oldmanfan

Bills 27, Fish 16. Josh feasts on the Fish again. But I am worried about our O line in that heat.

Thank God they got him help in time.

In my first response to you I indicated Biden was wrong to do so.

Doctorate in Anatomy. Over 40 peer reviewed publications. Serve on an FDA advisory panel. Have had NIH funded research grants. Run several clinical labs. But you think you know more about science. A little surprised at the FDA vote on boosters, but it shows they evaluate data and make decisions based on science. Looks like they will approve a booster under EUA for those 65 and older.

Stop as in bring under control such that we do not need mitigation strategies like masks. It is clear that Covid is a different creature than say smallpox; we won’t get rid of it. I want it to be like the flu, get a booster every year, test in areas where there are outbreaks and have infected people isolate to prevent spread.

We have to hope Dawkins gets healthier but it takes a while to get over Covid. Williams had a bad game but that should be an aberration. But the interior? Hayward is a beast, true, but those guys have to step up. Otherwise we might need to get the 7th round rookie and Bates in there and see if there’s an upgrade to be had.

Because the red state governors are not following science. They are pandering. DeSantis wouldn’t need all the Regeneron if he focused on prevention in the first place. And we knew way before DeSantis started touting it that Regeneron was an effective treatment. I know folks at Eli Lilly who worked on it early on. I believe in mandated vaccines because it is the medically rational thing to do in order to control the pandemic. I have already commented on wanting more studies if natural immunity. As for Fauci, he is the world expert in infectious diseases, but he is not making decisions on his own. The CDC and FDA and thousands of dedicated scientists around the globe are working on this. As data comes in, recommendations follow. And despite all the hand wringing over long term side effects and such, medical treatments are based on benefit:risk ratio, and the benefits of vaccination far outweigh any risk. Outweighs it by miles and miles. Your last comment makes clear you’re not really interested in stopping this thing, and that you want to make it all about politics. You think those who want to fight are interested in living their lives and people like me who want to beat this thing are not. Frankly, your contention is ridiculous. Everyone wants to get back to normal, but your view will unnecessarily cause more death.

Thanks for clarifying. As for your red state comments, the data is pretty clear. Get people vaccinated and for those that cannot be vaccinated yet masks. I outlined this above. If every governor in every state was truly invested in making the best decisions to keep schools and businesses open and functional, based on available evidence, they’d be aggressive in educating their populations on what the science says. Rather, they are treating it as a political vs. a health issue and hiding behind individual choice, and ignoring that this is a public crisis that demands we all do our part. Here’s where I think we disagree. If you put 100 epidemiologists and infectious disease specialists in a room and asked for their scientific judgement on vaccines and masks, I would estimate that 95 of them minimum would take the affirmative position on both. You seem to imply because 5 of them differ their opinion should hold equal weight. That is not how scientific or medical treatments or advances work.

The division is already there.

I was going to say the same. I’m impressed by Scott.

You have to wait until the mandates are actually in place before you can see their effect.

I would refute your points but it is clear you have neither the education or willingness to understand anything scientific.

Quoting far right wing stuff as always. When the only tool you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. The mandate for federal workers goes into effect September30. OSHA has to still write the directive for companies with over 100 employees.

I’ll take each in turn, but before I do I will state that science is rarely black and white. Science looks at data and arrives at consensus based on the data. It is not uncommon for scientists to debate on the meaning of specific data sets. Unfortunately, there are way too many people in our country that are ignorant, willfully or otherwise, about how science works and how theories and therapeutic approaches change as data is obtained. 1. Boosters: Biden announced that prematurely and was wrong to do so until the FDA thoroughly reviewed the data. They are doing so today. Some data especially from Israel suggest that boosters can be very effective especially in older individuals. 2. Natural vs. vaccine induced immunity. This needs to be studied further. Studies should be done as to how long immunity lasts in both groups, what antibody titers are developed by each and such. There are clearly some that get repeated Covid infections and some that do so after immunization. We need data on percentages of each and severity of each. 3. Masks: I am currently looking through a Medline search I did using the search terms Covid and masks. Over 2000 references came up. In reviewing the first 200 there are about 20 or so that show observational or laboratory data on mask effectiveness, plus several meta-analyses of mask studies. The vast majority (over 90%) show a mitigating effect of masks, helping prevent spread of aerosols or droplets which are the main source of transmission. Thus the preponderance of the evidence shows masks are helpful and it is far past time to quit arguing about it. 4. Masking children: I was in the camp of not doing so until the delta variant. The delta variant is much more infectious and many more children are being hospitalized now. The data suggest mortality rates in kids with delta is still low, due in part to their age and to advances in treatment strategies. The only protection kids under the age of 12 have is masks. My opinion: teachers and other school personnel should be required to be vaccinated, kids 12and up should be vaccinated. Kids should be in school with their friends learning and should be masked or not based on the local data such as vaccination status in a given community. Anecdotally, I talk to kids and they have less problems wearing masks that some parents, who use their children as political pawns to push an agenda. You ask which science is right, as if it can only be one way of the other. I’ll put this as kindly as I can; it shows you don’t understand the nature of science and research. The people fighting this have made it their life’s work to battle infectious disease. I am proud to know many of them. And our country and the world would be way better off banding together and following the science, rather that diving down conspiracy laden rabbit holes.

