Coronavirus thread

[Karl Henning]

It may not be easy to make it work in practice (what will replace voters?)

The Republicans are working on that.

[Mandryka]

     An extension of the state power regarding vaccinations to the latest threat hardly counts as an expansion. It's the same power. It's up to the crankitarians to provide a suitable and convincing argument that it's in the public interest to roll that power back. No one should hold their breath.

I don't understand what you're saying here at all.

[Holden]

It has been stated  a few times in the more recent posts to this thread that the unvaccinated pose a threat to those who are vaxxed and that they should be treated differently from the rest of us. I would have thought that it was the other way around in that the unvaxxed are basically a threat to others who also haven't had the jab. If that is the case then discriminating against them makes no sense whatsoever. I'm happy to mingle with the unvaxxed simply because I have no known comorbidities and am double (soon to be triple) vaxxed.

[Brahmsian]

I am amazed to see large scale lock-downs suggested. Our civilization can't continue with large scale lock downs, and especially school closures. The lockdowns were necessary and effective measures to slow the progress of the pandemic and keep health care systems from collapsing until a vaccine could be developed. Now we have the vaccine. At this point the disease is here to stay and we have to wait for it to equilibrate and become and endemic disease, which will will moderately affect the vaccinated population.

⬆️⬆️⬆️⬆️⬆️

This!

[Mandryka]

Absolutely correct but will the politicians see it this way? We have a new Chief Health Officer here in Queensland who is a significant step up from the bumbling sycophantic fool we had previously. He  is an immunologist and has already stated that how we report on Covid must change from the number of cases to the number of hospitalisations. Our Premier, however, is a worry and despite that fact that she has stated that we will never go into lockdown again, I just don't believe her. I reckon that crunch time is about two weeks away.

The datum which is most interesting is not the number of people in hospital with covid, it's not number of people who are admitted to hospital because of covid. Clearly as omicron rages, more people will be admitted with the disease even though the disease isn't the reason for admission.

But the UK, which has been quite open in this pandemic, has declined to publish this data. I not think the most reliable indicator of the disease's impact is the number of people in intensive care,

[Mandryka]

I have just become eligible for a booster, alas it won't be possible to schedule it until the first week of January.

I am amazed to see large scale lock-downs suggested. Our civilization can't continue with large scale lock downs, and especially school closures. The lockdowns were necessary and effective measures to slow the progress of the pandemic and keep health care systems from collapsing until a vaccine could be developed. Now we have the vaccine. At this point the disease is here to stay and we have to wait for it to equilibrate and become and endemic disease, which will will moderately affect the vaccinated population.

The reason that states are proposing large scale lockdowns is simple. The hospital system is limited. The politicians do not want to be accountable for  people being refused hospital care in a triage, it would make damaging publicity. Can you imagine the pictures over the front pages, the testimony.


The other things - disrupted education, ruined livelihoods, the negative health consequences of lockdown - those things are less politically damaging.

[Florestan]

the most reliable indicator of the disease's impact is the number of people in intensive care,

Yes and no. You should take into account that people get into intensive care primarily because of lack of early treatment, and this in its turn can be because of lack of antivirals or lack of extensive testing, or both. A system where testing is extensive and antivirals are widely available for early treatment should have no problems whatever.

[Mandryka]

There are now 54 diagnosed omicron cases in China.  The state response being that 13 million people are now in total lockdown with one family member per household being allowed outside for provisions every two days.

What do you think of that?

[drogulus]

I  disagree that governments, experts and pharmaceutical companies are fully impartial, completely honest and driven exclusively by genuine concerns for people's health.

     You are disagreeing with phantoms of your own imagination. This is absolutist sham reasoning. What work does "fully", "completely" and "genuine" do? Pharma companies produce vaccines that are impartially, if not "fully, evaluated for safety and efficacy and the results have been nearly miraculous from the perspective of March, 2020. These results were not achieved because everyone was fully completely genuine by any reasonable standard, but in spite of the fact that no one ever is. We live in a "good enough" world where expertise is better than the lack of it, not a world where it's the Platonic ideal or nothing.

