Coronavirus Crisis: Main Thread

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Re: Coronavirus Crisis: Main Thread

Postby DrEvil » Thu Sep 09, 2021 5:26 pm

Joe Hillshoist » Thu Sep 09, 2021 2:42 pm wrote:
DrEvil » 06 Sep 2021 07:15 wrote:
thrulookingglass » Sun Sep 05, 2021 7:08 pm wrote:"So lockdown laws are unjustifiable" merely opinion. Liberties are assumed not granted. I don't know what country you live in but here in America a minor inconvenience by ending public seating at restaurants, bars, less gatherings and sporting events were the incredible infringement on our feigned "liberties". Not warrantless wire taps, not an end to habeas corpus for "terror suspects", not no knock warrants, and not the use of torture as a means of reprisal that suspended our "liberties" but masks, vaccines and a shamefully perfidious president who fiddled while the world burnt. There are responsibilities here and they get more and more significant when we IGNORE them! WE SPREAD THIS FIRE OF EVIL UPON ONE ANOTHER! Slough off obligations to one another has left this world putrefied! And while you look to poke holes in other person's scientific investigations the world smolders just the same. The rise of the (brutal) nation-states as a force to spoil the souls of men with dreams of outlandish trinkets and perverse worship of violent rule is the grave we dig deeper every day. THEY'RE SPORTS TEAMS YOU FOOLS! Don the jersey of your favorite country. The virus of hatred and damnation towards our fellow human beings has NOT been addressed but prospers more and more each day!

There ARE masks that work but capitalist commerce is unwilling to produce them without PROFIT! The obscenity of money worship meanders on. And the masses can't have their imagined "inalienable rights" that slave owners spilled on parchment that exist only in their minds infringed upon. Take to the streets with rifles while the government reads every correspondence you send!

Only love heals. Compassion. Forbearance. Humility.

How long shall we steer this ship into a merciless storm and blame the raging waves we arrogantly plowed into for destroying our riggings?

"When life gets hard you have to change" - Shannon Hoon


You forgot one: the new abortion law in Texas (plus the other six states who think it's awesome and wants to replicate it). Bounties for snitching on pregnant women (and anyone who helps them) if they get an abortion after week six, with no exceptions for rape or incest, approved by the god damn supreme court, and not a peep from anyone here. I guess half the population of Texas losing their bodily autonomy is no big deal compared to the horror of having to wear a piece of cloth.

I wonder what the reaction would have been if there was a $10000 payout for snitching on the unvaccinated.


SLAD, Willow and a few others would have been screaming about that if they were still around.

Yay. Texass. Freedumb.


I imagine they're still screaming about it, just not here.

And yes, freedumb, but only if you're white and male. But don't worry, the governor has a solution: he's going to eliminate rapists in Texas! That way all the unwanted pregnancies are the women's own fault and they can have their bodily autonomy stripped with no moral qualms. Except rich, white women, obviously. They'll go on "vacation" out of state. Laws are only for the little people.

See also: the Sacklers, who just managed to finagle lifetime immunity for themselves. Next time I'm in court I'm going to try that tactic: Yes your honor, I did rob that bank for a million dollars, but I'm willing to hand back a hundred thousand of it in exchange for lifetime immunity for myself, my family and all my friends from prosecution for this and any future bank robberies we may commit.

At this rate they're going to put The Onion out of business.
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Re: Coronavirus Crisis: Main Thread

Postby Belligerent Savant » Thu Sep 09, 2021 6:08 pm

.

When shining a laser pointer at a wall the cat always falls for it.

See, certain things are worth roasting and calling out, but not the fucking dinosaur in the living room, head and neck smashed through the roof. Just walk around the rubble to stare at -- and chase! -- the moving red dot on the wall.
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Re: Coronavirus Crisis: Main Thread

Postby Belligerent Savant » Thu Sep 09, 2021 6:41 pm

@galexybrane

The people who spent 4 years hysterically calling Trump a fascist are now fully supporting Biden’s open authoritarianism and blatant scapegoating. A vocal segment of the population has become obsessed with following orders and harassing others into compliance. This is dangerous.

6:28 PM · Sep 9, 2021

https://twitter.com/galexybrane/status/ ... 70698?s=20

History rhymes.
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Re: Coronavirus Crisis: Main Thread

Postby Harvey » Thu Sep 09, 2021 7:25 pm

Belligerent Savant » Thu Sep 09, 2021 11:41 pm wrote:
@galexybrane

The people who spent 4 years hysterically calling Trump a fascist are now fully supporting Biden’s open authoritarianism and blatant scapegoating. A vocal segment of the population has become obsessed with following orders and harassing others into compliance. This is dangerous.

6:28 PM · Sep 9, 2021

https://twitter.com/galexybrane/status/ ... 70698?s=20

History rhymes.


If only there were something to compare this to. I suppose it's unprecedented.
And while we spoke of many things, fools and kings
This he said to me
"The greatest thing
You'll ever learn
Is just to love
And be loved
In return"


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Re: Coronavirus Crisis: Main Thread

Postby Harvey » Thu Sep 09, 2021 7:36 pm

Stay the fuck asleep? Probably for the best.

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This he said to me
"The greatest thing
You'll ever learn
Is just to love
And be loved
In return"


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Re: Coronavirus Crisis: Main Thread

Postby Joe Hillshoist » Thu Sep 09, 2021 10:30 pm

Belligerent Savant » 10 Sep 2021 08:08 wrote:.

When shining a laser pointer at a wall the cat always falls for it.

See, certain things are worth roasting and calling out, but not the fucking dinosaur in the living room, head and neck smashed through the roof. Just walk around the rubble to stare at -- and chase! -- the moving red dot on the wall.


Why is one form of bodily autonomy worth screaming about but another isn't?

Also why did you bold that bit about mutations circulating in the healthy population vs ones circulating among the sick that I quoted? You know that isn't how it works don't you?
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Re: Coronavirus Crisis: Main Thread

Postby Belligerent Savant » Fri Sep 10, 2021 1:06 am

.

You're misinterpreting my point. The point is you -- or rather, the intended targets -- are being misdirected without much effort. And those that are being misdirected in this instance, however justifiable this other wrong may be, largely are not applying the same measure of criticism to another wrong, which is unprecedented in certain key respects and affects all humans globally.

