Coronavirus 666: The Number of the Delta Variant (but in an entirely scientific context)

[BruceVC]

2 hours ago, Gromnir said:

dr. wachter is chair o' the UCSF department o' medicine. 

HA! Good Fun!

 

Its not a very nice view of his realities to want to read....its full of virus hour updates. Its honestly the last thing I want to read about 

[Gorth]

On 1/9/2022 at 7:00 AM, Zoraptor said:

Technically that was just for playing at the Open, not getting into the country. Getting into the country is a Federal matter in Aus, and they're the ones making and enforcing the rules. Still, pretty stupid of the Open organisers not to make it absolutely explicit that that was the case, and there do seem to have been some... flexibility in terms of who the rules were enforced for at the Federal level.

(I don't think there's any doubt that the whole thing was engineered to make Australian PM Scotty F. Marketing look decisive in the run up to an election where the last couple of weeks even had Murdoch press turning on him for his abject failures in dealing with covid. It's just way too convenient a set up)

As petty as it may sound, I firmly believe domestic politics and a mid year federal election plays a major role too. The federal government is the rotten to the core, corrupt Liberal Party with known serial liar as a PM. Victoria is governed by the opposition party, and the two has had a go at each other throughout the pandemic, being at odds constantly (a bit of a mirror of Trump and Demoract governors in the US, where the federal government threatened to withhold vaccine supply from those states),

 

Our beloved (/sarcasm) federal PM, Scott Morrison, who has pretty much bungled everything beyond even the wildest expectations, since disgracing himself with the mishandling of the bush fires (just before covid was a thing), is under a lot of fire for letting rich and famous people travel to and from Australia at will, while Australians are prohibited from doing the same. He's looking to score some brown nosing points with the disgruntled masses at the moment by cherry picking something where he thinks he can do "the right thing" at the expense of the opposition party in Victoria.

 

Edit: Never mind that this train departed a long time ago and covid is all over Australia, including remote outback villages

[Zoraptor]

At this point I'm not really sure why they aren't just allowing everyone back into Australia instead of limiting things. Restrictions make sense when you're covid zero (or covid near zero like us or Western Australia, so fair enough if they don't) but you'd need thousands of cases from returnees a day to make a blip when you're getting in the realm of 100k domestic cases daily.

[Sarex]

7 hours ago, Zoraptor said:

At this point I'm not really sure why they aren't just allowing everyone back into Australia instead of limiting things. Restrictions make sense when you're covid zero (or covid near zero like us or Western Australia, so fair enough if they don't) but you'd need thousands of cases from returnees a day to make a blip when you're getting in the realm of 100k domestic cases daily.

Because it makes it seem like you are doing everything you can.

[BruceVC]

39 minutes ago, Sarex said:

Because it makes it seem like you are doing everything you can.

It looks like Novak will be able to play, I hope so 

[Sarex]

3 hours ago, BruceVC said:

It looks like Novak will be able to play, I hope so 

There is still one final hurdle.

[Malcador]

Would be funny if they do cancel his visa anyway.

[BruceVC]

1 hour ago, Sarex said:

There is still one final hurdle.

Did you watch the interview with his family, they made some good points 

[Malcador]

8 minutes ago, BruceVC said:

Did you watch the interview with his family, they made some good points 

Like he was being tortured? Wonder how Farage inserted himself in this, as well.

Edited January 10, 2022 by Malcador

[BruceVC]

14 minutes ago, Malcador said:

Like he was being tortured? Wonder how Farage inserted himself in this, as well.

Malc I said some good points 

[Gromnir]

have had the covid vaccine(s) for more than a year, nevertheless...

how many believe fox news journalist peter doocy were unaware o' the efficacy o' the vaccine(s) in preventing hospitalizations and deaths before he asked his question?

x17 and x20? 

how many times has the same question been asked and answered? X1000000000?

HA! Good Fun!

