*looks up "melodramatic"*
-- chuckles --
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*looks up "melodramatic"*
-- chuckles --
Here is some more fuel. A study by Stanford on the deaths caused by Trumps rallies. It can't be proved but food for thought.
https://news.yahoo.com/stanford-stud...162108367.html
It astonishes me that anyone would risk their lives and the lives of their friends and family to go listen to this guy. To top it off, Not wear a mask. Even if you don't think he is a morally bankrupt conman that doesn't care about this country but only himself, why take that risk for any politician. How anyone can think this is the right thing to do is beyond my understanding, it just makes no sense to me. Was it PT Barnum that said "there was a sucker born every minute"? I think he under estimated how many suckers are born in a minute.
Edit:
Well I guess that wasn't necessary. But I can't help myself, I really really enjoy saying it!!!!Quote:
Even if you don't think he is a morally bankrupt conman that doesn't care about this country but only himself
Yeah, heads are exploding all over and spin machines are in full overdrive. Some of that might be down to the projections some models produced late last week:
That one was labeled "Long shot, but well within the realm of possibility." But it wasn't even the most extreme projection, with some giving Trump three more states.
That's the genius of his messaging, they don't believe they're risking lives.Quote:
It astonishes me that anyone would risk their lives and the lives of their friends and family to go listen to this guy.
In other news, on this side of the pond we're going back into national lockdown from Thursday. Projected for 4 weeks but maybe longer.
@NSA, if you're reading: yeah, 80% now it covers the South... says it all really <insert shaking head smiley here/>. I wouldn't blame you if you let the Scots pass Hadrian's wall and declared Andy Burnham "King in the North". (I'm sure the Welsh would be willing to chip in a Dragon or two).
Anybody who was able would have been smart to have never fully come out of personal lockdown anyway. Not everyone is in a position to have done so though. It was easier for white collar workers and retirees in decent financial shape.
I have been making strategic supply runs for shelf-stable staple items and ordering them when the price premium isn't excessive. Some may call it hoarding, but I don't acquire more than I expect to use. I'm about to cut that off as well because the contagion rate has climbed.
Don't buy what you won't use. If you don't cook with dried vegetables, beans, rice, etc. normally then stocking up in bulk may be a waste for you. There are canned meats available but many of them are of dubious quality and often pretty unappealing. Most people have pretty finite freezer space as well.
Grocery delivery can be an option but I hesitate to abuse it. I feel bad about encouraging others to run out and about for me when I won't do it myself. I'll probably go back to using that to supplement stable goods with fresh, and try to do that in large monthly or 6 week orders.
Cabbage is pretty stable but lettuce, spinach, and other greens much less so. I'll buy less of those for my deliveries and as they run out return to supplementing them with sprouts. Mung bean, radish, broccoli, and other sprouting seeds make good options.
Don't ignore treats. I enjoy mixed nuts and dried fruits, and moved to things like pepitos instead of peanuts and varied dried fruits with no added sugars where available. Even cheap and compact-to-store saltine (soda) crackers can be had in low-sodium versions and you can always smear on peanut butter or cheese spread for flavor, or even shake some in a bag with spices.
So yeah, in addition to a lot of leaf raking right now I've been gradually battening down the hatches.
Trying to think past Tuesday I don’t see a good winter. Whether Trump wins or loses the approach, and I will argue with anyone our governments approach has been abyssal, will continue for at least another two an a half months or so. Regardless if it is Trump staying the current course or Biden changing the strategy when he is in office nothing is going to change until after January 20th. Based on that I’m pretty sure we can extrapolate how many people are going to die between election day and inauguration day because of the Trump administration. The people that support Trump make me want to post VERY negative things about them. I said I would lighten up though...
Daily voice of reason:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKI78fzBGD0
Maybe your right. They say love is blind, maybe politics is blind too. Wonder if they even acknowledge there are over 230,000 dead American. It seems quite insane to me.Quote:
That's the genius of his messaging, they don't believe they're risking lives.
Yep well firstly it was inevitable, and as predicted as the South of the country now goes into lockdown proper financial support is put in place. It's really crappy politics and behavior but not surprising.Quote:
@NSA, if you're reading: yeah, 80% now it covers the South... says it all really
secondly, it was predictable, as Boris firmly ruled it out and as we know by now Boris firmly ruling something out means a u-turn is coming
Ran into my first group of anti-maskers yesterday. I had to go to Canadian Tire to get a rake and a family of 5 (3 children looked to be about 8-13 or so) were all arguing with the staff saying their entire family is exempt from wearing masks.