With respect to the excerpt of the article Re: mutations. I don't believe you're interpreting it as the author intended. My read was that he was referring to environmental/health factors that contribute to greater potential for more severe symptoms/spread among certain more vulnerable groups.
But you opted not to read the rest of that piece -- prematurely, in my view. Perhaps you can offer a more meaningful commentary after reading the entire piece rather than drive-by snipes at a small portion of a whole.

Or instead, you (and others) would be better served directing informed opinions towards this latest piece from Vanden Bossche. Damning content, even if only a portion bears out, particularly given the news earlier out of the WH.

https://www.geertvandenbossche.org/post/the-last-post

slightly trimmed at certain parts; it's lengthy:

Who’s wrong, who’s right?

These are the key points one has to understand to be able to capture the never-ending discussion on whether or not mass vaccination campaigns work

1. Pandemics are by definition not static but dynamic events

2. Pandemics have both detrimental and beneficial effects (e.g., waves of morbidity & death and generation of herd immunity, respectively) that are phased in time

3. Pandemic waves hit populations of different age groups at different points in time

4. Normally (I should say: ‘naturally’), a pandemic starts with some bad news (a number of lives are lost) and ends with plenty of good news (all of the population protected by herd immunity)

This already illustrates that any assessment made during the course of a pandemic can only be a snapshot as long as the pandemic has not reached its ‘natural’ end station (which is herd immunity). As a result, one might erroneously assume that pandemic is over when the first wave ends with a steep decline in morbidity and mortality rates. That happens when someone doesn’t understand that herd immunity (HI) cannot be achieved if the number of vulnerable people who recovered from the disease and acquired robust immunity is too small. That is why - after the first wave - the virus launches a new attack. This results in an additional part of the population (i.e., younger age groups) contracting the disease. Survivors of that 2nd attack will build life-long protective immunity too and, thereby, further contribute to building herd immunity. The mechanism that allows the virus to proceed with its offensive, step-by-step strategy is sophisticated, as repeatedly explained in previous contributions of mine. Several waves can take place before the resulting immunological capacity of the population will suffice to establish full-fledged HI and hence, to control viral transmission.

It’s important to note that a high background level of innate population-level immunity will prevent the virus from wiping out a whole population. Part of this immunological capacity will be eroded as the infectious pressure rises; however, it will subsequently be replaced by robust, naturally acquired immunity when people who became vulnerable recover from the disease. This mechanism enables the host population to keep the virus under control while – in return - providing the virus with a renewable reservoir for asymptomatic transmission (i.e., by virtue of asymptomatically infected people). This is how Sars-CoV-2 could have become endemic. Under such circumstances, short-lived (i.e., self-limiting) outbreaks may intermittently occur when the innate immune defense of a sufficient number of previously asymptomatically infected subjects becomes sufficiently suppressed, for example as a result of high infectious pressure (e.g., due to crowding). So, nature has shaped the interaction between the virus and the population in ways that provide a homeostatic balance between protective HI on one hand and virus survival on the other.

Let’s now consider the additional impact of human intervention on the Sars-CoV-2 pandemic. Human intervention too may have both detrimental and beneficial effects which may be age-dependent as well and equally evolve over time. More importantly, influences from human intervention will interfere with those caused by the evolutionary dynamics of a natural pandemic. Infection prevention measures may, for example, have a beneficial short-time effect in that they diminish viral transmission and, therefore, reduce morbidity rates in vulnerable people (i.e., primarily in the elderly). In the longer run, however, they may lead to insufficient training of innate immune mechanisms, which would primarily become manifest in those who primarily rely on innate immunity as a first line of immune defense (i.e., children). Likewise, mass vaccination campaigns may have a beneficial short-time effect in that they reduce viral spread and protect vulnerable people from disease (e.g., elderly people and those with underlying disease), but will eventually drive the propagation of more infectious variants. Dominant circulation of the latter will lead to a resurgence of viral infectious pressure, thereby eroding the innate immune defense of the unvaccinated (i.e., mostly younger age groups including children) and thus making them more susceptible to contracting Covid-19 disease. This already explains why mass vaccination campaigns conducted in the middle of a pandemic will only cause Sars-CoV-2 to engender more disease and claim more human lives. Because of this mass vaccination program, waves of morbidity will continue for much longer, as more (recovery from) disease cases will be required to compensate for the erosion of the population’s innate immunity and, therefore, to make up for the latter’s deficient contribution to HI.

When one considers that all of these effects, whether beneficial or detrimental, will mutually interfere and that the average of population segments that are adversely or favorably affected by the overall impact of this multifactorial phenomenon will shift over time, it can become very complex and challenging to elucidate whether any single human influence has a beneficial or detrimental impact. It all depends on what ‘endpoint’ (e.g., protection against infection versus protection against disease) one is looking at in which part of the population at which stage of the pandemic and within which environmental context. On the other hand, the extent of infection-prevention measures, the distribution of vaccine coverage rates and the time point of emergence of new dominant circulating variants and their level of infectiousness may dramatically differ between countries/ regions and so will the corresponding ‘snapshot’ results recorded for a particular country/ region.

This is why experts currently look at the impact of mass vaccination campaigns either as at a glass that is half full (‘the vaccines work’!) or one that is half empty (‘the vaccines don’t work well enough’). That is precisely THE issue: A vaccine that only prevents hospitalizations and severe Covid-19 disease is not good enough to be used to combat a pandemic. From a global or even public health perspective, these are, therefore, not the right criteria to evaluate the success of mass vaccination campaigns deployed during a pandemic. Using these criteria as an indicator of the level of control over the pandemic will inevitably lead to a further escalation of this morbidity and mortality rates. There should be no doubt that non-transmission-blocking vaccines (i.e., so-called ‘leaky’ or ‘imperfect’ vaccines) can never ever control a pandemic, even though they may temporarily protect against disease. Only temporarily? Yes, indeed. Given the globally increasing immune pressure and concomitant infectious viral pressure, genomic epidemiologists have no doubt that this pandemic roller coaster will not stop before it takes us over the cliff into the abyss of complete viral resistance to anti-spike (S) antibodies. That is where all runaway trains of the different ongoing pandemics of highly infectious variants will be coming together and converge into a big whirl where they can no longer be distinguished from one another. The first stages of this evolution is what we now begin to see in countries which have already massively vaccinated their population (e.g., Israel). There is no doubt that other countries like the United Kingdom and the United States will soon go down the same path. Due to increasing resistance to neutralizing anti-S antibodies (Abs), these countries are now even beginning to shift from a primarily beneficial (i.e., less susceptible to severe disease) to a primarily detrimental effect (more susceptible to severe disease) in the vaccinated as compared to the unvaccinated (https://www.gov.uk/government/publicati ... n-20201201).

