oldmanfan

An absurd statement. Back to Cole, leave his kids out of it - everyone should agree on that.

If true that’s ridiculous and I’d be pissed if I were Beas.

Maybe. That’s part of being a pro athlete.

I wouldn’t boo him, but people may be doing so because they realize his stance could disrupt a really good thing the team has going right now. He’s a key part of the team. Plus he’s probably a bit sensitive since he wasn’t targeted as much yesterday.

You like others do not distinguish things that are voluntary and can kill you vs. a viral pandemic which is not voluntary. The delta variant infects more young people, kill more and causes God knows how many more long term issues that the alpha. But you do you.

Read what I wrote above.

Your risk of contracting Covid is around 3%. Way, way higher. And then it's a crap shoot especially with the delta variant how sick you get. But your post really brings into clear focus the underlying issue with the pandemic from the beginning: so many think it's just about them. It's not. It's a public health problem and it's about all of us as a world community. Just like it was with smallpox and measels and mumps and so on. To defeat any virus, you have to deprive it of hosts where it can replicate and potentially mutate. You do that by vaccination or by getting it and surviving. Vaccination is way safer. The pandemic has exposed the self centered nature of modern society.

The risk of a serious side effect from the vaccine is around 0.0002%, way less than the risk of getting sick from Covid.

I guess. Boogie looked pretty good

Very solid effort. One thing I noticed was that Epenesa wasn’t in very much until mop up. Any idea why?

Is Epenesa not getting any time?

Threw off his back foot again.

Josh is tentative so far.

Ok boys, let’s matriculate the ball down the field!

What I would say you are not seeing is in your last paragraph. Everything you list are personal choices. Viral pandemics are not.

Looking forward to watching the young kids

The difference is that this is an infectious agent. Your behavior can get me sick and vice versa. This really becomes an issue of whether you are concerned about the public - your neighbors and family - or yourself. In previous viral pandemics such as poliowe were concerned about each other. When and why did that change?

I agree completely more effort needs to be put into antibody testing. I am not concerned with supposed long term effects of these vaccines because classically side effects of vaccines are noted within weeks or months. This has been noted with the very rare myocarditis and blood clot issues found with Covid vaccines, and is actually an argument for the rigor with which the effects of the vaccines are followed. Plus the ingredients of the mRNA vaccines indicate there is nothing that realistically from a scientific perspective should cause any long term effects. What I hope to also see is increased study of treatment options like the one Pfizer is apparently working on. If we can treat those with Covid that would be extraordinarily helpful.

Well, first of all I am not liberal. I am independent, very conservative on some topics and much more liberal on others. When it comes to a global pandemic and getting us through it, I would say I'm more liberal, true. You get through it by having the population become immune to the virus. You get that by vaccination or by having enough people get infected. Of course, the latter leads to more deaths. Younger folks are much less prone to death, around 470 or so as of last week, but they do get infected (about 3 million infected kids 18 and younger as of last week) and they can carry and spread the virus. They also may be prone to long term complications of the virus, something that is given too little attention by everyone including public health officials. This debate really comes down to this: do you believe in public health or do you not?

Here are estimated flu deaths data: Table 1: Estimated Influenza Disease Burden, by Season — United States, 2010-11 through 2019-20 Influenza Seasons 2010-2011 37,000(32,000 – 51,000) 2011-2012 12,000(11,000 – 23,000) 2012-2013 43,000(37,000 – 57,000) 2013-2014 38,000(33,000 – 50,000) 2014-2015 51,000(44,000 – 64,000) 2015-2016 23,000(17,000 – 35,000) 2016-2017 38,000(29,000 – 61,000) Preliminary estimates*Estimate95% UIEstimate95% UIEstimate95% UIEstimate95% UI 2017-2018* 61,000(46,000 – 95,000) 2018-2019* 34,000(26,000 – 53,000) 2019-2020* 22,000(18,000 – 29,000) * Estimates from the 2017-2018, 2018-2019, and 2019-2020 seasons are preliminary and may change as data are finalized. The average is around 36,000. Compare that to about 500,000 deaths the first year of Covid. So 500,000/36,000 = about 14, such that Covid is 10-20 times more deadly than the flu. That the flu is seasonal and burns out within 4 months is immaterial, as is your insistence that Covid deaths aren't really deaths.

Going to be a great season to watch.

Yes they do. How does that detract from the Bills having one?

we have a helluva shot.

I'm not sure you're correct on India and ivermectin. Here is an article from an magazine in India indicating ivermectin is being pulled from recommendation: Why HCQ and Ivermectin were removed from India’s Covid-19 treatment protocol Ivermectin and HCQ were dropped from the clinical guidance after studies found that these drugs have little to no effect on Covid-related mortality or clinical recovery of the patient. This is an article from Nature, one of the most highly respected scientific journals: Flawed ivermectin preprint highlights challenges of COVID drug studies The study’s withdrawal from a preprint platform deals a blow to the anti-parasite drug’s chances as a COVID treatment, researchers say. I would support really good prospective, randomized trials, of ivermectin because, as you state, there is certainly anecdotal evidence suggesting benefit. As for length of infection and such, here is one study from Arizona indicating length of infection in vaccinated is lower. I would also encourage you to search the CDC website; they refer to multiple articles on your topics of interest: COVID-19 Vaccine Reduces Severity, Length, Viral Load for Those Who Still Get Infected Data from the AZ HEROES study show COVID-19 vaccines are highly effective in preventing SARS-CoV-2 infections, and when breakthrough infections do occur, the level of infection and impact of the disease are significantly reduced. University of Arizona Health Sciences June 30, 2021

Some studies of the natural immunity have been done. Before going into them, I presume you are not talking about recommending folks get Covid to confer natural immunity, as that could be a death sentence. But if you look at data on the studies of those previously infected and the effect of natural immunity, there is some data. The Israeli study is the one most cited, suggesting that natural immunity confers more protection than vaccination. But that same study also shows that previously infected individuals who have received a vaccination have higher protection: Instagram Post Missing Context About Israeli Study on COVID-19 Natural Immunity By D'Angelo Gore Posted on September 2, 2021 | Updated on September 8, 2021 Here is one suggesting that natural immunity is sufficient for protection: Necessity of COVID-19 vaccination in previously infected individuals View ORCID ProfileNabin K. Shrestha, Patrick C. Burke, Amy S. Nowacki, Paul Terpeluk, Steven M. Gordon doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.06.01.21258176 There is a recent study from Kentucky suggesting that vaccination of previously infected individuals confers greater immunity: Reduced Risk of Reinfection with SARS-CoV-2 After COVID-19 Vaccination — Kentucky, May–June 2021 Weekly / August 13, 2021 / 70(32);1081-1083 On August 6, 2021, this report was posted online as an MMWR Early Release. Alyson M. Cavanaugh, DPT, PhD1,2; Kevin B. Spicer, MD, PhD2,3; Douglas Thoroughman, PhD2,4; Connor Glick, MS2; Kathleen Winter, PhD2,5 (View author affiliations) So the data is conflicting at this point. One of the issues is that you don't know what the strength is of the immunity in a given individual who has been infected. There are estimates I've seen that around a third of infected individuals do not develop an immune response with antibodies; these are mostly asymptomatic infections. What I'd like to see are actual antibody level or titer data on those with natural immunity, to see who has developed a robust response. The reason I advocate for vaccines is because we know from the data that vaccination is highly protective against severe illness and death for anyone infected, and that the more folks that develop immunity, either by natural means or vaccination, the more we starve out the virus from finding hosts and the quicker we bring this things under control.