Feel so bad for the employees having to deal with people like that. The staff were being very nice, offering to get what they needed and doing a curb-side payment/pickup, but these people were just going crazy.
When they first entered the store, they even tried to just ignore the employee telling them they needed to wear masks and just kept walking. The staff had to get in front of them.
They were slowing up traffic around the cities' outer belt here in Columbus. They deliberately go under the speed limit to clog traffic but fast enough not to get tickets. Very irritating for someone like me that wants Trump gone.Quote:
Originally Posted by kfcSmitty
Yeah, this I don't get. There are good reasons why some (a very few) people genuinely can't wear a mask. But at the point the staff are literally offering to take all the inconvenience onto their shoulders for you, the only reason left for carrying on the argument is that you're a straight up douche bag.Quote:
offering to get what they needed and doing a curb-side payment/pickup
Dil, does this mean we can start calling you a spammer?Quote:
Originally Posted by dilettante
Obviously. I mean, you keep coming back here...Quote:
I enjoy mixed nuts
In Idaho, there is a Governor and Lt. Governor. They are elected independently, unlike a President/VP election, though they do tend to be the same party (especially since Idaho is so strongly red).
Right now, the Lt. Governor is pretty clearly running against the Governor, even though neither one is on the ballot this year. The Lt. Governor is running on a staunchly anti-mask platform and undermining the Governor every chance she gets. So, while the Gov started out being pretty responsible, and has been more vacillating and uncertain, of late, the Lt. Gov has been spiraling into wackiness.
That presages a truly entertaining race in a few years. Stay tuned the next time that Idaho has a governors race, there should be some right good entertainment.
You can tune a piano but you can only stand just so much tuna fish. And who wants to risk becoming a human thermometer?
Yeah, I definitely agree with that. Limiting your intake of tuna is a good idea unless you know exactly which species it is....and you don't when it comes in a can.
Canned chicken is pretty good. We started taking the foil packets of chicken for working lunches when staggering up streams counting salmon. We took some salmon packets, too, cause then we could sit there and taunt the fish as they swam by.
The nice thing about those foil packs is that they are compact, easy to open, and durable. Put them in a tortilla with some cheese, and you have a simple sandwich that can survive some abuse.
In an apocalypse those foil-pack fish and chicken sachets would be like gold while their shelf life held out. Lots of value per weight with high trade value, in easily spendable units. A pack full of those could make you quite a target on the road if you didn't keep your mouth shut.
Ever watched this one?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bO8EqMsxOiU
BTW: Caution that might be the most depressing movie ever made.
Yeah, I watched it. It isn't THE most depressing movie ever made (I think that On the Beach is even more so), but it's right up there. They didn't really drive home the "this is extinction" message the way On the Beach did.
The "Jeremiah" TV series was in a very similar vein but a lot lighter in places. I thought it deserved a 3rd season though.
Saw this and for some reason it made me laugh to myself. https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/01/uk/uk...ntl/index.html
It says Boris is being accused of "giving in to scientific advisers". Over here we're mad as hell because Trump ignores the scientific data. Crazy world. lol
Politics first, the peoples welfare somewhere lower down the list.
Yeah, we've got our fair share of idiots too.Quote:
Boris is being accused of "giving in to scientific advisers".
Politics is the art of doing nothing until action is unnecessaryQuote:
Originally Posted by wes4dbt
lol, never heard that before.Quote:
Politics is the art of doing nothing until action is unnecessary
It makes me wonder why many of these people are in politics, if your goal isn't to fight for the best interest of the people you represent. Ego, prestige.
A new mutation.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EG1rSf01YUE
Sounds like the mink stole our virus.
Hey now... I'll have you know my stole is faux fox fur.Quote:
Originally Posted by Shaggy Hiker
-tg
I assume it was expensive. In fact, I would assume that you sold your soul for that sole sole.
Oops, I wandered off into fish. Those flounder do tend to stick together. It's a kind of sole-idarity. I'm sure the stole wasn't expensive at all. Perhaps you even stole the stole
We have good news... a vaccine seems to prevent 90% of infections, and could be available to some people (medical staff etc) within a couple of months:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-54873105
Quote:
Pfizer believes it will be able to supply 50 million doses by the end of this year, and around 1.3 billion by the end of 2021.
