Apocalyptic Virus Or Not?

[HiTrack99]

It's a disaster waiting to happen isn't it?

[chokes999]

The Delta variant is going to make 2020 look like a Trial Run. Shits going to really hit the fan.

[alexora]

Rolling back the bullshit:

Journal Retracts Flawed Study That
Claimed to Show Face Masks Harm Kids

It's the second retraction in less than a month for the study's lead author, who was once crowned Pseudoscientist of the Year.

A recent paper that suggested masks may be dangerous for kids to wear has now been retracted. It’s the second pandemic-related study written by the lead author to be pulled from publication in less than a month, following the retraction of another paper claiming to show that covid-19 vaccines would kill almost as many people as they would save.

The study was published June 30 in JAMA Pediatrics as a research letter titled: “Experimental Assessment of Carbon Dioxide Content in Inhaled Air With or Without Face Masks in Healthy Children: A Randomized Clinical Trial.” Its lead author was Harald Walach, a clinical psychologist in Germany.

Walach and his colleagues claimed to show that children who wore face masks for only minutes experienced higher than safe levels of carbon dioxide in their bloodstream as a result, presumably because the masks trapped exhaled air in the mask that the children then breathed back in. Based on their and others’ research, they further argued that “children should not be forced to wear face masks.”

The study was quickly criticized for various reasons, including the use of a possibly improper measuring device to gauge carbon dioxide levels near the mask and the lack of other relevant data, like the children’s actual blood oxygen levels. What’s worse, the JAMA study was published literally the same week that Walach’s earlier paper on vaccine safety was retracted for similar data sloppiness, though only after fierce criticism from other scientists, including editors at the very journal where it was published. Just two weeks later, Walach’s second paper would meet the same fate.
“Following publication, numerous scientific issues were raised regarding the study methodology,” the journal’s editors wrote in the retraction note now accompanying the study. As with the other paper, the authors were given the chance to argue their case, but “did not provide sufficiently convincing evidence to resolve these issues.”

Walach’s misfortune, if you want to call it that, doesn’t just stop at these two studies. In the fallout of the first retraction, Poznan University in Poland terminated its affiliation with Walach, stating that the vaccine study “misleadingly used data to yield conclusions that are wrong and may lead to public harm.”

Retractions are a healthy part of the scientific process and don’t always or even usually indicate foul play on the part of researchers. But Walach had earned a reputation as an unscientific crank long before the pandemic, having once been crowned the Pseudoscientist of the Year in 2012 by the Austrian Society for Critical Thinking over his research into alternative medicine and telepathy. So it’s worth wondering how Walach, who also seems to have no relevant experience in studying vaccines or face masks, was able to publish these terrible studies in two separate journals without any red flags popping up.

Source:

http://gizmodo.com/journal-retracts-flawed-study-that-claimed-to-show-face-1847310243

[chokes999]

As I posted in #2622: The Delta variant is going to make 2020 look like a Trial Run. Shits going to really hit the fan.

US seeing ‘pandemic of the unvaccinated’ as cases rise in every state

http://theguardian.com/world/2021/jul/16/covid-19-us-delta-variant-unvaccinated

Not a fan of The Guardian but they're not always wrong.

[superbear2000]

Originally Posted by fbplanet

Decades. Time to do reasearch, and get the trust of the population.

A solution was found within 6 months, also thanks to the many people working towards it and the modern technology.
I really applaud them (no irony of any kind here !)
but
4 different labs finding a solution with a succes rate of +85% withing 6 to 8 months. What are the odds...


... it is not because you are vaccinated, that you are fully protected. Even you can become a carrier - maybe without even knowing it.
The only thing is: you might not know it, and thus spreading it involuntary. The fact that you have an ID, even helps you spreading it cause you have free movement (incubation period: 7-14 days + diminished symptomes).

Somebody who is not vaccinated, will:
- if not manifested and/or felt by the person itself (incubation period), be tested nevertheless if that person wants to e.g. travel;
- likely be identified and tested if that person shows symptoms and/or feels ill, resulting in a test. (I myself was in this case, and it wasn't Covid, but I guess rather a common cold.)
In either case, the chance that a person who is not vaccinated will be stopped, and withhold from speading it, is much higher than somebody who is (partially) vaccinated.

Is that a reason not to get vaccinated: NO.
It is a reason for people who are not (yet) vaccinated, not to be stigmatised, not to be discriminated, not to be hunt down, not to lose their jobs, not to be locked up.


Negative test = free movement.
No ID needed.


Heard today that a journalist was forbidden to publish a story about Pfizer - I think - because people got tromboses.
In countries with totalitaire regimes, what else to expect? But not quite in other countries...

These are some of the things I would like to discuss. First off the reason a vaccine was developed so quickly was because scientists were working together and not against each other because they got all the funding they needed.

Second point the labs all got a vaccine within such a short time frame with a high efficacy rate was because again they were working together by sharing information about the virus.

Third point, you state that vaccinated people can still incubate the virus and spread it without knowing it. This is true, however applies even more to unvaccinated people because they risk of them carrying the virus is higher since vaccinated people could begin fighting the virus already with the antibodies in their immune system.

Next point, negative test = free movement. The problem here is sometimes during the incubation period, tests do not pick it up. A vaccinated person has a layer of protection in that they could already be fighting the virus and have a shorter time where the virus can be shred whereas an unvaccinated person would be guaranteed to spread the virus and for a longer period of time.

Next point, can you please link a source to the journalist being forbidden to print the story about Pfizer? I can find many articles about possible links between the vaccine and thrombosis but can't find anything about somebody being forbidden to print a article about it.

