Miscellaneous And Off Topic Subjects

[Jeff Buchanan]

I got so angry this morning over the continuing fear-monkey non-sense from the media and the reality of what I am hearing is the appalling levels of dis and misinformation on social media platforms that I felt compelled to write something about it. I'm going to post a three part series here that I wrote today on why we should not be all scared shitless about the "surge."

FFS the information we have available to us from all levels including the federal level (CDC) is confusing, full of errors and double speak (the CDC) and from the media distorted and misleading. I'm not writing to get published. You guys are my friends and the small audience that I'm posting to here is largely on the same wavelength with regard to the pandemic as I am.

What I want to provide is some hard science and facts to improve your capacity to both resist the tyranny of the media and our own governments associated with the SARS2 Pandemic. If you're tired of my BS on this, don't read it. If you want some facts and science to politely discuss this with your group of friends who are scared or uninformed and heading to the bomb shelters, read it. Its going to be in three posts. Hopefully sequential........

[Jeff Buchanan]

The press is at it again with the fear monkey narrative. Look, I’m pretty well informed on the science of SARS2 and I fully understand how and why this thing mutates. I also understand why it is more transmissible and we are now learning that mutations have the capability to better evade both conferred and natural immunity. The public is seeing these capabilities in rising case numbers and now with increasing percentages of re-infections among the fully vaccinated. That’s some scarry shit, right?

Not really but it’s complicated and the press only has time to give you part of the story – the scarry part.

Let’s address increased transmissibility first: The SARS2 spike protein latches on to the ACE2 receptors in your respiratory tissues, hi-jacks ACE2’s reproduction mechanisms and unimpeded by good guys in your immune system starts pushing out lots of new bad guys. Mutations involve both chemical and architectural changes to the shape of the spike that enhance it’s ability to attach to ACE2 and carry out the task of reproducing more bad guys. If they latch on more easily that means they are more transmissible.

Functionally, smaller exposures to the infecting virions flowing in the air than with Alpha, for example, latch on and then produce infection more easily. In the unvaccinated and especially the most vulnerable, this is a huge problem and is accounting for the rapid increases in new case numbers everywhere that the Deltas (or new, more transmissible variants) become entrenched. Importantly – and this is what the public isn’t getting - this cohort faces the same mortality and morbidity (so far) as SARS2 Alpha. 98% of those that become infected recover and that number is increasing with advances in medical management where it doesn’t suck like it does in Malaysia for example. Deaths and hospitalizations from figures I’m looking at still predominate in an older cohort.

So, the bottom line here is that you see news reports with visuals of stacked up bodies outside hospitals and “thousands,” more specifically “thousands of young people (whatever that means) either overwhelming the health care systems (running out of 02 is the favorite of the press) or “dying on the sidewalk. Without context, I consider this grossly negligent journalism but, WTF, it sells.

TBF, the math of the sheer increase in new infections translates to more hospitalizations and deaths in that 98% of 30,000 is a lot less than 98% of 3,000,000. But, TBC, this isn’t a linear relationship. Hospitalizations and deaths are not increasing at the same rate as new cases – not even close and FFS you don’t hear this loudly enough. The public only hears 3000 new deaths a day and frighteningly that’s up whatever percentage is being quoted today from yesterday. Utter BS.

[Jeff Buchanan]

PART TWO

Moving on to how the SARS2 might be evading the human immune response. First, it is accurate that the percentage of “fully vaxed” folks getting reinfected is on the rise. But let me provide an example of how this is shaped by the press to scare you. Media reports a 14% rise in the number of vaccinated persons getting reinfected. WTF does that mean. I have no idea because I don’t know what the baseline is. Is it up .14 from 10 (1.4 re-infected and who gives a fuck about that) or is it .14 of 1000, or 10k or 1M. You get the point. It’s more BS that I feel compelled to bitch about.

Here’s the cell microbiology and physiology skinny: Mutations, while they confer more transmissibility as explained above, are also figuring out how to seal themselves off from attacks from your immune system from conferred (vaccination) or natural (previous infection). It is the same folding and unfolding of exposed surfaces of SARS2 – architectural changes – that do this. Your immune system fights back by adapting to the punches with their own counterpunches. The find chinks in the emerging armor, attache themselves to the bad guys, despite all of this chicanery. It is one of the absolutely remarkable features of the human immune system. Again, TBC, despite decades, actually centuries of scientific research on how the immune system adapts to fight infection is not well understood. Researchers know human immune systems do this and it the reason the species has not succumbed to previous pandemics and won’t to this one.

The best way to understand this is to think about how each flu season researchers around the globe get together to develop new versions of flu vaccines. It is one of the best examples of global cooperation – even the Chinese are in on this – to combat a known threat that I know of. The process isn’t that complicated. The genomic sequence of the latest version of the flu is sequenced, vaccines are developed that precipitate a new supply of antibodies from the human immune response for those people that get vaccinated to get a head start on the current flu virus. That way it doesn’t proliferate and the more people that get a flu shot, the fewer hosts the flu virus must infect, set up shop in your body and reproduce more flu bad guys to make you sick and spread it to others. For starters, this has been going on for decades so, researchers know what’s going down and can predict (through legit gain of function experiments) what’s coming down the line for that species of virus.

