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SARS-CoV-2 Coronavirus (COVID-19)

Discussion in 'Environmental Discussion' started by tochatihu, Jan 26, 2020.

  1. ETC(SS)

    ETC(SS) The OTHER One Percenter.....

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    Are.
    Sometimes, they will outsource the admin portion through an insurance company but it's mostly their bucks.
    It's cheaper that way.
     
    #3981 ETC(SS), Jun 25, 2021
    Last edited: Jun 25, 2021
  2. tochatihu

    tochatihu Senior Member

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    Recently and yet pages ago here, AAAS was called a 501(c)3, just like the NRA. That is incorrect in an interesting way. NRA is a 501(c)4, meaning that it can engage in political lobbying and contributions to it are not tax exempt.

    I suppose it's a matter of opinion whether AAAS is just like the NRA in any other ways. As with most skillful rehetorical flourishes, those words' plain meaning can be denied as intentional.
     
  3. fuzzy1

    fuzzy1 Senior Member

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    "The Pfizer-BioNTech covid-19 vaccine is “likely” to have been responsible for at least 10 deaths of frail elderly people in nursing homes in Norway, an expert review commissioned by the Norwegian Medicines Agency has concluded."

    " While emphasising considerable uncertainty around its conclusions, the expert group acknowledged a risk that adverse reactions to the vaccines among very frail patients could initiate a cascade of complications, which in the worst case scenario could lead to earlier death.

    Extremely frail patients

    “Frail patients can benefit from vaccination because they are at great risk of serious illness and even death if they become infected with the covid-19 virus,” said Sigurd Hortemo, senior medical consultant at the Norwegian Medicines Agency. “Nevertheless, the expert group believes that, for some of these frail patients, common adverse reactions may have contributed to a more serious course of their disease.”

    The group noted that more thorough assessment of the benefits and risks of vaccination could have been made for some very frail elderly people, particularly during the first few weeks of the vaccine’s use.  People with a very short life expectancy have little to gain from being vaccinated, it said, noting a genuine risk that the time of death will be brought forward and that they will experience adverse reactions to the vaccine in the last days of their life.

    The benefits of vaccination for very frail people with very short life expectancy should therefore be carefully assessed against the associated risks, and it may often be better not to vaccinate, the group recommended. However, the guidelines on risk assessment—issued by the Norwegian Institute of Public Health shortly after the first reported deaths of frail elderly patients after vaccination—were adequate, it said. These advise that doctors should assess such patients individually to determine whether the benefits of vaccination outweigh the side effects. The guidelines recommend that, ahead of vaccination, doctors should consider the benefits and disadvantages of giving the vaccine to extremely frail patients (such as those whose frailty is ranked 8 or 9 on the Clinical Frailty Scale or equivalent) or terminally ill patients."


    Clinical Frailty Scale:


    upload_2021-6-25_14-36-26.png

    ========
    My then-99.8 year old Aunt caught the virus a couple months ago, fortunately well after being fully vaccinated. She came through with nothing more than a runny nose, essentially asymptomatic, and we later had a successful 100.000 birthday party at the end of last month.

    Looking at the above scale, I'd place her between 6 and 7 on the frailty scale, only for physical issues, not mental.
     
    #3983 fuzzy1, Jun 25, 2021
    Last edited: Jun 25, 2021
  4. ChapmanF

    ChapmanF Senior Member

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    Another wrinkle, at least in some places like the Great State of Indiana, is that self-funding puts them outside the jurisdiction of the state insurance regulator.

    If there's a problem, you can still go to the US Dept. of Labor, which will have jurisdiction if the self-funded insurer is "a private-sector employer or bona fide union".

    If it's something other than one of those, you can go, well, wherever you want, for the good it'll do you.

    Maybe that all folds into "it's cheaper that way."
     
  5. SFO

    SFO Senior Member

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  6. ETC(SS)

    ETC(SS) The OTHER One Percenter.....

