Will you get vaccinated?

[Tommy W.]

But the vaccine is clearly not working now, so why not just go the NAI route instead of pushing for more useless boosters?

That is the next step. New narrative:
Everyone needs to live a healthy lifestyle so we can beat this.

What a concept....

[Plateauplower]

That is the next step. New narrative:
Everyone needs to live a healthy lifestyle so we can beat this.

What a concept....

That’ll never happen. The money is in the medicines. When our work test or vax mandate went into effect I was wondering if it was for “health and safety” why not mandate a healthy body composition say BMI under 30, or you have to walk 5 miles before work (on your own time). Next will probably be mandatory gender reassignment surgeries because I work in a very male dominated industry, need that diversity. Hard to attract females but we can make them! Michael the pipefitter you need to become Michelle the pipefitter within 30 days or be subject to discipline…I swear it wouldn’t surprise me at this point.

[JustTheDad]

I continue to believe when you have a very specific immune target (S protein) you are missing a large part of the “puzzle” with regard to immune response and efficacy.

To some degree, but a fairly small one if those other 28 proteins are hidden inside a sugar coated capsid and only "exposed" inside the hosts cells. In that case they're not particularly useful to the immune system. They may help us target some infected cells if a bit of those proteins wanders off to the wrong place and an active epitope gets displayed on the exterior wall of our cell.

Going after more preserved portions of the spike protein would be an interesting idea, if we had the technology to guide your immune system to the specific epitopes. Sadly, we don't yet. I do know of at least one lab that's working on that, but I am not convinced it will be more effective. Especially with a virus that hides it's epitopes so well.

Omicron is now affecting infants, and some who are co-infected with RSV are winding up in the ICU. I'm sure RSV+COVID isn't the only issue, but there are enough sick babies that one of the children's' hospitals a colleague trained at is having to transport babies to other hospitals if they need to be in the ICU. That's concerning.


Editing to add:
A lot of people are getting "natural" immunity in addition to their vaccines, which is a much safer way for them to acquire it than to avoid the vaccine. Even if the vaccine doesn't completely prevent you from getting sick, it does still mitigate the risks and severity of the illness in most people. The real way that's related to money is in less time lost from productivity.

[eomrat]

You should’ve taken my course instead. I could’ve conveyed the principle so you actually understood it.

It’s a life history trade off. Higher exploitation brings with it higher within host reproductive success, but curtails onward transmission prospects. When vaccines delay mortality (or reduce disease severity) but permit considerable transmission, they relax the cost of higher within host exploitation. This selects for more harmful variants. These variants can circulate successfully in vaccinated populations causing low disease severity, but will cause severe infections in the unvaccinated. Targeting a specific antigen doesn’t make a vaccine leaky. Recall that our mRNA vaccines were highly effective against infection for the wild type. It is more nuanced than that. It is about how the immune response targets the pathogen in relation to its life cycle in the host. This is why evolutionary biologists have raised concern about certain malaria vaccines that target merozoites but not the gametocytes. Or why targeting a toxin that is a by product of a pathogen’s life cycle will ultimately favor selection for higher toxin production. My PhD advisor was one of the pioneers of this entire field.

I had a very different opinion about all this until I saw the post above. Now my opinion is changed. The snark at the beginning is all I actually read, but from that, I could tell that Reliance is a man of great intellect and very superior to whoever he is arguing with now. Whatever it is that he is going on about is now my new opinion and anyone who disagrees is just not intelligent enough to understand.

[x-trainer ben]

That is the next step. New narrative:
Everyone needs to live a healthy lifestyle so we can beat this.

What a concept....

Didn't we know this already when we joined in 2005-6 and tried to get friends and family to join us in the pursuit of health 16 years ago?

[JustTheDad]

I had a very different opinion about all this until I saw the post above. Now my opinion is changed. The snark at the beginning is all I actually read, but from that, I could tell that Reliance is a man of great intellect and very superior to whoever he is arguing with now. Whatever it is that he is going on about is now my new opinion and anyone who disagrees is just not intelligent enough to understand.

Thank you for your service in interpreting that, and also, thank you for your service if I haven't already said it seriously

His is actually a very good post if you read past the first quoted line. No clue where he's studying, but I've found his posts on evolutionary biology and microbiology to be very good. He's described some complicated theories clearly in short posts. That's not easy to do!



Up here in Orange county NC everything is finally melting, which is a gift since one of my pups thinks snow is meant to be eaten. Every time I let him out to pee he pees a bucket's worth then eats a bunch of snow and ice. Means he may have to go out again in 20 minutes, except sometimes we don't realize that in time.