[Jeff Buchanan]

PART THREE

If you’ve made it this far, a light bulb should be going on now. SARS2, regardless of where you might think it came from, was very new and is pursuing a similar evolutionary life cycle to that of every other virus that has appeared and sickened humans. Sequencing began right away but for the naïve global population with zero immunity to this fucker it spread like a wildfire. Not only that but it is about 8x more deadly that influenza. But thanks to Operation Warp Speed, vaccines came in short order, relatively speaking. Bodies piled up though, PH officials panicked and shut the world down. Right now, the tools are available to manage SARS2. Really, they are. The press just blows all the scarry shit way out of proportion to the actual threat. We don’t need any more restrictions on our mobility, shuttering of our economies and schools or more intrusions on our liberties to assess risks and choose how much we are willing to tolerate. Going back to how flu vaccines came to pass, the same thing is happening in the case of SARS2 except the advent of mRNA vaccines make adjustments to variations from its original Alpha form possible in days not months or years.

We may or may not need boosters to combat troublesome variants, but if we do, they are easily developed, and the infrastructure is now in place to get these boosters (merely seasonal COVID shot’s much like seasonal flu shots) quickly into arms if necessary. As well your body’s immune system is doing its part. It’s adapting on the fly. We’ve got the science of mRNA vaccines, the adaptive capability of the human immune system and the strong believe that SARS2 will run out of room on the spike protein to mutate and extinguish itself or at least render itself a true nuisance. It’s a three front battle that humans WILL WIN. So, since Tom points out the press won’t ever STFU on this, our approach needs to be to tell them to go fuck themselves and ignore all the fear monkey the shit they are putting out.

[Jeff Buchanan]

One final and unrelated comment to sum this up. Look at Boris Johnson and GB. Boris is fully invested in let's get up, get going and get on with this thing. He's lifted most restrictions to life for Brits while keeping only a very few that make sense. He's open for business, travel, leisure and living again without the oppressive government mandates that restrict freedoms. I love the guy.

Not everyone does. He's doing this facing howls of protest from around the world claiming it is a bad experiment; an immoral and unethical one that devalues life. And of course, it is being proclaimed by "experts" the "science" doesn't support the approach Johnson is taking.

TBF, maybe it does, maybe it doesn't. Global governments have said they are watching GB's "experiment" closely to help shape their own responses. God love leadership. If Johnson pulls this off, and I'm betting he will despite niggling critics who will wrongly condemn it and characterize it's failure with the same kinds of BS stats that pervade the analysis of the virus in the US, it will be akin to Winston Churchill's courage in shaping the public's and GBs military and political response to the Nazis.

I await the outcome and we'll know fairly soon. As well, I await Chairmen Biden's response to the political pressures he and other governors are facing "TO DO DO SOMETHING!!!!" Pretty sure he'll fuck it up. But as Talent has pointed out, we'll suffer the consequences of more PHE ordered restrictions on our freedoms depending on which state you live in. Glad I live in FL - the US epicenter of new cases, hurricanes, "surging" deaths and hospitalizations, bedraggled health care workers facing the "surge," lack of ventilators and ICUs ...... it's all right here in Sunny FL.

[AlabamAlum]

I don’t know how the Delta and Lambda variants will impact things. I don’t know if the next wave will be worse. I don’t know if people will get the vaccine in better numbers, let alone the booster that is definitely coming.

What I do know is that the Zimbabweans were right from the beginning. Ignore Sub-Saharan wisdom at your own peril.

[crashcourse]

I think the Cinc has it covered as evidenced by his townhall meeting answer

[CGVT]

I think the Cinc has it covered as evidenced by his townhall meeting answer

One word for you.

Covfefe

[Jeff Buchanan]

Crash ..... fucking hilarious. Post of the day, maybe the week. Maybe all time. Who knows.

[iam416]

Lol. The Chairman’s command of English remains top shelf!

[Hannibal]

“15 days to flatten the curve”

Why it's not over ^^^^

make sure to never leave the house again without a mask for the rest of your life. Also, never attend another sporting event for the rest of your life and don’t talk to your fellow citizens in the supermarket.

better safe than sorry.

[Hannibal]

When it comes to forgetting where he is in the middle of his sentence and trailing off into a gobbledegook statement, the Corpse-in-Chief is a never ending treasure trove.

Lol. The Chairman’s command of English remains top shelf!

It’s just his childhood stutter, man.

[CGVT]

Too bad he's not a cognitive genius like this guy. Person Woman Man Camera TV

For him it was easy

[crashcourse]

so the town hall with biden go about half the viewers that the town hall with ron desantis got.

1.4 mil cnn viewers for biden
2.7 mil for desantis

He wins a national election with a record voter turnout garnering 80 mill votes but cant win his time slot against the plight of the cubans on fox tv which got double the ratings

and you wonder why people scratch their heads about November

[CGVT]

The Big Lie lives on