Corona Virus Thread Part 3 of ? (MOD NOTE IN OP)
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Iowa, South Dakota and Nebraska are all in the Top 10 for fastest Coronavirus growth in the US despite all being in the bottom-15 of states in terms of density. Maybe they should shut down the subway in Sioux Falls...
Preaching to the choir
The funny thing is that regardless of political preference, each side thinks it’s the other side that is being controlled. I talk to many people of all demographics and they all think the ‘other side’ is beyond help.
So even on the off chance that there is no Outside manipulation, people have come to distrust each other so vehemently, that no one would even have to pull any strings anymore. The momentum will simply keep getting stronger.
It’s very sad that we have to be so absolute in our opinions and generally reluctant to understand each other. This pandemic is Just another example of this.
oooohhhh you’re sending Me down a rabbit hole. I love stuff like this. People thinking way out of the box and huge. Thanks!
Here's a Twitter thread about why there are no vaccines for HIV, SARS or MERS:
SARS is no longer in circulation. MERS isn't really in circulation either - it jumps from camels to humans and spreads in small outbreaks and then it's quickly contained (so far). You need a certain number of freshly infected hosts to be able to develop and test the efficacy (and safety) of a vaccine candidate. The disease also has to be severe enough to warrant a vaccine in the first place, and the non-SARS/MERS coronaviruses just cause the common cold.
Buffdog
Registered User
- Feb 13, 2019
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There was more to the SARS vaccine being shelved than "it's no longer in circulation". Date on this was 2012
Everything I read about covid strains that cause the common cold track with what you're saying - only a certain percentage of "flu like illness" or URTIs are cause by coronaviruses, and there are four major strains within those. Basically there's no point to one, but efforts have been made in the past.
Immunization with SARS Coronavirus Vaccines Leads to Pulmonary Immunopathology on Challenge with the SARS Virus
Jetfaninflorida
Southernmost Jet Fan
I agree with your assessment regarding pressure on the media business model. The problem with the business model for reporting facts only and becoming the 'trusted source' is that there are already fact checkers today, and the level of fact based reporting is already reasonably measured today. There is quite accurate, fact based reporting now. What happens is that if the facts are not convenient for people in power, and those people in power have another communication media, that communications media is used to flood the zone with shit to take peoples focus away from the facts. And it works very well.
Fox is a good mainstream media example. Fox is one of the big five mainstream media sources. It's interesting how they characterize other mainstream media outlets as 'mainstream', as if to brainwash their audience that somehow they aren't mainstream, and that being mainstream media is bad. But they are. But that's an entirely different discussion. So getting back to the point, and the example of Fox as a mainstream media source. So Fox News, the news division, has been highly reputable and reliable about fact based reporting in the past and still somewhat today. There are countless examples of Fox opinion, saying the exact opposite of what Fox News would report, often on the same day! So you have Fox opinion discrediting a very reputable Fox News and calling themselves liars. So even though Fox News has been a good source of truth based reporting, they are often under attack and discredited by themselves on the opinion side. Shepard Smith, one of their most respected anchors ended up quitting Fox News basically because he was tired of being called a liar by Fox opinion. So there is a good source of the truth, Fox News, being discretted by Fox opinion because Fox opinion is entertainment and they know that their entertainment ratings are based upon people who like and follow Donald Trump.
Lesson - there are trusted sources of fact based media already out there, but as a consumer of information you have to be discerning and look for them and validate them.
It's bad if anyone does it.
But exaggerating the testing situation or the hospital issue in NYC is embellishment of real issues.
Shameless promoting of a drug, and denying evidence is at another level. Systematic drum beats to try to convince people that China deliberately created and released the virus as a bioweapon is nothing different than dangerous propaganda.
Buffdog
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- Feb 13, 2019
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I can honestly say that I haven't followed the HCQ thing at all.
I do know that MDs prescribe off label all the time. "Evidenced based care" has come to be synonnomous with "DBRCT" but that was never the intent.
sipowicz
The thrill is gone
- Mar 16, 2011
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Full bore masks at Costco this afternoon, actually handing them out at the door, I politely declined!
puck stoppa
Registered User
You’re a rebel. How do you expect the Jets to keep you on as their motivational speaking coach if you won’t follow the tight nhl covid rules!
- Feb 24, 2015
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But when you have very large and well-designed studies that document not only that a drug is ineffective, but that it is harmful, that changes the equation substantially. Anecdotes are not evidence.
If further evidence emerges that shows that HCQ has no benefit and harms, doctors that keep prescribing it will soon face the risk of malpractice suits.
Conversely I see this as tremendously problematic. There has been so much (near subliminal) marketing in mass media for so long on many subjects that the younger consumer base has been functionally brainwashed.