The current situation is highly problematic as ALL segments of the population will dramatically suffer from a situation where anti-S Abs still bind strongly enough to suppress the vaccinee’s innate immune response against non-mutable, highly conserved Coronavirus (CoV) motifs while no longer being able to sufficiently neutralize highly infectious variants. Instead, poor binding affinity of anti-RBD (receptor-binding domain) Abs to Sars-CoV-2 S protein as a result of mutations in the N-terminal domain (NTD) could tip the scale in favor of infection-enhancing Abs and thereby make vaccinees prone to suffering Ab-dependent enhancement (ADE) of Covid-19 disease (1) (Liu et al., 2021; Yahi N et al., 2021).

Viral resistance to these S-specific Abs is a terrifying thought as spike protein is not only required but sufficient for enabling CoV infectiousness and pathogenicity (Belouzard S, 2012; Weiss and Navas-Martin, 2005). This underscores the importance for each and every Public Health authority to look beyond the end of their nose to understand where this train is heading instead of focusing on intermediate stations (snapshots!) that – in contrast to the end station - look extremely different depending on a number of population-specific environmental and human influences.

...

Conclusively, mass vaccination campaigns during a pandemic of highly infectious variants fail to control viral transmission. Instead of contributing to building HI, they dramatically delay natural establishment of HI (Vanden Bossche, August 2021). This is why the ongoing universal vaccination campaigns are absolutely detrimental to public and global health.

Separating the wheat from the chaff

The above examples already illustrate why it is so critical to separate the wheat from the chaff and to not even consider advice from people, sometimes even scientists, who have no profound understanding of the dynamics of host-pathogen interactions. They are simply unable to understand that the outcome of these interactions continuously evolves as a result of changing infectious viral pressure due to changing environmental conditions. People, no matter their names and reputation, who are not knowledgeable in the fields of immunology, virology, vaccinology and evolutionary biology/ epidemiology are, therefore, not a good source for information or advice. This particularly applies to politicians. The vast majority of them are not only scientifically illiterate but they are typically also unable or unwilling to work in a mid- or long-term perspective. Because they have no understanding whatsoever of the evolutionary dynamics of this pandemic, they simply do not understand that the rise in cases of disease currently observed in a number of European countries as well as in the US is due to enhanced circulation of more infectious variants that enjoy exceptional training as mass vaccination only increases the immune pressure exerted by the overall population. Their simplistic reasoning make them conclude that vaccinating the unvaccinated (i.e., younger age groups and children) is going to solve the problem, whereas each and every independent (!) knowledgeable expert understands that this is only going to further raise the population-level immune pressure on viral infectiousness and, therefore, promote the adaptation of additional mutations that will eventually enable full neutralization escape of circulating, highly infectious variants (Vanden Bossche, June 2021).

Are my peers from the Vaccine Industry not allowed to engage in a scientific discussion, or maybe not even allowed to talk at all?

It was no later than early March 2021 when, in response to my call urging all Global Health organizations and influential regulatory agencies to stop mass vaccination, that I received a reply of one of the most renown vaccinologists on this planet, a true icon in the field of vaccinology. He was courageous enough to share that I was right and that these vaccines would basically only breed new variants but that it would not be worth going against the current because people would not listen. That is when I realized that a narrative started to circulate that used whatever possible tools in trying to invalidate and destroy any argument that scrutinizes the rationale behind the mass vaccination program, even though it could be predicted for a fact by any experienced vaccinologist that such an experiment would not lead to a happy end, and certainly not to herd immunity. If this person spoke out, neither the WHO nor any other international or public health organization would have had a choice other than to give the mass vaccination program at least a second thought. It’s likely, however, that the top vaccinologists on the globe appeared to think it was more prudent to keep quiet while hoping they could soon make up for the bad start by designing a ‘smarter’ approach for a second-generation vaccine.

I’ve been trained in vaccinology in the Vaccine Industry. So, isn’t it surprising that I am not receiving any feedback from my previous peers on any of the several articles I shared so far? It usually just takes a single message on MSM or in an email before you get connected for an exchange on a topic of mutual interest. Are all of them all of a sudden bound to a code of silence? I don’t know. I am only finding that among the many messages I am receiving on a daily basis, not a single one comes from the Vaccine Industry. However, these are the people who’re most knowledgeable about vaccines and the impact they have at a population level. Only the Vaccine industry can afford to pay the very best vaccinologists, immunologists, epidemiologists and virologists on this planet and bring them together around one and the same table. I cannot rid myself of the impression that none of them is even allowed to speak or to even share any kind of comment on social media. So, I feel like I am wasting my time talking to scientific illiterate “fact-checkers” or people who have no hands-on experience in vaccinology. But no matter how hard the “fact-checkers” try to debunk my scientific arguments, all of them ended up retreating with tails tucked firmly between their legs. Not that I am considering this as a compliment: Their background in immunology, virology, vaccinology or evolutionary biology does not usually suffice to grasp the complexity of the evolutionary dynamics of this pandemic which is now increasingly shaped by man. Some of these “fact-checkers” are MDs or even professors who merely rely on their title or reputation for gaining sufficient confidence to extrapolate their knowledge to fields of science in which they are anything but knowledgeable about. Names of some of the most arrogant ones can be found on my website; they will forever be engraved in my memory.

For lack of an open discussion with experts from the Vaccine Industry, some academics and self-appointed colleagues from the classical pharmaceutical Industry have stepped in to present their statements and arguments on why mass vaccinations are not a good idea. Unfortunately, they have not always brought the correct arguments to the table, primarily for lack of understanding of immunology. Some have suggested that herd immunity is already well established as a result of cross-immunity between Sars-CoV-2 and other CoVs, or that T-cell based immunity would prevent the virus from evading vaccine-induced immunity or that it would only make sense to massively vaccinate the elderly or vulnerable people. I fundamentally disagree with all of these statements as I have previously explained in several of my social media posts.

