we're not talking about lock-downs. It will be curfews in night life etc.
The 3rd jab will be available earlier, now about 5 1/2 months after the second, not 6 months, so personally I might get a call for it during this weekend or so.

[Mandryka]

Yes, but its probably going to take more time, before any good results appear, and as it is known from previous developments, initial surveys/hypotheses may contradict each other. Currently, media stories about omicron often do. 15 sewage sample stations around the country will now be mapping tendencies too.

Virus cases still going up here in DK generally, in spite of new restrictions as per Nov. 12th and Nov. 26th ... they'll probably introduce more today, though we're not talking about lock-downs. It will be curfews in night life etc.
The 3rd jab will be available earlier, now about 5 1/2 months after the second, not 6 months, so personally I might get a call for it during this weekend or so.

In the UK it's now 3 months for booster if your 40+. The world is taking a huge gamble on vaccines providing adequate omicron protection. If they're (we're) wrong, it'll be frightening; if they're (we're) right, it'll still be painful.

[Mandryka]

Calling people in Japan - what's going on there? Why is there like, practically no Covid?

[drogulus]

     From the formerly failing newspaper of record:

     Pfizer Says its Booster Offers Significant Protection Against Omicron

[Karl Henning]

Republicans' disregard for doctors on the coronavirus

By Aaron Blake
Senior reporter
Yesterday at 2:31 p.m. EST

For the better part of a year, the coronavirus vaccination effort has struggled mightily to appeal to a crucial group of holdouts: vaccine-skeptical Republicans. And for a time, the conventional wisdom settled upon a potential antidote: getting local doctors and local health experts to espouse the benefits of vaccination. Republicans might not listen to Anthony S. Fauci, the reasoning went, but maybe they'd listen to someone who was a fixture in their community.

But a new poll, conducted as vaccine skepticism remains quite intractable among Republicans, suggests even that approach carries diminishing returns.

The Gallup poll, released Tuesday, showed declining trust among Republicans not just in scientists or medical professionals writ large, but also in their own doctors.

In 2002 and 2010, at least 7 in 10 Republicans trusted the accuracy of important medical advice from their doctor — higher even than among Democrats at the time. It registered at 73 percent among Republicans in 2010.

Today, though, that number has fallen to 60 percent. And it's not the only evidence that Republicans increasingly mistrust the advice of health experts.

This is an important way to ask the question, because people often separate those around them from what is perceived as a broader problem.

If you ask whether people want to cast out members of Congress en masse, for instance, they will often say yes. But when you ask specifically about their own representative, people feel differently — and often overwhelmingly reelect them, even when Congress is at its most unpopular. (This owes in large part to polarization, of course, and to the lack of competent primary challengers. But people generally do like their own member of Congress much more than the institution as a whole.)

Ditto for the media, with people tending to mistrust the media more broadly but viewing their local media as more trustworthy than national outlets.

If there's a lesson from the Gallup poll and others, it's that Republicans' discontent with and mistrust of experts and institutions — which once largely exempted medical professionals — is growing, relatively speaking, and it appears to be extending even to local ones.

There is some mixed data on this. Earlier this year, an AP-NORC poll showed relatively little difference in trust in doctors overall, with 72 percent of Republicans trusting them at least "most of the time" and 77 percent of Democrats agreeing.

But that's a pretty low bar — "most of the time." And if you drill down deeper, you see the gaps widening.

In May 2020, toward the start of the coronavirus pandemic, Pew polling showed a spike in faith in scientists that didn't extend to Republicans. While the percentage of Democrats and Democratic-leaning voters who trusted medical scientists "a great deal" went from 37 percent in 2019 to 53 percent, it held level at about 3 in 10 Republicans and Republican leaners.

Nor is Gallup the only poll to show a yawning partisan gap. A Grinnell College poll conducted in October by pollster J. Ann Selzer found a huge split in the number of people who had "high" levels of trust in scientists to solve problems in their communities — 79 percent for Democrats versus 28 percent for Republicans — and a slightly smaller but still significant split on doctors — 71 percent for Democrats to 48 percent for Republicans.

That this split would also extend to one's own doctor makes it especially important. The gap isn't as big when you localize the issue, but it still speaks to the hurdles in getting people who won't listen to what amounts to the scientific consensus on vaccination.

