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*** OFFICIAL *** COVID-19 CoronaVirus Thread. Fresh epidemic fears as child pneumonia cases surge in Europe after China outbreak. NOW in USA (19 Viewers)

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the lengthy explanations debunking literally everything you've posted

You've debunked very little of what I've posted the last several years. And as per usual, when all else fails, you resort to slandering the messenger. Good luck with your next round of roulette.
 
If there were people in this thread who were insisting that the zoonotic explanation was proven fact and that the researchers who wrote that study were above reproach, I'd be pushing back on them as well
Where were you in 2020 when people were making exactly this argument? I don't recall you pushing back.

("I don't recall" means that I don't recall. If, in 2020, you were arguing that the lab leak hypothesis deserved serious consideration and should not have been censored, great. I'm not going to go digging back through the thread either way.)
I don't believe I was posting here in 2020. To the best of my recollection, I wasn't giving the issue much of a thought either way at the time. The earliest reports were that it came from the wet market, and I just assumed that was a known fact, much like I assumed "Covid can be transmitted via surfaces" was a known fact. It was only after it became more of a controversy that I realized just how much of a drawn-out process it was to discover a virus' origin. (I was about to say "inexact science", but of course this is actually one of the most exact sciences imaginable). I can't imagine I would have ever supported anyone being censored or deplatformed simply for arguing Covid was the result of an accidental leak. I recall a coworker telling me he believed that in the spring of 2020 and thinking he was probably wrong, but that it wasn't a totally crazy belief.

So I don't know that I have been 100% consistent since March 2020, but if I wasn't that was probably due more to my limited understanding of the issues rather than any ideological agenda. Though I will say that, for most of my adult life, I've tried to be the guy who says, "OK, everyone take a deep breath and ask yourself what you know for sure." That's been the case even when -- and sometimes specifically because -- the default assumption was something I wanted to be true.

Anyway, I say all this not to promote myself as some kind of supremely rational being -- I can be just as irrational, biased and inconsistent as the next guy. What I'm describing is more aspirational. It's a tough needle to thread being skeptical (asking what you know is true) without slipping into being conspiratorial (rejecting what you're told is true). And yes, I know there are people who will straight up lie to your face and tell you something is true when it's not. But if that becomes your default assumption you'll end up boxing yourself into some pretty extreme positions, like claiming the entire public health establishment is venal and lying and has zero interest in actually improving public health
 
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If you guys don't see how this person's continued involvement in funded virology research undermines the credibility of the entire field of virology, I don't know what to tell you. There are no guardrails left in academia. They're just . . . gone.
Going a completely different path here, with this statement I agree 100%. I made this discovery in 2004 when my wife embarked on her postdoc research in heart development. I sat and watched the struggles these researchers go through and how the award process really works and was left thinking "really?!"
 
by 2050 their population could be a as low as 1/3 of what it is now.
The estimates say they will lose about 110 million of their population which is now at 1.426 billion. That is only like 7.5%, which is a lot, but nowhere near 1/3

Maybe all you guys can sue China now for all the miserable, torturous, pain and suffering you went through having to wear a mask.
CHIna didnt force mask mandates in the United States
But the entire world should sue CHIna for the millions of dead ,sick, mental trauma and lives that were destroyed
Curious what mechanism you think the world needs to use to accomplish this.
who knows , its an overwhelming situation, but letting CHIna walk away unscathed is insane
I'm not arguing against your position so let me be clear there, but there has to be a mechanism in place. Right now, that's a court in China. Do we think anything meaningful is going to happen going that route? I'm skeptical.
Id say world wide sanctions on CHIna but that would hurt the innocent people who live there. Hitting them in their pocketbook feels like the only answer but its with risks
I was asking about your "sue" comment bolded above. Sanctions are an avenue. Those end up hurting us as much as anyone though, but certainly a possibility. The major problem is all the rare earth metals they are sitting on. The rest could probably be subsidized by other nations, but it would take a while and would absolutely suck for the world until accomplished.
Suing was the wrong choice seeing we have the foreign sovereign immunities act, so my bad .

