Octopus Overlords

Horseshoe crabs are older than the dinosaurs. They've been around for 450 million years, which means they watched the rise and fall of millions of other species, and survived ice ages.

As well as being incredible 'living fossils', they have also helped to keep most of us alive. If you have ever had a vaccine, chances are that it was tested for safety using horseshoe crab blood. And they're about to save even more lives, because they're playing their part in the creation of a Covid-19 injection.

Horseshoe crab blood is bright blue. It contains important immune cells that are exceptionally sensitive to toxic bacteria. When those cells meet invading bacteria, they clot around it and protect the rest of the horseshoe crab's body from toxins.

Scientists used these clever blood cells to develop a test called Limulus Amebocyte Lysate, or LAL, which checks new vaccines for contamination. This technique has been used all over the world since the 1970s to stop medical professionals giving out jabs full of bad bacteria that could make humans very sick.

It's great for humans, because vaccines save us from all sorts of unwanted diseases, including measles and mumps. It's not so great for the horseshoe crabs: thousands of them are rounded up and bled every year.

FishPants wrote: Sat Apr 24, 2021 7:16 am A doctor up here put together a pretty good explanation of the vaccines and their use, especially near the end when he explains hospitalization rates (Although by his numbers the Jannsen/J&J doesn't seem to prevent serious disease as well as the others):

Keep in mind the video is geared to Canada and the big lag between shots -- it's still worth a watch.

Max Peck wrote: Sat Apr 24, 2021 7:43 am

FishPants wrote: Sat Apr 24, 2021 7:16 am A doctor up here put together a pretty good explanation of the vaccines and their use, especially near the end when he explains hospitalization rates (Although by his numbers the Jannsen/J&J doesn't seem to prevent serious disease as well as the others):

Keep in mind the video is geared to Canada and the big lag between shots -- it's still worth a watch.

Thanks for posting that. I have been trying to explain to some friends why getting AZ now (if they can) is better than waiting to get Pfizer eventually, and the video does a much better job of breaking it down than I ever could.

Ralph-Wiggum wrote: Sat Apr 24, 2021 9:43 am This article about the horseshoe crab/Covid vaccine is better.*

Before the development of LAL, scientists tested the safety of a vaccine, for example, by injecting it into a rabbit. If a rabbit developed a fever or died, they knew the vaccine was unsafe.

That doesn't mean that all horseshoe crabs, which live 20 to 40 years in the wild, survive the bleeding process. The mortality rate ranges from 3% to 15%.

When was the last time we gave nearly a billion doses of anything in 4 months in 200 countries?
Never.
Now add remarkable safety.

jztemple2 wrote: Fri Apr 23, 2021 5:46 pm

stessier wrote: Fri Apr 23, 2021 1:47 pm Edit: That is the royal "your", not addressed to Ralph.

Wouldn't the royal "your" be "ye"?

Ralph-Wiggum wrote: Sat Apr 24, 2021 9:43 am This article about the horseshoe crab/Covid vaccine is better.*




*only because I’m quoted in it.

hitbyambulance wrote:

That doesn't mean that all horseshoe crabs, which live 20 to 40 years in the wild, survive the bleeding process. The mortality rate ranges from 3% to 15%.

Daehawk wrote: Sat Apr 24, 2021 4:47 pm Oh those poor horseshoe crabs! I love those guys. Thats not right.

El Guapo wrote: Wed Apr 21, 2021 10:20 am Yeah, with kids around this only changes so much. It definitely gives an additional comfort that I greatly appreciate. I think it means that we can have our parents over for dinner and whatnot without masks. Otherwise, not a ton.

It does look like there's a decent chance of 12+ becoming eligible this summer, and my daughter will become 12+ this summer, so getting her vaccinated seems within sight. My soon to be 9 YO son...guessing maybe late fall or winter, if testing goes well.

gbasden wrote: Sun Apr 25, 2021 12:36 am

El Guapo wrote: Wed Apr 21, 2021 10:20 am Yeah, with kids around this only changes so much. It definitely gives an additional comfort that I greatly appreciate. I think it means that we can have our parents over for dinner and whatnot without masks. Otherwise, not a ton.

It does look like there's a decent chance of 12+ becoming eligible this summer, and my daughter will become 12+ this summer, so getting her vaccinated seems within sight. My soon to be 9 YO son...guessing maybe late fall or winter, if testing goes well.

I can't tell you how happy I am that my son is 17. He got his first shot last week.

El Guapo wrote: Sat Apr 24, 2021 11:37 pm Got my Pfizer second dose this morning, So far so good. Definitely sore in the relevant arm. Maybe feeling a little something coming on now, but nothing major so I can't really tell if it's psychosomatic or not. Glad to have it done!

Kraken wrote: Sun Apr 25, 2021 9:51 pm A few days ago my nephew got on an aeroplane and went to visit some friends in TN (from Muskegon). He's had his first shot and he's young. But wow, that's waaay over my personal risk tolerance, and if I were TN, I wouldn't have let him in.

LordMortis wrote: Mon Apr 26, 2021 7:29 am Yeah, no. My boss went to Hawaii last week. This is twice she's done this in pandemic era. She owns a property there she needs to take care of so she can retire there. I can't see it but that's me.

LordMortis wrote: Mon Apr 26, 2021 1:02 pm I think she has to so she can rent it out and rentals are going back up up up, as if the battle is over.

Daehawk wrote: Mon Apr 26, 2021 1:21 pm I see all the time where Hawaii is like San Fran...so expensive.

stessier wrote: Mon Apr 26, 2021 9:39 am Today is 2 weeks from my second shot. My 5G reception has never been clearer! My wife hits 2 weeks on Wednesday. Can't wait for 12-16 year olds to become eligible.

