Are the Aboriginal people there voluntarily, or not?
Where should the line be drawn, i.e., what level of restrictive measures could not be justified by a simple appeal to differences in per capita death rates from a single cause?
> Given that a lot of the COVID morbidity and mortality is the cytokine storm rather than the infection itself, I wouldn't consider it a priori clear that Vitamin D helps, is neutral, or harms patients who get COVID.
> This is not as strong a conclusion as it first sounds, for two reasons.
1. This says nothing about Vitamin D as a cure once you got infected. It might work, or it might not, but this study simply does not address the question at all.
Huh? Everyone I know who thinks vitamin D might be helpful says you need to supplement with it on a consistent, ongoing basis, not try to take big catch-up doses once you get sick or wind up in the hospital. Given how safe and cheap it is (and that adequate vitamin D levels may be associated with a range of other improved health outcomes as well), even a 25% reduction in those risks would be a big deal.
> Should it be necessary, Pfizer and BioNTech would be able to redesign their shot within 6 weeks and ship initial batches within 100 days, BioNTech added.
That's cool, I had COVID and like 99.95% of people my age and BMI had a completely mild case, and I don't have a head of state hysterically laughing as she explains to me how I can get my basic freedoms back by taking shots manufactured by private for-profit concerns.
Will be very interesting to see where the death rate comparison goes when NZ opens up. If it ever does.
I call this the "No True Lockdown" argument. If they fail to indefinitely prevent significant outbreaks (and in nearly every case they have), well, it just means they weren't implemented soon enough. Even if they drag on for weeks and months with zero cases, only to have an outbreak at the slightest loosening of restrictions. I guess the idea is that if the entire world did this at once the virus would disappear? Completely unworkable, and almost surely false, given the existence of animal reservoirs.
Your entire framing of these policy choices as inevitable and the only option is baseless. Australia and New Zealand used to be held up as the shining lights of "just act fast enough and you can avoid the need for any sustained restrictions" and now we are seeing just how well kicking the can in that way actually works, and the lengths that must be gone to keep kicking it.
Every one of these language toolbox books should come with a disclaimer for new devs up front about how the mark of a good craftsmen is knowing when to use the tools, when to bend or break their rules and guidelines, etc. I know it certainly might have saved me a fair bit of grief and oddly written code.
In most countries there is also a delay between when people are moved from the "unvaccinated" to "vaccinated" category -- e.g. two weeks post second Pfizer/Moderna dose in the U.S. Those who take only one dose and then do not take the second (for whatever reason) remain in the "unvaccinated" group. It would be interesting to see how this would affect the picture in their model in combination with (or independent from) delayed death reporting.
It's such a nice, tiny step down the slippery slope from "prioritize the vaccinated" to "prioritize the 3x/4x/.../10x boostered," and then "prioritize the people who will indefinitely socially isolate themselves."
Before 2020 and this bizarre invented notion of an individual responsibility to avoid a contagious respiratory disease, an statement like "don't give medical care to people who do bad thing X" was commonly understood to be a fascist line of argument.
> Thinking that we’ll be able to achieve some kind of threshold where there’ll be no more transmission of infections may not be possible,” Jones acknowledged last week to members of a panel that advises the CDC on vaccines.
Vaccines have been quite effective at preventing cases of COVID-19 that lead to severe illness and death, but none has proved reliable at blocking transmission of the virus, Jones noted. Recent evidence has also made clear that the immunity provided by vaccines can wane in a matter of months.
The result is that even if vaccination were universal, the coronavirus would probably continue to spread.
Art Bell was probably a sort of proto-Alex Jones, i.e. a controlled and managed outlet for parapolitical topics and a way to mix up the truth with a hefty dose of misinfo and shitcoating.
Mae Brussell's entire back catalog is easy to find if you're looking for something along these lines without the compromised elements. Dave Emory also has a massive library and is still going strong, doing great work on the origins of SARS-CoV-2 in particular. For modern-day parapolitical podcasts there's The Liminalist, Subliminal Jihad, The Farm, Psyop Cinema, and many others.
The newsworthy development and actual change in policy was to pull Moderna for certain demographics. Pfizer has always been recommended for them. Reuters is whitewashing a little with the headline.
The ellipsis seems to imply something else. Is there anything else or have we enumerated them exhaustively?
I know at least a couple of nurses who were able to get around the flu shot requirements, probably because it was pretty well understood they only reduce transmission marginally at best.
Where should the line be drawn, i.e., what level of restrictive measures could not be justified by a simple appeal to differences in per capita death rates from a single cause?