I do know that American businesses , pharmaceutical companies and investors are leaving China , i also heard that China will collapse in around 10 years so who knows

They may self destruct
its not that they will self destruct. they will die off. by 2050 their population could be a as low as 1/3 of what it is now.
Mexico labor is already cheaper and better educated.
What’s this now? Somebody is predicting China will have under a billion people in less than 30 years? Take the over.
yea I got my dates mixed up it's 2100
 
If you guys don't see how this person's continued involvement in funded virology research undermines the credibility of the entire field of virology, I don't know what to tell you. There are no guardrails left in academia. They're just . . . gone.
Going a completely different path here, with this statement I agree 100%. I made this discovery in 2004 when my wife embarked on her postdoc research in heart development. I sat and watched the struggles these researchers go through and how the award process really works and was left thinking "really?!"
Oh man. In terms of academia, 2004 was like Athens under Pericles compared to today. Obviously some of that is because of stuff that doesn't go in this forum, but also universities are not designed to operate in environments with 5%+ inflation. We don't have any mechanism by which to adjust wages and salaries in anything resembling a nimble fashion, so we end up not being able to retain or hire anybody, and now we can't perform basic work functions. For example, my university has been operating without an official IRB director for over a year now. A few weeks ago, we outsourced our IRB reviews to a sister university. That's terrible. Everybody employed here should be mad about that.
 
"Public health officials were intellectually dishonest. They lied to the American people."

 
If you guys don't see how this person's continued involvement in funded virology research undermines the credibility of the entire field of virology, I don't know what to tell you. There are no guardrails left in academia. They're just . . . gone.
Going a completely different path here, with this statement I agree 100%. I made this discovery in 2004 when my wife embarked on her postdoc research in heart development. I sat and watched the struggles these researchers go through and how the award process really works and was left thinking "really?!"
Oh man. In terms of academia, 2004 was like Athens under Pericles compared to today. Obviously some of that is because of stuff that doesn't go in this forum, but also universities are not designed to operate in environments with 5%+ inflation. We don't have any mechanism by which to adjust wages and salaries in anything resembling a nimble fashion, so we end up not being able to retain or hire anybody, and now we can't perform basic work functions. For example, my university has been operating without an official IRB director for over a year now. A few weeks ago, we outsourced our IRB reviews to a sister university. That's terrible. Everybody employed here should be mad about that.
I've often thought about reaching out to you and other academics here about my wife's plight at her job. She acquired tenure at her previous institution but it got so bad she was like "screw this, I'm going somewhere else, tenure be damned. I'll do it again if I have to". That's how we ended up in Florida. Now, she's looking at jumping to a hospital setting because she didn't get her tenure here after being the most productive person on campus for 3 years. She didn't check a publication box on the list she agreed to even though the environment she was hired into wasn't close to what was promised. Anyway, the paper was out for review but not accepted yet by the time her review came up and they made her make a decision right then about what to do. A week later, the paper was officially accepted. I'll never understand the concept of tenure. It seems exactly backwards to me.
 
Getting into data on the ground, hospitalizations in NYS are at their lowest levels in nearly a year. Based on last year's data, there may be a potential for a slight rise in hospitalizations upcoming in May, but hopefully it shouldn't be anything like the initial peak or the omicron peak from late 2021/early 2022.

NYS Hospitalizations Over Time

Both February 2021 and February 2022 saw big declines in confirmed COVID cases. February 2023 didn't start from as high of a peak as in previous years, but: as of two weeks ago (~2/16/2023) ... COVID confirmed cases are the lowest they've been since early April 2022. All data caveats apply -- we know there are a lot of off-the-grid cases.

Meanwhile, national wastewater counts have been declining slowly over the past six weeks.
 
"Public health officials were intellectually dishonest. They lied to the American people."

Dr. Makary has been the one person I have trusted the most throughout this whole thing.
Was that when he advocated for universal masking or when he went on Fox News to say that masks don't work?
 
If you guys don't see how this person's continued involvement in funded virology research undermines the credibility of the entire field of virology, I don't know what to tell you. There are no guardrails left in academia. They're just . . . gone.
Going a completely different path here, with this statement I agree 100%. I made this discovery in 2004 when my wife embarked on her postdoc research in heart development. I sat and watched the struggles these researchers go through and how the award process really works and was left thinking "really?!"
Oh man. In terms of academia, 2004 was like Athens under Pericles compared to today. Obviously some of that is because of stuff that doesn't go in this forum, but also universities are not designed to operate in environments with 5%+ inflation. We don't have any mechanism by which to adjust wages and salaries in anything resembling a nimble fashion, so we end up not being able to retain or hire anybody, and now we can't perform basic work functions. For example, my university has been operating without an official IRB director for over a year now. A few weeks ago, we outsourced our IRB reviews to a sister university. That's terrible. Everybody employed here should be mad about that.
I've often thought about reaching out to you and other academics here about my wife's plight at her job. She acquired tenure at her previous institution but it got so bad she was like "screw this, I'm going somewhere else, tenure be damned. I'll do it again if I have to". That's how we ended up in Florida. Now, she's looking at jumping to a hospital setting because she didn't get her tenure here after being the most productive person on campus for 3 years. She didn't check a publication box on the list she agreed to even though the environment she was hired into wasn't close to what was promised. Anyway, the paper was out for review but not accepted yet by the time her review came up and they made her make a decision right then about what to do. A week later, the paper was officially accepted. I'll never understand the concept of tenure. It seems exactly backwards to me.
Oof, sorry to hear that. Feel free to PM me anytime. (No special wisdom to share in your wife's case, but still).
 