And finally here is another nugget of information for your thoughts. In the US the CDC has reported that in the last few weeks almost 99% of new covid cases admitted to hospitals were unvaccinated. Of those that died over 99% of them were unvaccinated.

[alexora]

This doctor regrets having rejected the vaccine:

Coronavirus doctor's diary: 'Not having the
vaccine is the biggest mistake of my life’

As in many other hospitals, the number of patients being treated for Covid-19 in Bradford Royal Infirmary is sharply rising. About half of them had chosen not to be vaccinated, says Dr John Wright - which many now deeply regret.

"I was offered the vaccine, but I was arrogant," says Faisal Bashir, a super-fit 54-year-old.

"I was going to the gym, cycling, walking and running. Given that I was strong and healthy I didn't think I needed it. That also meant that if it turned out not to be safe I wouldn't have taken any risks.

"But the truth was that I couldn't avoid the virus. It still got me. I don't know how or where."

Faisal, who was discharged on Wednesday after a week in hospital receiving oxygen, is keen to warn others not to make his mistake.

"What I've experienced in hospital - the care and expertise - humbles me," he says.

"People are filling the hospitals by taking chances and it's wrong. I feel terrible. I feel so bad about it and I hope by speaking out it helps others avoid this."

He is one of the fourth wave of Covid patients in Bradford Royal Infirmary. Last month the number of patients in the hospital with Covid was down to single figures, for the first time since last summer. This week it is heading towards 50, as the Delta variant conquers all before it.

This reflects the rising rates in the community - up by a third in the last week, to nearly 400 cases per 100,000. As has long been the case, it is young people who are driving this change, with rates in teenagers surpassing 750 per 100,000, and those in their 20s not far behind.

Although few of them end up in hospital, our patients are younger now on average than in earlier waves, with more in their 30s and 40s.

"Some have had two vaccines and so have had milder disease - they are alive on Cpap (non-invasive ventilation with oxygen) when without the vaccine they would probably be dead," my respiratory colleague Dr Abid Aziz told me after an exhausting six-hour ward round.

"Others have just had their first dose and so are not fully protected. Worryingly, about half of the patients on the ward today haven't been vaccinated. I have stopped asking them why, as they are clearly embarrassed."

Abderrahmane Fadil, a 60-year-old science teacher with two young children, also has many regrets.

He was wary of the vaccines because of the speed at which they were rolled out. He ended up in intensive care for nine days - the first time he had spent a night in hospital since arriving from Morocco in 1985.

"It's so lovely to be alive," he says.

"My wife had the vaccine. I didn't. I was reluctant. I was giving myself time, I was thinking that in my life I've lived with viruses, bacteria, and I thought my immune system was good enough. And I'd had symptoms of Covid at the start of the pandemic and thought perhaps I'd had it. I thought my immune system would recognise the virus and I'd have defences.

"This was the biggest mistake in my life. It nearly cost me my life. I've made many silly decisions in my life, but this was the most dangerous and serious one."

Abderrahmane left hospital nearly a month ago, but still isn't well.

"I wish I could go to each and every person who refuses to have the vaccine," he says, "and tell them, 'Look, this is a matter of life of death. Do you want to live or die? If you want to live, then go and get the vaccine.'"

For many of the patients who have not been vaccinated, being admitted with severe Covid is an alarm call to the deadly consequences of fake news about Covid and vaccines.

Faisal admits being influenced by conversations on social media, and the worries about the vaccine in the city's Asian community, as well as news reports about the extremely low risk of blood clots with the AstraZeneca vaccine.

About three-quarters of the adult population in Bradford have had a first dose of the vaccine, compared with 87% nationwide.

In the hospital we are deeply nervous about the easing of restrictions on Monday. Like everyone in the country we want to reclaim our previous lives, and while the link between infections and hospitalisations is clearly reduced, it remains ever present on our wards.

And although there are now many fewer deaths from Covid than before there are still some, and the number is growing again. So the tidal race between the vaccination wave and the spread of Sars-CoV-2 remains a matter of life and death.

If there is one lesson from the last year, it is to never underestimate this virus.

Source (+ links to other related stories):

http://bbc.co.uk/news/stories-57866661

[DoctorNo]

[HiTrack99]

Our health minister has got COVID - just 48hrs before they release the hounds.

[Zytin]

Fauci says polio, smallpox would still be in U.S. if vaccination drives faced similar misinformation campaigns

(yahoo news)

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the United States' top infectious disease expert, on Saturday told CNN's Jim Acosta that he's "certain" smallpox and polio would still be present in the United States if their vaccine drives faced misinformation campaigns similar to the ones currently plaguing COVID-19 inoculation efforts.

"If you look at the extraordinary, historic success in eradicating smallpox and eliminating polio from most of the world — and we're on the brink of eradicating polio — if we had had the pushback for vaccines the way we're seeing for certain media, I don't think it would have been possible at all to" eradicate the two deadly diseases, Fauci said.

There's no one reason why people in the United States remain hesitant about or outright opposed to getting a COVID-19 shot, but Fauci and others, including President Biden, believe that misinformation coming through television screens and social media feeds has played a significant role in shaping people's views and, subsequently, slowed down the rollout as infections pick back up due to a combination of loosening restrictions and the spread of the more transmissible delta variant.

[alexora]

Originally Posted by Zytin

Fauci says polio, smallpox would still be in U.S. if vaccination drives faced similar misinformation campaigns

Fauci is absolutely right