All but the first gave me reactions as well. But better that than covid experiences of my non-bolstered friends. I can handle chills and fever.
Posts from Rice in thread „Coronavirus around the world“
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Good. That’s what you need, UK Man !
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What intrigues me is the timing. I'm not trying to start another conspiracy theory - God knows we've got enough of those already - but..
...what's so special about the end of February/start of March 2023 that everybody seems intent on rewriting Covid history right now? As well as the stuff appearing in the USA, in the UK the Telegraph is majoring on government Covid era WhatsApp 'leaks' (which don't actually tell the tale the Telegraph might like one to believe they tell.)
Excellent point! I just read an article about a mask study released by the biomedical journal Cochran Database of Systematic Reviews, which prompted the editorial board of the Washington Post to publish an opposing view.
As you say, why now?
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The dearth of facts makes it impossible, at least for now, to know what happened.
David French wrote in this morning’s NYT:
“The Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday that the Energy Department had concluded (with “low confidence”) that the Covid-19 pandemic most likely arose from a Chinese lab leak. The Energy Department’s tentative conclusion hardly settles the debate over the roots of the coronavirus, but it does highlight a division within the federal government. While the F.B.I. (with “moderate confidence”) and the Energy Department believe that the coronavirus likely leaked from a lab, the National Intelligence Council and four other agencies still assess (with “low confidence”) that the coronavirus has an animal origin.“
Low confidence? Medium confidence? Not good enough for the strongly-held opinions loudly voiced in the USA.
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(Or when they don’t, either)
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Do you have any Chinese blood in you Rice? I've yet to meet anyone who trusts the Chinese. 😁
No Chinese relatives that I’m aware of, though the name Rice does conjure up visions of delicious Asian food….
Have I said anything that remotely resembles trust of the Chinese? No, I didn’t think so. But I sure as hell don’t have any confidence in FuxNews-fueled conspiracy theories, either.
Especially after this week’s revelations that, under oath, the CEO of Fox and other Fox luminaries have admitted to knowing about, yet doing nothing to stop, their on-air stars’ fueling the Big Lie despite emails showing that they knew better. Why isn’t this 64-point, bold face, all-caps headline material, instead of conspiracy theories and hypotheses from amateurs?
What is Democracy when compared to money to be made? What are facts, when there is power to be gained?
All I’m saying is our intuition and ‘feelings’ about the origin of the Covid virus - or any other highly charged topic - are meaningless. We need to return to basing our opinions on facts.
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Both the FBI and the DOE are reopening the conversation about the possibility. Neither has offered up any facts. If they do, I’ll read with an open mind. But right now? I don’t know any more facts than I did when it was considered just a nutjob xenophobic conspiracy theory.
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I think you’ve put your finger on the whole conspiracy theory thing. We want to believe a certain story, so we do.
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I’m not throwing shade at people who think a lab leak may have caused the pandemic (although I’m definitely throwing shade at people pushing conspiracy theories about a deliberate leak as part of a USA-China pact designed to kill much of the world’s population).
I just wonder what inspires people to come down on one side or the other.
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I’m curious: is there any factual proof, or did this come to you because you have special insight you can share?
I’m trying to remain neutral until facts are available. But in general, I’m very skeptical of conspiracy theories with nothing to back them up.
In the US, the people most eager to believe the wildest things about the origin of the virus or the lethal effects of the vaccine or the miracles of ivermectin, are the same people who want to know NOTHING about actual facts/current events, such as the causes of or people behind the first and only insurrection in US history.
This can make a thinking person stop to consider the sources.
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One of the final holdouts in the world, Hong Kong will be lifting its mask mandate tomorrow. (Or today? The International Date Line always confuses -)
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Maybe the theory that it is a deal between USA and China to reduce the world population is correct?
I’ve never read of that theory. More info, please? Why would countries that rely on other countries to buy their products, technology, and ideas want to reduce their markets?
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Reminds me of that old play:
“No sex, please, we’re British!”
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Washington Post:
Opinion The worst virus variant just arrived. The pandemic is not over.
Editorial BoardJuly 7, 2022 at 1:58 p.m. EDT
The pandemic is a relentless race against Mother Nature. Waves of infection took millions of lives, and only highly effective vaccines prevented even more deaths. Now, the coronavirus is speeding up once again, mutating, evading immunity and still on the march. The arrival of subvariant BA.5 should be a reminder that the finish line in this race is nowhere to be seen.
What’s BA.5? This is the latest subvariant of omicron, which stormed the planet late last year and caused a huge wave of infection. As of now, BA.5 and a closely related variant, BA.4, account for about 70 percent of all infections in the United States, according to estimates by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, based in part on modeling. These two newcomers are easing out an earlier variant, BA.2.
