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hello
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Shut the fuck up Donny! -
Case in point.Comment
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EFZShut the fuck up Donny!Comment
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A singer in a smokey room
The smell of wine and cheap perfume
For a smile they can share the night
It goes on and on, and on, and on
"The problem with quotes on the Internet is that it is sometimes hard to verify their authenticity." -Abraham LincolnComment
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Soon may the Wellerman come
Bring us sugar and tea and rum
One day when the tonguin' is done
We'll take our leave and go“Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read.” - Groucho MarxComment
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Some day love will find you
break those chains that bind you
one night will remind you
how we touched and went our separate waysComment
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JFC. Jesus Motherfucking Christ.
he’s loving, kissing another
now it’s your time to cry
Dan Patrick: What was your reaction to [Urban Meyer being hired]?
Brady Hoke: You know.....not....good.Comment
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sing us a song, you're a piano man
sing us a song tonight
well, we're all in the mood for a melody
and you got us feelin' all right ..."The stockings were hung by the chimney with care, .. I'd worn them for weeks, and they needed the air"Comment
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Everybody stop what you are doing immediately!Comment
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FL's vaccine roll-out is going smoothly - sort of - it's not easy to get an appointment for the vaccine with limited supplies but there are multiple ways to do it. Desantis negotiated a deal with Publix pharmacies and they rolled out their sign-up web site for county wide vaccinations on Friday. The state determines how much vaccine each county gets then there's a system in place to alot varying amounts to Publix pharmacies in each county. Yesterday morning at 6am, the web site went live. Reportedly 300,000 people were accessing the site while supplies lasted. Around 38K inoculations were up for grabs and they were gone in about 90 minutes. There'll be another batch up for grabs again at 6am next Wednesday.
FL has three systems in place that have evolved to be pretty effective after a rocky start 3w ago. You have to be able to prove you are resident of the state, this after "vaccine tourism" cropped up, got slammed and the residency requirement was established:
(1) Retail Publix pharmacies (front line HC workers, over 65's), Retail Walmart and Walgreen's pharmacies did all long term care facility residents and staff - all 300K of them across the state - most in S. FL and they are done with that and will now start offering vaccines to remaining front line HC workers and 65s and over.
(2) 4 large hospital systems all of them in the tri-county region of S. FL. These hospital systems have there own sign-up web sites but very limited supplies of vaccines per state's distribution plans.
(3) The FL Public Health System. A web site went live on Friday for you to sign up with your name and zip code and get a text and an email assigning you to a public health vaccination site near you as vaccines become available.
Desantis announced at his Friday news conference that almost all of the front-line HC workers and long term care residents and staff that wanted the vaccine have gotten it, 30% of the state's over 65 population has gotten the first dose and overall the state has inoculated 20% of it's population. Desantis also made it clear that he doesn't want his plan to be disrupted by the Feds stepping in when there's not problems in the state other than limited supply. He'll take whatever he can get because the state is well prepared to deliver the shots but don't bring FEMA into this.
The headlines however have been this: Roll-out of Desantis plan to use Publix pharmacies for vaccinations disadvantages poor minorities that don't live close to a Publix. One of Desantis' claims in announcing the Publix plan was that "most seniors live within 1.5 miles of a Publix." That's actually true except for seniors living in rural FL who are mostly black. Desantis will move some of the allotment for Palm-Beach Co. to "other" vaccination sites - I assume public health departments but I'm not sure how that gets rural minorities close to a vaccine site. Pure minority politics here. What seems impressive to me is that FL is well positioned to vaccinate all residents
I'm interested in how other states are doing. I know that effectiveness of vaccine programs vary greatly by state from what I read but detail is lacking except for the ones that make headlines either good or bad. Of course I live in FL and Georgia so I get details in those states - GA isn't doing so well.Mission to CFB's National Championship accomplished. But the shine on the NC Trophy is embarrassingly wearing off. It's M B-Ball ..... or hockey or volley ball or name your college sport favorite time ...... until next year.Comment
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In other vaccine news, you have to live under a rock to not know about the two Ninja Mutant virus strains one not so troubling one very troubling. Of course the press spouts "dire consequences." Let's talk about that. Fauci has raised concerns but they are muted. He's mostly stressing that these mutant strains increase the need for everyone to do the usual things to prevent the spread of the virus.The good news is that the pharmaceutical concerns that already have vaccines being distributed are looking the mutations and developing tweeks to the vaccines - so far, so good based on limited information available. The Prizer and Moderna mRNA vaccines are the easiest to adjust. The others available outside China and Russia that use some type of live virus that has been neutered (AZ, J&J, Novavax) are a bit more complicated but these two can be adjusted.
Another bit of good news on this front is that PH systems are much better prepared, like light years better, to deal with these new strains. This is nothing new. Virus, when put under pressure, try to survive and change their genetic structures (mutate) to do so. This has been known for centuries although the level of detail regarding how virus do this has exploded in the last decade. Sequencing the human genome and the technical advances made in the last year involving vaccine development put us in a great position to beat the Ninja Mutants. After all, this is business as usual as scientists have been doing this with the H1N1 Flu and its variants for about 20 years. We'll be fine.......
