Covid-19 Politics

A few things I've seen: Data came back and shows that not only is delta more transmissible it's associated with double the risk of hospitalization as Alpha in unvaccinated people.

I've also noticed that Ivermectin has now completely replaced Hydroxychloroquine as the science denier's ineffective pharmaceutical of choice against covid. It also seems to be causing unvaccinated people to place a certain amount of faith in it that if they get covid it will save them. Instead, its users are buying it from veterinary medicine outlets and poisoning themselves with it, but also dying from covid which it doesn't treat. I wonder what kind of mania could cause a person to turn down a clinically test, safe and effective vaccine for a medicine that is toxic when used improperly and has not been proven effective for covid?

It seems nearly every day a new "right-wing radio host" or Republican official or outspoken opponent of the covid vaccine is being intubated or dying of covid. There even seems to be a widening partisan split in infection rates though unvaccinated people jeopardize the health of the vaccinated too.

It’s no longer about science, masks, vaccines, politics nor issues. The Trumpizoids are a tribe. Their identity is at stake. To make a turn-around on any of the ridiculous stands they have taken is to deny whom they have fundamentally become and reject the sacred ties with the tribe they have joined.

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Originally Posted by broncofan

I've also noticed that Ivermectin has now completely replaced Hydroxychloroquine as the science denier's ineffective pharmaceutical of choice against covid. It also seems to be causing unvaccinated people to place a certain amount of faith in it that if they get covid it will save them. Instead, its users are buying it from veterinary medicine outlets and poisoning themselves with it, but also dying from covid which it doesn't treat. I wonder what kind of mania could cause a person to turn down a clinically test, safe and effective vaccine for a medicine that is toxic when used improperly and has not been proven effective for covid?

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It's bizarre that the same people who claim that the vaccines are unproven risky technology are happy to embrace unproven alternative cures. The only consistency is opposing whatever the medical establishment advises.

The psychological roots of this mania seem to be a sort of mass euphoria about being liberated from the constraints of evidence, logic, morality or even law. Trump and the right-wing media bubble have given them free reign to indulge their instinctive impulses, and if they stop pandering to them they will be rejected as well. They are like children freed from any adult constraints, as in Lord of the Flies. The id is in control and the ego and super-ego have been sidelined.

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Originally Posted by filghy2

They are like children freed from any adult constraints, as in Lord of the Flies. The id is in control and the ego and super-ego have been sidelined.

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Side topic but what a book that was. It was one of those books that American kids were "forced" to read for class because its lessons were rendered clear enough that teachers could let Golding do the teaching. But it also scared the crap out of me because I had seen the movie when I was 10 and was sure I would have been outcast and hunted by those little fuckers (I'm sure that's common tho).

But back to what you and Trish are saying. They are impervious to evidence based reasoning, completely unable to apply rules and laws in neutral, fair ways, and are showing their willingness to die for their fantasies while denying the cause of their deaths. Social media helps amplify this because it allows for very misleading pieces of information to be broadly distributed and no real chance for response or correction.

As you have pointed out their radicalization has taken place over time but to me Trump represented the idea that once you normalize a sociopath there can really be no call for any restraint or limit any more. Respecting the norms and traditions of democracy means you can't treat him like an outcast, you have to work with him at times. In working with him you come into contact with the fantasist, the narcissist, and the sociopath and his supporters have no choice but to venerate that behavior or abandon him. They decided that fantasies served their interests better than reality.

The studies on Ivermectin make it tough to believe any good faith actor could believe it's effective given the (unsuccessful) struggle to separate its effects from placebo. Could you imagine if the results of clinical trials for vaccines were close to the margin of error for the sample?

A recent analysis of Israeli data showed that on average immunity from infection conferred better protection than pfizer's vaccine. Someone said this means vaccines are irrelevant and a scientist piped up and said "if we had clinical trials for an equally effective vaccine whose side effects caused 650,000 deaths in the American public should it get approved?" We're so blessed to have access to vaccines and cursed that not enough people are taking advantage of them.

I'll conclude by saying, Delta was a bad break. Yes variants were and are inevitable, but delta changed the course of the pandemic for sure.

https://www.ft.com/content/66adc278-...c-b33e915d4631

I'm not knowledgeable about ip rights but initially I thought people who wanted waivers of patent rights were being unreasonable. At the time I didn't know Pfizer would make 33 billion dollars from its vaccine. Now I support waiving patent rights because I don't see how it would be much disincentive to create vaccines given the windfall companies are making from their shots. If a billion more doses of the mrna vaccines can be made by waiving patent rights I'm for it. Pfizer and Moderna would still be making enormous profits that far exceed r and d costs. The article talks about production capacity in South Korea.