Dr. Makary has been the one person I have trusted the most throughout this whole thing.
Have to say, this is a name I am completely unfamiliar with so I went to google and realized why. He's all over our "national news media" but I couldn't find a single piece of lab science generated by him or his team on COVID. In this country, specialty matters. That's what they know. In my view, you're far better off looking for a sound virologist to follow and rely on if it's not the studies and data behind them that you're digging into. A guy like Vincent Racaniello has proven invaluable to many on the subject of COVID. I'd recommend digging into his research and thoughts.

Here's an interview on his page with the Racaniello to help ease the transition should you choose:

 
"Public health officials were intellectually dishonest. They lied to the American people."

Dr. Makary has been the one person I have trusted the most throughout this whole thing.
Was that when he advocated for universal masking or when he went on Fox News to say that masks don't work?
He advocated universal mask wearing in the first months of the pandemic to help the medical profession deal with it. As time went on and as new studies came out he came to the conclusion, through studies that showed that cloth masks and poorly worn masks did little to prevent the transmission of covid and that children should not be required to be masked in school, citing a study showing similar transmission rates in schools in Europe that did not require masking. That sounds pretty reasonable to me, as he has been throughout. If you could provide me with a link where he said "masks don't work" as a blanket statement, I'd love to read it.
He also advocated a single vaccine at first, instead of a second shot weeks later so the limited supply could be used to get more people the first shot instead, also with the belief that the second shot could have waited a little longer. Again...reasonable, imo.
 
Dr. Makary has been the one person I have trusted the most throughout this whole thing.
Have to say, this is a name I am completely unfamiliar with so I went to google and realized why. He's all over our "national news media" but I couldn't find a single piece of lab science generated by him or his team on COVID. In this country, specialty matters. That's what they know. In my view, you're far better off looking for a sound virologist to follow and rely on if it's not the studies and data behind them that you're digging into. A guy like Vincent Racaniello has proven invaluable to many on the subject of COVID. I'd recommend digging into his research and thoughts.

Here's an interview on his page with the Racaniello to help ease the transition should you choose:

We're well past the point of me reading about covid anymore. All I know is that Dr. Makary was a reasonable and moderate voice from Day 1 and I appreciate the perspective he brought and the calming influence he was during the pandemic.
 
If you don't want to listen to the whole thing, this is likely the best part of the interview...it's near the beginning:

Makary: Interesting. You know, I'm really interested in what you said about whether or not the spike protein was the right thing to target in the vaccines -- and it turns out it was very effective. Because I was having this conversation with one of my colleagues who does a lot of immunology research. And I asked the question -- I like to put big questions out there to have a discussion -- and the question was, do you think natural immunity or vaccinated immunity is stronger, and which one's more durable, two different domains. And I'd love your thoughts on that. But one interesting thing he said was he thought that maybe natural immunity, if you really get sick and you've got to mount a big antibody response, may be better because your body is developing antibodies and memory to all of the surface of the virus, not just the spike protein, and that may be better immune protection.



Racaniello: I think it's an interesting question and there's no one answer because every virus is slightly different. For example, the human papillomavirus, the vaccines we have make amazing immunity, better than immunity you get from natural infection, because there's so much protein in those vaccines. And you end up having great mucosal immunity, which is what you need there. On the other hand, other vaccines allow infection without disease. Of course, the polio vaccines were only tested to prevent polio, not to prevent infection. That's all we cared about.

Now for SARS-CoV-2, yes, having other proteins in the mix is a good idea. I think it depends on the severity of the disease. We did a paper 6 months ago which studied people who had died from COVID. So this was a very serious disease. And their lymph nodes had no germinal centers, which means no memory B cells to SARS-CoV-2. Even though they had antibodies, they had very low affinity antibodies.


