COVID-19 in your part of the world

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Mischief Maker
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Re: COVID-19 in your part of the world

Post by Mischief Maker »

Sengoku Strider wrote:In an ironic twist for the ages, the Dunning-Kruger effect is likely not real:

https://www.mcgill.ca/oss/article/criti ... dzUNqr6uYs

People being misinformed is though, which was Dunning's explanatory mechanism for it anyway.
Well after that flex last night, I must confess that I've been getting something wrong:

I've been saying that the covid vaccine doesn't change your DNA but Covid-19 definitely does. Well I just found a recent paper debunking that meme. It's not a retrovirus that incorporates into the host's DNA, it apparently sets up shop in the Golgi Apparatus instead.

My bad!
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Re: COVID-19 in your part of the world

Post by GaijinPunch »

Vanguard wrote:The health care system in the USA is perpetually flooded by design. We have a capitalist, for-profit health care system where the capitalists have financial incentive to assign as little manpower as possible to deal with whatever the hospital has to deal with for the day.
It's not. It's capitalistic. Like any business, it is created to handle a specific sweet spot of customers, and that number is breached quickly in many places because of their choices regarding Covid safe measures. A places like Japan which has a very non-capitalistic healthcare system (and works way better in some ways) was overrun much quicker and are turning away more per capita across the board. At least according to a report I read.
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Re: COVID-19 in your part of the world

Post by emphatic »

Ddshot wrote:I won’t bother next time il just leave you guys in your bubble.thanks anyways
At least you tried interrupting their "the science is settled" circle jerk.
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Re: COVID-19 in your part of the world

Post by Randorama »

Sengoku Strider wrote: In an ironic twist for the ages, the Dunning-Kruger effect is likely not real:

https://www.mcgill.ca/oss/article/criti ... dzUNqr6uYs

People being misinformed is though, which was Dunning's explanatory mechanism for it anyway.
Ah! Thanks for the link.

Still, the picture is a bit more complicated than what the article seems to propose, I believe. One of the studies that the article cites is this one (free download).

The article is fairly thorough and relatively easy to read, and points out how the original paper (Dunning & Kruger 1999, indeed) also was rather conservative, in the conclusions.

In fact:
Dunning & Kruger 1999, p. 1132 wrote:Although we feel we have done a competent job in making a strong case for this analysis, studying it empirically, and drawing out relevant implications, our thesis leaves us with
one haunting worry that we cannot vanquish. That worry is that this article may contain
faulty logic, methodological errors, or poor communication
...I guess that the journos made a very good job of turning the original study into some kind of "near-universal truth", as the article from Strider's link seems to point out. The link above is, however, also by a journalist and not a researcher in the field, so I suspect that he is trying to push the opposite position ("the effect is bollocks").

So, I believe that the paper I linked to may offer a more accurate rendition of the debate, which is indeed still going on strong (OK, I studied this topic 10+ years ago in grad school, and that was it).

My 2 cents on the matter, anyway: ...let's just say that all these studies focus college students, and college students are W.E.I.R.D., in the Thomas Enrich sense of the acronym.

An intro to the concept is here. Any work by Thomas (Enrich) is fanatically recommended, if you want to read more.

Effects aside, I *believe* that misinformation and "meta-misinformation" are general problems for everyone. The "cognitive overload" that pandemics seem to bring should also make any such problems worse, I guess.

I'd add some links on research into the psychology of crises (pandemics, natural disasters, etc.), but they'd be "dinosaur readings" by now. That's a side-effect of scientific progress, and a poignant joke may be made here.

Another problem that I see in this kind of debates is that...

Usually, if a research topic attracts attention, for whatever reasons there may be (e.g., CoViD-19: what is it?), the scientific papers on the topic are many and offer sometimes very different views (duh, what else?).

What journos seem to prefer (and their readers with them, usually) is the perspective "There is ONE paper on the topic and it confims whatever biases my publisher wants to push forward".

