South Africa Raises Alarm Over New Coronavirus Variant (wsj.com) 244
South Africa's government is considering new public-health restrictions to contain a fast-spreading new variant of the coronavirus that scientists say has a high number of mutations that may make it more transmissible and allow it to evade some of the immune responses triggered by previous infection or vaccination. From a report: The warning from the South African scientists and the Health Ministry, issued in a hastily called news briefing Thursday, prompted the World Health Organization to call a meeting of experts for Friday to discuss whether to declare the new strain a "variant of concern." The WHO uses this label for virus strains that have been proven to be more contagious, lead to more serious illness or decrease the effectiveness of public-health measures, tests, treatments or vaccines. Other variants of concern include the Delta variant that is now dominant world-wide and the Alpha variant that drove a deadly wave of infections across Europe and the U.S. last winter and spring. While the scientists said they were still studying the exact combination of mutations of the new variant -- currently dubbed B.1.1.529 -- and how they affect the virus, its discovery underlines how changes to the virus's genome continue to pose a risk to the world's emergence from the Covid-19 pandemic.
We are all going to have to close the borders (Score:2)
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That will not accomplish anything.
Re:We are all going to have to close the borders (Score:5, Insightful)
All of them for at least a year. Only freight. Zero people. No excuses.
The time to do that was when WHO was knowingly repeating Chinese misinformation on how they supposedly got everything under control, and the left was screaming at the top of their lungs that travel restrictions to China are racism.
That train has long left now.
Re:We are all going to have to close the borders (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:We are all going to have to close the borders (Score:4, Insightful)
The border closings had a mostly theatric effect.
Of course if you do the America version of 'closing' you get the American result. [worldometers.info] Top 20 deaths per capita and a smidge off 800k total dead.
Re:We are all going to have to close the borders (Score:5, Insightful)
Given that we can now look back and see that travel restrictions from China didn't help us one bit, I think you have to give this one to the "left."
[Citation Needed] The countries least affected by the virus are the ones who openly put in the strongest *meaningful* travel restrictions. And by meaningful I mean not: "Travel ban, except for citizens, except for green card holders, except for visiting your mother, except for business, etc. etc."
There's a reason countries in Europe with a comparable population have more cases in a 2 week period than Australia has had the entire pandemic, and it sure as fuck isn't because Australia has a good vaccination program.
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Those are also the countries that put in the strongest *meaningful* *other* counter-measures like contact-tracing.
Yep, it's easy to do contact tracing when you have travel restrictions in place. You know what made headline news in Australia? A nurse coming into contact with someone arriving in Australia who was in the mandatory quarantine and who tested positive to COVID. That news article proceeded to list everywhere she'd gone in the past weekend, and the city initiated a 3 day lockdown to perform contact tracing (which was lifted after 2 days).
Something you can only do if you have travel bans in place. If you're goi
Re:We are all going to have to close the borders (Score:5, Insightful)
All of them for at least a year. Only freight. Zero people. No excuses.
That ship sailed two years ago.
This virus is here to stay and there is now way to get rid of it. It spread using humans around the world and now it has jumped to wildlife all over the place. In North America it is spreading in white tail deer. In other parts of the world it may use different species. This means new variants will evolve out of sight and jump back to us. The new South Africa variant looks like it came back from a wildlife reservoir. In SA as in the rest of the world the Delta variant and its flavors are 100% of the cases. The new variant has nothing to do with Delta and has shocking number of mutations specifically in the Spike protein. It seems related to the B.1.1 line that was around a year ago. One explanation for where it came from is that a virus related to the B.1.1 jumped to an animal, where it evolved and now it is back.
The best course of action now is mandatory vaccination, potentially with new vaccines against the variants. The vaccines will not eradicate the disease, but can reduce the rate of hospitalization to a point where the healthcare systems are not overwhelmed and we can adjust to a new "normal" life.
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"Myth" is the right language; the vaccines will prompt more mutations than without. It acts as a negative stressor, against which successful mutations will thrive.
There is simply no "Covid-zero" endgame here; never was. That was always impossible, although I know others like to believe that if we stripped enough rights away early on we could have achieved it. The end game was always learning how to live with it, vaccines notwithstanding ( given their demonstrated effectiveness at reducing transmission ).
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SARS, etc., what happened to that one? There was no vaccine for it. It vanished on its own.