And so the outcome of that was the idea that if you have a very serious disease, then you're not likely to have a long memory response. Now, those are people who died. So we don't know how it applies to people who have lived because they were able to take out their lymph nodes and study them. And it's not so easy to do in people who have survived. So a natural infection can have consequences. So, on the one hand, yes, you make a lot of viral proteins and those are great epitopes for mainly T cells because I think most of the antibodies that are going to block infection are going to be spike directed. But any other viral protein could in theory be a T-cell target. So you'll get more epitopes.

The counter view is that the virus may encode immune antagonists that could alter the immune response in some way that's not as good as, say, a vaccine. So it really depends. And we don't know enough yet. So I think if people are making a blanket statement that natural infection is always better, that's not always correct. It really depends on the virus.
 
Dr. Makary has been the one person I have trusted the most throughout this whole thing.
Have to say, this is a name I am completely unfamiliar with so I went to google and realized why. He's all over our "national news media" but I couldn't find a single piece of lab science generated by him or his team on COVID. In this country, specialty matters. That's what they know. In my view, you're far better off looking for a sound virologist to follow and rely on if it's not the studies and data behind them that you're digging into. A guy like Vincent Racaniello has proven invaluable to many on the subject of COVID. I'd recommend digging into his research and thoughts.

Here's an interview on his page with the Racaniello to help ease the transition should you choose:

We're well past the point of me reading about covid anymore. All I know is that Dr. Makary was a reasonable and moderate voice from Day 1 and I appreciate the perspective he brought and the calming influence he was during the pandemic.
sorry to hear that...oh well.
 
Dr. Makary was a reasonable and moderate voice from Day 1 and I appreciate the perspective he brought and the calming influence he was during the pandemic.

And notice how the usual suspects here are quickly scrambling to try to discredit, if not demonize him, now that he's not singing their tune. Same MO every single time a doctor (or anyone) speaks up and out about their heeled-in beliefs.
 
Yes, we should all lean on our dentists to guide us through our broken legs right??!?!! Only a moron would go to their orthopedist!!! Good Lord :lmao: :lmao: :lmao:
 
sorry to hear that...oh well.
I appreciate the link and recommendation but I was just mentioning Makary as someone who helped make sense of it all and get me through those first couple of years. I'm sure we each have someone like that or more than one. I will always thank him for it. Unless there's a new deadly variant, covid is in the past for me.
 
Yes, we should all lean on our dentists to guide us through our broken legs right??!?!! Only a moron would go to their orthopedist!!! Good Lord :lmao: :lmao: :lmao:
stay classy commish
Given the poster he was referring to has called us a cult...complained about people discrediting his doc of choice then proceeded to do the same thing one post later...his post seems to be the correct tone. It wasn't aimed at you.
 
A guy like Vincent Racaniello has proven invaluable to many on the subject of COVID

Has he?


1 yr. ago
Dr. Vincent Racaniello
There is no scientific proof that vaccinated people can transmit virus. I would not knowingly mislead you. You do not respread the virus you pick up - it enters you, perhaps infects a few cells, then degrades over time.
For anyone wanting the context, "1 year ago" is from a thread locked two years ago and transmission hadn't been studied yet. There was nothing at the time to suggest it was transmitted through vaccinated people and after it WAS studied, all the way through DELTA, it continued to be true at an 80% certainty. I know most of you will be SHOCKED that this post is masquerading as something it isn't. Almost as bad as posting a person's death in this thread who didn't die from covid and wasn't vaccinated suggesting otherwise. It's just gross.
 
For anyone wanting the context, "1 year ago" is from a thread locked two years ago and transmission hadn't been studied yet. There was nothing at the time to suggest it was transmitted through vaccinated people and after it WAS studied, all the way through DELTA, it continued to be true at an 80% certainty.

For anyone wanting truth, the blog below posted it in April, 2021. I shared this then and several times since and was repeatedly attacked by these same names, over and over again. Time and Space have continually been on MY side, however, as one conspiracy theory after another has become conspiracy fact. What's gross is how the same names continue to dig in with their same tired tactics.


THE VACCINES DO NOT STOP TRANSMISSION OR INFECTION

Wait, what?

Aren't these vaccines supposed to be what we've been waiting for to "go back to normal"?

Nope.

Why do you think we're getting all these conflicting messages about needing to practice social distancing and wear masks AFTER we get a vaccine?

The reason is because these vaccines were never designed to stop transmission OR infection.

If you don't believe me, I refer you again to the papers submitted to the FDA I linked to above.

The primary endpoint (what the vaccines are meant to accomplish) is to lower your symptoms.

Sounds like just about every other drug on the market right?

That's it...lowering your symptoms is the big payoff we've been waiting for.