I'd then quote Hermon & Chomsky (2001) [1989] ("Manufacturing consent") on this topic, but I feel like I might as well cite works from the previous universe, or something.
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Sengoku Strider
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Re: COVID-19 in your part of the world

Post by Sengoku Strider »

Randorama wrote:The link above is, however, also by a journalist and not a researcher in the field, so I suspect that he is trying to push the opposite position ("the effect is bollocks").
Could be, but in the interest of context, that link is to the science outreach program of a top 50 global university (the slogan for said program being 'separating science from nonsense'), and the author has a masters in molecular biology and did lab management work in vision & motor rehabilitation for a few years before this. So he's not specifically coming out of psych, but he's not a layman either.

And TBH as much as I think psychology is an incredibly helpful field whose constructs I make use of all the time, taken as a whole it's also a complete and utter methodological dumpster fire. Like there's even a non-trivial possibility that the primary research around "the gold standard" cognitive behavioural therapy is based on fumes. I'm kind of more inclined to trust someone in an adjacent field or with a well-supported outsider's view these days.
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Re: COVID-19 in your part of the world

Post by orange808 »

Interesting. Unbiased third parties say we only need boosters for people with weak immune systems. The drug companies are spreading fear and crying that we all need a booster--with billions of dollars on the line. Gosh goodness almighty! Who'd a thunk it? :-) Taking a drug company's word for it over our federal agencies is no different than listening to the Heritage Foundation on climate change.
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Re: COVID-19 in your part of the world

Post by Ddshot »

GaijinPunch wrote:
Vanguard wrote:The health care system in the USA is perpetually flooded by design. We have a capitalist, for-profit health care system where the capitalists have financial incentive to assign as little manpower as possible to deal with whatever the hospital has to deal with for the day.
It's not. It's capitalistic. Like any business, it is created to handle a specific sweet spot of customers, and that number is breached quickly in many places because of their choices regarding Covid safe measures. A places like Japan which has a very non-capitalistic healthcare system (and works way better in some ways) was overrun much quicker and are turning away more per capita across the board. At least according to a report I read.
In the uk we have the NHS which payed for by the people’s taxes called national insurance contributions ontop of income taxes and vat and all other taxes.the nhs hasn’t worked for 20yrs or more,you can spend days ringing your doctor to get a appointment when you finally do the waits could be 2-3wks before you get to se him,waiting times for life saving surgery are ridiculous most wait 6-8months,A&E waiting times avrage over 10hrs,drugs differ depending on post code,England has to pay for prescriptions whilst other home nations get them free and that’s before covid even hit the uk!the nhs is a black hole it eats money quicker than governments can print it,why it’s pretty simple really more take than contribute leaving a massive financial decifit,Boris is going to put up our national insurance contributions another 1.5% breaking his election promise not to put taxes up,his excuse to help pay for the back log of treatments caused by the pandemic!bs
I would much prefer a private insurance health system if it meant I could get the treatment I want when I want it.
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Mischief Maker
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Re: COVID-19 in your part of the world

Post by Mischief Maker »

Ddshot wrote:I would much prefer a private insurance health system if it meant I could get the treatment I want when I want it.
As an American, I've got some disappointing news for you...
Two working class dudes, one black one white, just baked a tray of ten cookies together.

An oligarch walks in and grabs nine cookies for himself.

Then he says to the white dude "Watch out for that black dude, he wants a piece of your cookie!"
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Re: COVID-19 in your part of the world

Post by BulletMagnet »

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought I read that the UK does have private insurers that operate alongside the NHS, though they're much more tightly regulated than here across the pond; I recall that Australia has a similar setup, though last I checked the private insurers there were in rather dire financial straits.

Back on the home front: guess whooooo.
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Re: .....

Post by Ko.oS »

UK resident wrote: (..) it's costing me £2000 to jump the NHS queue.

Two month waiting list on the NHS , ten days if you go private.
..
Randorama
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Re: COVID-19 in your part of the world

Post by Randorama »

Sengoku Strider wrote:
Could be, but in the interest of context, that link is to the science outreach program of a top 50 global university (the slogan for said program being 'separating science from nonsense'), and the author has a masters in molecular biology and did lab management work in vision & motor rehabilitation for a few years before this. So he's not specifically coming out of psych, but he's not a layman either.
Entirely agreed on the reliability of the author, but my own feeling on that specific article is that it has some biases against an effect that, as the article carefully explains anyway, is very problematic.