Lack of scientific consolidation of the arguments that have been advanced to counter mass vaccination campaigns has only added to the confusion of the broader public and been grist to the mill for fact checkers. Indeed, it’s not that the latter are only devoid of any relevant scientific background in this field, they are - more than anything else - executing on a political agenda and paid for undermining the credibility of independent scientists and ridiculing their scientific arguments. Their vicious tactics are tailored to the level of understanding of the broader public and targeted at amplifying the current short-sighted narrative and spreading the mantra of mass vaccination, no matter what.


The ever-changing narrative (see table at the bottom) and the never happening opportunity for an open scientific debate

Initially, people were told that ‘the more you vaccinate, the more you will prevent mutants from being generated and the less more infectious variants will spread’. This mantra proved miserably wrong as not only viral spread has increased in a number of countries despite very high vaccine coverage rates but it has now also become clear that the vaccinated spread the virus as much as the unvaccinated do (whereas it is even highly likely that vaccinees are a more important source of transmission of naturally selected, highly infectious variants (3)). Sadly enough, even a number of MDs have joined the club of fact checkers and have been taking advantage of their titles and reputation to divulgate simplistic and erroneous interpretations of the effect of mass vaccination campaigns. I cannot emphasize enough that, although none of them combine sufficient knowledge of virology, immunology, vaccinology and evolutionary biology to be able to understand what is driving the evolution of these pandemics towards a disastrous outcome, they have engaged in vilifying attacks that excelled in arrogance but were never built on solid scientific grounds. As if none of this were sufficient, TV channels and MSM have blindly supported the destructive rhetoric of plenty of substandard fact checkers instead of providing a forum for an open scientific debate. Furthermore, the travel and meeting restrictions that come with the Covid-19 crisis have made it very difficult to align and organize our science-based defense against the irrational and offensive mass vaccination campaigns. This is just another obstacle which makes it even more challenging to share and consolidate our findings and analyses with peers and other scientists.

All of this has only added to the confusion of those who initially saw themselves confronted with the difficult choice between getting the shot or letting it pass but are now often pressured to getting jabbed for risk of losing their job.

My story won’t end like Don Quixote's fight with the windmills…

Of course, if none of our arguments is taken seriously, if any offer for an open public debate gets declined, if we’re only getting insulted, vilified and humiliated, if all counter-arguments are targeted at undermining our credibility, if independent scientists are being played for fools and end up being censored and silenced on all MSMs, one has no choice but to hope that ‘the people’ will finally wake up, start to do their own research and rely on their common sense before taking an informed decision on how to react to this crisis.

As an independent expert, I have come to the conclusion that if stakeholders override the emergency brake, it is better to concentrate on solutions for when the crash takes place. The wake-up shock is unlikely to occur before the percentage of Covid-19 disease and death in vaccinees largely exceeds that observed in the unvaccinated group in at least several of the ‘model’ countries (let’s hope that by then we will still have an unvaccinated control group). Such an observation would indicate that the virus has largely escaped from neutralization by vaccine-induced Abs. Given the speed at which the virus is currently evolving, one cannot imagine that we will go through another winter before viral resistance will have occurred in a number of countries with high vaccine coverage rates.

One can always do more, write more articles, bring more scientific evidence to the table, do more interviews and podcasts, reply to more questions and destroy more of the non-sense divulgated by scientifically incompetent experts or illiterate fact checkers. However, I’ve decided to not continue along this path as I knew from the very start that this big alliance of stakeholders would not listen and as the primary purpose of my endeavors has always been to share, as broadly as possible, my scientific insights on why this experiment is an incredible blunder, so that none the involved experts, key opinion leaders, public health authorities or peers from Industry could ever pretend that this was unknown and simply unpredictable (as they tend to say: ‘Nobody has a crystal ball’!).

I am a seasoned vaccinologist and have gone several times against groupthink, which, unfortunately, also happens in science. My upper management didn’t want to listen to me when about 15 years ago I predicted that a Herpes simplex virus type-2 (HSV-2) vaccine candidate would not protect against infection and only turn vaccinees into asymptomatic carriers (much as Covid-19 vaccines do), who could then inadvertently transmit genital herpes disease to their partner. I deliberately quit my position as project manager of that project as I considered the candidate vaccine an unethical immune intervention. Similar things happened when I was working with GAVI and pointed out that the results of the phase III Ebola vaccine trials conducted by WHO and published in a peer-reviewed journal were falsely concluding that the vaccine had an efficacy of 100%. As everyone will appreciate from the scientific report posted on my website, the truth looked extremely different.

I am getting vilified for pretending to have a crystal ball (which, in fact, I never did) whereas ‘nobody could reasonably predict the outcome of this pandemic’. To me, such allegations simply illustrate that many of our experts and scientists, even including a substantial number of renowned professors, are so stuck within their small silos that they have simply lost touch with reality. As I previously stated (see my article: Separating the wheat from the chaff), analyzing a pandemic is essentially about putting the pieces of a complex, multidisciplinary puzzle together. It’s not primarily about biological stamp collection of molecular details and the accumulation of ever-growing data sets within an isolated scientific discipline. A handful of very different pieces that match well together will often provide more insight than tons of pieces that don’t match. That’s the approach I’ve followed all along and which I’ve used to extensively predict the outcome of this pandemic, i.e., before and after complete viral resistance to anti-S antibodies will have occurred. I am not changing any of my predictions. However, one should not fall prey to frustration about the downfall of science, or to anger about all of the ongoing injustice, or to fear for the upcoming escalation of this crisis. Instead, I’ve decided to convert all of this negative energy and influences into fine-tuning and further developing a more rational and scientifically ‘healthy’ approach to educating our immune system on how to fight a diversified spectrum of highly infectious Sars-CoV-2 variants and, more generally, on how to enable its preparedness to future pandemics (see below).

Working towards rational solutions

As HI is no longer considered within reach (in fact, it should never have been!), there is no longer a clear-cut goal for conducting the mass vaccination program. Without such a goal, there can be no strategy either to get to the endgame and bring a panoply of highly contagious circulating variants under control. Currently, we’re witnessing a variety of complex, mostly scientifically irrational, tactics that countries are using in a desperate attempt to extinguish or avoid the never-ending pandemic waves. None of our political leaders or policymakers seems to even understand that the word pandemic relates to an infectious disease that spreads across multiple continents or worldwide. So, instead of collaborating on a strategic global plan, each of them seeks to hunting down the virus locally.