It didn't just vanish on its own. Remember the travel bans in east Asia? That, combined with a much lower R0, shorter incubation period, and lower incidence of asymptomatic cases meant that contagious individuals were caught sooner and effectively prevented from spreading the 2003 SARS across borders.
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We don't know: (Score:5, Informative)
* How well it's neutralized in 2x vaccinated individuals
* How well it's neutralized in 3x vaccinated individuals (boosters significantly improve cross neutralization)
* How well it's neutralized in previously infected individuals
* How severe it is compared to prior infections.
We do know:
* It's growing rapidly in SA while Delta remains in decline
* Much of SA has been infected before, though the exact numbers are unclear. Over the course of the wave last winter, this study [oup.com] found 19,1% RBD seropositive, as well as nearly half of all cases with confirmed past infection showing up as seronegative (waning antibody levels below the detection point), indicating up to 40% of the country having been previously infected at that point. This was before the summer wave. I've seen reports of over 70% having been infected today, although I'm not sure of the source.
* South Africa is poorly vaccinated - 28% 1x and 23% 2x. Main problem is hesitancy, not supply. Booster rollout has not started.
* We have limited anecdotal cases of double vaccinated travelers with detected cases and very high viral loads which developed quickly. Although there is significant selection bias involved in these anecdotes.
So we have to wait for study results to find out more... lots of unknowns, but very concerning.
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Re: We don't know: (Score:2)
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Not unexpected, now live with the consequences (Score:5, Insightful)
If you look at the comments in /., even as early as in Feb-March 2020, there were already many who had said that one of the outcome of the stupidity that was called "Herd Immunity" would be mutation giving you an even worse pandemic.
People who resisted lockdowns and masks, calling to "get it over with", all ignored these warnings. Even after the Delta appeared.
Now, we can all enjoy something even worse. Countries that chose to "live with the virus" now face the tough decision to either "live with" a deadlier virus, or go back to lockdown, one that need to be even more stringent because of the large infection base.
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Has herd immunity ever been achieved in a short time period without vaccines? I think the 1918 flu pandemic lasted close to 40 years.
That had also been pointed out in early 2020, and again, idiots ignored that too.
Cats' out of the bag? (Score:2)
A brave man dies once (Score:2)
While cowards die over an over again everyday. There are no piles of bodies in South Africa, for all we know huge number of mutations made the virus milder. Most viruses attenuate over time because they benefit from you feeling well enough to walk around and spread them. Let's chill while scientists figure out if there is in fact a problem and rev vaccines to track new variants if needed. Pfizer is citing [foxbusiness.com] a 100 day turnaround for tailored shots.
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Pfizer is citing [foxbusiness.com] a 100 day turnaround for tailored shots.
So the large-scale clinical trials can begin then? Have regulators said anything about their willingness to approve a "tailored" vaccine more quickly than any other new vaccine?
Re:Humans (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Humans (Score:5, Interesting)
Nah, nature doesn't care. In an eyeblink (say 100 million years) it will difficult to tell humans ever existed on Earth - one planet out of ~10 on one star out of 100 billion in one galaxy out of 100 billion (and there may also be multiple universes). Humans don't matter.
No, even if we mysteriously vanished tomorrow, any alien geologist coming in 100 million years to study Earth will have huge "WTF happened 100 million years ago?!" the moment they drill their first core. All the weird isotopic ratios from emissions, tracers of pollution, not to mention atmospheric nuclear tests, and marks of sudden global temperature shift. Not to mention that dinosaurs are older than that and we have no problem finding their fossilized bones, I expect ours will keep no worse. And most of our structures are made mostly of concrete, which I expect keeps just as well as any fossil, being very similar chemically.
Re:Humans (Score:5, Funny)
"Why did these morons burn all of these fossil fuels?"
"Probably religious reasons."
Re:Humans (Score:5, Interesting)
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If future
Re: Humans (Score:2)
"If future archeologists only find fragments of information about the Kardashians, they might come to the conclusion that they were imaginary religious deities."
Wait, what? I thought they were!
Re:Humans (Score:5, Interesting)
I think you're overstating a number of those things when we're talking about a timeframe of 100 million years. Even the longest lived of nuclear waste materials, I-129, only has a half life of 15.7 million years. It may be possible, after careful study perhaps with comparisons with the moon, to determine that ratios of isotopes are a little off on earth.