Does that seem completely pointless to anyone but me?
  1. It can't stop us from spreading the virus.
  2. It can't stop the virus from infecting us once we have it.
  3. To get the vaccine is to accept all the risk of these experimental products and the best it might do is lower symptoms?
Heck, there are plenty of other things I can do to lower my symptoms that don't involve taking what appears to be a really risky product.

Now for the next logical question:

If we're worried about asymptomatic spreaders, would the vaccine not make it more likely that we are creating asymptomatic spread?

If it indeed reduces symptoms, anyone who gets it might not even know they are sick and thus they are more likely to spread the virus, right?

For what it's worth, I've heard many people say the side effects of the vaccine (especially the second dose) are worse than catching covid.
 
"Public health officials were intellectually dishonest. They lied to the American people."

Dr. Makary has been the one person I have trusted the most throughout this whole thing.
Was that when he advocated for universal masking or when he went on Fox News to say that masks don't work?
He advocated universal mask wearing in the first months of the pandemic to help the medical profession deal with it. As time went on and as new studies came out he came to the conclusion, through studies that showed that cloth masks and poorly worn masks did little to prevent the transmission of covid and that children should not be required to be masked in school, citing a study showing similar transmission rates in schools in Europe that did not require masking. That sounds pretty reasonable to me, as he has been throughout. If you could provide me with a link where he said "masks don't work" as a blanket statement, I'd love to read it.
He also advocated a single vaccine at first, instead of a second shot weeks later so the limited supply could be used to get more people the first shot instead, also with the belief that the second shot could have waited a little longer. Again...reasonable, imo.
Direct quotes from your hero, misrepresenting the Cochrane study as proof that masks were ineffective. For the one guy you rely on, you don't seem to know what he said.



The greatest perpetrator of misinformation during the pandemic has been the United States government.

Misinformation that...

...
- That masks were effective.

The same with the masking studies. The data has now caught up in giant systematic reviews, and public health officials were intellectually dishonest. They lied to the American people.
 
For anyone wanting the context, "1 year ago" is from a thread locked two years ago and transmission hadn't been studied yet. There was nothing at the time to suggest it was transmitted through vaccinated people and after it WAS studied, all the way through DELTA, it continued to be true at an 80% certainty.

For anyone wanting truth, the blog below posted it in April, 2021. I shared this then and several times since and was repeatedly attacked by these same names, over and over again. Time and Space have continually been on MY side, however, as one conspiracy theory after another has become conspiracy fact. What's gross is how the same names continue to dig in with their same tired tactics.


THE VACCINES DO NOT STOP TRANSMISSION OR INFECTION

Wait, what?

Aren't these vaccines supposed to be what we've been waiting for to "go back to normal"?

Nope.

Why do you think we're getting all these conflicting messages about needing to practice social distancing and wear masks AFTER we get a vaccine?

The reason is because these vaccines were never designed to stop transmission OR infection.

If you don't believe me, I refer you again to the papers submitted to the FDA I linked to above.

The primary endpoint (what the vaccines are meant to accomplish) is to lower your symptoms.

Sounds like just about every other drug on the market right?

That's it...lowering your symptoms is the big payoff we've been waiting for.

Does that seem completely pointless to anyone but me?
  1. It can't stop us from spreading the virus.
  2. It can't stop the virus from infecting us once we have it.
  3. To get the vaccine is to accept all the risk of these experimental products and the best it might do is lower symptoms?
Heck, there are plenty of other things I can do to lower my symptoms that don't involve taking what appears to be a really risky product.

Now for the next logical question:

If we're worried about asymptomatic spreaders, would the vaccine not make it more likely that we are creating asymptomatic spread?

If it indeed reduces symptoms, anyone who gets it might not even know they are sick and thus they are more likely to spread the virus, right?

For what it's worth, I've heard many people say the side effects of the vaccine (especially the second dose) are worse than catching covid.
Of course, NONE of this has anything to do with the reddit post you posted from 2020. Nice try though....shove shove mooooooooooove those goalposts. :thumbup:

Fact remains....at the time the post you put out there as an attempt to smear a highly qualified virologist was made, ZERO peer reviewed study had been done on transmission. Maybe before trying to smear someone today, you should look at the position they hold today? I know, I know....it's a tough ask, but it's worth the shot. I like this new term "conspiracy fact". Did you make that up all by yourself? Is that like "alternate facts"?
 
"Public health officials were intellectually dishonest. They lied to the American people."