So, let’s summarize the major issues associated with mass vaccination campaigns to then reflect on how we could remedy them knowing that mass vaccination campaigns may not stop any time soon.

From a purely public health perspective, the negative consequences of the ongoing mass vaccination campaigns can be summarized as follows:

1. Instead of forcing the virus into endemicity, mass vaccination campaigns will force more infectious viral variants into adaptation to the viral environment (i.e., the host[ile] population’s immune defense). This is to say that these campaigns will eventually drive dominant propagation of super variants that are not only highly infectious but that also increasingly resist vaccine-induced neutralizing Abs and could even be more virulent

2. Erosion of innate immune defense in the non-vaccinated (due to high infectious pressure exerted by enhanced circulation of more infectious variants)

3. Erosion of naturally acquired immunity (due to increasing viral resistance to neutralizing S-specific Abs)

4. 2) and 3) combined prevent herd immunity from being established

Given all of these detrimental consequences, the question arises as to how on earth will we protect the human population from Covid-19 disease when the vaccines themselves will no longer be able to do so?

The answer is simple: Via herd immunity!

But how on earth can we build HI after the vaccines will precisely have prevented herd immunity from being established (due to erosion of both, naturally acquired and innate immunity as a direct (4) or indirect (5) consequence of mass vaccination, respectively)?

So, this comes down to asking ourselves the question as to how the population can build HI if it will have to start from scratch and is now even facing viral variants that are far more infectious, and potentially even more virulent, than the virus which circulated at the outset of this pandemic.

Here comes the answer:

- Early treatment of people showing first sign and symptoms will result in enhanced rates of recovery from disease and, therefore, raise the number of people who develop life-long protective immunity against the viral variant they got infected with as well as against a diversified spectrum of other, more infectious circulating variants. Enhanced recovery rates will, therefore, contribute to building HI. This particularly applies when a large percentage of the population becomes highly susceptible to Covid-19 disease. Starting multidrug treatment at an early enough stage of the disease may, however, become much more challenging when dealing with ADE.

- Mass antiviral treatment with whatever drug that effectively reduces viral infectious pressure. This will prevent innate Abs in previously asymptomatically infected individuals from being suppressed by short-lived, S-specific Abs and thus, enable the healthy, unvaccinated part of the population to deal with all Sars-CoV-2 variants. Such mass antiviral campaigns may need to include pets and live-stock (6) and be combined lockdown rules for as long as titers of these short-lived Abs are measurable (i.e., 6-8 weeks). In addition, healthy unvaccinated individuals are likely to contribute to further reducing viral infectious pressure as has recently been observed in the UK shortly after it opened up its society and economy following a period of lockdown rules (7). The higher the fraction of the unvaccinated population, the more ‘more infectious’ immune escape variants face competition from circulating less infectious variants (8) and the more dominant circulation of more infectious variants can be attenuated.

- As Sars-CoV-2 is notorious for causing high viral shedding in the upper respiratory tract at an early stage of infection and has a high proportion of transmission even in pre‐symptomatic and asymptomatic individuals (9), the above measures are unlikely to succeed in sufficiently reducing transmission among healthy individuals. Asymptomatic Sars-CoV-2 transmission may become problematic in that it could result in regular outbreaks, especially in areas with higher population density (e.g., in cities) or at times where people have close physical contact (e.g., when they live more indoors during winter or at mass gatherings). A durable control of the pandemic will, therefore, ultimately require an immune intervention that is able to prevent infection in all age groups that are naturally susceptible to Covid-19 disease (10) (those are likely to include some age groups < 65 years due to the high level of innate immune suppression exerted by highly infectious circulating variants). As long as such an immune intervention is not available, antiviral chemoprophylaxis may need to be repeated at regular intervals. However, antiviral chemoprophylaxis should not be considered a long-term strategy since overuse of any antiviral compound could potentially promote viral resistance to it. It will, therefore, be critical to closely monitor viral infection rates and restart antiviral chemoprophylaxis as soon as a new surge in cases is about to start.

Re-thinking vaccinology: Act universally, think NK Cells?

Because a durable control of the pandemic may not be possible without preventing infection in all age groups that are naturally susceptible to Covid-19 disease, I’ll start to focus my efforts - more than ever before - on advancing vaccine research work on NK cell vaccines. I remain convinced that this is the only human intervention possible to provide a durable and universal immune protection against a panoply of highly infectious, circulating Sars-CoV-2 variants while also ensuring preparedness to other future potential pandemics.

No single S-based vaccine will succeed in controlling this pandemic because the spike protein is highly mutable and universal vaccination using S-based vaccines during a CoV pandemic will only promote propagation of naturally selected, more infectious immune escape variants as the latter become increasingly well trained to reproduce when exposed to widespread S-directed immune pressure exerted by a massively vaccinated population. There is no way that any S-based vaccine could block viral transmission in the context of mass vaccination during a pandemic. As the spike protein is not only required but even sufficient for viral infectiousness, even inclusion of other conventional, i.e., foreign-centered, proteins in the vaccine formulation is not going to prevent more infectious variants from being selected and expanding in prevalence.

NK cell-based vaccines are the only type of vaccines that could conceivably prevent immune escape upon use in vaccination campaigns conducted during a pandemic. This is because NK cell vaccines are capable of targeting non-mutable, phylogenetically conserved motifs in otherwise highly mutable viruses, and pathogens in general. Similarly to natural Abs, NK cells recognize all variants of the virus and are, therefore, characterized by multi-specific targeting. Over the last 10 years, increasing evidence has been generated that NK cells can also acquire memory. Provided vaccines can educate NK cells to recognize conserved, pathogen-encoded molecular patterns in ways they can memorize, primed NK cells could be recalled upon future exposure to the original virus, or any variant thereof, sometimes even including phylogenetically unrelated pathogenic agents. NK cell vaccinology is still an emerging field, and it is met with a high level of scrutiny and not receiving significant attention in mainstream vaccinology.

...

