Octopus Overlords

Smoove_B wrote: Mon Jul 19, 2021 7:49 pmNo masks and school starting. I don't even know what to say about it anymore.

He [Doctor Osterholm] was absolutely right, & now that the Delta & Epsilon variants are circulating, it's even more urgent that we heed this warning.

Check out, for example, this interview with Dr. Michael Osterholm on Meet The Press last week. It's relentlessly negative. He's spinning every fact in the most negative possible light. He's downplaying the effectives of vaccines. It all sounds terrifying.

But on the NJ governor...yeah that seems problematic. I don't really get it, especially when the American Pediatrics Association or whatever they're called is saying to keep masks. Obviously possible that the masks won't ultimately turn out to be necessary, but in terms of a cost benefit analysis, seems clearly correct to keep masks in place.

Smoove_B wrote: Mon Jul 19, 2021 7:49 pm Yeah, that's a great way to think about it.

In other news, models for TX not looking great:
...

They project Texas to be around 12,600 patients by August 13, that's about 2,000 above last summer's peak.

El Guapo wrote: Tue Jul 20, 2021 2:42 pm But speaking of Covid commentary...I am genuinely shocked that Hannity said this last night. Like it's kind of sad that I'm semi-impressed that he said this, but he's one of the people who I think can genuinely move the needle on vaccination among a key group of people who need to be moved on vaccination. I think Tucker Carlson who is the #1 person who could help by saying something like this, though I'm not holding my breath on him.

malchior wrote: Tue Jul 20, 2021 2:52 pm

El Guapo wrote: Tue Jul 20, 2021 2:42 pm But speaking of Covid commentary...I am genuinely shocked that Hannity said this last night. Like it's kind of sad that I'm semi-impressed that he said this, but he's one of the people who I think can genuinely move the needle on vaccination among a key group of people who need to be moved on vaccination. I think Tucker Carlson who is the #1 person who could help by saying something like this, though I'm not holding my breath on him.

I'll see if I can dig it up but someone posited that Hannity is facing some sort of legal threat behind the scenes related to his radio show vs one against the Fox family. Which is why Tucker wouldn't be in the crosshairs. Apparently Hannity flipped like a light switch on this so people are cynically but fairly assuming it is some risk to himself.

El Guapo wrote: Tue Jul 20, 2021 3:22 pm

malchior wrote: Tue Jul 20, 2021 2:52 pm

El Guapo wrote: Tue Jul 20, 2021 2:42 pm But speaking of Covid commentary...I am genuinely shocked that Hannity said this last night. Like it's kind of sad that I'm semi-impressed that he said this, but he's one of the people who I think can genuinely move the needle on vaccination among a key group of people who need to be moved on vaccination. I think Tucker Carlson who is the #1 person who could help by saying something like this, though I'm not holding my breath on him.

I'll see if I can dig it up but someone posited that Hannity is facing some sort of legal threat behind the scenes related to his radio show vs one against the Fox family. Which is why Tucker wouldn't be in the crosshairs. Apparently Hannity flipped like a light switch on this so people are cynically but fairly assuming it is some risk to himself.

Yeah, I would assume so. I mean, you never know when a crisis of conscience will hit someone, but unless his broader conduct changes I assume it's cynical motivation.

stessier wrote: Tue Jul 20, 2021 3:35 pm

El Guapo wrote: Tue Jul 20, 2021 3:22 pm

malchior wrote: Tue Jul 20, 2021 2:52 pm

El Guapo wrote: Tue Jul 20, 2021 2:42 pm But speaking of Covid commentary...I am genuinely shocked that Hannity said this last night. Like it's kind of sad that I'm semi-impressed that he said this, but he's one of the people who I think can genuinely move the needle on vaccination among a key group of people who need to be moved on vaccination. I think Tucker Carlson who is the #1 person who could help by saying something like this, though I'm not holding my breath on him.

I'll see if I can dig it up but someone posited that Hannity is facing some sort of legal threat behind the scenes related to his radio show vs one against the Fox family. Which is why Tucker wouldn't be in the crosshairs. Apparently Hannity flipped like a light switch on this so people are cynically but fairly assuming it is some risk to himself.

Yeah, I would assume so. I mean, you never know when a crisis of conscience will hit someone, but unless his broader conduct changes I assume it's cynical motivation.

If you read the comments (which I really don't normally condone), apparently all of Fox except Carlson flipped yesterday. It was like a light switch. Basically everyone from 7am-5pm said something along the same lines during their show.

LawBeefaroni wrote: Wed Jul 21, 2021 9:16 am

stessier wrote: Tue Jul 20, 2021 3:35 pm

El Guapo wrote: Tue Jul 20, 2021 3:22 pm

malchior wrote: Tue Jul 20, 2021 2:52 pm

El Guapo wrote: Tue Jul 20, 2021 2:42 pm But speaking of Covid commentary...I am genuinely shocked that Hannity said this last night. Like it's kind of sad that I'm semi-impressed that he said this, but he's one of the people who I think can genuinely move the needle on vaccination among a key group of people who need to be moved on vaccination. I think Tucker Carlson who is the #1 person who could help by saying something like this, though I'm not holding my breath on him.