     

[Karl Henning]

This would work in US Politics, just as well

Tim Miller:

There was a moment in time when the dwindling number of responsible MAGA leaders and right-wing commentators tried to walk a delicate balance on the matter of vaccines, taking credit for the success of Operation Warp Speed and gently encouraging vaccination—while making nods to the death-cult mob that wanted them to fight the snooty elites who condescendingly suggested they take a shot that would spare them from unnecessary death.

In July, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis held a press conference stating clearly that "vaccines are saving lives." A month later former President Trump was booed by his own fans at an Alabama rally for suggesting they get vaccinated.

But as summer turned to fall, their tune changed. It became clear that the vaccine holdouts in the MAGA base were not persuaded by the overwhelming data indicating that the vaccines were safe and effective; nor by paeans to the American entrepreneurial spirit; nor by the desire to honor their dunce-king for his OWS accomplishment.

As the Delta variant ravaged Trump-supporting counties at a disproportionate rate, the people who had the most credibility with their audience gave up on trying to help them save themselves.

And this weekend, the full anti-vax pivot solidified in the context of the booster shots that studies show provide substantial additional protection against the rising Omicron variant.

You would think as the case numbers spiked that MAGA leaders who cared about their constituents would use this opportunity to make the case for the safety and efficacy of a miracle drug that was developed at least in part on President Trump's watch.

But nah . . .

On Fox Business, Maria Bartiromo asked DeSantis if he was getting the booster. In response, DeSantis smirked and began shaking his head no before she even finished the question. Then he said, "So . . . I mean . . . uh . . . I've done whatever I did, the normal shot, and that at the end of the day is people's individual decisions about what they want to do."

DeSantis then proceeded into a lengthy harangue about vaccine passports and letting people make vaccine decisions for themselves

As for the former president, in September he told the Wall Street Journal that he "probably won't" get a booster.  In October he was asked again about whether or not he planned to get a booster. He demurred.

I followed up with his spokesperson Liz Harrington over the weekend to see if he has, in fact, gotten the booster shot. She has not replied. [Update: Shortly before this newsletter went out, Newsweek reported that Trump mentioned getting boosted at an event on Sunday in Dallas, and was booed.]

This lack of response comes despite Harrington having plenty of time over the weekend to  disseminate press releases about Don Lemon, Jussie Smollett, Tish James, Jeff Zucker, Fredo Cuomo, wokeness not being able to stop Christmas, David Perdue, a NH Journal poll about BBB, Robert Jeffress, and doctored photos that make crowd sizes at Trump's events look larger than they were. [so there are still people to do this—kh]

Even the more "mainstream" Republicans, such as Dan Crenshaw and Chip Roy, have pivoted away from encouraging vaccination, choosing to focus instead on telling their constituents: "DO NOT COMPLY" with vaccine guidelines put forth by the Biden administration

It's not hard to divine where this pivot came from. Republicans heard what their base thinks about vaccines and decided that they'd rather risk public health than get crosswise with the hydroxymectin crowd.

This weekend Turning Point USA, the MAGA college Republican spin-off—whose founder died from COVID-19 last summer—held a conference in Phoenix replete with anti-vaccine fervor.

Sarah Palin said it would be "over my dead body" that she got vaccinated (no pun intended), to applause from the crowd. Tucker Carlson railed against those who are urging vaccination saying they just want to punish people (huh?) and then praised the "naturally immune" who earned it, which earned him raucous applause. Organizer Charlie Kirk claimed that Anthony Fauci should be "in jail" and was met with a chorus of "Lock Him Up" chants from the assemblage.

The TPUSA People's Temple demonstrated that there is no longer any interest in the old vaccine two-step.

So Trump and DeSantis and the rest have fully succumbed to #WeThePeople's demands, consequences be damned.

