Miscellaneous And Off Topic Subjects

[iam416]

So obsessed.

[iam416]

Charles Cooke, who is almost always measured, on the current internet censorship issues: https://www.nationalreview.com/magaz...ble-standards/

He gets to pretty much exactly I've been saying about Section 230 and also seems to accept that we are heading into Orwellian territory.

[iam416]

Speaking of Woke America -- as mentioned earlier, San Francisco has voted to rename schools associated with individuals that have "dishonorable legacies." So, see ya Washington, Jefferson, LINCOLN and, heh, Feinstein (amongst others). These are the people driving the bus for the Ds.

[UMStan White]

"I'm interested in how other states are doing."

Here in Indy, it took my wife and I twenty minutes to get an appointment on line. Appointment 6 days out. We went to vaccination site ten minutes early. No line. They took us and 30 minutes later we left with our first shot. That included 20 minute wait after shot. While waiting they made our second shot appointment. Indiana is prioritizing by age. We got in first group which was 70 and older. It was easier than going to a pharmacy and getting a flue shot.

[Jeff Buchanan]

"I'm interested in how other states are doing."

Here in Indy, it took my wife and I twenty minutes to get an appointment on line. Appointment 6 days out. We went to vaccination site ten minutes early. No line. They took us and 30 minutes later we left with our first shot. That included 20 minute wait after shot. While waiting they made our second shot appointment. Indiana is prioritizing by age. We got in first group which was 70 and older. It was easier than going to a pharmacy and getting a flue shot.

Great to here success stories!

[iam416]

My mother-in-law (70+) is scheduled for Friday. In Ohio, they are letting counties/vaccination sites schedule as they see fit. Franklin County (Columbus) is a little bit of luck of the draw. In the county my mother lives in, you pre-register and then they notify you of your time when it comes up. She's in the 70+ group. I'm hoping she gets the call in the next couple weeks.

This week in Ohio teachers are getting vaccinated, so that's going to eat up a ton of supply. The 15-20% of the fuckers that refuse to do any in-person teaching better sure as fuck get off their ass after this.

[iam416]

I think it's also worth noting that the real-time "snapshot" assessments of Covid or vaccinations is remarkably short-sighted. For example, in the EU there is must complaining about how far behind they are (both the UK and US are way better). But, we're only 30M shots. It's possible the EU will turn out to be only a few weeks behind us. It's also possible they'll get to, say, 150M shots at roughly the same time. A few weeks really don't matter.

That's been going on in the US since, well, the outbreak. It's the "OMG!!! look at how bad State X is!!!" -- give it time and see how the performance is on the whole.

[iam416]

On sort of irrelevant Covid front — now that PDJT is out of office, the notion that the virus came from the Wuhan lab is gaining traction because it’s almost a blindingly obvious conclusion. I’m certain we’ll never “know” — but we’re talking one ginormous coincidence if it isn’t the case.

It’s mostly irrelevant, of course, because where it came from is of no consequence in terms of dealing with the pandemic.

[THE_WIZARD_]

Leave it to JB to breakup the gay song lovefest...

[iam416]

Correct

[lineygoblue]

Leave it to JB to breakup the gay song lovefest...

Well, let me get it started again ....

[Tom W]

Speaking of Woke America -- as mentioned earlier, San Francisco has voted to rename schools associated with individuals that have "dishonorable legacies." So, see ya Washington, Jefferson, LINCOLN and, heh, Feinstein (amongst others). These are the people driving the bus for the Ds.

Thankfully, most of us are capable of driving ourselves places. That's about the best thing that can be said to keep from absolutely breaking out into hysterical laughter over these idiots.

[THE_WIZARD_]

Well, let me get it started again ....

XOXOXO

[Jeff Buchanan]

Continuing to see a steep drop in new cases globally (selectively), in the US (only two states have Rt >1.0), hospitalizations are down (slope is paralleling new case #s), ED visits for LIL and SLI are way down, deaths are lagging as they always do.

Just to demonstrate how misinformed the public is by the press on this, The NYT's Sunday issue had multiple articles on the new mutations and hand wringing over the decreasing efficacy of J&J's vaccine because of them. (I've already posted about this). Nothing on the steep drop in most COVID metrics (they did run that headline on Wednesday or Thursday last week. The Sun Sentinel's COVID headline on Sunday was "State Tops 1.7 Million Cases." Never mind that 5700 new cases were reported with a statewide 5.4% positivity. That's the lowest it's been since July. I can't help but believe that we're seeing a vaccination effect with 100% of LTC residents and staff inoculated and 40% of the over 65s in FL. If the drop holds up, especially with regard to the 7d slope of the line, not absolute counts, we are almost certainly seeing vaccine effect. No doubt, changes in human behavior and herd immunity are contributing, the later widely dismissed as a factor within the last 3 months.

Consider this: most experts believe that the number of actual C-19 cases is conservatively 3X what is being caught by testing and reporting positive test results. That's 5.1 million cases out of a FL population of 21 million. Right around 20% of the state has some kind of immunity. If you do the numbers by county, the tri-county region of S. FL is running about 25%. Herd immunity according to experts will slow contagion at somewhere between 50 and 70%. This is a WAG. There's better math around and It is found in these back of an envelope calculations here:

https://www.statnews.com/2020/12/17/...herd-immunity/

If you had trouble with 6th grade math, here's what the math this guy used tells us:

With just 39% of Americans getting a government-approved vaccine, the time to herd immunity is 19 months, meaning December 2022.

If 17.7% of Americans are already immune by May, and another 39% would readily get a Covid-19 vaccine, that leaves about 43% of the population who are vulnerable to infection but skeptical of vaccination.

Convincing roughly half of these skeptical Americans to take the shot, boosting P_v to 60.7%, shortens the time to herd immunity to two months, meaning July 2021.

Convincing just a few more, hitting a critical mass of 63.7%, would let us achieve herd immunity as soon as the second wave of vaccinations has been completed.

You can manipulate the variables in these equations, like change the current % of people with some level of innate immunity (I'd argue it is well above 17.7% that the suthor uses in his calculations) and it changes the time to achieve herd immunity. But, think of this. The numbers the author of the SLATE piece uses aren't wildly unachievable. They are realistically achievable and that means we could be looking good by mid summer. I can change the 17.1% of Americans already immune to, say 25 or 30% via innate immunity from a previous infection, we're talking 1-2 months earlier than July - my point is that assumed a reasonable number of Americans with innate immunity combined with a lower vaccination rate can still get us to the desired end point. An increased vaccination rate, also entirely achievable, just further shortens the time to the desired end point.

[Dr. Strangelove]

AA, Talent, or Wiz- Do you recall an Arizona fan at CNN/SI that was an obnoxious SOB? I think his name may have been AZwildcat00 or something like that. No real reason I bring him up, Just was looking at something that mentioned Dick Tomey and it made me think of him