Miscellaneous And Off Topic Subjects

[THE_WIZARD_]

By saying that liney...you are showing your systemic racist tendencies. Stop or you will be cancelled.

[lineygoblue]

I'm a work in progress, Wiz. Give me some time.

[THE_WIZARD_]

No

[Whitley]

should be regional.

Because people totally always stay in their region of a state. Oh, wait.....they don't

[Mike]

People travel between states, too. Should we close those borders?

[Hannibal]

People travel between states, too. Should we close those borders?

yes. You should be confined to your home permanently. It’s the only way to be sure.

[lineygoblue]

180417166_10219221147935337_6147441202273145343_n.jpg?_nc_cat=102&ccb=1-3&_nc_sid=825194&_nc_ohc=T-6ijvGicSwAX98EBcU&_nc_ht=scontent-ort2-1.xx&oh=d6ac7dbbb98e7d5a2bad5456226178e7&oe=60B0E51A.jpg

[Jeff Buchanan]

Speaking of masks, on Friday, FL's Surgeon General issued new public health guidance on masks ..... you don't need to wear them. ANYWHERE. Reportedly, he based his new guidance for FL's residents on the effectiveness of vaccines, that at risk populations have been vaccinated at upwards of a 90% clip and that the general population in FL has reached a 40% level of vaccination.

What wasn't in the report is that state wide percent positivity was below 5% for the most recent 7d rolling average. It's been below 10% for over two weeks now and that meets the goal of under 10% for 10 consecutive days set by Governor Desantis to move the state from Phase 2 to Phase 3 (pretty much pre-pandemic mobility and social contacts). There is a ton of detail behind this, also not in the report on the Surgeon General. None of this is getting the press it should because the metrics tell the actual story which, of course, contradicts the fear monkey narrative even FL's press relishes in.

This is sensible. Meanwhile, as everyone knows, the CDC remains overly cautious and tentative

What's more galling is that nationally reporting remains focused on new cases in the US, an entirely misleading metric with respect to the degree of control of the virus as myself and others have repeatedly commented on here. This fear monkey narrative is further stoked by the "dire" COVID surges in India and elsewhere. When you can find graphs that depict a population's vaccination rates against deaths, hospitalizations and % positivity, such graphs are stunning in their representation of the impact of vaccine roll-out in the countries that are getting vaccines into arms at high rates.

.......and make no mistake, recovery from the COVID pandemic is regional and reporting that there is a "surge" in new cases globally, so everyone should continue to hide in your homes, depicts an entirely false COVID narrative. What that kind of reporting does is distort the nature of the remaining COVID problems extending them globally when in fact there there are a just a few areas - India, Brazil and South America - where SARS2 is spreading at high rates. These three regions alone are accounting for upwards of 50% of new daily cases. Everywhere else, for a host of different reasons, rates of infection are on the decline.

Ron Desantis and Florida, once again, have it right.

[Jeff Buchanan]

Here's another worrisome narrative emerging: Rich Western countries that could afford to buy enough vaccines in advance, stock-pile them and deliver them to their citizens are creating a world where the divide between rich and poor is widening. It is but what or who is to blame for that?

Not a new problem, people. Trillions of dollars are contributed by western nations to all sorts of humanitarian efforts and aid programs. Vaccine distribution is just one of them and WHO's COVAX program, if it had been executed properly, should have served that purpose.

In a general sense, one can always find that once aid is received by governments or agencies struggling with poverty, illness and human suffering, the money finds it's way into the pockets of corrupt officials running them with zero public accountability. The WHO's COVAX is an easy target.

I have no idea how to solve these problems but throwing money at them or piling guilt on the west is not the answer. With respect to the question of vaccine equity, my response is, came too late and brought to little. If you're living in a country or working in one of the myriad aid organizations and want to fix that sort of shit, hold your officials accountable. If Nalvanny can do it to Putin - revealing that "The Emperor Has No Cloths" - any country's citizenry or organization's membership can do that to much weaker corrupt aid agencies, autocrats and their governments. Stop asking dominant western nations to fix these problems with hand-outs. Of course in the case of vaccines, China's is available but it doesn't work.

[Whitley]

Here's another worrisome narrative emerging: Rich Western countries that could afford to buy enough vaccines in advance, stock-pile them and deliver them to their citizens are creating a world where the divide between rich and poor is widening. It is but what or who is to blame for that?

Not a new problem, people. Trillions of dollars are contributed by western nations to all sorts of humanitarian efforts and aid programs. Vaccine distribution is just one of them and WHO's COVAX program, if it had been executed properly, should have served that purpose.

In a general sense, one can always find that once aid is received by governments or agencies struggling with poverty, illness and human suffering, the money finds it's way into the pockets of corrupt officials running them with zero public accountability. The WHO's COVAX is an easy target.

I have no idea how to solve these problems but throwing money at them or piling guilt on the west is not the answer. With respect to the question of vaccine equity, my response is, came too late and brought to little. If you're living in a country or working in one of the myriad aid organizations and want to fix that sort of shit, hold your officials accountable. If Nalvanny can do it to Putin - revealing that "The Emperor Has No Cloths" - any country's citizenry or organization's membership can do that to much weaker corrupt aid agencies, autocrats and their governments. Stop asking dominant western nations to fix these problems with hand-outs. Of course in the case of vaccines, China's is available but it doesn't work.

Here is a suggestion.....peel away the IP protections and make the formulas available for all the places that can manufacture the vaccines (spoilers.....not all are being used to full capacity). This is a pandemic--it is horrible that there are countries that do not have any vaccine shots yet. The longer it take to get to world health herd immunity the greater the chance that there will be a mutation that will be able to bypass the vaccines we already have out there and then this whole shit starts all over again.

[Jeff Buchanan]

Here is a suggestion.....peel away the IP protections and make the formulas available for all the places that can manufacture the vaccines

This suggestion is as woke as it gets. Why do this? We're in the midst of a global effort to protect IP rights not give them up. The development of mRNA vaccine in particular is a technological marvel that will rival inventions like the printing press and the automobile assembly line in terms of their impact on civilization. This technology is going to have far reaching impacts on the advancement of medical advances in cancer and chronic condition care going forward. The companies that developed them should reap therewards for doing this. You take that incentive away, as hard as it is for liberals to understand this basic concept, strips incentives for risk taking and the innovations that produces.

There are plenty of good ways to get the world's population vaccinated. This isn't one of them.

[Da Geezer]

I'd like to know what the dominant "brand" of vaccine is being used in India, Brazil, and other hot spots. China's vaccine is reportedly 50% effective. What countries chose to use China's formulation?

[Dr. Strangelove]

Not sure if India has been using the Chinese vaccine or AZ or what, but about a week or two ago I had heard that only about 2% of the population had been fully vaccinated. Their problem in particular is that they're a huge, crowded country and simply can't distribute any vaccine faster than the disease can spread right now.

[Ghengis Jon]

Geez - My colleagues in Brazil say AZ is what's available, and 'available' is a very relative term there. They're hoping for significant vaccination rate at the year's end. But its a clusterfuck right now.

[lineygoblue]

I'd like to know what the dominant "brand" of vaccine is being used in India, Brazil, and other hot spots. China's vaccine is reportedly 50% effective. What countries chose to use China's formulation?

And has China proven that they are trustworthy thru all this? Their vaccine may not even be 5% effective, for all we know.