You guys thawed out down there in Fayetteville yet, or did you actually get to skip the snow and ice entirely?

[Tommy W.]

Didn't we know this already when we joined in 2005-6 and tried to get friends and family to join us in the pursuit of health 16 years ago?

Nobody can make money off of healthy people

[x-trainer ben]

Nobody can make money off of healthy people

Yeah they can, supplements, natural organic foods, athletic wear and shoes, anything health and fitnesss related.

[ectoBgone]

I had a very different opinion about all this until I saw the post above. Now my opinion is changed. The snark at the beginning is all I actually read, but from that, I could tell that Reliance is a man of great intellect and very superior to whoever he is arguing with now. Whatever it is that he is going on about is now my new opinion and anyone who disagrees is just not intelligent enough to understand.

I have to say that the overall hubris of the scientific community has given me more pause and concern than anything coming out of the genuine anti-vax crowd.

[Plateauplower]

To some degree, but a fairly small one if those other 28 proteins are hidden inside a sugar coated capsid and only "exposed" inside the hosts cells. In that case they're not particularly useful to the immune system. They may help us target some infected cells if a bit of those proteins wanders off to the wrong place and an active epitope gets displayed on the exterior wall of our cell.

Going after more preserved portions of the spike protein would be an interesting idea, if we had the technology to guide your immune system to the specific epitopes. Sadly, we don't yet. I do know of at least one lab that's working on that, but I am not convinced it will be more effective. Especially with a virus that hides it's epitopes so well.

Omicron is now affecting infants, and some who are co-infected with RSV are winding up in the ICU. I'm sure RSV+COVID isn't the only issue, but there are enough sick babies that one of the children's' hospitals a colleague trained at is having to transport babies to other hospitals if they need to be in the ICU. That's concerning.


Editing to add:
A lot of people are getting "natural" immunity in addition to their vaccines, which is a much safer way for them to acquire it than to avoid the vaccine. Even if the vaccine doesn't completely prevent you from getting sick, it does still mitigate the risks and severity of the illness in most people. The real way that's related to money is in less time lost from productivity.

On spread. Sad to hear about the infants, but RSV is always a pretty significant risk in that demographic. If the case loads are high enough to transfer to other treatment centers that isn't good, but we are also looking at pretty extreme transmission right now in many parts of the country so hopefully that will taper off quickly. A girl I work with was telling me she was at talking to a friend at hospital in IL that was getting requests from as far as Iowa for transferring adult covid patients.

I guess they still haven't worked out what sounded really cool in theory 20 years ago. It seems part of the immune response that is missing from vaccine induced immune response from the covid shots is the cells ability to signal when it is infected to signal macrophages and killer T cells to kill and gobble it all up? Not the most scientific terms, but basically I don't think it can ever be about preventing infection at the cellular level completely, but the entirety of the immune system having a coordinated response to a targeted pathogen. These vaccines being so targeted, as compared to some more historically produced types seem to have a very narrow focus, but I am not an immunologist.

I'm not sure how to quantify how much reduction the vaccines are having on sever cases right now though. It is relatively mild for most (more so than original) and we are still seeing record numbers of hospitalizations while having record high vaccination rates... Again this is expected when positivity rates are so high, 25% in some places, which insane when you think about it. 1 in 4 people tested are testing positive. Reductions to lost productivity are also coming from revised guidance for the 5 day quarantine, and likely helping drive herd immunity as I am sure that is putting more people in circulation who are still contagious. Someone who doesn't have paid sick leave isn't going to be honest about being symptom free to RTW.

[JustTheDad]

I'm not sure how to quantify how much reduction the vaccines are having on sever cases right now though. It is relatively mild for most (more so than original) and we are still seeing record numbers of hospitalizations while having record high vaccination rates... Again this is expected when positivity rates are so high, 25% in some places, which insane when you think about it. 1 in 4 people tested are testing positive. Reductions to lost productivity are also coming from revised guidance for the 5 day quarantine, and likely helping drive herd immunity as I am sure that is putting more people in circulation who are still contagious. Someone who doesn't have paid sick leave isn't going to be honest about being symptom free to RTW.

Sucks, only having these antiquated wild type mRNA vaccines with a highly adaptable virus, doesn't it. 1 in 4 is scary given everyone seems to want to get tested. I'm mostly ignoring numbers and just watching how the incidence and mortality are tracking. At some point, we'll have herd immunity to Omicron too. That'll be nice, I hope.