[Karl Henning]

     You are disagreeing with phantoms of your own imagination. This is absolutist sham reasoning.

Ah, I see you have met our Andrei.

[Florestan]

The reason that states are proposing large scale lockdowns is simple. The hospital system is limited. The politicians do not want to be accountable for  people being refused hospital care in a triage, it would make damaging publicity. Can you imagine the pictures over the front pages, the testimony.


The other things - disrupted education, ruined livelihoods, the negative health consequences of lockdown - those things are less politically damaging.

I think people are basically divided along two lines: )1) those who have an unlimited trust in government and think that everything said and done by the government is true, honest and useful and could not have been done any other way and anyone who opposes what the govrenment says and does is an enemy of the people and (2) those who don't.

[Florestan]

I don't understand what you're saying here at all.

drogulus sunt, non leguntur. 

[drogulus]

I don't understand what you're saying here at all.

     Vaccine mandates and other measures associated with severe epidemics are examples of the same state power as used in the past. The argument that this is an innovation in powergrabbery is utterly dishonest. A different theory of the case is that it has always been an intolerable power grab for the state to assume a public health role on the grounds that there is no such thing as the public good for a state to promote, which doesn't leave much room for a state to exist at all, even one run on a crankish fantasy of absolute freedom, whatever the fuck that's supposed to be.

     I surmise that the reason some people are unfamiliar with this kind of thought is that the whiffs of argumentation that reaches their minds are so outlandish and fantastical that it hardly seems worth investigating further, much like the case of anarcho-communism.

[Florestan]

There are now 54 diagnosed omicron cases in China.  The state response being that 13 million people are now in total lockdown with one family member per household being allowed outside for provisions every two days.

What do you think of that?

I think the Chinese government, under the wise leadership of the Communist Parrty Secretary Gereral Xi Jinping, takes all the best measures to ensure that the Chinese people has a bright and happy future and is working toward realising humanity's golden dream, ie Communism. Long live the Chinese Communist Party headed by its secretary general Xi Jinping! Long live the struggle for peace!

[Karl Henning]

Trump's Handling of COVID Was Worse Than You Thought.
Someone ought to go to jail.

Jonathan V. Last
1 hr ago

1. Early COVID

Last week the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis issued a report, along with a release of some emails and interviews.

First things first: This report is not what America needs. The report is overly partisan and at times reads like a combination of score-settling against the Trump administration and justification of the Biden administration.

What we need is a comprehensive, non-partisan excavation of the American government's response to COVID. Something along the lines of the 9/11 Commission. Because what we saw in 2020 and 2021 amounts to the greatest failure of the federal government in our lifetimes. The people responsible for this failure must be held accountable, on the record. And we must not be repeat this failure in the future.

All of that said, the factual material in this short report is . . . I don't even know the right word for it.

Here are some highlights, in timeline form.

Last week the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis issued a report, along with a release of some emails and interviews.

First things first: This report is not what America needs. The report is overly partisan and at times reads like a combination of score-settling against the Trump administration and justification of the Biden administration.

What we need is a comprehensive, non-partisan excavation of the American government's response to COVID. Something along the lines of the 9/11 Commission. Because what we saw in 2020 and 2021 amounts to the greatest failure of the federal government in our lifetimes. The people responsible for this failure must be held accountable, on the record. And we must not be repeat this failure in the future.

All of that said, the factual material in this short report is . . . I don't even know the right word for it.

Here are some highlights, in timeline form.

February 25, 2020: No Americans have died of COVID yet.

From the report:

[T]he Trump White House blocked CDC's requests to conduct public briefings for more than three months following a February 25, 2020, CDC briefing in which then-CDC National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases Director Nancy Messonnier accurately warned the public about the risks posed by the coronavirus. Dr. Messonnier confirmed that this briefing "angered" then-President Trump.

February 29, 2020: The first American dies of COVID.