A mere 20,000 years ago, during the last ice age, the oceans were around 400 feet lower than they are today. 125,000 years ago, during the last warm spell, the oceans were 18 feet higher than today, and going further back (3 million years) the oceans were up to 165 feet higher than today.
https://www.usgs.gov/media/ima... [usgs.gov]
Whether or not humans trigger another warm spell, it will just be a blip in the global environmental history of our planet. During the Ordovician period CO2 reached upwards of 9,000 ppm, compared to 400 ppm currently after humans have elevated it from the natural normal of 200 ppm (what it should be right now based on natural cycles).
I do believe there will be many direct artifacts from humanity after 100 million years, as we have literally made things out of stone billions of years old that will last another billion years. Concrete and other relatively inert things will last a very long time as well, although not as long as fossils unless the concrete items become fossilized as well. The compressive strength of concrete is still much lower than natural substances like granite or even fossils, which has been compressed under the weight of the earth's crust to 16,000 - 19,000 PSI.
However all in all, when you consider things like recycling of the earth's crust, spells of intense volcanism, asteroid impacts, massive periods of plant growth over the planet (for example the creation of most all coal deposits during the Carboniferous period before bacteria had evolved to consume lignin and cellulose), the impact of humans is still just a tiny blip in the natural history of the planet and, while detectable, doesn't represent the historic extremes in most any metric you can measure.
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I understand there are still alot of dead bodies of climbers on the Himalaya mountains.
There is a good chance they will still be in good condition in a 100 million years, I think. Considering the temperature and air pressure there. Even global warming, as currently predicted will probably not thaw that stretch of mountain tops.
And including whatever they were wearing when they died, and whatever gear was left there, I think there is a decent chance that future archeologists:, aliens or otherwise, will find
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In a hundred million years, the Himalaya's will be eroded down quite a bit, that ice wants to go down hill. Consider the Appalachian Mountains, though about 4x older, were once as high as the Rockies or Alps.
A hundred million years is a long time, long enough for the Earth to go half way around the galaxy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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While the nuclear products will decay into inert isotopes, there will still be a thin layer, possibly at a boundary, with odd isotopes scattered over the Earth. Much the same as the dinosaur killer impact left a layer enriched in certain elements showing a likely impact event.
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It won't be so obvious but consider that all current steel is too contaminated for certain uses and they have to use steel from shipwrecks. The period of atmospheric nuclear tests contaminated the whole world in a measurable amount. Wiki does say that those background levels have dropped back to close to normal, but still during the '50's there was a lot of radionuclides released and with the right instruments, they'll likely be detected for 100's of millions or billions of years judging by what we current
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Should be their byproducts will be detectable for possibly billions of years. Radionuclides decay into different isotopes then most naturally occurring ones.
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Its possible "artifacts" could be preserved either as fossils, or extremely durable materi
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Well, when you look into how they date rocks from 3-4 billion years back, things like the ratio of aluminium 26 IIRC, basically decay products, any civilization with our technology level will find a layer with odd isotopes at the 100 million year layer. Whether they'll blame it on a nearby supernova or what is another question, though if they find any artifacts at the same level, it would be a pointer, and some stuff will survive, even if it is stone age tools though as you point out, certain metal alloys m
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Even the longest lived of nuclear waste materials, I-129, only has a half life of 15.7 million years.
You obviously do not know what half-life means.
Concrete and other relatively inert things will last a very long time as well
Depends. A building that uses concrete, like roman bridges, just as mortar, yes. Pure concrete buildings - outside of deserts - nope. Look at Chernobyl. The towns around it are already nearly gone, broken apart by plant life.
The trick would be anyway: finding remains of concrete below
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Don't forget our open-pit mines and strip mining of mountain tops
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And most of our structures are made mostly of concrete, which I expect keeps just as well as any fossil, being very similar chemically.
Unlikely. Look at Chernobyl e.g. The concrete houses are breaking apart from plant roots growing in them.
Re:Humans (Score:5, Insightful)
That is the one single thing these green over emotional spiritual types simply do not get:
Mother Nature is not your Friend
She is not some kind of nurturing female womb earth mother. Mother nature is a vicious hard-core bitch that feasts on her own children and feeds them to each other. In fact, the only food her children get are her other children. She would happily see you on the dinner table.
Repeat after me:
Mother Nature is not your Friend
Re:Humans (Score:5, Insightful)
Mother Nature is not your vicious enemy either.