Dr. Makary has been the one person I have trusted the most throughout this whole thing.
Was that when he advocated for universal masking or when he went on Fox News to say that masks don't work?
He advocated universal mask wearing in the first months of the pandemic to help the medical profession deal with it. As time went on and as new studies came out he came to the conclusion, through studies that showed that cloth masks and poorly worn masks did little to prevent the transmission of covid and that children should not be required to be masked in school, citing a study showing similar transmission rates in schools in Europe that did not require masking. That sounds pretty reasonable to me, as he has been throughout. If you could provide me with a link where he said "masks don't work" as a blanket statement, I'd love to read it.
He also advocated a single vaccine at first, instead of a second shot weeks later so the limited supply could be used to get more people the first shot instead, also with the belief that the second shot could have waited a little longer. Again...reasonable, imo.
Direct quotes from your hero, misrepresenting the Cochrane study as proof that masks were ineffective. For the one guy you rely on, you don't seem to know what he said.



The greatest perpetrator of misinformation during the pandemic has been the United States government.

Misinformation that...

...
- That masks were effective.

The same with the masking studies. The data has now caught up in giant systematic reviews, and public health officials were intellectually dishonest. They lied to the American people.
Care to provide a link and not just truncated quotes?

Nevermind, I did the work:

He cites the Cochrane study and states (which you conveniently left out) : "Do you just ignore it and not talk about it?" He is not and has not said "masks don't work" in a blanket statement as you claim but is saying that the study deserves conversation and analysis.

The study concluded : “Wearing masks in the community probably makes little or no difference to the outcome of laboratory-confirmed influenza/SARS-CoV-2 compared to not wearing masks.” I believe that does deserve further analysis.

I never said he was my hero and that he was the only one I followed or read up on. It's sad that someone can thank another person, someone who isn't a quack or conspiracy guy, for helping get them through a global pandemic and someone inevitably has to shoot down that person. Why can't you just think "That's nice. I'm glad he found someone to help through what was a terrible time" instead of going on a condescending attack?
 
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For anyone wanting the context, "1 year ago" is from a thread locked two years ago and transmission hadn't been studied yet. There was nothing at the time to suggest it was transmitted through vaccinated people and after it WAS studied, all the way through DELTA, it continued to be true at an 80% certainty.

For anyone wanting truth, the blog below posted it in April, 2021. I shared this then and several times since and was repeatedly attacked by these same names, over and over again. Time and Space have continually been on MY side, however, as one conspiracy theory after another has become conspiracy fact. What's gross is how the same names continue to dig in with their same tired tactics.


THE VACCINES DO NOT STOP TRANSMISSION OR INFECTION

Wait, what?

Aren't these vaccines supposed to be what we've been waiting for to "go back to normal"?

Nope.

Why do you think we're getting all these conflicting messages about needing to practice social distancing and wear masks AFTER we get a vaccine?

The reason is because these vaccines were never designed to stop transmission OR infection.

If you don't believe me, I refer you again to the papers submitted to the FDA I linked to above.

The primary endpoint (what the vaccines are meant to accomplish) is to lower your symptoms.

Sounds like just about every other drug on the market right?

That's it...lowering your symptoms is the big payoff we've been waiting for.

Does that seem completely pointless to anyone but me?
  1. It can't stop us from spreading the virus.
  2. It can't stop the virus from infecting us once we have it.
  3. To get the vaccine is to accept all the risk of these experimental products and the best it might do is lower symptoms?
Heck, there are plenty of other things I can do to lower my symptoms that don't involve taking what appears to be a really risky product.

Now for the next logical question:

If we're worried about asymptomatic spreaders, would the vaccine not make it more likely that we are creating asymptomatic spread?

If it indeed reduces symptoms, anyone who gets it might not even know they are sick and thus they are more likely to spread the virus, right?

For what it's worth, I've heard many people say the side effects of the vaccine (especially the second dose) are worse than catching covid.
Of course, NONE of this has anything to do with the reddit post you posted from 2020. Nice try though....shove shove mooooooooooove those goalposts. :thumbup:

Fact remains....at the time the post you put out there as an attempt to smear a highly qualified virologist was made, ZERO peer reviewed study had been done on transmission. Maybe before trying to smear someone today, you should look at the position they hold today? I know, I know....it's a tough ask, but it's worth the shot. I like this new term "conspiracy fact". Did you make that up all by yourself? Is that like "alternate facts"?

Quoting this here in memoriam, for all to see, just in case he tries to edit or delete his lies.
 
Here's Makary last year, where he won't even go so far as saying cloth masks don't work, rather that they have almost no impact on transmission:
Jan 18, 2022
Johns Hopkins' Dr. Marty Makary: "There's actually broad consensus now by public health officials acknowledging privately, & they're starting to say so publicly, that cloth masks have almost no impact on transmission whatsoever, and we basically have known that the entire time."
And this was on FOX! lmao
Not quite "masks don't work"
 
NONE of this has anything to do with the reddit post you posted from 2020.