The obscure names should not hide the punch of BA.5. Eric Topol, professor of molecular medicine at Scripps Research, says that BA.5 “is the worst version of the virus that we’ve seen.” He adds, “It takes immune escape, already extensive, to the next level, and, as a function of that, enhanced transmissibility,” well beyond earlier versions of omicron. There has not been a marked increase in hospitalizations and deaths, he reports, because there is so much immunity built up from the winter omicron wave. But there are aspects of this new variant very much worth keeping an eye on as the United States remains stuck at an uncomfortably high plateau of pandemic misery. And the new variants are driving a case surge in Europe.
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At the core of the BA.5 difference is its biology. Evolution has given it more fitness, a term that incorporates its ability to transmit, grow and evade immunity; the variant shows “marked difference from all prior variants,” reports Dr. Topol. One way it does so is by evading the body’s immune system, and BA.4 and BA.5 together are “the most immune-evasive variants” seen in multiple studies to date.
Whether BA.5 will lead to more severe disease isn’t clear yet. But knowing that the virus is spreading should reinforce the need for the familiar mitigation measures: high-quality face masks, better air filtration and ventilation, and avoiding exposure in crowded indoor spaces.
An important question is whether the next boosters should include the new variants. Does a booster with an earlier version of the virus make any sense if that variant has disappeared from the population? The Food and Drug Administration has recommended manufacturers build a bivalent or two-component vaccine, with old and new variants as the target. It certainly makes sense to be flexible — as Wayne Gretzky put it, to skate where the puck is going, not where it has been. But time is short, and who knows what variants will be present later this year? In the longer term, variant chasing is hardly ideal. The greatest need is for next-generation vaccines that are more broadly protective, more durable (with longer-lasting immunity) and that can dampen transmission. There is a major research effort underway to achieve this, but the finish line is not yet in sight.
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A review of patient records points to a greater risk of Type 2 Diabetes among people who have been infected with the coronavirus. (Article is free, not paywalled)
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On the night before today’s Martín Luther King holiday, the former president of the USA - - the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA! - - doubled up on his talent for riling up racism and white grievance. His exact words were “if you’re white, you don’t get the vaccine, you don’t get the therapeutics,” and he claimed, to great applause, that white people were being discriminated against and denigrated,” and being denied lifesaving therapeutics. See for yourself:
Trump claims white people "at the back of the line" for COVID vaccines, treatments"The left is now rationing life-saving therapeutics based on race," Trump said during a rally in Arizona this weekend.www.newsweek.comThis ‘whites-as-victims-who can’t-get-the-vaccine’ claim will be making the rounds on everything fromFuxNews to Facebook.
And watch for other countries’ autocrats to make the same claim. The more they can divide people and provoke anger and victimism, the stronger their hold on those who want to believe. Watch for Bolsonaro to be next.
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The world is behind and playing a desperate game of catch-up, but the end of 2021 brought Covax delivery of over 300 million doses of vaccine to countries that cannot afford this life saver.
The Washington Post, January 1, 2022:
“Covax delivered over 309 million coronavirusvaccine doses in December, marking a dramatic increase in the delivery rate for a global vaccine-sharing initiative that had struggled for much of 2021 amid a lack of supply and logistical problems.
“In total, roughly 910 million doses were delivered through the U.N.-backed initiative as of Dec. 30, according to provisional tracking by UNICEF released to The Washington Post on Friday.
“The final tally for the year is far short of the 2 billion-plus doses that Covax had initially aimed for, and is leagues below even loftier targets that some activists said it should be aiming for. But with roughly a third of doses delivered in the final month of the year, there are cautious hopes that Covax may have sidestepped some of the problems that plagued it in 2020.”
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Will other gathering places also close, or just nightclubs?
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In The Telegraph this morning, about new measures to be taken in the UK:
“New work-from-home guidance and vaccine passports could be announced as early as today, according to government officials, as Cabinet ministers move to counter the omicron spread.”
Better information from today’s Times:
Officials are drawing up plans for the introduction of vaccine passports to slow the spread of Omicron after Boris Johnson told the cabinet that evidence suggested the new variant was "more transmissible" than Delta. Ministers were split on the potential use of compulsory vaccine certification during yesterday's cabinet meeting, at which they were forced to confront the potential need to move to the government's plan B. Data suggests that more than a thousand people a day are being infected with the new variant in Britain.
It came as the first laboratory experiments into the variant suggested that Omicron was able to evade immunity significantly better than any other version of the coronavirus seen so far. Tests on the blood of people who were fully vaccinated showed that their antibodies were one-fortieth as capable of latching on to Omicron and preventing infection compared with the original strain.