I'm going to step well outside the realm of Covid, so bear with me. I'm not going to post references but if anyone wants, they're either already somewhere in this thread or I'll provide them upon request.
By way of background, I grew up in the city (St. Vital so the Transcona people can be jealous) and have lived my entire life in Winnipeg, save a year in Australia. Somehow I was drawn to agriculture fairly early on (probably something to do with biology being scarce for work unless you're in agriculture). I've worked in Agriculture for over 25 years in extension, research and regulatory roles, usually all three at the same time. While my specialty is entomology I've worked with pathologists, agronomists, breeders and many more facets of agriculture than I can probably recall. I don't proclaim expertise in anything outside my field, but I've been exposed to a great many subjects in the broad field so I have a reasonable handle of what's going on.
One of the favorite phrases when I'm outside a major urban center is to refer to those living in said urban center as suffering from some derivation of the phrase "perimeter-itis". This is the Manitoba phrase for the rural-urban divide. The country folks think that the city is hellacious and everyone is utterly ignorant of agriculture. On the latter part they are largely correct and most people's perceptions of agriculture is only what hits the media. They don't actually understand how food is grown, what sort of stewardship programs are involved and in many cases how any of the processes actually work to the point where many think milk comes from the back of the grocery store (hyperbole, but you get the idea). I'm not contending that urban people are stupid, rather that they are disconnected and ignorant (again, not meant as insulting), much in the same way I shouldn't consider myself knowledgeable in engineering protocols. You don't want me telling you how to build a bridge.
I also have a daughter who is now of university age and I've watched a great many programs that I really don't have much interest in. Some were good (Kim Possible), some were bad (Hanna Montana) but there was a strong Disney flavor in there. Through the entire time I was observing children's programming, Disney has been mentioning organic food throughout. It's subtle, but consistently there. The basic premise/belief is that organic is perceived to be better for you. The rationale is that they don't use pesticides and that pesticides are very dangerous to consumers. Not Disney's rationale, but the primary marketing schemes function along those themes. That marketing/messaging has been going on for at least 20 years (my daughter's age) and probably considerably longer. I tend to notice it much more than anyone else because it's a pet peeve of mine.
Compare Costco to Superstore/Safeway/Sobey's. If you go into Costco you'll find probably 40-50% of their processed products are labeled as organic, as well as a smaller proportion of their fresh sales. If you go into any of the other three stores you'll find that the organic/natural sections represent somewhere in the range of </=10%. One of those numbers jives approximately correctly with how production is done in North America and really the rest of the world, though I confess I don't have Afghanistan's numbers at hand, for example. Less than 10% of grain, meat, produce is produced organically. There are multiple reasons for this, consistency of quality and yield being the two main issues; fear of a zero yield because control options are very limited in the case of a disease or insect outbreak. There's also a tremendous lack of consistency among various organic groups as to standards. They approximate, but in the U.S. for example there tends to be at least one oversight organic group per state and often more. They tend to model after OMRI.org more than anything else so it's a reasonable approximation of what's being done. If you know what you're looking for on OMRI's webpage you'll find multiple pesticides listed for acceptable use. They are allowed because they are of "natural" origin, usually, but not always meaning botanical origin (sulphur and copper obviously not fitting that). The problem is that natural does not equate to benign in any way, shape of form. But you'll run across arguments that will suggest we've evolved with them so they are safer. Poppycock! Lots of natural stuff will kill you quick as day to the point where natural is largely a meaningless word, but one that appears all over the place on food. Either way, organic production does allow for pesticide use, just a limited suite. If you want to get into the toxicology of it all, I'm afraid that it will paint a somewhat less friendly picture as well. But people don't really like toxicology because they tend to find that many things they consume (alcohol, sugar, caffeine, salt) are more often than not more toxic than the pesticides they are griping about. And if you're thinking that's not really part talk, whoo boy, you are right. People shut that shit down.
Going back to the media and tying in Disney, the primary thrust is that organic is good for you and the environment, better than conventionally grown food. But if you look at unbiased studies you'll find that nutritionally there isn't really any difference. Looking at equally unbiased studies you'll find that on average organic food yields about 2/3 or 67% of what conventional food does, meaning you need more land to produce the same amount of food. Where does that land come from? You aren't growing oranges in Arborg. So aren't we concerned about the environment? Of course, that's why we don't want pesticides. Right? Anyone see the conundrum here? But if we take groups of individuals to be the arbiters of what is right in the case of agriculture, we're now taking a generation that has grown up on social media, MSM (abbreviated for brevity, not as a pejorative), influencers and consensus thinking and they are going to dictate what is correct? You have just spelled out disaster for agriculture by using misinformation rather than sound thinking. The intention is noble but utterly lacking in factual basis.