Please do consider the possibility that people at McGill Psych may have published against the effect (and with good reason - the original study is problematic), and thus someone may have asked the author to cover the topic.

I do not doubt that a top 50 university produces solid research in psychology (etc. etc.), but all universities, small and big, do have certain outreach needs and goals, so to speak.

Though deontologically speaking an acceptable move, it is a move that tends to paint a starker contrast than needed, for people need to be attracted to and read on-line, "2-3-minute reading" articles.

Case in point, the paper cited in the article uses more nuanced tones. Also, the aforementioned paper does cite a lot of previous research supporting the effect (how? Replicating Dunning & Kruger 1999's original, problematic methodology). For the moment, the effect has more evidence in favour than against...

...Though the evidence is problematic, and it may simply be a matter of more studies being published, before the effect can be consigned to the dustbin of history.

My 2 cents at this point is that people's awareness of the quality of their own knowledge may be under strain in certain scenarios. I wish I could simply slap a label on it ("The X-Y effect") without worrying that the label and the effect are actually bollocks, dammit!

EDIT: "Research Wahlberg" is the flippant facebook account of a McGill faculty member that churns psychology memes...featuring Mark Wahlberg. Highly suggested, especially the one on "laymansplaining".

And TBH as much as I think psychology is an incredibly helpful field whose constructs I make use of all the time, taken as a whole it's also a complete and utter methodological dumpster fire.
I have a Ph.D. in Cognitive Science, Linguistics track, so I can only agree with you. I work as a linguist, which has
far worse methodological problems as far as I am concerned.

Another general problem is also that generalising from undergrads to humans, as psychologists often do, is also extremely problematic (W.E.I.R.D. people, etc.).

Can I quote you on on methodology, when needed? "Dumpster fire" is splendid! (I cannot open theThe Atlantic article, if you are citing from it).
Like there's even a non-trivial possibility that the primary research around "the gold standard" cognitive behavioural therapy is based on fumes. I'm kind of more inclined to trust someone in an adjacent field or with a well-supported outsider's view these days.
Me too, of course, but on any topic I want to read about, I usually read the paper(s) that a scientific divulgation article links to, and even then I try to get an idea of how many papers there are on the subject.

I do have acquaintances who are epidemiologists (e.g. the wife of my ex-boss), and they commented that they feel overwhelmed by the amount of research circulating by now.

My other 2 cents are these: when people go laypersonexplaining, I smile, nod and ignore. I finally learnt how to handle this, and I ranted in some other thread about it, in the past.

When reading something, including the double-blind peer-reviewed "critical literature review" papers, I may take notes and keep in mind that better research will supersede them, in the future. This happens often, in many fields, and now I find it to be one of the virtues of science.
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Re: COVID-19 in your part of the world

Post by Vanguard »

I came across this Danish study on covid 19 vaccination which includes this chart:
Spoiler
Image
Am I reading this wrong or is this showing drastically increased vulnerability to covid 19 during the first two weeks after vaccination?
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Re: COVID-19 in your part of the world

Post by GaijinPunch »

Mischief Maker wrote:
Ddshot wrote:I would much prefer a private insurance health system if it meant I could get the treatment I want when I want it.
As an American, I've got some disappointing news for you...
I can't top this.
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Re: COVID-19 in your part of the world

Post by BareKnuckleRoo »

Vanguard wrote:I came across this Danish study
First of all, you mean you came across something preliminary that has not been peer reviewed and is therefore of questionable importance at this time. That is especially important to consider when you are interpreting it as making wild claims that are not supported by any other current peer-reviewed literature.

"This article is a preprint and has not been peer-reviewed [what does this mean?]. It reports new medical research that has yet to be evaluated and so should not be used to guide clinical practice."
Am I reading this wrong or is this showing drastically increased vulnerability to covid 19 during the first two weeks after vaccination?
Second, you are absolutely reading this wrong. This is why statistics is such an important thing to be taught, as so many conspiracies are spread when laypersons completely misinterpret a study they've skimmed (or in some cases look for parts of studies to cherry pick bits and pieces totally out of context).