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    I stand most humbly corrected.
    I was wrong.
    My bad....

    The AAAS, IS federally funded....

    American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) - InfluenceWatch .
     
  7. bisco

    bisco cookie crumbler

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  8. ChapmanF

    ChapmanF Senior Member

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    OTOH, I had such mild (not even a sore arm!) reactions to jab 1 and jab 2 that if there need to be booster jabs, no objection from me....
     
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  9. Merkey

    Merkey Active Member

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    So now the WHO is recommending that even people that got both shots should wear masks for the delta variant.
    Am I to assume we need a vaccine for the delta now and that the original is useless against it?
     
  10. bisco

    bisco cookie crumbler

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    the article linked above said that pfizer is less effective, but who knows for sure?

    i'm sticking with mask and social distancing. i'd prefer the virus on my computer
     
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  11. fuzzy1

    fuzzy1 Senior Member

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    ... only if you take 'only' 96% (Pfizer-BioNTech) and 92% (Oxford-AstraZeneca) effectiveness against hospitalization as equivalent to "useless".

    Public Health England: Vaccines highly effective against hospitalisation from Delta variant

    These figures are lower than their respective effectivenesses against the original strains, hence the guidance to continue using other protection because the pandemic hasn't been vanquished. But I can't describe them as "useless".
     
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  12. ChapmanF

    ChapmanF Senior Member

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    Nothing I've read so far put 'useless' in my mind, only maybe 'reduced effectiveness'. For the currently-circulating variants, anyway.

    Taking your question more broadly, it does kind of hint at how it could be good if we can operate the world less like a massive-scale variant-breeding laboratory than we have been.
     
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  13. bisco

    bisco cookie crumbler

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    i would also like to see more studies besides 'the crick institute'
     
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  14. tochatihu

    tochatihu Senior Member

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    I wuz gonna call @ChapmanF #3992 anti-evolution for that. But in reality, variants (spelling errors) are always getting churned out. If their playing field (human lung surface area) is altered in a way that favors higher infectivity, such variants can proliferate.

    Approaching herd immunity (with growing numbers of recovereds and vaccinated) will always tilt the playing field like this. It seems to me. If we were particularly clever, we would have predicted it months ago. So, while folks could do better with group-protection actions, the variants' gala does not seem weird.
     
    #3994 tochatihu, Jun 26, 2021
    Last edited: Jun 26, 2021
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  15. tochatihu

    tochatihu Senior Member

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    I thought it might be easy to search internet for a list of alternatives to Crick Institute. It's not. First they are very large in terms of capitalization and appropriate tech staff. Howard Hughes Med. Inst. may be one of its few peers?

    Second, bing (the least disabled search engine around here) does not provide a nice list. Anyway, there are many, mostly smaller and.or directed elsewhere. But yeah, more studies on COVID endgame (which we hope to be entering) would be great and could come from many different shops.

    But did Crick displease you in some way? Carrying a Rosalind Franklin grudge? I am also, to be honest, but it does not seem a valid grievance in this context.
     
  16. Merkey

    Merkey Active Member

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    My background is in industrial chemistry, so my "useless" comment was admittedly a little naive. It does seem like Covid is
    mutating fast and furious, though.
     
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  17. bisco

    bisco cookie crumbler

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    i wasn't casting aspersions, just never use the daily mail as a source for anything
     
  18. tochatihu

    tochatihu Senior Member

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    Not you, edited my screed. Mi scusi.

    Seems perfectly valid to wonder and compare virus' spelling-error rates. Influenza seems always to be shuffling a deck of a few dozen cards. Measles is a slug, with same vaccine working 'forever'. Coronas reside somewhere between.
     
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  19. tochatihu

    tochatihu Senior Member

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    Daily mail does not open here. So I'm safe :)
     
  20. bisco

    bisco cookie crumbler

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    the daily mail was a video, i can't be bothered.
    the other link was msn, which wanted my cookies. i passed. you have to earn my cookies