Costco is the prime example of this sort of approach. They are very socially aware. When we get their magazine in the mail I read their articles and they are pushing an agenda that isn't sustainable, always trying to source organic food for everything. Well, I have news for you. Even though math is hard, if worldwide production of organic food is only at 10% and nearly 50% of the product at Costco is organic there's something going on that isn't above board. I have no doubt that Costco believes it's getting organic product (as an aside, next time you're in Safeway read the "Organics" label, you'll be a bit surprised) but the problem is they can't possibly be. Remember, all the other grocers are selling organic product and Whole Foods in the U.S. takes up a big share of the market. Where is the other 80% of the organic food sourced? I'll give you a hint: it's not from North America. Primarily the sources are China and Turkey. Though in Turkey's defense it's largely Russian product being moved through Turkey. It's labeled as organic, sold as organic and it's not. I've been to China and been in green houses where they've been spraying product on the produce. When we asked what it was they said fertilizer. Got news for you, most pesticides have pretty unique odors and we could easily tell what it was, and it wasn't fertilizer. It was reputedly an organic greenhouse.
Look through any social media, you'll find everyone talking about organic food, cosmetics, pillow cases. But look closely at your influencers - many if not most of them are deriving income from this. That's your trusted source?
Much of what we're being told these days is to sell product . It's why I so often use this video:
This new model you mention is popular and useful for corporations not because they're going to do good. They might believe it, but they'll often be wrong. The reality is that it comes with a built in marketplace. I've seen mommy-bloggers that have millions of followers that foist really shitty and inaccurate information on their followers. Those followers lap it up. If you're selling a product what's better than a spokesperson with 5 million unquestioning followers? Not much really and the expenditure to sponsor that influencer is infinitely smaller than any advertising campaign.
I'll leave you with this: you've seen the Triscuit ads for their Non-GMO project verified crackers, yes? Well in North America, the source for the grain that goes into those crackers, there isn't a single acre of GMO wheat in commercial production. It has not yet been approved. But that's what the public wants and what the company perceives the consumer wants. The problem is that it's about as meaningless as it could possibly be, because there isn't a cracker produced in North America using North American grown grain that has any GMO in it at all. Don't get me started on the word "natural".
Remember, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
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Yeah -- I'd do the same thing - never have worn a mask, and unless your system is weak, you should be just fine.
I guess they could be helpful if you have some health conditions - especially respiratory problems.
DudeWhereIsMakar
Bergevin sent me an offer sheet
Work basically starts next week for me, except I'll be working from the lake until they decide to open the offices back up.
I’ve been working from home for months now. Never been happier
better circumstances would have been nice, but I love not driving into the office everyday.
tbcwpg
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- Jan 25, 2011
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Yeah -- I'd do the same thing - never have worn a mask, and unless your system is weak, you should be just fine.
I guess they could be helpful if you have some health conditions - especially respiratory problems.
Masks are to prevent you from spreading the virus, not to prevent you from getting it.
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Well, I guess we'll have to disagree here. There have been only 9 deaths out of $ 1,000, 000 million in the Province of Manitoba. That's like about 1/ 100 of 1 % -- but if you want to go on believing there's some big threat out there "go ahead", but I just don't buy it. Not much else to do these days, so people may as well complain about the virus.
Bottom line -- if your strong and healthy with a good immune system, your chances of getting the Virus are less than dying in a car crash.
Maybe we should start a thread about the dangers of driving, and ban driving as well -- you know, to keep everyone safe.
Correct. N95 masks protect from particals up to 0.3 microns. This virus is half that size.
It’s been used for 65 years. If it was a harmful drug I think we’d see some evidence by now. The use HCQ as a prophylactic is still under study. However there are, and will be, better therapeutic meds for covid.
Just curious... who is saying that China deliberately created and released the virus ? From what I’ve ever heard from the Trump administration is that the virus is a natural one and accidentally escaped from the Wuhan lab. The issue with China (and the WHO) is the attempted coverup of the incident and the misinformation that was given to the world.
SensibleGuy
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- Nov 26, 2011
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the virus may be that small, but the particles that carry it aren't. Or at least the vast majority aren't.
But the rationale for masks in general public is to restrict your airflow. It's just to keep you from spreading virus beyond a foot or two from your face. So any mention of wearing a mask to protect yourself from others is completely wrong-headed.
Having said that, wear a mask or don't. It's one thing I think people can be allowed to make their own minds up on since in the grand scheme of things, since we're mostly staying 6 feet apart anyway it's of negligible impact. If you know you're going to be in contact with someone closer than that for a prolonged period, then wear a mask. But for walking past someone in the store - it isn't necessary.
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