It's perhaps not surprising that Republicans would be more skeptical of scientists, given the party's long-standing views on climate change and other issues, along with its general mistrust of the government and institutions. But to the extent that they are also more unwilling to listen to the medical experts close to them — and layer it on top of that wider mistrust of experts — it certainly reinforces why this problem is apparently here to stay.

[fbjim]

the greatest problem of our age is the unraveling of society. I've had friends estranged from their parents because their parents, addicted to Facebook, started to believe their own sons and daughters to be party to some sort of global conspiracy of elites. it's the end result of the pushing of purely individualist rhetoric.

at some point the town doctor was almost a member of the family. when he becomes considered party to the Global Mask and Vax Conspiracy, things have broken, very badly.

[Pohjolas Daughter]

the greatest problem of our age is the unraveling of society. I've had friends estranged from their parents because their parents, addicted to Facebook, started to believe their own sons and daughters to be party to some sort of global conspiracy of elites. it's the end result of the pushing of purely individualist rhetoric.

at some point the town doctor was almost a member of the family. when he becomes considered party to the Global Mask and Vax Conspiracy, things have broken, very badly.

I don't know what to say.  I, personally, find it astonishing and horrifying that your friends' parents (whom I'm guessing that the friends are relatively young and that their parents are probably also relatively young....as in maybe early 50's or 40's??) feel like that they can't trust their own children!  Am I close here age-wise?

PD

[fbjim]

I don't want to be reductive but: Facebook. If there's a reason I have little technological positivism, it's because we gave the tech industry unlimited money and freedom, and they used it to invent machines that turn people insane.

[Karl Henning]

Got my Pfizer booster last week.  All was fine for twelve hours, then suddenly developed a dull pain in my right side (injection was in right shoulder), staggered a few feet then collapsed in a ball against the bedroom door.  Waves of heat and too dizzy and weak to move for about ten minutes.  My head swam:  my wife insists I was unconscious; but I don't think so.  Took about a day to fully recover.  My guess is age and flu shot I got at the same time have something to do with it.  Gave my wife-- unvaccinated because of medical vulnerabilities-- quite a scare, though.

Incidentally, wife and I belong to a military veterans organization.  The chaplain for the group is a vociferous anti-vaxxer-- despite losing a niece to coronavirus earlier this year.  We learned two days ago he is in the hospital with coronavirus.  Two members of the organization have tested positive and others are rushing to be tested.  My wife and I detest the arrogant, misogynistic creep and have nothing to do with him; so we are not worried for ourselves.  A case of prophylactic antagonism, I guess.

Glad you've pulled through. Warm wishes to you & the missus!

[krummholz]

I don't want to be reductive but: Facebook. If there's a reason I have little technological positivism, it's because we gave the tech industry unlimited money and freedom, and they used it to invent machines that turn people insane.

It's not just Facebook, it's YouTube, as well, and other popular venues by which anyone can gain a platform and a following, if they profess to know things they may or may not, and are able to convince enough people through their arguments. This would seem to be a good thing, free information exchange to everyone worldwide, uncensored (in theory) by governments and other authoritative institutions. But that reckons without our ability as humans to fool ourselves into believing that someone knows what they're talking about, when in reality they are only confirming our own pre-existing biases.

A case in point is a friend of mine of whom I wrote earlier in this thread (I think), a retired nurse, who should know better, but who has latched onto the FLCCC, "Dr." John Campbell, and the Jimmy Dore Show and has become convinced that the vaccines are far more dangerous than admitted by the medical community; that Fauci is an inveterate liar who shouldn't be believed (worse than Trump, apparently, whom she also detests); that Ivermectin is more effective in treating and even preventing infection than the vaccines, and safer; and that the regulatory agencies only approved the vaccines because they were bought off by Pfizer. The media also, she says, do not report the many terrible and crippling adverse reactions that have occurred from the vaccines because they, too, are controlled by Pfizer and other drug companies.

She is not a Republican. This phenomenon is hardly limited to Republicans. She is just anti-corporate, and has found bloggers and podcasters who echo her beliefs and also tell her that what mainstream sources are reporting is false and controlled by corporations. An extreme and potentially tragic case of confirmation bias... I think we have all seen lots of examples of this, but when it happens to a friend, or a family member, it really hits home.