Here is the time stamp of that Reddit post Dr. Racaniello made, which you are falsely claiming is from 2020:

Wed, Sep 01, 2021, 09:19:47 AM Pacific Daylight Time.

Hover your mouse over the '1 yr ago' to see the date of the posting...


Checkmate.
It was also true in Sept of 2021 :shrug:

Though I happily admit when I put the wrong date in my posts. The entire thread (for as crappy as a platform as reddit is to read) is pretty enlightening and he clearly explains his comments. Not sure this will work, but this is the link (I think):


So again, you choose to ignore the virologist in favor of some youtuber putting out monetized content while pretending/thinking you have the high ground :thumbup: Delta DID give us an opportunity to study and it was shortly after that we learned how effective the vaccines were at stopping transmission.
 
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Getting into data on the ground, hospitalizations in NYS are at their lowest levels in nearly a year. Based on last year's data, there may be a potential for a slight rise in hospitalizations upcoming in May, but hopefully it shouldn't be anything like the initial peak or the omicron peak from late 2021/early 2022.

NYS Hospitalizations Over Time
I don’t know about NY, but it’s not covid hospitalizations that are out of control atm. Everything else is up, and the consistent volume of patients in the ER is higher than I’ve seen in my career. But I think some of it is the collapse of smaller healthcare facilities, consolidating patient care to a few bigger hospitals.

I believe this has been medicine’s business plan for a while, but covid accelerated the shift. Regardless, using big box strategies for patient care is brutal for both patients and providers.
 
If you guys don't see how this person's continued involvement in funded virology research undermines the credibility of the entire field of virology, I don't know what to tell you. There are no guardrails left in academia. They're just . . . gone.
Going a completely different path here, with this statement I agree 100%. I made this discovery in 2004 when my wife embarked on her postdoc research in heart development. I sat and watched the struggles these researchers go through and how the award process really works and was left thinking "really?!"
Oh man. In terms of academia, 2004 was like Athens under Pericles compared to today. Obviously some of that is because of stuff that doesn't go in this forum, but also universities are not designed to operate in environments with 5%+ inflation. We don't have any mechanism by which to adjust wages and salaries in anything resembling a nimble fashion, so we end up not being able to retain or hire anybody, and now we can't perform basic work functions. For example, my university has been operating without an official IRB director for over a year now. A few weeks ago, we outsourced our IRB reviews to a sister university. That's terrible. Everybody employed here should be mad about that.
I've often thought about reaching out to you and other academics here about my wife's plight at her job. She acquired tenure at her previous institution but it got so bad she was like "screw this, I'm going somewhere else, tenure be damned. I'll do it again if I have to". That's how we ended up in Florida. Now, she's looking at jumping to a hospital setting because she didn't get her tenure here after being the most productive person on campus for 3 years. She didn't check a publication box on the list she agreed to even though the environment she was hired into wasn't close to what was promised. Anyway, the paper was out for review but not accepted yet by the time her review came up and they made her make a decision right then about what to do. A week later, the paper was officially accepted. I'll never understand the concept of tenure. It seems exactly backwards to me.
What’s she planning on doing in the hospital?
 
If you guys don't see how this person's continued involvement in funded virology research undermines the credibility of the entire field of virology, I don't know what to tell you. There are no guardrails left in academia. They're just . . . gone.
Going a completely different path here, with this statement I agree 100%. I made this discovery in 2004 when my wife embarked on her postdoc research in heart development. I sat and watched the struggles these researchers go through and how the award process really works and was left thinking "really?!"
Oh man. In terms of academia, 2004 was like Athens under Pericles compared to today. Obviously some of that is because of stuff that doesn't go in this forum, but also universities are not designed to operate in environments with 5%+ inflation. We don't have any mechanism by which to adjust wages and salaries in anything resembling a nimble fashion, so we end up not being able to retain or hire anybody, and now we can't perform basic work functions. For example, my university has been operating without an official IRB director for over a year now. A few weeks ago, we outsourced our IRB reviews to a sister university. That's terrible. Everybody employed here should be mad about that.
I've often thought about reaching out to you and other academics here about my wife's plight at her job. She acquired tenure at her previous institution but it got so bad she was like "screw this, I'm going somewhere else, tenure be damned. I'll do it again if I have to". That's how we ended up in Florida. Now, she's looking at jumping to a hospital setting because she didn't get her tenure here after being the most productive person on campus for 3 years. She didn't check a publication box on the list she agreed to even though the environment she was hired into wasn't close to what was promised. Anyway, the paper was out for review but not accepted yet by the time her review came up and they made her make a decision right then about what to do. A week later, the paper was officially accepted. I'll never understand the concept of tenure. It seems exactly backwards to me.
What’s she planning on doing in the hospital?
She's hopping to the clinical side. Advent Health has a university attached to it and what got her interested in it was a position directing a brand new degree for those wanting to work on the "lab" side of healthcare. Everything from those learning how to process blood samples all the way to running tests to help determine diagnoses etc. She has to be certified to hold that position though so they are going to hire her as an Associate Professor teaching some microscopy classes and microbiology classes while she gets that certification. Then she'll take over and run the program.
 