You have anthropomorphized Nature. You have made the same mistake as the green characters you made up to condemn.
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It can be vicious though, have you seen what occurs in nature? Come on man, lots of terrible things.
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Yeah, seriously. For example, I control certain plant pests with parasitic wasps. They hunt out their prey, sting them with an ovipositor, and lay an egg into them, so that the larva can hatch inside them and slowly eat them from the inside out, taking care to eat the organs in an order that leaves their host alive for as long as possible so they don't rot. Now, the prey has faced countless years of evolutionary pressure from these parasitic wasps, and their immune systems try to kill any egg laid in them.
Re:Humans (Score:5, Informative)
Mother Nature is not your Friend
Mother Nature is not your vicious enemy either
It can be vicious though, have you seen what occurs in nature? Come on man, lots of terrible things.
If you think about it, Nature is evolution. And evolution is randomness and math. Random changes happen to life, and whatever works, sticks, and evolves further.
Because of this, nature and evolution are without morals - morals are a completely irrelevant and unknowable concept to nature. Whether that which nature results in is good or bad, is an absolute subjective moral judgement that we make from our perspective as human beings. The parasite that has evolved to slowly eat up its host from the inside is despicable to us, because of how we have evolved in a way to fear parasites and regard them as something utterly deplorable and disgusting.
The parasite would probably have an entirely different world view, regarding his behavior pattern as a very efficient way to conserve food, while keeping the wasp population in check.
It's good to remind oneself that our human perception of nature, our environment and in fact the entire universe, and our moral judgements on them, are not absolutes. They are just one of a potentially limitless number of interpretations.
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If you think about it, nature is everything that is. Whether you call it nature or physics or god, there will still be unknowns, and there will still be people who don't want to know so they can pretend that certain parts of it do not exist.
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Entropy is our enemy. That is, the fact that our bodies will deteriorate and die is unsupportable.
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Parties are mere distractions from the relentlessness of entropy.
We're all just corpses who haven't yet begun to decay.
-- Michael, The Good Place (S2:E5) "Existential Crisis"
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Anthropomorphize. Thanks, that was the term I was looking for. Sorry, it was early.
I was not trying to anthropomorphize nature. I was trying to lambast the tree hugging spiritual types who believe in non-physical forces and powers who DO anthropomorphize nature. If you are going to pick a human equivalent of nature a caring, nurturing female is not really a very good choice. Nature works by a simple rule: Survival of the fittest. You are not fit, you ddie. We only survive because we have a very good force-
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Yes exactly. Humans are held to, justifiably, the highest bar of morality. But then people have somehow decided nothing else needs to be held to that standard.. not animals, not even God. I mean, if there is an all powerful God, he has zero excuse for sitting back while all kinds of shit happens on his watch. And, the "suffering is to teach humans lessons" excuse doesn't make any sense ..its like some people get easier, harder, longer, or shorter classes than others. Any entity with supreme powers should be
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if there is an all powerful God, he has zero excuse for sitting back while all kinds of shit happens on his watch.
A god does not need an excuse.
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The "survival of the fittest" position offends me
Well, it is what made you what you are, whether it offends you or not.
Re: Humans (Score:2)
This is such a productive discussion in a thread on a coronavirus variant, don't you think?
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Thanks. That was exactly what I was trying to say.
The problem is that a a fair part of the anti-vaxxers (who endanger us all) are exactly these Gaia-worshipping earth mother types that simply cannot fathom that there are things in nature that basically do not care if we die for their benefit. The same sorts who want to use "natural" cures, go to "energy spots" in the forest, dance around tree to soak up "positive vibes".
They cannot fathom that natural organisms want to kill us BECAUSE they have the image o
"a fair part"? (Score:2)
Then, last year, the idea of shunning the coronavirus vaccine became politicized, just like everything else these days. The biggest correlation you'l
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The same sorts who want to use "natural" cures, go to "energy spots" in the forest, dance around tree to soak up "positive vibes".
And what is wrong with those three things? And they does performing such things: put another stupid label on their heads? Most people I know with such three labels: are vaccinated. I did not ask everyone, though.
Putting "stupid labels" on peoples foreheads, and then drawing conclusions from those labels, and then using that as justification fo rmore labels: makes no sense at all.
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Ah, the old "when I do it it's a figure of speech, when they do it they're obviously deluded nut jobs who mean it literally" argument.