[Holden]

There was a song from "Hair" which had the lines "This is the dawning of the age of Aquarius" as the beginning of its chorus. Of course the Age of Aquarius didn't eventuate.

However, what we have now is the 'Age of the Nutjob'! People who, because it appears on social media, believe it to be true and take it a step further by propagating it. They are taken in by the smooth but powerful rhetoric of the presenters. They never question what they are presented with. They never fact check (which isn't hard to do). Psychological profilers have been talking about the 'drama hook' for a few decades now. People who must have drama in their lives and actively seek it out. Social media will easily provide them with this drama. The bottom line is that these people, no matter how educated the think themselves to be, are basically ignorant. It's a true indication of the dumbing down of society. There are millions of them out there and you won't be able to convince them that they could be wrong.

There is one major concern for me. The propaganda from both social and regular media makes me cast my mind back to events from the 1930s. If Josef Goebbels was alive today he no doubt would be absolutely delighted with what he would be seeing.

I take great delight in 'teasing' these dickbrains and they can't help themselves. I do it by asking them to elaborate on any of their statements. After listening to them without interrupting, my response is always prefaced by the word 'but' which really requires them to elaborate even further. I never disagree, I just ask for further elaboration. They eventually give up in frustration and I am secure in the knowledge that they won't bother me again with their silly and unsupported ideas.

[MusicTurner]

Glad you've pulled through. Warm wishes to you & the missus!

Concerning the quoted post, a relative I have, aged 64 and not with the best health, recently agreed to have a double dose of flu vaccine, as part of a medicine survey; she's not overly sensitive, but felt bad and that she mostly had to lie down for 4-5 days afterwards. Several vaccines simultaneously can be a bad thing.

EDIT: I had no inconveniences at all concerning my 2 Covid vaccinations (Pfizer) and 2 flu vaccines, spread out during the last 1.5 years.

[Biffo]

I am sorry to hear of people having adverse reaction to Covid jabs. In the last 18 months or so I have had a flu jab, two AZ jabs, another flu jab and a Pfizer booster jab. Only the first flu jab produced any ill-effects - a painful arm and flu-like symptoms for a couple of days. I got a slight ache in the arm for a day or so from the Pfizer jab but it wasn't particularly painful. With so many people getting these jabs I suppose it is inevitable some will react badly.

[Florestan]

People who, because it appears on social media, believe it to be true and take it a step further by propagating it. They are taken in by the smooth but powerful rhetoric of the presenters. They never question what they are presented with. They never fact check (which isn't hard to do). [...] The bottom line is that these people, no matter how educated the think themselves to be, are basically ignorant. It's a true indication of the dumbing down of society. There are millions of them out there and you won't be able to convince them that they could be wrong.

Your analysis is correct and the sad thing is that even if you substitute mainstream media for social media it still remains valid. The propaganda in the former is no less relentless than in the latter and the gulllibility level of their respective audiences is probably the same.

If Josef Goebbels was alive today he no doubt would be absolutely delighted with what he would be seeing.

Propaganda  has progressed exponentially since Goebbels' times and features achievements of which he could have only dreamed of. Could he have convinced the whole world that Saddam Hussein has WMDs? That the Serbs are Nazis who have set up concentration camps? (this one in particular would probably give him an orgasmic pleasure...) Or that it's legitimate and moral that Iraq be invaded because a bunch of mostly Saudis and Pakistanis assembled in Afghanistan conspired to produce 9/11 which was acted mostly by Saudis and Egyptians? I doubt it.

In this respect, see my second signature line.

[Florestan]

The media also, she says, do not report the many terrible and crippling adverse reactions that have occurred from the vaccines because they, too, are controlled by Pfizer and other drug companies.

What she probably means is that Pfizer's two top owners, The Vanguard Group, Inc and BlackRock Fund Advisors are also top owners of The New York Times, CNN, Fox, ABC News, NBC News, MSNBC and Slate.

https://www.investopedia.com/articles/company-insights/082316/top-10-shareholders-pfizer-pfe.asp

https://projects.iq.harvard.edu/futureofmedia/index-us-mainstream-media-ownership

[Karl Henning]

Ron Johnson of Wisconsin never tires of being a nozzle in the flow of bad information:

A GOP senator suggested gargling mouthwash to kill the coronavirus. Doctors and Listerine are skeptical.