"When vaccination started, some LTCF residences were dealing with Covid-19 outbreaks, why vaccination was postponed in these facilities. This selection for vaccination based on Covid-19 outbreaks may potentially inflate the observed VE. The effects of the national lockdown implemented before Christmas became visual in the beginning of January 2021, where positive test rates decreased among LTCF residents and HCW (Figure 1a and 1b). Therefore, the rate of infection decreased during the study period. The high vaccination coverage achieved in LTCF may have decreased risk of infection within the facilities, as they are relatively closed settings."

"Hunter et al. (UK) reanalyzed the data presented by Chodick et al. using a different approach, and they found an increasing VE from day 14 after first dose, peaking at day 21 at 90%, suggesting a very high level of immunity even after first dose of the vaccine"

"During a median follow-up of 53 days, there were 488 and 5,663 confirmed SARS-CoV-2 cases in the unvaccinated groups, whereas there were 57 and 52 in LTCF residents and HCW within the first 7 days after the second dose and 27 and 10 cases beyond seven days of second dose. No protective effect was observed for LTCF residents after first dose."


The unvaccinated numbers were taken 53 days into the study and not at the beginning of the study as you erroneously suggest. As you can see in the charts at the end of the study, the vaccinations began during an upward trend in outbreaks. You are looking at one lone data point (the 760 positive cases 0-14 days after 1st dose in nursing home residents), claiming it shows something which it clearly doesn't, and then drawing a conclusion which the study's own authors disagree with. What you ought to be doing is comparing the unvaccinated values to the ones after the 2 week period of getting the 1st vaccine, which clearly suggest effectiveness. While it's a preliminary study and there's some question as to how effective and immediate protection is in the two weeks after a 1st dose, there is absolutely nothing, nothing whatsoever in here to suggest you're somehow more vulnerable after your first dose (which makes no sense physiologically as your body will be producing antibodies unless you're immune compromised, in which case the vaccine wouldn't harm you, it simply doesn't give the protection it's supposed to). Furthermore, if vaccinations began during an outbreak period where they were doing daily testing, it makes sense that some people may have gotten their first dose when they had already contracted the virus and were at the beginning of an incubation period. A short upward trend of testing positive during the 2 weeks after their first dose would be completely within normal expectations under those circumstances.
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Re: COVID-19 in your part of the world

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Ddshot wrote:In the uk we have the NHS which payed for by the people’s taxes called national insurance contributions ontop of income taxes and vat and all other taxes.the nhs hasn’t worked for 20yrs or more,you can spend days ringing your doctor to get a appointment when you finally do the waits could be 2-3wks before you get to se him,waiting times for life saving surgery are ridiculous most wait 6-8months,A&E waiting times avrage over 10hrs,drugs differ depending on post code,England has to pay for prescriptions whilst other home nations get them free and that’s before covid even hit the uk!the nhs is a black hole it eats money quicker than governments can print it,why it’s pretty simple really more take than contribute leaving a massive financial decifit,Boris is going to put up our national insurance contributions another 1.5% breaking his election promise not to put taxes up,his excuse to help pay for the back log of treatments caused by the pandemic!bs
I would much prefer a private insurance health system if it meant I could get the treatment I want when I want it.
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Re: COVID-19 in your part of the world

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SuperPang wrote:
Ddshot wrote:In the uk we have the NHS which payed for by the people’s taxes called national insurance contributions ontop of income taxes and vat and all other taxes.the nhs hasn’t worked for 20yrs or more,you can spend days ringing your doctor to get a appointment when you finally do the waits could be 2-3wks before you get to se him,waiting times for life saving surgery are ridiculous most wait 6-8months,A&E waiting times avrage over 10hrs,drugs differ depending on post code,England has to pay for prescriptions whilst other home nations get them free and that’s before covid even hit the uk!the nhs is a black hole it eats money quicker than governments can print it,why it’s pretty simple really more take than contribute leaving a massive financial decifit,Boris is going to put up our national insurance contributions another 1.5% breaking his election promise not to put taxes up,his excuse to help pay for the back log of treatments caused by the pandemic!bs
I would much prefer a private insurance health system if it meant I could get the treatment I want when I want it.
Hi Nigel. Hope you're well. Has anyone tuned into the new show yet?
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Re: COVID-19 in your part of the world