Total U.S. dead: 1

On February 29, advisers to the president send a memo warning about what is about to happen. From the report:

[A] '"first wave" of infections in the United States was imminent and that the federal government needed to "be honest about the situation and show it is undertaking major decisive actions" to combat the coronavirus. A memo to then-President Trump dated one day later warned that the country was facing "a very serious public health emergency" and recommended "Industrial Mobilization of Supply Chains," while emphasizing that the Administration's "movement is NOT fast enough."

In response, the president and his surrogates attempted to publicly deny that there was any problem at all. For instance, here is Trump on March 10: "It will go away. Just stay calm. It will go away."

May 24, 2020: 620 Americans die.

Total U.S. dead: 97,690

Jay Butler, the Deputy Director CDC Infectious Diseases, sends an email to the White House protesting that they have altered CDC guidelines by deleting suggestions for wearing masks and for limiting in-person church services:

This is not good public health—I am very troubled on this Sunday morning that there will be people who will get sick and perhaps die because of what we were forced to do. Our team has done the good work, only to have it compromised....

Worth pointing out that a not inconsiderable part of the problem was journalists mistakenly treating Trump as if he had been a "normal President."

[Karl Henning]

     Vaccine mandates and other measures associated with severe epidemics are examples of the same state power as used in the past. The argument that this is an innovation in powergrabbery is utterly dishonest.

Aye.

[Mandryka]

I think people are basically divided along two lines: )1) those who have an unlimited trust in government and think that everything said and done by the government is true, honest and useful and could not have been done any other way and anyone who opposes what the govrenment says and does is an enemy of the people and (2) those who don't.

There's something much more interesting than that going on. Somehow, I don't understand how exactly, the left have adopted a rigid authoritarian stance in this pandemic, they talk down or even ignore the costs of NPIs and stress the benefits, maybe to the point of exaggerating the benefits. So people's positions have become all mixed up with where they see themselves on the political spectrum.


There's another thing too.  Some people are scared and they want to see actions like vaccine mandates in the face of what they see as a personal threat, because, rightly or wrongly, the feel they would be safer.

[Que]

(The fact that certain minority communities remain disproportionately less vaccinated is purely coincidental.)

Sure, like white middle aged Republicans.

[prémont]

When sigma emerges, it too will change the game: we will need a new booster and a new lockdown. Then tau will change the game as well: we will need a new booster an a new lockdown. Then upsilon, then, then, then, all the way down to omega which will require the umpteenth booster and lockdown. And after omega, then what? Will we start anew from alpha 2.0?

You are probably completely right, but this is the conditions of life, and we have to react to this, if we want to survive.

I've read scientific papers claiming otherwise.

The many re-infections tell their own story.

The risk is assessed on a case by case basis, taking into account many more factors than mere age.

If you make correction for other factors, age is the single most prominent risk factor.

This is not the case according to whom?

According to the many articles we have read. I have to say, that I only include m-RNA vaccines, which are the only ones used i my country. Mild ephemer endocarditis/carditis/pericarditis has been reported being the only side-effects of notion.

I beg to differ. Strongly.

You are of course entitled to your opinion, as well as I am to mine.

According to psychiatrists and psychologists, lockdown and restrictions do affect people in the long run, especially children and teenagers.

And elderly at care homes and many others.

I'\m astonished. If tomorrow I wanted to take a PCR test, I'd have plenty of locations to chose from: just go there, fill a form, wait for maybe 15 mins at most and get tested --- on my own money, of course. I should have thought that Denmark was way ahead Romania in this respect.

This reflects the high infection number in Denmark, and the high demand of PCR tests.

I disagree that vaccinations greatly reduce the number of infections.

I disagree that vaccination should be mandatory, including by such means as requiring vaccination prof in order to be able to go to work.

I disagree that unvaccinated people are either benighted or conscious enemies of the people.

I  disagree that governments, experts and pharmaceutical companies are fully impartial, completely honest and driven exclusively by genuine concerns for people's health.

I disagree with all this.