I'm going to test my 10 month old outdated antibody levels at the UNC/Virginia Tech game later. Both my kids' schools, so should be entertaining, and UNC has been playing poorly enough that VT has a chance.

Kind of curious to see how many adults actually show up to watch.

Edit:
Thinking about the additional cellular immunity based on non-spike antigens, if you figure you get 90% of your benefit from the immune response to the spike protein, and then you lose 75% of that due to mutations, even if we pretend that the 10% didn't decrease at all strain to strain, you're still only left with 35% of the effect. 25 vs 35 of our original immunity level does make it 40% better, but it's still going to be a comparison of bad to piss poor at preventing clinical infections. Of course, if that safe 25% from the vaccine still prevents bad outcomes in our at risk patients, it's better than nothing.

[Plateauplower]

Sucks, only having these antiquated wild type mRNA vaccines with a highly adaptable virus, doesn't it. 1 in 4 is scary given everyone seems to want to get tested. I'm mostly ignoring numbers and just watching how the incidence and mortality are tracking. At some point, we'll have herd immunity to Omicron too. That'll be nice, I hope.

I'm going to test my 10 month old outdated antibody levels at the UNC/Virginia Tech game later. Both my kids' schools, so should be entertaining, and UNC has been playing poorly enough that VT has a chance.

Kind of curious to see how many adults actually show up to watch.

We already peaked here by my evaluation of the numbers trend. That said, the Omicron is still spreading like wildfire, just slowing down a little. As an example of the breadth of cases, my daughters 4th grade class was taught by the District Superintendent one day last week. When the guy who runs the entire District is sitting in for a 4th grade class there are a LOT of teachers and subs out.

Enjoy the game! Even better if the crowds are not insane anyway.

[BS57]

Nobody can make money off of healthy people

Money is in treatment, not healing.

I'll be turning 65 soon, and still no Fauchi-Ouchie for me.

I have zero concerns of dying OF the ShanghaiShivers.

I suppose however if I was run-over by a driver who had it, my death would be added to the tally.

FJB

[eomrat]

Thank you for your service in interpreting that, and also, thank you for your service if I haven't already said it seriously

His is actually a very good post if you read past the first quoted line. No clue where he's studying, but I've found his posts on evolutionary biology and microbiology to be very good. He's described some complicated theories clearly in short posts. That's not easy to do!



Up here in Orange county NC everything is finally melting, which is a gift since one of my pups thinks snow is meant to be eaten. Every time I let him out to pee he pees a bucket's worth then eats a bunch of snow and ice. Means he may have to go out again in 20 minutes, except sometimes we don't realize that in time.

You guys thawed out down there in Fayetteville yet, or did you actually get to skip the snow and ice entirely?

Weather is weird up there. The north-east part of your county can easily be 5 degrees colder than the University. And just when you think you are south of a snow line, the mountains remind you that they are there.

I am no longer a denizen of the Fayetteville area. I am now in the Asheville/Knoxville/Chattanooga area. Or there-abouts.

[Jtbny]

Money is in treatment, not healing.

I'll be turning 65 soon, and still no Fauchi-Ouchie for me.

I have zero concerns of dying OF the ShanghaiShivers.

I suppose however if I was run-over by a driver who had it, my death would be added to the tally.

FJB

Imagine being 65 and talking like this.

Don't forget to go potty before nighty night and don't forget your binky and your blanky.


(I know EMO I'm feeding the trolls )

[Fishman15]

That's a strange place for your 3rd nipple...

[newfaceafter]

Is not easy to me but this help to back on normal:


*************.us/7338781

Check it out

[x-trainer ben]

Is not easy to me but this help to back on normal:


*************.us/7338781

Check it out

no one understands these posts, so please end them, kthanks.

[mtpockets]

[OldFartTom]

Sucks, only having these antiquated wild type mRNA vaccines with a highly adaptable virus, doesn't it....

This is based on patients self reporting so maybe not as accurate as confirmed study. But.. 2/3 with omicron say they have had COVID before

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-60132096

Makes you wonder how effective then vaccination based on original strains will be. (On assumption this is viral adaption not patient immune response waning) Better than nothing... but not so good?

[JustTheDad]

I am no longer a denizen of the Fayetteville area. I am now in the Asheville/Knoxville/Chattanooga area. Or there-abouts.

Is there an Asheville in Tennessee? Not sure about Knoxville, but Asheville NC to Chattanooga is like driving to Atlanta. Gotta be 3 to 4 hours, right?