Post by orange808 »

Ddshot wrote: I would much prefer a private insurance health system if it meant I could get the treatment I want when I want it.
Except, in America I have had no more success scheduling an appointment than you. Was told to visit a minor emergency or emergency room and visit my regular doctor in a few weeks. The queue doesn't disappear. And, if something was seriously wrong, I'd lose everything. It would cost a lost more than a couple thousand quid.
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Re: COVID-19 in your part of the world

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Re: COVID-19 in your part of the world

Post by Sengoku Strider »

BulletMagnet wrote:Nailed it.
At first glance pulling an airheaded racist stunt, getting publicly denounced and put on administrative leave to own the libs might seem like a dumb move. But you have to understand, they're in an impossible position:
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When forced to choose between death and admitting to yourself that maybe Bill Gates isn't really using the vaccine to hide mind control microchips in your body and your democrat cousin on Facebook saying "I told you so," what are you even supposed to do?
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Re: COVID-19 in your part of the world

Post by BulletMagnet »

Considering that we're dealing with a lot of the same people who unironically adopted the Vietnam-era "my country, right or wrong" war cry when Iraq went south - i.e. they would literally rather have another Vietnam on their hands than admit they were wrong - and that the self-assured "being a reactionary means never having to say you're sorry" vibe has only hyper-intensified since then, the stifling prevalence of this attitude shouldn't be a surprise to anyone who's been paying even cursory attention.

Though I do find myself needing a reminder of who's been proudly sporting all those "Fuck Your Feelings" t-shirts in recent years. I've kind of lost track.
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Re: COVID-19 in your part of the world

Post by BareKnuckleRoo »

They've taught their followers that any suggestion their leaders are fallible and imperfect is nothing worse than a treasonous betrayal, and any disloyalty must be immediately punished to protect the group cohesion. It operates under the same principles as a cult, and that should be enough to instill terror in any sane person.
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Re: COVID-19 in your part of the world

Post by KennyMan666 »

So Sweden's reached over 75% of everybody above the age of 16 fully vaccinated. Most of the restrictions are going to be lifted on the 29th, which is probably going to make people throw caution to the wind and I will be very unsurprised over another, even if smaller, spike of cases coming in a couple of months.
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Re: COVID-19 in your part of the world

Post by orange808 »

This is so delicious. :mrgreen: Round here, we call it batshit crazy!
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Re: COVID-19 in your part of the world

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orange808 wrote:Round here, we call it batshit crazy!
No, we call it deeply-held and sincere beliefs whose adherents deserve de facto veto power over life-and-death policy decisions.

Anyone who says otherwise is unreasonably intolerant and proves beyond doubt that they are The Real Fascists.
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Re: COVID-19 in your part of the world

Post by Blackfielding »

Ddshot wrote:
GaijinPunch wrote:
Vanguard wrote:The health care system in the USA is perpetually flooded by design. We have a capitalist, for-profit health care system where the capitalists have financial incentive to assign as little manpower as possible to deal with whatever the hospital has to deal with for the day.
It's not. It's capitalistic. Like any business, it is created to handle a specific sweet spot of customers, and that number is breached quickly in many places because of their choices regarding Covid safe measures. A places like Japan which has a very non-capitalistic healthcare system (and works way better in some ways) was overrun much quicker and are turning away more per capita across the board. At least according to a report I read.
In the uk we have the NHS which payed for by the people’s taxes called national insurance contributions ontop of income taxes and vat and all other taxes.the nhs hasn’t worked for 20yrs or more,you can spend days ringing your doctor to get a appointment when you finally do the waits could be 2-3wks before you get to se him,waiting times for life saving surgery are ridiculous most wait 6-8months,A&E waiting times avrage over 10hrs,drugs differ depending on post code,England has to pay for prescriptions whilst other home nations get them free and that’s before covid even hit the uk!the nhs is a black hole it eats money quicker than governments can print it,why it’s pretty simple really more take than contribute leaving a massive financial decifit,Boris is going to put up our national insurance contributions another 1.5% breaking his election promise not to put taxes up,his excuse to help pay for the back log of treatments caused by the pandemic!bs
I would much prefer a private insurance health system if it meant I could get the treatment I want when I want it.The other day I stumbled upon Healthplan site. I am pleased with the level of service they offer. It is great!