...... and to that point, new cases in the US have dropped by 34%. Hospitalizations are droping like rocks on a regional basis. This is not the largest drop but it's onset is the fastest. Experts won't step up and say why but from what I've read it has more to do with human behavior being modified in response to the rising death toll properly associated with the holidays. People that were not engaged with taking simple mitigation measures are now engaged. There are still plenty of anti-maskers who believe this is a hoax. Nothing new there. They won't change.
I don't think we are seeing vaccine effect at all....yet. But what is also in play is herd immunity. That's come up again this time, it's good. There is a view that 30% of the US population have some level of immunity not from vaccines but from having been exposed to the virus and becoming infected. I think by mid-February were going to see a steep drop in deaths. I suspect that new case numbers will stabilize at some level and decrease much more slowly over the next 6 months - cat's out of the bag. The virus is out there and still creating lots of new infections. I see it in FL. But it is inevitable that new case numbers will go down. The big question is will the sero-prevalence (% positivity) be below 5% widely by mid-summer? Regionally at first it will get there but will it get that low nationally such that traveling doesn't increase new cases? Remains to be seen.Mission to CFB's National Championship accomplished. But the shine on the NC Trophy is embarrassingly wearing off. It's M B-Ball ..... or hockey or volley ball or name your college sport favorite time ...... until next year.Comment
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This is the only variant (Brazil) I am concerned about
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Wife has been sick for a few days. All the symptoms except high fever and loss of taste. Of course everyone, including us, figured covid. Took her for test yesterday and it came up negative. I'll be damned, there still are good old fashion colds out there. Who would have known?
PS- We are happy obviously, but I still don't want a common cold. I seem to struggle getting rid of anything to do with sinus/lungs.Comment
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Thanks for those links, DSL. I only read the Lancet article. These are the first detailed reports of P.1 I've seen. Some take-aways:Originally posted by Dr. Strangelove View Post
There's four postulated reasons behind Brazil's surge in the Lancet study. Based on what I've read about B1.1.7 and B1.1.35, the most significant variation is that these variants become more transmissible, not more deadly - those two are pretty well understood. P.1 is still being investigated but IMO, one of the most likely reasons for uptick in new cases in Brazil is the ease of transmissibility in P.1. I'm also reading that the adaptive immunity (IgG) conferred by past infections wanes. The Lancet journal article talks about this but reminds readers that there are two parts to the human immune system. Adaptive and Innate (T and C cells and their subtypes with specific roles in the immune response). My view is that the innate immune system in immunocompetent person is the primary driver of recovery. I have no scientific evidence of that but I have practice experience treating the common cold (coronavirus) ........ healthy people don't get sick or if they do, the symptoms are mild and few seek medical care. Unhealthy people get sick often and when they do, they have worse symptoms. These are not bad people. Some are but some just have poor protoplasm as I like to say. They are genetically deficient.
I have friends who have been infected with COVID. None of the ones I know well have gotten seriously ill. They have friends who I don't know that did. If I split them into groups of stayed isolated v. went out but were safe, the second group had much higher infection rates. But the ones that went out, to the man or woman were vigorous over 65s who ate well and exercised regularly. One had well controlled HIV (he had normal T-Cell and CD4 Cells - lack of those produces AIDs ). He had 5d of minor symptoms. He's also vigorous and exercises almost every day. A third guy who participated in what I would call risky undertakings for SARS-2 infection, got a sore throat, went and got tested, the results were + by PCR, his symptoms were gone in 3d. Possibly a false + but not likely by PCR and his exposure risks. The kicker is that he was + for IgG negative for IgM on post infection recovery serology. He also reports a history of a few really bad colds when he was younger. Earlier exposure to coronavirus prepping a rapid innate immune system response to SARS-2, a coronavirus itself? Good possibility among lots of them.
While the viral load of an exposure in a given infection is believed to be a determinant of illness severity, it's hard to tease out that factor and the contribution of the innate immune systems response. To do that, a lot of serology testing would have to be done and it isn't being done. Studies are on-going. At some point we are going to know. Being a glass half full guy, and by my small case studies, both contribute to COVID illness severity but the biggest contributor is the innate immune system and how it responds. Controllable factors such as healthy life styles contribute to it's vitality but some folks are just genetically unlucky. Darwin understood that.
The bottom line is P.1 is worth worrying about. Studies of this variant are not as far along as the other two. I'm confident given the level of science and technology in the field of immunology that we're still going to be traveling, watching CFB live and doing most of things we enjoy that are currently on the list of things we shouldn't be doing by this fall. Lots of variables in that prediction could affect outcomes one way or the other. But, like I said, I'm generally an optimist.Mission to CFB's National Championship accomplished. But the shine on the NC Trophy is embarrassingly wearing off. It's M B-Ball ..... or hockey or volley ball or name your college sport favorite time ...... until next year.Comment
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Donald Trump has lost his legal team less than a week before his Senate trial over Der Fuhrer's insistence of maintaining the MASSIVE FRAUD!!! lie. Imagine the spectacle of Trump serving as his own lawyer. This would truly be a Capt Queeg moment. Strawberries!!!!!
And yes, there is precedent for a post-office impeachment.
https://www.npr.org/2021/01/29/96133...shed-145-years
Maybe Baghdad Sarah and Proud Boy leader Enrique Tarrio will lead the defense. There'd be some entertainment value, although not nearly as much if Trump were to self defend.
pair.JPGLast edited by Ghengis Jon; January 31, 2021, 07:51 AM.“Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read.” - Groucho MarxComment
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