Yeah, that sounds promising. Meanwhile, parts of Idaho and Utah appear to be approaching critical points, and are shipping patients to areas that aren't as hard hit. Unfortunately, as hospitals near me fill up, things are getting increasingly dicey.
So going into 2022 there will be around 7 or 8 billion people that haven't had it.Quote:
Originally Posted by si_the_geek
There are several vaccines being developed by different companines, and they have different supply chains. There is a good chance that between them they will be able to provide enough stock of vaccines by the start of 2022.
Also bear in mind that you don't need everyone to be vaccinated, just having a percentage of people vaccinated reduces the transmission rate by a higher percentage.
The one they just announced takes two does so cut that number in half. I don't have anything in front of me but I think 50% herd immunity is too low. I thought it was around 70% to be effective. Don't get me wrong...I'm love to hear one day Covid was eradicated like polio or small pox (as much as they are).Quote:
Originally Posted by si_the_geek
The vaccination doesn't have to go to everybody, either. Bias it towards older people and you can spread it around much further. I really doubt that COVID is simply going to be eradicated. It might, but it might also act like the flu and keep popping back up in different forms. Still, if you target your vaccination towards 50+, you might cover your entire target by the end of 2021, or even earlier. You can then keep shifting the age group lower and lower...or not, because susceptibility is a sliding scale, which allows you to be flexible in your approach.
Maybe my thinking is skewed...let's say people over fifty are about a third of the world's population. That is around 3 billion people. With 1.3 billion does, cut in half, not even a billion people over fifty will get it. And the logistics alone will make that difficult. The vaccination efforts that worked in the past take decades to get all over the world. Especially with a vaccine that needs kept at very low temperatures.Quote:
Originally Posted by Shaggy Hiker
I think a third is extrapolating from the US population. A quick look shows that the median age in all of Africa is only 20, in the Middle East it is only 22, and in India it is 26. By comparison, the median age in the US is 37, 38 in China, and 43 in Europe.
I've always taken it that herd immunity requires about 90%. It's surprisingly high but if you consider how many people you bump into on a daily basis, herd immunity basically requires that non-immune people don't bump into each other at a frequency higher than the period for which they can be infectious. That means the R rate remains basically zero but it does require a very high rate of individual immunity.
I think looking at this vaccine, on its own, to wipe out this virus in the next couple of years is probably unrealistic, but that's not really the point. There will be other vaccines and treatments coming through in the next few months which can be added into the mix and each will alleviate the impact of the virus. Each one means that lockdowns and other social measures can be shorter and less rigorous. We can open up more stuff.
It's not a silver bullet, but it's a very significant shift in the right direction which, barring any complications, will have a real, positive impact on our lives.
I have heard various Scientists say that you would need a minimum of 60% to stop community transmission but preferably 70%.Quote:
I've always taken it that herd immunity requires about 90%.
What will be interesting is what approach countries take elimination or containment.
Containment seems to be the early option of many governments but it seems likely that we then need to have booster vaccinations yearly for vulnerable people much like the Flu vaccination.
Actually it seems unlikely. Everything suggests a pattern far more like SARS and MERS than influenza, and immunity has lasted 17 years with exposure to those.Quote:
Originally Posted by NeedSomeAnswers
It could still pan out otherwise, nothing is certain, but there is every reason to be optimistic.
What the heck is everyone talking about, the Presidential Election was a week ago and Biden won, that means coronavirus is officially over and all discussion of it, all lockdowns, social distancing, and mask wearing have been ended, and everything is 100% back to normal.
Unless... but... no... that couldn't be... taking the virus seriously wasn't just a ploy by the entire planet to make Donald Trump look bad? Nah, the President wouldn't come out and lie to people.
But anyway, that's fantastic news about the vaccine. They were initially thinking it might be only 60% effective. 90 puts it in the same tier as our excellent childhood vaccines. And even more important than antibody response, they found it was triggering T-cell based immunity, which is important for long lasting immunity once antibodies wane.
That's not exactly true, in SARS they are confident that immunity lasts for at least 2 years in many patients but while they have found T-Cells in a few patients after a far longer period this does not mean they are immune and scientist are not confident that they are immune.Quote:
Actually it seems unlikely. Everything suggests a pattern far more like SARS and MERS than influenza, and immunity has lasted 17 years with exposure to those.
What we do know is generally for coronavirus type virus immunity lapses over time, and what studies have been carried out on Covid are suggesting that immunity will lapse over time making a containment strategy likely to require booster vaccinations.