As stated in my third and last letter to all Global Health and influential regulatory agencies, I remain open to any public scientific debate and to providing help to solving this crisis in any way I can. At this stage, though, it appears extremely difficult for public health agencies to admit that substantial mistakes have been made and that a fundamentally different approach is needed to first mitigate the situation to then design a more rational strategy for fighting the ongoing pandemic in particular, and being prepared to potential future pandemics in general. Elected officials and staff can hide or quit their job, but that is not going to help us solve the problem. To be open, I am not sure how this crisis will end if our governments and health agencies continue their irrational stubbornness and rather prefer to watch the master (i.e., the virus) at work than to turn the tide.

How can we, the vaccinated and unvaccinated people, best protect ourselves and others in the highly likely event that the virus becomes resistant to both the current Covid-19 vaccines and upcoming booster immunizations?

As indicated on the website, I am afraid to re-iterate that I cannot give any personalized advice to people. I do want to emphasize, however, that nothing of what I shared on my website, social media or alternative broadcasting platforms in terms of public health advice would not also apply to people’s individual health.

I’d like to summarize a few general recommendations on how people can protect themselves against highly infectious variants in countries with high vaccine coverage rates (i.e., assuming full isolation is not an option):

In case one got vaccinated, it is important to realize that protection from the vaccine is waning, not that much because the vaccinal Ab titers are dropping (one still has B memory cells that can be recalled), but because the predominantly circulating viral lineages now consist of highly infectious variants (e.g. Delta variant), the S protein of which is no longer well recognized by the vaccinal Abs, which are directed against the original Wuhan strain. As a result, the vaccines continue to work for the time being, in that they still protect well against severe disease, but they don’t work well enough, in that they’re no longer diminishing transmission or even largely protecting vaccinees from mild to moderate disease. Due to the ongoing evolutionary change of circulating variants in response to enhanced S-directed immune selection pressure exerted by massively vaccinated populations, the decline in the protective capacity of vaccinal Abs will only become more and more pronounced. It seems like a no-brainer that vaccinees should, therefore, be well prepared to using early treatment as soon as they experience any early sign or symptom that might be related to Covid-19 disease. In this way, they can dramatically increase the likelihood of protection from enhanced disease, avoid hospitalization and enable their immune system to build protective immunity, not only against the Sars-CoV-2 variant they got infected with but, most likely, to other more infectious circulating variants as well. Early, multidrug therapy has now been extensively described in the literature as being very successful in preventing severe disease and hospitalization (McCullough P, et al., 2020). Of course, physical exercise, getting enough rest, healthy nutrition and lifestyle, as well as dietary supplements (e.g., zinc, vitamin B and D) may help counter suppression of innate Abs by vaccinal anti-S Abs and, thereby, reduce the risk of contracting severe Covid-19 disease (Af Geijerstam A et al., 2021; Sallis R et al., 2021; Samad N et al., 2021; Shakoor H et al., 2021; Teshome A et al. 2021).

Early treatment is, of course, also indicated for the unvaccinated who develop early symptoms of Covid-19 disease. However, as will follow from the section below, the main challenge for them is to preserve the functional capacity of their innate Abs which – in contrast with the situation for vaccinees – are not suppressed by long-lived S-specific Abs that bind with much higher affinity to spike protein. Once the virus has escaped from neutralization by anti-S Abs, avoidance of high infectious pressure may not be sufficient for vaccinees to protect themselves from contracting the disease. Their priority, therefore, should not be targeted at receiving never-ending booster shots, as those will only expedite viral resistance (12), but a educating themselves on concrete options for gaining access to early outpatient treatment.

In case one is not vaccinated, it will be critical to continue avoiding exposure to high infectious pressure. This is to say that one should adhere to stringent protective measures, especially when attending indoor gatherings, particularly in spaces that are not well ventilated. For an unvaccinated person, viral re-exposure can be very problematic for as long as titers of short-lived anti-spike Abs are measurable in their blood (these Abs last for max. 8 weeks after previous asymptomatic infection). During the lifetime of these short-lived Abs, innate, variant-nonspecific Abs are suppressed and thereby render unvaccinated individuals more susceptible to Covid-19 disease. It would, therefore, be of tremendous help if a reliable finger prick self-test became commercially available in order for unvaccinated individuals to be able to measure their anti-S Abs such as to assess their susceptibility to disease. Positive anti-S Ab titers would require them to use a high level of caution in their contacts whereas a negative test result combined with a decent health status would indicate that their innate Abs are fully functional (Vanden Bossche, June 2021; Vanden Bossche, August 2021).

Conclusion

The mass vaccination hype will undoubtedly enter history as the most reckless experiment in the history of medicine. It will be cited as the unequivocal proof of how overuse or misuse of man-made antimicrobials leads to antimicrobial resistance, regardless of whether the antimicrobial is an antibiotic or an antibody administered through passive immunization or elicited via active immunization. Mass vaccination campaigns conducted in the middle of a viral pandemic will, for generations to come, become the most sobering example of the boundaries of human intervention in nature in general and of the boundaries of conventional vaccinology in particular. This irrational experiment will unambiguously highlight the clear-cut limitations of conventional vaccine approaches. It will convincingly illustrate that – unlike natural acute self-limiting infection or disease – ‘modern’ technologies alone do not suffice to develop vaccines that are capable of preventing viral transmission or immune escape. For that matter, even ‘modern’ vaccines will not allow conventional B or T cell-directed antigens to generate herd immunity when massively administered in the heat of a pandemic of a highly mutable virus. Because of the disastrous consequences the current mass vaccination campaign will entail, I cannot imagine that the word ‘vaccine’ will continue to persist in the medical vade-mecum. In order to highlight the short-comings of all vaccines eliciting conventional B- or T cell-centered immune responses I propose to coin a new term for these vaccines and refer to them as ‘conditionally immune protection-inducing formulations’ (CIPIFs).

While the word ‘vaccine’ may be banned, the word ‘fact checker’ will only gain traction as a general term used for any scientifically illiterate person who uses arrogance to vilify those who speak the truth and promotes - in exchange for dirty money - a narrative and groupthink mentality that are merely inspired by the interests of the stakeholders they blindly support.

Last, to all those who’re still convinced the official narrative about the beneficial effect of mass vaccination is correct, I’d like to suggest they solve the following 5 important questions as food for further thoughts:

1. Why does a pandemic all of a sudden cause disease in younger age groups whereas those were protected from disease during previous waves?

2. Why would asymptomatically infected people mount anti-S Abs when the virus gets already eliminated by the time these Abs start to peak?