Agree with you in some aspects. private insurance system would sort a lot of problems out, I guess.
Last edited by Blackfielding on Mon Oct 04, 2021 7:51 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: COVID-19 in your part of the world

Post by BulletMagnet »

I'll repeat my query from higher up the page; doesn't the UK (and numerous other nations with universal health care) already have the option to obtain private insurance?
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Re: COVID-19 in your part of the world

Post by Vanguard »

So there just so happens to be a laboratory right near where covid-19 originally appeared, and it just so happens that that laboratory was studying the same type of virus as covid-19, and was performing exactly the kind of research that could produce something like covid-19, and it just so happens that this lab in China was being funded by the United States government, and it just so happens that both the American and Chinese governments are utterly uninterested in investigating that lab in any way. And it just so happens that an American non-profit organization submitted a proposal to DARPA in 2018 to do the kind of work that could produce covid-19, and if just so happens that that shortly after the beginning of the covid-19 pandemic, the president of that very same non-profit began working to present any suggestion that covid-19 does not have a natural origin as absurd conspiracy theories.

But that's all irrelevant, covid-19 came from some random bat.
BareKnuckleRoo wrote:As you can see in the charts at the end of the study, the vaccinations began during an upward trend in outbreaks.
Indeed, the increase in the facility's residents appears to be nothing more than a continuation of a trend. The caregivers, on the other hand, see a sudden spike in infections just after they begin receiving the vaccine. Could easily just be a coincidence, of course, it wouldn't be strange for health care workers to see a spike in infections following a spike in infections among the population they care for.
BareKnuckleRoo wrote:What you ought to be doing is comparing the unvaccinated values to the ones after the 2 week period of getting the 1st vaccine, which clearly suggest effectiveness.
But I do not dispute that the vaccine is effective at suppressing severe coronavirus symptoms after the initial two week period. The reason I ever thought to bring the issue up is because I've seen a lot of complaints about the deceptive ways in which vaccinated vs unvaccinated cases, hospitalizations, and deaths are being counted. One point of concern is that people who get sick or die within the first two weeks after getting their vaccines are counted as unvaccinated. Now, if the vaccines are completely harmless then this doesn't seem terribly unreasonable. It wouldn't make sense to blame the vaccines for failing to prevent infections, hospitalizations, and deaths that occur before the vaccines have had their chance to take effect. But if the vaccines have harmful side effects (which in this case they do) then doing this provides a nice bit of propaganda for the pharmaceutical corporations, they're able to portray every problem caused by the vaccines as problems caused by not taking the vaccines! The authorities in charge of keeping track of these things ought to have, at the absolute minimum, four categories: vaccinated, unvaccinated, partially vaccinated, and unknown. Combining all of those last three into one unvaccinated category is extremely deceptive, to such a degree that it can only be deliberate. It makes perfect sense that people would distrust them when they act like that.
BareKnuckleRoo wrote:(which makes no sense physiologically as your body will be producing antibodies unless you're immune compromised, in which case the vaccine wouldn't harm you, it simply doesn't give the protection it's supposed to)
This would only be the case if the vaccines did literally nothing beyond causing antibody production, which we already know to be false. As one example, the vaccines are known to cause blood clots, which can in rare cases cause serious harm. It's hard hard to say how common side effects like those are, as very few who among those who are able to conduct studies on the matter seem interested in doing so, but I have found this article from the United Kingdom where it has been found that boys aged 12 to 15 have had heart complications from the vaccine at a rate higher than 1 in 10,000, a risk the authors consider greater than the dangers of serious harm presented to that group by covid-19 itself.