 

[rjshae]

I need to visit the DMV () and I'm a bit concerned about having to spend an hour or more waiting in a room full of people while the Omicron variant is raging. To tackle that I just ordered my first pack of N95 disposable masks. Turns out they're pretty pricey; more than $1 per mask. I'm wondering how the government is expecting low income families to afford those? Seems like they're going to end up getting re-used a lot.

[Hurlshort]

My school district is supposed to be getting us the fancy N95 masks soon. Exciting perks of teaching. They are definitely getting re-used, but I don't see how that is a real problem. The main point of the mask seems to be to stop you from spreading your stuff all over, right? So if you wear the same mask over and over again, it is still stopping you from breathing all over everything. I am not Dr. Science, but that is my layman's understanding.

[Guest]

1 hour ago, rjshae said:

I'm wondering how the government is expecting low income families to afford those?

The government?! This is America, home of the free, baby! The glorious free market economy and its all-powerful invisible hand will determine who lives and who dies.

Edited January 13, 2022 by Achilles

[Malcador]

1 hour ago, rjshae said:

I'm wondering how the government is expecting low income families to afford those?

What makes you think they care ?

[Gromnir]

https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/13/politics/biden-omicron-medical-team-deployments/index.html

HA! Good Fun!

[Malcador]

Well, at least they won't have Biden's face or name stamped on it.

[Gromnir]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/in-the-early-days-of-the-pandemic-the-us-government-turned-down-an-offer-to-manufacture-millions-of-n95-masks-in-america/2020/05/09/f76a821e-908a-11ea-a9c0-73b93422d691_story.html

It was Jan. 22, a day after the first case of covid-19 was detected in the United States, and orders were pouring into Michael Bowen’s company outside Fort Worth, some from as far away as Hong Kong.

Bowen’s medical supply company, Prestige Ameritech, could ramp up production to make an additional 1.7 million N95 masks a week. He viewed the shrinking domestic production of medical masks as a national security issue, though, and he wanted to give the federal government first dibs.

“We still have four like-new N95 manufacturing lines,” Bowen wrote that day in an email to top administrators in the Department of Health and Human Services. “Reactivating these machines would be very difficult and very expensive but could be achieved in a dire situation.”

But communications over several days with senior agency officials — including Robert Kad­lec, the assistant secretary for preparedness and emergency response — left Bowen with the clear impression that there was little immediate interest in his offer.

“I don’t believe we as an government are anywhere near answering those questions for you yet,” Laura Wolf, director of the agency’s Division of Critical Infrastructure Protection, responded that same day.

Bowen persisted.

“We are the last major domestic mask company,” he wrote on Jan. 23. “My phones are ringing now, so I don’t ‘need’ government business. I’m just letting you know that I can help you preserve our infrastructure if things ever get really bad. I’m a patriot first, businessman second.”

In the end, the government did not take Bowen up on his offer. Even today, production lines that could be making more than 7 million masks a month sit dormant.

...

Factory equipment that could produce a quarter-million N95 respirator masks a day sits idle at Prestige Ameritech’s factory outside Fort Worth.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/federal-government-spent-millions-to-ramp-up-mask-readiness-but-that-isnt-helping-now/2020/04/03/d62dda5c-74fa-11ea-a9bd-9f8b593300d0_story.html

In September 2018, the Trump administration received detailed plans for a new machine designed to churn out millions of protective respirator masks at high speed during a pandemic.

The plans, submitted to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) by medical manufacturer O&M Halyard, were the culmination of a venture unveiled almost three years earlier by the Obama administration.

But HHS did not proceed with making the machine.

The project was one of two N95 mask ventures — totaling $9.8 million — that the federal government embarked on over the past five years to better prepare for pandemics.

The other involves the development of reusable masks to replace the single-use variety currently so scarce that medical professionals are using theirs over and over. Expert panels have advised the government for at least 14 years that reusable masks were vital.

That effort, like the quick mask machine, has not led to a single new mask for the government’s response.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/investigations/2020/04/02/us-exports-masks-ppe-china-surged-early-phase-coronavirus/5109747002/

The White House and congressional intelligence committees were briefed on the scope and threat of the coronavirus in January and February, but President Donald Trump has not stopped exports of key medical equipment – a move taken by at least 54 other countries so far. 