Carpet_pissr wrote: Mon Apr 26, 2021 2:19 pm

stessier wrote: Mon Apr 26, 2021 9:39 am Today is 2 weeks from my second shot. My 5G reception has never been clearer! My wife hits 2 weeks on Wednesday. Can't wait for 12-16 year olds to become eligible.

16 year olds have been eligible for at least a month, if not longer. My 16 YO got her second about a week ago.

Lorini wrote:

Daehawk wrote: Mon Apr 26, 2021 1:21 pm I see all the time where Hawaii is like San Fran...so expensive.

Not only is the property expensive but every day things are as well, like groceries. Nope, not living there.

Smoove_B wrote: Mon Apr 26, 2021 8:22 pm Yeah, I was waiting for more reporting and numbers, but that's...not good.

nytimes.com wrote:NEW DELHI — India’s coronavirus second wave is rapidly sliding into a devastating crisis, with hospitals unbearably full, oxygen supplies running low, desperate people dying in line waiting to see doctors — and mounting evidence that the actual death toll is far higher than officially reported.

Each day, the government reports more than 300,000 new infections, a world record, and India is now seeing more new infections than any other country by far, almost half of all new cases in a global surge.

But experts say those numbers, however staggering, represent just a fraction of the real reach of the virus’s spread, which has thrown this country into emergency mode. Millions of people refuse to even step outside — their fear of catching the virus is that extreme. Accounts from around the country tell of the sick being left to gasp for air as they wait at chaotic hospitals that are running out of lifesaving oxygen.

The sudden surge in recent weeks, with an insidious newer variant possibly playing a role, is casting increasing doubt on India’s official Covid-19 death toll of nearly 200,000, with more than 2,000 people dying every day.

Interviews from cremation grounds across the country, where the fires never stop, portray an extensive pattern of deaths far exceeding the official figures. Nervous politicians and hospital administrators may be undercounting or overlooking large numbers of dead, analysts say. And grieving families may be hiding Covid connections as well, out of shame, adding to the confusion in this enormous nation of 1.4 billion.

“It’s a complete massacre of data,” said Bhramar Mukherjee, an epidemiologist at the University of Michigan who has been following India closely. “From all the modeling we’ve done, we believe the true number of deaths is two to five times what is being reported.”

At one of the large cremation grounds in Ahmedabad, a city in the western Indian state of Gujarat, bright orange fires light up the night sky, burning 24 hours a day, like an industrial plant that never shuts down. Suresh Bhai, a worker there, said he had never seen such a never-ending assembly line of death.

But he has not been writing down the cause of death as Covid-19 on the thin paper slips that he hands over to the mournful families, even though the number of dead is surging along with the virus.

“Sickness, sickness, sickness,” Mr. Suresh said. “That’s what we write.”

When asked why, he said it was what he had been instructed to do by his bosses, who did not respond to requests for comment.

apnews.com wrote:NEW DELHI (AP) — With life-saving oxygen in short supply, families are left on their own to ferry people sick with COVID-19 from hospital to hospital in search of treatment as India is engulfed in a devastating surge of infections. Too often, their efforts end in mourning.

On social media and in television footage, desperate relatives plead for oxygen outside hospitals or weep in the street for loved ones who died waiting for treatment.

One woman mourned the death of her younger brother, aged 50. He was turned away by two hospitals and died waiting to be seen at a third, gasping after his oxygen tank ran out and no replacements were to be had.

She blamed Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government for the crisis.

“He has lit funeral pyres in every house,” she cried in a video shot by The Caravan magazine.

For the fourth straight day, India on Sunday set a global daily record of new coronavirus infections, spurred by an insidious new variant that emerged here. The surge has undermined the government’s premature claims of victory over the pandemic.

The 349,691 new infections brought India’s total to more than 16.9 million, behind only the United States. The Health Ministry reported another 2,767 deaths in the past 24 hours, pushing India’s fatalities to 192,311.

The death toll could be a huge undercount, as suspected cases are not included, and many COVID-19 deaths are being attributed to underlying conditions.

The unfolding crisis is most visceral in India’s overwhelmed graveyards and crematoriums, and in heartbreaking images of gasping patients dying on their way to hospitals due to lack of oxygen.

Burial grounds in the capital New Delhi are running out of space. Bright, glowing funeral pyres light up the night sky in other badly hit cities.

In the central city of Bhopal, some crematoriums have increased their capacity from dozens of pyres to more than 50. Yet there are still hours-long waits.

At the city’s Bhadbhada Vishram Ghat crematorium, workers said they cremated more than 110 people on Saturday, even as government figures in the entire city of 1.8 million put the total number of virus deaths at just 10.

“The virus is swallowing our city’s people like a monster,” said Mamtesh Sharma, an official at the site.

The unprecedented rush of bodies has forced the crematorium to skip individual ceremonies and exhaustive rituals that Hindus believe release the soul from the cycle of rebirth.

“We are just burning bodies as they arrive,” said Sharma. “It is as if we are in the middle of a war.”

The head gravedigger at New Delhi’s largest Muslim cemetery, where 1,000 people have been buried during the pandemic, said more bodies are arriving now than last year. “I fear we will run out of space very soon,” said Mohammad Shameem.

The situation is equally grim at unbearably full hospitals, where desperate people are dying in line, sometimes on the roads outside, waiting to see doctors.

Health officials are scrambling to expand critical care units and stock up on dwindling supplies of oxygen. Hospitals and patients alike are struggling to procure scarce medical equipment that’s being sold on the black market at an exponential markup.

The drama is in direct contrast with government claims that “nobody in the country was left without oxygen,” in a statement made Saturday by India’s Solicitor General Tushar Mehta before Delhi High Court.