One perfectly rational reason why many are hesitant about the vaccines is that political and corporate authority figures have not been the least bit open about anything that has happened throughout this entire pandemic. Indeed, they have been extremely deceptive and contradict themselves constantly. The politicians here in the US are obviously and consistently prioritizing corporate profits above the welfare of the public, as they have done for decades now. The evidence is overwhelmingly in favor of natural immunity being stronger than the vaccine's immunity, yet those who have already recovered from covid are still expected to take the vaccines, exposing them to the rare but extant dangers of a severe side effect for little if any benefit (aside from the benefit to Pfizer's shareholders, of course). Allowing recovered covid patients to forego the vaccine and still be considered as safe as the vaccinated would go a long way to allay fears about the vaccine, but they're not doing that and have no intention of even considering it. Or how about the drug Remdesivir? Remdesivir's effectiveness against covid-19 is abysmal, even the much-mocked ivermectin shows better results, yet the US government approves of remdesivir and tons of hospitals are prescribing it and the Gilead corporation is making absurd amounts of money from it. I do not have particularly high hopes for ivermectin's ability to treat covid-19, but when the authorities are telling you to spend thousands of dollars to take snake oil, why would anyone trust the authorities?

If you are angry about people who have not yet taken the vaccines, your anger should be directed first and foremost at the politicians and businesses whose duplicitous behavior has done so much to inspire distrust.
Blackfielding wrote: Agree with you in some aspects. private insurance system would sort a lot of problems out, I guess.
lol, come live here in America for a few years and see if you still think so!
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BulletMagnet
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Re: COVID-19 in your part of the world

Post by BulletMagnet »

Congratulations, Freedom Warriors, you've once again shown up the libtards, and how: the ACA, try as it might, never was able to implement its much-ballyhooed "death panels", but through a bit of good old-fashioned biological bootstrappery, goddammit, you incorrigible patriots have made it happen.

EDIT: By the way, they are not going to learn.
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Marc
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Re: COVID-19 in your part of the world

Post by Marc »

Ddshot wrote:
GaijinPunch wrote:
Vanguard wrote:The health care system in the USA is perpetually flooded by design. We have a capitalist, for-profit health care system where the capitalists have financial incentive to assign as little manpower as possible to deal with whatever the hospital has to deal with for the day.
It's not. It's capitalistic. Like any business, it is created to handle a specific sweet spot of customers, and that number is breached quickly in many places because of their choices regarding Covid safe measures. A places like Japan which has a very non-capitalistic healthcare system (and works way better in some ways) was overrun much quicker and are turning away more per capita across the board. At least according to a report I read.
In the uk we have the NHS which payed for by the people’s taxes called national insurance contributions ontop of income taxes and vat and all other taxes.the nhs hasn’t worked for 20yrs or more,you can spend days ringing your doctor to get a appointment when you finally do the waits could be 2-3wks before you get to se him,waiting times for life saving surgery are ridiculous most wait 6-8months,A&E waiting times avrage over 10hrs,drugs differ depending on post code,England has to pay for prescriptions whilst other home nations get them free and that’s before covid even hit the uk!the nhs is a black hole it eats money quicker than governments can print it,why it’s pretty simple really more take than contribute leaving a massive financial decifit,Boris is going to put up our national insurance contributions another 1.5% breaking his election promise not to put taxes up,his excuse to help pay for the back log of treatments caused by the pandemic!bs
I would much prefer a private insurance health system if it meant I could get the treatment I want when I want it.
I'd much prefer the one that got me a Doctor's appointment for alump in my moob, got me a hospital appointment within two weeks of the Doctor, gave me an inspection, Mammogram, Ultrasound, then discharged with within 4 hours the same day with the all-clear, and didn't charge me a fucking penny, thanks.

You do know, that to some folk, reading the above is like reading a fucking fairy tale right?

The NHS has it's faults, and it certainly needs reorganising and reshaping, but it's one thing this country can and should be incredibly proud of.
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Re: COVID-19 in your part of the world

Post by emphatic »

At least here in Sweden, the Moderna vaccine has been "paused" for now for people under the age of 30. Apparently it can cause heart issues.
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