Here's Makary last year, where he won't even go so far as saying cloth masks don't work, rather that they have almost no impact on transmission:
Jan 18, 2022
Johns Hopkins' Dr. Marty Makary: "There's actually broad consensus now by public health officials acknowledging privately, & they're starting to say so publicly, that cloth masks have almost no impact on transmission whatsoever, and we basically have known that the entire time."
And this was on FOX! lmao
Not quite "masks don't work"
That seems to be exactly what he is saying. What do you think "no impact on transmission whatsoever" is supposed to mean?

As I said, he went from advocating universal mask use to masks don't work, but hey, he's your only guide so go with it.

If this is the guy that helps you sleep at night, good for you. Don't expect other people to have the same response.
 
I said before...comment was made right in the midst of the Delta variant where the vaccines were shown time and time again to stop the spread. 100%? No...of course not...but at a better than 85% clip. That was fantastic results at the time.



This comment is what he is referring to here:
1 yr. ago

Dr. Vincent Racaniello
There is no scientific proof that vaccinated people can transmit virus. I would not knowingly mislead you. You do not respread the virus you pick up - it enters you, perhaps infects a few cells, then degrades over time.

And here are a few other Racaniello gems from that same AMA:
1 yr. ago

Dr. Vincent Racaniello
If everyone is fully vaccinated then it is safe to be outdoors. I see no evidence that vaccinated indivuals are able to transmit virus, although that possibility is driving the current masking guidelines.
1 yr. ago

Dr. Vincent Racaniello
It is not established anywhere that vaccinated people can transmit.
1 yr. ago

Dr. Vincent Racaniello
Correct, it has not been studied. To conclude that transmission does occur in vaccinated people is incorrect.

:bye:
 
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I guess some people don't understand what the word almost means. And that he said that about cloth masks.
You are clearly wrong on this but thats ok, I'll drop it.
 
Delta was the first place we could really gauge effects on transmission

I was posting in April 2021 in the Politics Forum Covid thread articles describing breakthrough infections all over. I'm sure you were defaming them and me then as well. Your backpedal is hilarious. Keep dancing.
 
Dr. Makary has been the one person I have trusted the most throughout this whole thing.
Have to say, this is a name I am completely unfamiliar with so I went to google and realized why. He's all over our "national news media" but I couldn't find a single piece of lab science generated by him or his team on COVID. In this country, specialty matters. That's what they know. In my view, you're far better off looking for a sound virologist to follow and rely on if it's not the studies and data behind them that you're digging into. A guy like Vincent Racaniello has proven invaluable to many on the subject of COVID. I'd recommend digging into his research and thoughts.

Here's an interview on his page with the Racaniello to help ease the transition should you choose:

Me too. He’s a surgeon at Hopkins, also teaches public health policy, and is well spoken. But he oversimplifies pretty much every issue in the (bet you can’t guess the network) news segment I watched, regurgitating a bunch of bad arguments critiquing pandemic management.

But I suppose that’s what people want: black-and-white statements like masks don’t work, natural immunity is the best, vaccines cause myocarditis, and certainty about a lab leak. While our public health response has also been insulting to people’s intelligence at times, I don’t find the other side of the coin any better.
 
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Delta was the first place we could really gauge effects on transmission

I was posting in April 2021 in the Politics Forum Covid thread articles describing breakthrough infections all over. I'm sure you were defaming them and me then as well. Your backpedal is hilarious. Keep dancing.
That has nothing to do with the original point which was that there were ZERO peer-reviewed studies on transmission. Once they were actually completed and data studied, vaccines were shown to absolutely have an impact on virus transmission. NONE of those studies, however, said the vaccines prevented transmissions 100%. Stay on topic if you keep replying to me please.
 
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