[Plateauplower]

Is there an Asheville in Tennessee? Not sure about Knoxville, but Asheville NC to Chattanooga is like driving to Atlanta. Gotta be 3 to 4 hours, right?

Yep, It's North of Gatlinburg/Pigeon Forge. I think that was where Smokey Mountain Knifeworks is located. We went there last summer. I liked it, probably going back this year and hopping over the mountains to the Carolinas if we schedule enough time for the trip.

[JustTheDad]

Better than nothing... but not so good?

Exactly that.

Pfizer just started testing a newer vaccine. It doesn't sound like it would be a polyvalent type of vaccine. I thought they would include the original mRNA code, but maybe not. I'll ask one of our vaccine people on Friday when we have a conference call. I've never worked on a polyvalent vaccine trial and don't know the regulatory requirements.

https://apnews.com/article/pfizer-co...95ce9bbd448ce9

[Plateauplower]

Exactly that.

Pfizer just started testing a newer vaccine. It doesn't sound like it would be a polyvalent type of vaccine. I thought they would include the original mRNA code, but maybe not. I'll ask one of our vaccine people on Friday when we have a conference call. I've never worked on a polyvalent vaccine trial and don't know the regulatory requirements.

https://apnews.com/article/pfizer-co...95ce9bbd448ce9

It probably be released in time to protect the 3 people who have not had Omicron by then, and mandated for everyone...

[Tommy W.]

It probably be released in time to protect the 3 people who have not had Omicron by then, and mandated for everyone...

yep. Just starting after Omicron has been around since November

[mtpockets]

PHAC confirmed that 51 cases of the BA.2 subvariant have been reported in Canada, mainly from international travellers.

BA.2 is a descendant of the highly transmissible Omicron variant and has been found in at least 40 countries as of Wednesday, according to global coronavirus data sharing platform

[JustTheDad]

PHAC confirmed that 51 cases of the BA.2 subvariant have been reported in Canada, mainly from international travellers.

BA.2 is a descendant of the highly transmissible Omicron variant and has been found in at least 40 countries as of Wednesday, according to global coronavirus data sharing platform

California reported cases, I'm sure it's everywhere by now.

Hopefully it won't cause issues once everybody has some form of immunity to the wild type and omicron strains. I haven't heard about any Omicron variant causing as much ED post infection as the wild type virus, so nobody here needs to panic yet

[JUSA]

This virus kills.

That is the first words I utter from my mouth each and every day. I wake up, splash water onto my face and stare directly into my dingy mirror in my bathroom. I look myself directly in the eye and I begin my mantra. "This virus kills", I say. Silence. I then repeat it again, this time louder, "This virus kills!". I begin to shake and tremble. I say it again, louder, "This virus KILLS!". Over and over and over again. I stare unblinking and look myself dead in the eye, by this time I am overcome with fear as I scream at the top of my lungs, "THIS VIRUS KILLS! THIS VIRUS KILLS! THIS VIRUS KILLS!". By the end I am spent, completely drained of all energy both emotionally and physically, I collapse on the floor, openly weeping and retreat into a fetal position as I pass out.

Hours pass, I awake again, it is usually past Noon. I wipe myself with my towel to clean off accumulated sweat, tears and other bodily fluids. I don my masks and then begin my daily routine of hot pockets and watching Netflix but only after I check my calendar and see when I am scheduled to receive my next booster. On that day, I will need to bathe. This is the only time I leave my house. I leave my blinds closed and drawn. I want no infection from the outside world. I live alone with my three cats. They have not been vaccinated. Not yet. I can not keep masks on them, I am growing more and more impatient.

I hear a voice, inside my head. It keeps saying, "two more weeks". Two more weeks, just two more... two more and then I will finally have my life back. Two more weeks...

[x-trainer ben]

PHAC confirmed that 51 cases of the BA.2 subvariant have been reported in Canada, mainly from international travellers.

BA.2 is a descendant of the highly transmissible Omicron variant and has been found in at least 40 countries as of Wednesday, according to global coronavirus data sharing platform

Oh boy, i better wash the mask, lol.

[eomrat]

Is there an Asheville in Tennessee? Not sure about Knoxville, but Asheville NC to Chattanooga is like driving to Atlanta. Gotta be 3 to 4 hours, right?

4 1/2

I am kind of shiftless now. My daughter is at UTC so I hang out quite a bit with my granddaughter in the area. Western, NC is the closest thing I have to home and I spend as much time there as I can. My family still own property in Cherokee County. I am also in/around Fontana or south of the Rez a couple months a year during the early part of trout season. Only hardly ever go to Asheville for medical care or store bought liquor.