The data show how U.S. manufacturers stepped up production and cleared out inventory to supply protective medical equipment to China for weeks, even as the threat of the coronavirus became clear. The CDC reported its first case in the United States on Jan. 20. Within the next two weeks, the World Health Organization and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services had declared the disease a public health emergency. 

...

is not so much 'bout the kinda government we got. is not even a party thing. keep in mind it were bush who started a organized effort to get a federal level pandemic response pandemic, and then bush reduced... son reduced father's efforts. post 9/11 and after reading a book about the spanish flu, the younger bush had an epiphany and vast expanded 'pon even his father's efforts. 

https://www.c-span.org/video/?189676-1/national-strategy-pandemic-preparedness

full speech-- worth viewing.

'course obama killed many pandemic programs only to resurrect 'em following the pandemic scares during his administration.

is less 'bout government or economics as is individuals making bad decisions over and over. same kinda government and economics and with different individuals under different circumstances, you got folks looking prescient as 'posed to being ignoramuses. sometimes is same individuals making the bad and good decisions. 

regardless, we coulda'/shoulda' had n95 masks available for americans soon after the pandemic first became recognized. had a plan for such. unlike many nations, we had spent billions in prperation for pandemics, before letting those efforts evaporate. heck, like good americans is s'posed to do, we had developed unique tools to make streamlined ppe possible. unfortunate, once masks became a curiously political issue, then the chance o' government driven efforts to ramp up mask production evaporated. *shrug* too many mistakes repeated. 

free market and democracy doesn't cause the stoopid which leads to most real problems. people is stoopid and people is ubiquitous. 

HA! Good Fun!

[Hurlshort]

1 hour ago, Malcador said:

Well, at least they won't have Biden's face or name stamped on it.

Missed opportunity, there. They should have printed Let's Go Brandon just to see if they can trick the other side inot wearing them.

[Gromnir]

5 minutes ago, Hurlsnot said:

They should have printed Let's Go Brandon just to see if they can trick the other side inot wearing them.

have seen those, but they is ordinarily emblazoned with stars and stripes and include bullet-sized holes to make mockery o' masking guidelines.

never underestimate the capacity o' people to self harm.

HA! Good Fun!

ps edited failed link

Edited January 13, 2022 by Gromnir

[rjshae]

17 minutes ago, Hurlsnot said:

Missed opportunity, there. They should have printed Let's Go Brandon just to see if they can trick the other side inot wearing them.

That's already a thing.

[Gfted1]

Huh, I have a box of 50 (or is it 100?) N95 masks around here. I use them when I scoop the cat boxes because the litter makes me sneeze something fierce if I dont. Theres also a 32 gallon trash bag full of new ones at my office.  But mostly I just use my cloth one when Im out and about.

[Hurlshort]

20 minutes ago, Gfted1 said:

Huh, I have a box of 50 (or is it 100?) N95 masks around here. I use them when I scoop the cat boxes because the litter makes me sneeze something fierce if I dont. Theres also a 32 gallon trash bag full of new ones at my office.  But mostly I just use my cloth one when Im out and about.

As a person who wears glasses, I really struggled with the ones that aren't cloth. But with the recent rise, I've committed to wearing surgical masks in class and just not being able to see well. 

[rjshae]

I wonder if anybody here has tried an anti-fog spray for their glasses?

[Gromnir]

Fact Check-CDC study found that over 75% of COVID-19 deaths in vaccinated people were among those with at least 4 comorbidities

posting 'cause am suspecting the folks confused 'bout comorbidities this time is same folks who were confused previous.

which segues perfect.

so, n95s for cat box cleaning and cloth masks for being around other human beings.

okie dokie.

...

it's kinda amazing the US managed to get even 60% o' the population vaccinated given the level o' pervasive yutzery.

HA! Good Fun!