3. Why did the UK see a substantial decline in cases during the 2 weeks that followed the end of their lockdown rules (i.e., between July 20th and August 3rd)?

4. Molecular epidemiologists have provided compelling evidence of growing selective S-directed immune pressure exerted by the population. How can this be explained given that full-fledged innate or naturally acquired immunity do not promote natural selection or dominance of more infectious variants (as also illustrated by the Influenza pandemic of 1918!)?

5. How could mass vaccination even contribute to controlling transmissibility of highly infectious Sars-CoV-2 variants?

As long as questions like these remain unsolved by those who take the decisions on how to manage this pandemic, there should be plenty of reason for people to be extremely skeptical. When questions as basic as those listed above cannot be answered, one cannot conclude there is anything fundamental our leaders or advising experts understand about the pandemic.

When dealing with an issue having as much impact on global health as a pandemic, one cannot afford leaving any stone unturned and certainly not to leave any basic question unanswered. For lack of insight, international and public health authorities will continue to blame lack of success on the more infectious variants and propose (impose?) boosters as a never-ending strategy to chasing new emerging variants. This should ring a bell to people and make them understand that the mass vaccination program is nothing else but a big experiment. For how much longer is the public going to believe the treacherous narrative? One can only hope that more and more people will begin to realize that the outcome of this experiment is being evaluated on a purely empirical basis and fully unpredictable, at least in the mind of those who’re overstepping their competence and authority to impose vaccine mandates on never-ending booster shots and thereby trample on human rights while humiliating independent scientists who fight back with rational arguments out of passion for the truth. Only a mind that has lost its grasp on reality can fail to see how pathetic all this has become.

Notes

1) Inasmuch as some SARS-CoV-2 variants escape from neutralizing antibodies, their immune recognition by vaccinal Abs may be at risk of causing ADE

2) In India, the impact of innate and naturally acquired Abs on reducing viral transmission may have been confounded by widespread use of Ivermectin.

3) However, shedding and transmission of new, more infectious variants by vaccinated as compared to non-vaccinated people is no longer measured by public health authorities as it is officially considered irrelevant and a waste of resources

4) Direct: As mass vaccination causes enhanced immune pressure on viral infectiousness and thereby enables vaccine-resistant variants to reproduce more effectively in the population

5) Indirect: As dominant circulation of more infectious variants increases viral infectious pressure and thereby augments the risk for unvaccinated healthy people to become temporarily susceptible to Covid-19 disease

6) Because Covid-19 is a zoonotic disease, there can be no doubt that Sars-CoV-2 variants could use pets and even live-stock as a natural host and as a reservoir for re-entering the human species in a spillover event.

7) This effect was only observed for about 2 weeks as no measures were taken to reduce the high infectious pressure (due to enhanced circulation of Delta variant ) and as the aggressive mass vaccination program continued to put more and more natural immune selection pressure on viral infectiousness

8 ) Unvaccinated healthy people do not exert selective immune pressure and will, therefore, not provide more infectious immune escape variants with a competitive advantage

9) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articl ... e2171.pdf; https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articl ... 01-791.pdf

10) Subjects who previously recovered from Covid-19 disease will not be eligible as the overwhelming majority of them are naturally protected from Covid-19 disease.

11) As has previously been shown, innate immune responses against blood group A and B antigens (e.g., in individuals with blood group O) have a protective effect against Covid-19 (Gallo et al.; 2020)

12) Follow-up boosters with updated S-based vaccines will place more and more pressure on viral infectiousness and hence, drive dominance off immune escape variants with a higher level of infectiousness.


References

Af Geijerstam A, Mehlig K, Börjesson M, et al. Fitness, strength and severity of COVID-19: a prospective register study of 1.559.187 Swedish conscripts (2021). BMJ Open 2021; 11:e051316. doi: 10.1136/ bmjopen-2021-051316

Belouzard S, et al. Mechanisms of Coronavirus Cell Entry Mediated by the Viral Spike Protein (2012) Viruses. 2012 Jun; 4(6): 1011–1033; doi: 10.3390/v4061011

Liu Y, Arase N, Kishikawa J, et al. The SARS-CoV-2 Delta variant is poised to acquire complete resistance to wild-type spike vaccines (2021) bioRxiv preprint doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.08.22.457114

McCullough P, et al. Multifaceted highly targeted sequential multidrug treatment of early ambulatory high-risk SARS-CoV-2 infection (COVID-19)(2020) Rev Cardiovasc Med. 2020 Dec 30;21(4):517-530. doi: 10.31083/j.rcm.2020.04.264

Sallis R, Young DR, Tartof SY, et al. Physical inactivity is associated with a higher risk for severe COVID-19 outcomes: a study in 48 440 adult patients (2021) Br J Sports Med. doi: 10.1136/ bjsports-2021-104080

Samad N, et al. The Implications of Zinc Therapy in Combating the COVID-19 Global Pandemic (2021) J Inflamm Res. 2021; 14: 527–550 doi: 10.2147/JIR.S295377

Shakoor H, et al. Be well: A potential role for vitamin B in COVID-19 (2021) Maturitas 144, P108-111, Feb 2021; doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.maturitas.2020.08.007

Teshome A, et al. The Impact of Vitamin D Level on COVID-19 Infection: Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis (2021) Front. Public Health, March 2021 https://doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2021.624559

Vanden Bossche G. Quo vadis, homo sapiens? (August 2021) https://trialsitenews.com/wp-content/up ... apiens.pdf

Vanden Bossche G. Why is the ongoing mass vaccination experiment driving a rapid evolutionary response of SARS-CoV-2? (June 2021) https://trialsitenews.com/why-is-the-on ... ars-cov-2/

Yahi N, et al. Infection-enhancing anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibodies recognize both the original Wuhan/D614G strain and Delta variants. A potential risk for mass vaccination? (2021) Journal of Infection 2021; August 16, 2021 doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jinf.2021.08.010

Weiss SR, Navas-Martin S. Coronavirus Pathogenesis and the Emerging Pathogen Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (2005) Microbiol Mol Biol Rev. 2005 Dec; 69(4): 635–664.


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Re: Coronavirus Crisis: Main Thread

Postby Joe Hillshoist » Fri Sep 10, 2021 1:29 am

Belligerent Savant » 10 Sep 2021 15:06 wrote:.