Edit: the article says pfizer and moderna are being asked to waive ip rights by granting licensing deals. So it is likely they would be compensated for the vaccines South Korea makes, in addition to the shots they produce at their own plants that there is still ample demand for.

your on Point Broncofan

check these threads out
http://www.hungangels.com/vboard/sho...ing-like-flies

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Originally Posted by broncofan

A few things I've seen: Data came back and shows that not only is delta more transmissible it's associated with double the risk of hospitalization as Alpha in unvaccinated people.

I've also noticed that Ivermectin has now completely replaced Hydroxychloroquine as the science denier's ineffective pharmaceutical of choice against covid. It also seems to be causing unvaccinated people to place a certain amount of faith in it that if they get covid it will save them. Instead, its users are buying it from veterinary medicine outlets and poisoning themselves with it, but also dying from covid which it doesn't treat. I wonder what kind of mania could cause a person to turn down a clinically test, safe and effective vaccine for a medicine that is toxic when used improperly and has not been proven effective for covid?

It seems nearly every day a new "right-wing radio host" or Republican official or outspoken opponent of the covid vaccine is being intubated or dying of covid. There even seems to be a widening partisan split in infection rates though unvaccinated people jeopardize the health of the vaccinated too.

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Originally Posted by broncofan

I'll conclude by saying, Delta was a bad break. Yes variants were and are inevitable, but delta changed the course of the pandemic for sure.

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A bad break, but a foreseeable one, just as the original virus was foreseeable. Once again, we've been caught out by complacency and the desire to declare victory prematurely. With a high reproduction rate the penalty for failing to act early is huge.
It's only the vaccines that are keeping this manageable at all. And now we have reports of a new variant in South Africa that may be even more infectious and more vaccine-resistant.
Delta also encourages a sort of perverse logic that if nothing we do is fully effective then why try. Some people struggle to think in terms of counterfactuals.

I recommend this article by Larry Brilliant and others. It offers a delineation of the virus and goes further into the political realm. It argues that on the one hand, there has been a lamentable failure by politicians to co-ordinate a global- in some cases even a national- response to the pandemic, while on the other hand science has been able to map the genome sequence of the virus and produce an effective vaccine, albeit one that has not been distributed equally. Telling comparisons are made between Covid-19 and the global campaigns against Smallpox and Polio.

in addition, the science suggests we must learn to live with Covid-19 and it’s astonishing ability to mutate (see page 83 for their scary description), to the extent that variants may become the permanent challenge, for while most mutations may not have a devastating or any effect on people, some have such a potential. The assumption is that the science can deal with the variants, but that it is the politics that is weak.

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/artic...-forever-virus

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Originally Posted by broncofan

As you have pointed out their radicalization has taken place over time but to me Trump represented the idea that once you normalize a sociopath there can really be no call for any restraint or limit any more.

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It was building for a long time, but it went over the edge remarkably quickly once certain tipping points were passed. As you suggest, the Trump takeover and the sidelining of the adults in the Republican room was the critical trigger in normalising what was previously unthinkable. Fox News and social media then provided the feedback loop.

This is a classic example of how a system that appears to be stable over a long period can quickly turn unstable when the right triggers interact with pre-existing conditions. This happens a lot in the natural world but also in human societies, because peoples' attitudes are so influenced by the leaders of the group they identify with and by other members of the group. The internet and the siloisation of the media have turbocharged this process.

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Originally Posted by filghy2

Delta also encourages a sort of perverse logic that if nothing we do is fully effective then why try. Some people struggle to think in terms of counterfactuals.

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This is a common theme among right wing demagogues. One shmuck said "lambda variant is easier than saying vaccines don't work." The thing is vaccines have "worked" for every variant so far, but slightly less effectively which makes sense. You may have already posted an article about the effectiveness against delta, but one reason breakthrough transmission is taking place is because antibodies neutralize it less efficiently so waning levels matter more. The protection against hospitalization and death erodes more slowly and is probably more resistant to variants.

I'm rather tired of this argument that if something doesn't completely eliminate a problem it is ineffective. If the unvaccinated are still more than 10 times more likely to die that SHOULD make the argument by itself.

Nobody is wearing masks indoors where I live (except me and a few others). It doesn't really make much sense. 6 months out pfizer may only be 50% effective against symptomatic disease, plenty of people aren't vaccinated, and the disease numbers are obviously climbing here. Also, it's so fucking easy to wear a mask while getting a starbucks. These people want to get back to normal but you don't get there by playing pretend.

I was all for scrapping the mask for vaccinated people before delta when numbers of cases were cratering. That's not been the case for months really. People are probably going to get boosters with the current shots but one scientist lamented the fact that the boosts aren't taking place with mrna vaccines adapted for delta.