The public was given a chance to be responsible. Too many chose to be idiots.

No a scientist with 40 years experience in research, clinical care, and who sits on an actual FDA advisory panel. Folks like you who have turned a public health crisis into a political football have killed people.

You can use a historical control group of what the incidence of different conditions was prior to Covid and vaccinations. Now, as to long term effects: Historically the incidence of "long term" effects pf vaccines shows very, very minimal effects seen. The two that are most mentioned are Guillan-Barre syndrome and one time when there was something with polio. As for the GB events, GB syndrome is associated with viral infections and studies show that vaccination might raise the incidence by 1-2 cases per million vaccinations. The polio one was where a non-attenuated or inactivated virus got put into the vaccine pool. These kinds of adverse events were found within weeks, not years. The history of vaccination is clear in that there are no side effects seen years and years down the road. The Covid vaccines have been out there for months now and billi0ns delivered around the world. That data, as well as the clinical studies data done to get EUA and for Pfizer FDA approval, show minimal serious adverse effects, the most prominent the myocarditis and blood clots issues. That these very rare events (on the order of a handful per million vaccinations) were picked up shows the robustness of the monitoring systems used for the Covid vaccines. I know you will bring up the VAERS reporting system, so let's put that to bed now. The VAERS system is a voluntary reporting system where anyone who has received a vaccine can post a side effect. As for deaths, health care providers have to report any deaths from anyone who has received any sort of vaccination. With respect to Covid, they are reported (And one wonders whether false reports are filed by anti-vax individuals), and these reports then are required to have follow up by the CDC and FDA where case reports, death certificates and such are analyzed. When that follow-up has been done, there are extremely rare cases where it appears the vaccine may have directly contibuted to death. So bottom line is this: there is no data to support either the claim that there are long term side effects of the vaccines, nor is there data to support the contention that so many people are dying from vaccination. That is the science, that is the data, that is not the conspiracy nonsense being thrown around on social media.

Nah. You just learn to ignore the Chicken Littles who want to cut or fire everyone after a loss.

I work at the same. The issue is simple: get vaccinated to enter the stadium. If not, sell or give back your tickets.

I was gong to respond to the VAERS stuff but you have done so brlliantly here. I would add two things. One is that the FDA and the CDC are required to do follow-up on every one of the patients submitted via VAERS, and when they do they find the vast, vast majority of deaths are not due to the vaccine. Second, VAERS is voluntary and anyone can add some to the list, which some feel may include anti-vaxers who want to try and inflate numbers for their own purposes.

Pittsburgh played a helluva game on defense. Tip your hat to them.

This would be a good study to do.

We are in a public health crisis. Public as in all of us. We need to help each other out, and the best way to do that is for all of us to get vaccinated and deprive the virus hosts for it to propogate. This is basic virology. Watching the current situation, after just witnessing all the memorials for 9/11 and how the country came together, infuriates me.

Let's talk about long range effects here. The mRNA viruses are the mRNA, some salts and some lipids that help with solubility. What basic cell biology tells us is that, once the mRNA in the vaccine is read and the spike protein transcribed, the mRNA is rapidly degraded in the cell. The other molecules in the vaccine are naturally occurring. There is nothing from the chemical nature of the vaccine to suggest any long range effect should occur. In addition, the history of vaccines tells us that long term side effects are extraordinarily rare, and if seen they are picked up within weeks of vaccination, not years later. In fact, with the Covid vaccines being around for months now, we have seen a very small incidence of the myocarditis and blood clot side effects (on the order 0f 0.0002%). When you ask why folks should get vaaccinated , it's so you don't get sick and die. And because it will help all of us not get sick and die. One of the most troubling, unfortunate things with this pandemic is that it has shown the striking indifference of people to their fellow man. So I see an eyeroll to my post. Why is science so scary to some folks here?

I have done literature searches on Medline for articles on masks and Coivd. There are around 2500 references. Thus far I have looked through a couple hundred and found about 20 articles that are either observational studies, laboratory studies, or meta-analyses on the topic. Over 90%of these studies indicate a beneficial effect of masks to prevent spread, with effectiveness varying with the type of masks. While cloth masks for example are less effective than N-95, they still demonstrate a reduction in transmission of the droplets and aerosols responsible for spread. They help mitigate, and it seems clear that mitigate is not a word understood by those anti-mask or anti-vax. You are correct though that they could be worn more carefully, but that is cause for more education, not abandonment. When you make claims such as you've done above that are inaccurate, it hurts the ability to fight this pandemic. As for the India data, there is something to be learned there. My first guess would be that the delta variant has burned through the population quickly, and as the virus burns through the population at the back end you will see decreased infection rate. But we will have to see as the data is analyzed further what can be learned.