Re: Humans (Score:3)
Stop anthropomorphising Mother Nature, she HATES that!
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You can work with a kidnapper to avoid getting beaten or killed, or you can cause problems that make it likely you''ll be beaten or killed.
The tree huggers want to fight against nature less. You build a city like L.A. designed to maximise rainwater dispersion so it doesn't flood when it rains, then complain about a drought later that year. That's just making things difficult.
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The Universe is not your friend
FTFY.
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We know that organisms evolve, and simple organisms like virus, evolve quickly. We know that limiting viral load and transmission can limit that evolution. The countries of the African continent are some of the least vaccin
Re: Humans (Score:2)
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Nature is actively trying to bump us off like it did the dinosaurs.
It's telling us to stop being such a bunch of pussies.
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It's telling us to stop being such a bunch of pussies.
So, artificial wombs then? Unfortunately, we do not yet have the technology to build artificial immune systems. Sooner or later we're going to get the nanotech problem solved (the universal assembler that is) but until then we're at risk no matter how good we feel about our immune systems.
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If this is the big virus supposed to kill us all, it sure does a really crappy job. Looking at the population graph, and how it moves upwards, you can't even notice a bump for Covid.
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Setting 37 upper-middle and high income countries or regions with reliable and complete mortality data. ... Results: Reduction in life expectancy in men and women was observed in all the countries studied except New Zealand, Taiwan, and Norway, where there was a gain in life expectancy in 2020. [bmj.com]
Now that said, given the high average age of death, it at least won't have the impact dramatically multiplied by taking out large numbers of people of breeding
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If anything, this has more impact on retirement plans than population growth.
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Those aren't dinosaurs.
With that same silly logic you could claim the Neanderthals are still here. As modern humans contain quite a percentage of their genome.
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Mental illness is neither treatable nor curable except by suicide
That's literally just not true, though. Just troll-trolling? zzz
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It is not cured.
But certainly terminated.
Re:Nutrition still undiscussed (Score:5, Insightful)
Nutrition is not believed to be a factor and Much "Discussion" of nutrition would be likely to encourage rumors that supplements can prevent the virus in place of a vaccine and physical distancing, which is not the case, thus responsible authorities and news outlets deliberately avoid talking about it other than to attempt to quell that misinformation that diet changes can reduce the spread of viruses.
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Nutrition is not believed to be a factor and Much "Discussion" of nutrition would be likely to encourage rumors that supplements can prevent the virus in place of a vaccine and physical distancing, which is not the case, thus responsible authorities and news outlets deliberately avoid talking about it other than to attempt to quell that misinformation that diet changes can reduce the spread of viruses.
Ah, so saying that an obese, diabetic, vitamin-deficient lardball might have weaker immune system and thus, be more susceptible to infections than someone healthy is misinformation now?
Nutrition schmutrition... (Score:5, Insightful)
Ah, so saying that an obese, diabetic, vitamin-deficient lardball might have weaker immune system and thus, be more susceptible to infections than someone healthy is misinformation now?
Yes.
Cause we are talking about human populations the size of countries and not micro-samples of "lardballs".
Virus infects [nbcdfw.com] AND KILLS [independent.co.uk] vitaminized health and fitness junkies [theguardian.com] too.
Meanwhile, thought terminating cliches like "You are what you eat" [phrases.org.uk] and "Apple a day..." [nih.gov] are about as relevant to the current predicament as any other folksy wisdom and marketing slogan - being that the virus is NOT spread through eating, but through breathing.
As such, the above mentioned "lardball" would be as fine as Slimtrim McGristle with a simple addition of a vaccine and a small patch of cloth over nose and mouth.
In addition, you'll probably recall that the entire "Who will die more? And more importantly - who won't?" narrative is from back in the "no vaccine, no PPE" days of early 2020 - along with the "personal responsibility" narrative.
I.e. From back when people responsible for stopping the spread [reuters.com] were looking to shift the blame onto people for getting sick, while all the Prospero wannabes [wikipedia.org] hoped to hole up until the whole thing blows over.
We are no longer in such times.
We are now in times when actual fascists are actively fighting to increase the spread of the disease [theconversation.com] in order to grab what power they may through resulting disruption.
