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Engage in discussions encompassing themes like cosmology, human evolution, genetic engineering, earth science, climate change, artificial intelligence, psychology, and beyond in this forum.
DWill wrote:I didn't realize you'd moved, geo. It must be a big change from Asheville, which seems to be a place people want to move to!
Actually we moved from Asheville a few years back and ended up in Franklin, NC to be closer to my wife's work. But that only lasted about two years and last fall we ended up moving back to the Eastern Shore of Maryland, which is where we're both from originally. We've lived in Oregon, Florida, North Carolina, and now we're back in Easton, MD after a 30-year hiatus.
KindaSkolarly wrote:So which sources are authoritative? The Washington Post? The New York Times? The NYT reported that having a flu shot decreases your chance of contracting the coronavirus . . . But the opposite is true:
The opposite is NOT true. According to the CDC:
Is it true that getting a flu vaccine can make you more susceptible to other respiratory viruses?
There was one study (published in 2012) that suggested that influenza vaccination might make people more susceptible to other respiratory infections. After that study was published, many experts looked into this issue further and conducted additional studies to see if the findings could be replicated. No other studies have found this effect. For example, this article [99 KB, 5 pages]external icon in Clinical Infectious Diseases (published in 2013). It’s not clear why this finding was detected in the one study, but the preponderance of evidence suggests that this is not a common or regular occurrence and that influenza vaccination does not, in fact, make people more susceptible to other respiratory infections.
Getting a flu shot has been recommended in hopes of decreasing the number of flu cases. Because hospitals will already have their hands full with coronavirus. I don't know if NYTimes specified that or just made an error in reporting. Regardless, it's important that we all do due diligence and double check stories before repeating them. In this case, you are repeating false information or at least information without a full understanding of what it means.
KS wrote:And the first article I referenced in this thread explained why there will be no vaccine for this virus. The Wuhan virus is like SARS and MERS--all are a form of coronavirus. And no vaccine is possible for a coronavirus.
That article is by an anonymous author on a blog related to financial investments. You repeat those statements, so I state again that is not an authoritative source, which is what we need during this crisis. It's possible what he says is true, but you'd need to find someone with the appropriate credentials to convince anyone at BookTalk, not someone named "escargotisntfastfood."
KindaSkolarly wrote:And the first article I referenced in this thread explained why there will be no vaccine for this virus. The Wuhan virus is like SARS and MERS--all are a form of coronavirus. And no vaccine is possible for a coronavirus.
President Donald J. Trump says there is a vaccine on the way, and that is good enough for me.
Testing in the US is entirely inadequate so the numbers of infected have to be woefully low. There are likely tens of thousands infected in the US and I wouldn't be surprised if it hits the hundreds of thousands in a couple of months. I currently am not going to work. They told me to take my desk computer home and work from there until further notice. So here I am at home. But I think it was a prudent move. If you contract this virus (or any other) it's liable to be from work or, if you are a child, from school. Of course, people with kids can also contract if from them. But then those people will bring it to work.
I'm not worried for myself but my mother is 91 and if she gets it that will likely be it for her. Fortunately, she can't drive anymore and can't really go out much and has been a homebody for 4 or 5 years now. So that minimizes her chances of getting it. I carry a bottle of hand sanitizer in my car so I can use it after I leave a store or a gas station and just before I go into my mother's house. So, hopefully, she'll be okay.
I did read that there is a Japanese flu treatment compound that has had spectacular results in treatment, It's not vaccine but it's causing negative readings after 4 days instead of the usual 11. I don't know it it has been fully proven but it's a possibility and I'll take anything right now.
As for Trump's assurances that a vaccine is on the way, we're talking a year, maybe a year and a half. He has lied so much that his words mean nothing. There is no point to believing anything he says. I don't want them to rush this thing. Yes, they have to work fast but this thing MUST work. If they distribute an ineffective vaccine, that will be a major disaster. They have to make sure it works. It MUST be fully tested. If it takes a year then it takes a year.
There's no vaccine on the way. There's no vaccine against the SARS coronavirus or the MERS coronavirus. No vaccine for the Wuhan coronavirus is on the way. One of Trump's jobs as president is to reassure people, so on the advice of his experts he passes on the hope of a vaccine.
But an amazingly good treatment may already be here. I was glad to hear Trump talk about it today.
An antimalarial. People have been wondering why tropical countries have so far been largely spared, and the reason might be because they take antimalarials. With something like chloroquine to treat the disease, and at-home testing kits, the crisis could be over very quickly. Thankfully Trump spearheaded the "Right to Try" legislation at the start of his presidency, so trials of chloroquine should be very swift (not encumbered by the FDA). And chloroquine has been around for 70 years, so again, the FDA won't be able to claim they need to do tests. The data already exists. This is a generic drug, so we should be able to crank it out as cheaply as aspirin before long. In a month the routine may be to do a cheap at-home test, and if you test positive for the Wuhan virus, pick up some chloroquine at the store and take it for a week.
Hopefully the crisis will end quickly. It is being used as a smokescreen for a giant re-engineering of society. The people doing the re-engineering seem to think they have 18 months, and it would be great if chloroquine blew up that timetable.
The world economy has been in terrible shape for a long time. Unchecked spending is unsustainable. The financial bubbles had to be burst, and the Wuhan virus is doing that. It's being called the REASON for the financial turmoil, but really it's just the catalyst.
Sometime during a prolonged virus crisis there will most likely be a "global reset" that does away with cash. Soon we'll start seeing lots of reportage about how cash carries the coronavirus, and we should switch to an electronic monetary system. The people running the new e-money scam will be the same ones running the current fiat money scam. And under a new system you won't be able to stash cash in your mattress anymore. Your electronic money will be in the hands of authoritarians, completely beyond your reach. And then, if you don't go along with their wishes, your account will be locked. This crisis is being pitched as a breakdown of globalism, but it could turn into just the opposite--the consolidation of all the world's banks into one.
Here's another interesting dashboard tracking the pandemic. It sorts the data in slightly different ways, you might find it more understandable. Run by a 17 year old computer whiz.
Good information in this interview with epidemiologist Dr. Larry Brilliant. Scary, but ultimately also somewhat optimistic.
And he wears Hokas, the world's cushiest shoes.
The whole epidemiological community has been warning everybody for the past 10 or 15 years that it wasn't a question of whether we were going to have a pandemic like this. It was simply when. It's really hard to get people to listen.
So named, he'd be a good fictional character. Good outlook, though, good advice. I remember Ron Klain from O's admin. and can see why Brilliant would recommend him for virus czar over Pence, who himself is much better than Trump (if Trump really let him take over the response). I saw another analysis of our chances to avoid a total virus disaster that cited the greater social distancing we already have in the U.S.--such as less dense population and reliance on private vehicles to go to work. Maybe?
And the shoes. You're right that Hokas are the cushiest. A podiatrist recommended them to me after plantar fasciitis. What's really different about them is that you don't get that squishy heel feeling with each step, as with other very padded shoes.