I'll see if I can dig it up but someone posited that Hannity is facing some sort of legal threat behind the scenes related to his radio show vs one against the Fox family. Which is why Tucker wouldn't be in the crosshairs. Apparently Hannity flipped like a light switch on this so people are cynically but fairly assuming it is some risk to himself.

Yeah, I would assume so. I mean, you never know when a crisis of conscience will hit someone, but unless his broader conduct changes I assume it's cynical motivation.

If you read the comments (which I really don't normally condone), apparently all of Fox except Carlson flipped yesterday. It was like a light switch. Basically everyone from 7am-5pm said something along the same lines during their show.

Isn't it because it got out that Fox News is requiring vaccine passports for all employees?

Presumably they're flipping because their own vaccinated status may soon be public.

I asked four experts, and received … four different answers that depend on your personal risk tolerance, living situation, and geographic location. If you’re vaccinated, you’re justified in either masking or not masking indoors. Here’s how to decide.

...

If you live in an area with a lot of cases, some experts say, it might be worth wearing a mask indoors, even if you’re vaccinated. This is especially true in situations where you don’t know the vaccination status of everyone around you, such as at church or a concert. “For example, I am wearing a mask at the grocery store again, but I am not wearing one at work, where I know almost everyone is vaccinated,” says Linsey Marr, an aerosols expert at Virginia Tech. Marr says she mostly does this to minimize the risk to herself and her family, because although it’s rare for the coronavirus to “break through” and infect a vaccinated person, it can happen, and it’s more likely to happen during a large COVID-19 outbreak. (Still, 97 percent of people who are hospitalized for COVID-19—and almost all who die of it—are unvaccinated.)

Determining what constitutes an area with “a lot” of cases remains tricky and subjective. Caitlin Rivers, an assistant professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, puts the number at 10 cases per 100,000 people. Right now, many counties in Missouri are over that threshold, and so are parts of Florida, Texas, California, and other states.

According to Rivers, the vaccinated should keep masking indoors in these places until children under the age of 12 can get vaccinated. “I don’t think we should give up on mitigation until we can offer kids the same protection afforded to everyone else,” she says.

...

“I agree with what the CDC says: If you’re vaccinated, you don’t need to wear a mask,” says Joseph Allen, an environmental epidemiologist at Harvard. Indoor masking may be reasonable in areas with large outbreaks, but a top-down mask mandate for all of America no longer makes sense, he says.

Allen worries that encouraging vaccinated people to keep masking undermines confidence in the vaccines. You can’t claim you “believe in science” unless you also believe in the science of vaccine efficacy. Mask-free living can also be a carrot: Look, if you get vaccinated, you can lose these things once and for all!

While there is technically a chance that a vaccinated person might transmit the virus to someone who transmits the virus to someone who just had a bone-marrow transplant, that risk is small. Especially if you’re in a place like a grocery store. “Grocery stores, we don’t think, are super-high-risk places,” says Ashish Jha, the dean of the Brown University School of Public Health. If an immunocompromised person pops into Walmart at the same time as you, a vaccinated person, “the amount of exposure you are going to create for that person is really low if you’re asymptomatic.” Someone who’s vaccinated and doesn’t have symptoms is likely not shedding enough virus to infect an immunocompromised person as they silently cross paths in the cereal aisle. And the immunocompromised could wear a high-quality mask to protect themselves, just in case.

Jha says he’s not worried about picking up the virus and spreading it to his 9-year-old, who can’t get vaccinated yet. Sometimes when he goes to the grocery store in his highly vaccinated town, he doesn’t wear a mask, even though people look at him funny because, well, he’s Ashish Jha.

What’s more, the masking endgame seems unclear. Vaccination has slowed to a crawl, so when do we stop masking? If mask mandates return, Jha says, cases will go back up again when they end. “This is not a long-term solution,” he says. “The long-term solution is to get more people vaccinated.”

That's not their job, it's not their job to protect anybody!

hepcat wrote: Wed Jul 21, 2021 4:22 pm Suddenly a career at the FDA sounds positively relaxing!

LordMortis wrote: Wed Jul 21, 2021 4:32 pm

hepcat wrote: Wed Jul 21, 2021 4:22 pm Suddenly a career at the FDA sounds positively relaxing!

Or a cop at any level from local to the alphabet of agencies at the federal level or the military or the fire department or OSHA or the Health Dept or...

hepcat wrote: Wed Jul 21, 2021 4:08 pm This is why Fox News should be considered a danger to America.

https://twitter.com/LisPower1/status/14 ... 33580.html

Kilmeade isn't even smart enough to be politically insidious. He's just a friggin' moron.