You know... Like the last time around. [cnbc.com]
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If somebody is nutritionally *deficient*, yes improving nutrition will generally help. But despite what supplement peddlers will tell you, most people get enough vitamins in their daily diet. There is
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But despite what supplement peddlers will tell you, most people get enough vitamins in their daily diet.
But what is their uptake? Because a lot of those vitamins are in the same form as the supplement peddlers' offerings, which is to say that they are bullshit and don't work, like vitamin E acetate. The best way to get vitamins is still through food, although you have to actually eat the healthy stuff to do that. Are most Americans getting that many greens? I know I'm not.
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If somebody is nutritionally *deficient*, yes improving nutrition will generally help. But despite what supplement peddlers will tell you, most people get enough vitamins in their daily diet. There is *not* a dose-response effect. You either have sufficient magnesium or you don't, as an example. Going above the amount you need confers no additional benefit
So yes many people could stand to improve their nutrition. But there's not enough intervention available to make a meaningful difference at the population level.
https://www.mdpi.com/2072-6643... [mdpi.com]
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Your nutrition has a negligible effect on this infection. Yes, if you're severely malnourished, you will be more susceptible to diseases, but unless you're living in some third world shithole, malnutrition isn't really a concern.
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Malnutrition in the sense of "not enough food" should not be a problem.
But lack of certain vitamins and/or trace elements can be, e.g. vitamin C and Zinc.
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Please don't joke in a topic that is full of misinformation, some idiot might take you serious.
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Please don't get vaccinated. Instead, go protest against it with the rest of your kind. Or at least go to a Covid party and get infected that way.
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Lemme guess, you're one of those that think a c19 infection almost guarantees hospitalization, right? And that the mortality rate is 5-10%?
Check it out; for most cohorts, c19 is less lethal than the flu. For those that it is extra risky to, there are mitigation strategies you can take. Unlike the various idiotic mitigation strategies we've tried thus far ( masks, lockdowns and the vaccine ), these actually work; diet, exercise, supplements and sunlight.
Re: More virulent and greater impact to kids? (Score:2)
Re: Our numbers flatlined but christmas is comming (Score:5, Insightful)
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If you filter out all dice throws of three or less from a sample, don't be surprised if many of the remainder are sixes.
That's less accurate for Cylons ... :-)
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There are not 4 strains of COVID but hundreds or even thousands. The virus mutates quickly especially when millions of peoples are infected (most hosts = more viruses = more mutations). Look at the graphs at https://nextstrain.org/ncov/gi... [nextstrain.org]
The fact is that almost all mutations are detrimental or neutral to the virus. Nobody cares about those strains except for the few scientists in charge of studying the virus genome (e.g. see the nexstrain link above). In some rare cases, a mutation or a combination of m
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When the pandemic started, Iceland sequenced every cases virus RNA.
At the time I read the article about it, they had about 400 cases, and about 350 different variations of SARS-Covid-2 viruses.
Re:I'm smelling bullshit. (Score:5, Funny)
If Twitter had been a thing back in the 1940s, I'd still be investing in iron lung manufacturers.
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Probably not. Anti vax nuttery is highest in the most developed countries, i.e. the ones where you're least likely to die from some communicable disease. Back when there were iron lungs people were happy to have a vaccine because you could see the lucky ones limping down the street and you knew where the unlucky ones were.
Western countries are too good at making the bodies disappear. It gives us a false sense of security.
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Read up on the anti-smallpox vaxers of the late (mid?) 19th, early 20th century, they were common and smallpox is worse then Covid.
Often religious minorities like the Francophones in Montreal (not even a minority, more of the underclass) thinking God would save them and it was a plot by the well off.
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There are always people who are anti- anything. It's a matter of degree. People in the 1800s who were wary of the smallpox vaccine were right. Its immediate predecessor, variolation, was better than actually getting smallpox, provided it was administered by someone who knew what they were doing, but it still had a good chance of killing you. The first smallpox vaccinations also had a decent chance of killing you, from random infections of the vaccination site. Still, lots of people got them. The Spanish sen
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That's probably why you see few people older than 70 that are vehemently anti-vax. They know what it's like to watch loved ones die to a disease.
But anti-vax movements aren't really a new thing. Back when Catherine the Great enforced smallpox vaccination, the resistance was huge. And back then at least there was actually a real risk of dying from the vaccine, albeit a much smaller one than from the infection.
So I guess nothing really changes throughout the times. People were stupid, people are stupid, peopl
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