[fbjim]

It's not just Facebook, it's YouTube, as well, and other popular venues by which anyone can gain a platform and a following, if they profess to know things they may or may not, and are able to convince enough people through their arguments. This would seem to be a good thing, free information exchange to everyone worldwide, uncensored (in theory) by governments and other authoritative institutions. But that reckons without our ability as humans to fool ourselves into believing that someone knows what they're talking about, when in reality they are only confirming our own pre-existing biases.

A case in point is a friend of mine of whom I wrote earlier in this thread (I think), a retired nurse, who should know better, but who has latched onto the FLCCC, "Dr." John Campbell, and the Jimmy Dore Show and has become convinced that the vaccines are far more dangerous than admitted by the medical community; that Fauci is an inveterate liar who shouldn't be believed (worse than Trump, apparently, whom she also detests); that Ivermectin is more effective in treating and even preventing infection than the vaccines, and safer; and that the regulatory agencies only approved the vaccines because they were bought off by Pfizer. The media also, she says, do not report the many terrible and crippling adverse reactions that have occurred from the vaccines because they, too, are controlled by Pfizer and other drug companies.

She is not a Republican. This phenomenon is hardly limited to Republicans. She is just anti-corporate, and has found bloggers and podcasters who echo her beliefs and also tell her that what mainstream sources are reporting is false and controlled by corporations. An extreme and potentially tragic case of confirmation bias... I think we have all seen lots of examples of this, but when it happens to a friend, or a family member, it really hits home.

In the same way as the actual crimes of people like Jeffrey Epstein give child trafficking conspiracies credit, the grand ways that governments and experts have fallen flat on their face in our lifetimes- the 2008 crash, the Iraq War, even going back to Vietnam- give credibility to all conspiracy theories.

To an extent the loss of faith in expertise and government is well-deserved. Conspiracy thinking is not a replacement for that, however. It is far easier to engage in conspiracy thinking than it is to attempt to think critically and weigh the credibility of statements against each other. Believing nothing you hear is not a tenable philosophy unless one wants to recreate the laws of physics from first principles. After all, how do you know the value of an electron's charge is really what the Elites say it is? The oil-drop experiment? Do you have tangible, physical proof that it actually took place, and that the values weren't made up by The Elites?

[Karl Henning]

In the same way as the actual crimes of people like Jeffrey Epstein give child trafficking conspiracies credit, the grand ways that governments and experts have fallen flat on their face in our lifetimes- the 2008 crash, the Iraq War, even going back to Vietnam- give credibility to all conspiracy theories.

To an extent the loss of faith in expertise and government is well-deserved. Conspiracy thinking is not a replacement for that, however. It is far easier to engage in conspiracy thinking than it is to attempt to think critically and weigh the credibility of statements against each other. Believing nothing you hear is not a tenable philosophy unless one wants to recreate the laws of physics from first principles. After all, how do you know the value of an electron's charge is really what the Elites say it is? The oil-drop experiment? Do you have tangible, physical proof that it actually took place, and that the values weren't made up by The Elites?

I appreciate both the serious import of your post, and the tassels of wry humor.

[fbjim]

It's only a half-joke. This kind of reasoning - that you can't believe anything from any source (except, of course the ones approved by the conspiracy community) and that only first-hand knowledge is valid, is common among the conspiracy-minded. You saw it with the flat-earthers, and though that's kind of a joke, you still see the same attitude that instead of critically weighing the likelihood of bias, falsehood and and all that, it's easier to simply say that everything out of "authoratative" sources is considered bunk by default.

One of the more common things I'm seeing is how global warming is a hoax designed to get the average Westerner to lower their standards of living while the elites live it up. The sad part is that this isn't *entirely* untrue, as a) combating climate change probably *will* require some sort of lifestyle adjustments to reduce consumption of things like fuel, and b) extremely rich people do tend to be insulated from such things. But most popular conspiracies aren't based entirely on absurdities- many have basis in fact*, which gives them a measure of credibility.


*one joke i've heard is the "conspiracy of conspiracies" - that conspiracy theories exist to discredit reports of the actual unseemly actions of intelligence agencies, governments, and those in power.

[Pohjolas Daughter]

Glad you've pulled through. Warm wishes to you & the missus!

+1

So very sorry (and distressed) to hear of your reaction!  It must have been very scary for both of you.

Good to hear though that you're feeling back to normal.

PD