Anti-vaxx Groups on Facebook Are Changing Into “Dance Parties” on Facebook to Avoid Detection

Group members have incorporated a range of coded language to mask their discussions, many of which perpetuate debunked theories about the vaccines. “Danced” or “drank beer” mean “got the vaccine.” References to “Pfizer” generally use the terms “pizza” or “Pizza King,” and Moderna is referred to as “Moana.” Users generally play around with unofficial language about dancing to create more coded language.

For example, one group member said her husband had become sick after going on a “cross country trip where we spent 2 nights with dancers,” referring to two people who had just been vaccinated.

State governors, largely Republicans, said the federal funds were keeping recipients from looking for jobs, making it harder for businesses to hire and holding back the economic recovery.

However, Census Bureau data suggests recipients didn't rush to find jobs in the weeks following the first batch of state withdrawals, according to Arindrajit Dube, an economics professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

Specifically, the share of adults receiving unemployment benefits fell sharply (by 2.2 percentage points) in the dozen states that cut federal funding on June 12 or 19, according to Dube. That translates to a 60% reduction in unemployment rolls in those states, he said.

But there wasn't a corresponding increase in employment among this group — in fact, the share of adults with a job fell by 1.4 percentage points over the same period, according to Dube. (Employment rose by 0.2 percentage points in states that didn't end the pandemic benefits.)

Together, the data shows there wasn't an immediate job boost following the cuts, Dube said. However, more time and information are needed to analyze the longer-term effects of state policies, he said.

"There's not early evidence [federal benefits] were a big constraint [on jobs]," according to Susan Houseman, research director at the W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research, who reviewed the findings.

Florida just reported a staggering 12,647 new daily COVID positives, the most reported by the state since January 30, 2021.

That’s 22.9% of all new daily cases reported to @CDCgov & more than the entire country was reporting just 24 days ago.

BREAKING: U.S. reports 64,866 new coronavirus cases, the biggest one-day increase since April, as hospitalizations continue to rise

Smoove_B wrote: Thu Jul 22, 2021 8:59 pm https://twitter.com/KevinCate/status/14 ... 5225745415

Florida just reported a staggering 12,647 new daily COVID positives, the most reported by the state since January 30, 2021.

That’s 22.9% of all new daily cases reported to @CDCgov & more than the entire country was reporting just 24 days ago.

El Guapo wrote: Tue Jul 20, 2021 2:42 pmBut speaking of Covid commentary...I am genuinely shocked that Hannity said this last night. Like it's kind of sad that I'm semi-impressed that he said this, but he's one of the people who I think can genuinely move the needle on vaccination among a key group of people who need to be moved on vaccination. I think Tucker Carlson who is the #1 person who could help by saying something like this, though I'm not holding my breath on him.

Following a viral out-of-context tweet, reports in places like Politico Playbook, The Atlantic, The New York Times, NPR, and The Week spotlighted Hannity for supposedly endorsing the vaccines, even though he never did any such thing.

...

If this media cycle sounds familiar, it’s because mainstream outlets had the exact same “new tone” problem with Trump, suggesting over and over, incorrectly, that he was changing his approach. Now the cliche is deployed for Trump’s henchman, to the same results.

Interestingly, Hannity’s anti-vax radio remarks came in response to anti-vax criticism of Hannity from the generic right-wing content mill of radio host Wayne Dupree, a Sandy Hook truther who has falsely claimed that the parents of a Sandy Hook victim were “actors” and the shooting was a “hoax.”

So, not only does Hannity distance himself from the vaccines, but he’s doing so to appease a far-right conspiracy theorist who has written about crisis actors. Why is Hannity acting like this? Because he’s scared.

About 100 of the 613 U.S. athletes descending on Tokyo for the Olympics are unvaccinated, the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee's medical chief says.

People who had recovered from COVID-19, including those no longer reporting symptoms, exhibited significant cognitive deficits versus controls when controlling for age, gender, education level, income, racial-ethnic group, pre-existing medical disorders, tiredness, depression and anxiety. The deficits were of substantial effect size for people who had been hospitalised (N = 192), but also for non-hospitalised cases who had biological confirmation of COVID-19 infection (N = 326). Analysing markers of premorbid intelligence did not support these differences being present prior to infection. Finer grained analysis of performance across sub-tests supported the hypothesis that COVID-19 has a multi-domain impact on human cognition.

...

This study confirms the hypothesis that individuals who have been infected with COVID-19 have persistent objectively measurable cognitive deficits after carefully controlling for pre-morbid IQ, pre-existing medical conditions, socio-demographic factors and mental health symptoms. Multiple studies are now using the online assessment technology reported here to investigate the neural correlates of cognitive deficits in people who have survived SARS-COV-2 infection, relate them to clinical outcomes and track at scale how they change over time.

People who had "recovered" from COVID-19, including those no longer reporting symptoms, exhibited significant cognitive deficits versus controls when controlling for age, gender, education level, income, racial-ethnic group, pre-existing medical disorders, tiredness, depression and anxiety.