You're misinterpreting my point. The point is you -- or rather, the intended targets -- are being misdirected without much effort. And those that are being misdirected in this instance, however justifiable this other wrong may be, largely are not applying the same measure of criticism to another wrong, which is unprecedented in certain key respects and affects all humans globally.

With respect to the excerpt of the article Re: mutations. I don't believe you're interpreting it as the author intended. My read was that he was referring to environmental/health factors that contribute to greater potential for more severe symptoms/spread among certain more vulnerable groups.
But you opted not to read the rest of that piece -- prematurely, in my view. Perhaps you can offer a more meaningful commentary after reading the entire piece rather than drive-by snipes at a small portion of a whole.

Or instead, you (and others) would be better served directing informed opinions towards this latest piece from Vanden Bossche. Damning content, even if only a portion bears out, particularly given the news earlier out of the WH.




He said, well typed, this:

Lockdowns, border closures, and social distancing rules reduced spread among the healthy, thus creating a situation where mutations produced among the healthy would become sufficiently rare that they might be outnumbered by mutations circulating among the sick. Mutations circulating among the healthy are, by definition, less dangerous since they did not make their hosts sick enough to confine them to bedrest. That's precisely the variant you want to spread. Mutations circulating among the bedridden are much more likely to be dangerous, which is why their host is stuck in bed with a fever and not out dining with friends.

See the bolded bit? Its not applicable in this situation. After all, all those articles you posted make it clear its only those with some sort of health condition to begin with that are vulnerable. The same variant makes those people sick while it leaves the healthier members of the population free to carry on.

There is no difference between the mutatiuons spreading among the sick or the healthy because the response of individuals to getting infected is what matters. Although viral load obviously has a part to play as yer man noted.

And I did read the rest of the article. Most of it was reasonable but the conclusions he draws from it aren't necessarily supportable by the facts he quotes.
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Re: Coronavirus Crisis: Main Thread

Postby Belligerent Savant » Fri Sep 10, 2021 1:37 am

.
Fair points. He's a relative layman, after all (far as I can tell. As am I, for that matter. Trying to understand underlying drivers, or at least a viable means to navigate somewhat unscathed while keeping mind and spirit relatively intact. A formidable challenge).
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Re: Coronavirus Crisis: Main Thread

Postby stickdog99 » Fri Sep 10, 2021 3:44 am

So Joe Biden just threatened to get me fired if I don't immediately submit to getting my first two doses of a shitty, leaky, dangerous mRNA "vaccine" that does not even protect me (and certainly not anyone else) against the now dominant Delta variant.

I am wondering what everyone here thinks about this. Do you all have Joe Biden's back on this? You know, because he is so obviously violating my right to informed consent for my own good?

Or maybe we should consider a hypothetical situation in which Joe Biden would be in right? Or talk about a heinous Texas law instead? Or maybe we should all discuss just how much this is in no way like any other totalitarian decree in human history?
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Re: Coronavirus Crisis: Main Thread

Postby Harvey » Fri Sep 10, 2021 3:55 am

The best lack all conviction.
And while we spoke of many things, fools and kings
This he said to me
"The greatest thing
You'll ever learn
Is just to love
And be loved
In return"


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Re: Coronavirus Crisis: Main Thread

Postby The Bernician » Fri Sep 10, 2021 4:25 am

stickdog99 » Fri Sep 10, 2021 8:44 am wrote:So Joe Biden just threatened to get me fired if I don't immediately submit to getting my first two doses of a shitty, leaky, dangerous mRNA "vaccine" that does not even protect me (and certainly not anyone else) against the now dominant Delta variant.

I am wondering what everyone here thinks about this. Do you all have Joe Biden's back on this? You know, because he is so obviously violating my right to informed consent for my own good?

Or maybe we should consider a hypothetical situation in which Joe Biden would be in right? Or talk about a heinous Texas law instead? Or maybe we should all discuss just how much this is in no way like any other totalitarian decree in human history?


Right, so this is as good a launching point as any. I find it really dull at this point to debate this: it's obviously really, really fucking bad. I'm not interested in debating that because (a) others are doing it well enough, and (b) as I may have mentioned, I find it intellectually uninteresting to debate the obvious (which could also be described as laziness on my part). I'm willing to presume that no-one actively disputes that this is really, really fucking bad, unless given evidence to the contrary.

I'm more interested in this as a subset of the 'why now?' question. I'm a big picture, not so much detail kind of a person, and the sweep I'm seeing as I glance at different titbits is that things are accelerating. I've mentioned that the UK is relatively calm right now, but that threats have been made about consequences of 'vaccine hesitancy', with two obvious possible aims - to encourage vaccine take-up, and likelier the larger outcome (and thus probably main aim) of 'othering' refuseniks. The Scottish Parliament has just passed legislation to implement them at the start of October, thanks to the casting votes of the fucking Greens, of all people (their 'surprise' deal of a few days ago for a full coalition with the SNP - which 'traps' them into supporting the bill - as opposed to previous confidence-and-supply arrangements suddenly making more sense). The UK government continues to threaten the same for England, occasionally leaking that they're maybe not going to do it, while the putative Parliamentary vote remains 'in the balance', because the Opposition are 'unconvinced', etc., etc. In Scotland, the two main UK parties voted against for the usual 'it's not been fully thought out' reasons, i.e. acting as the controlled Opposition by pretending political questions are all about management rather than ideology/morality/etc. It was vaguely encouraging that the Lib Dems expressed opposition on the basis of actual principle; and, while they have no power whatsoever, if they do the same at a UK level, it at least would give somewhere for opponents of this stuff to coalesce. Meanwhile, a switch to travel restrictions being based on vaccination status alone is mooted. And there are 'no current plans' to extend vaccination discrimination to pubs and restaurants, while in the same breath their extension to 'essential services' is explicitly ruled out. None of this takes a lot of reading between the lines.

All that is to say that, in a typically understated British way, authoritarianism is increasing at a pretty rapid rate. The Nigerian President announced a few days ago that the unvaccinated will not be allowed into mosques or churches; if this does indeed go ahead, then it seems like the only possible purpose would be to incite civil unrest, as there seems no chance whatsoever of mass compliance. But I don't know that country at all, really, so I could be wrong. We have the above from Biden. Each European country has its own story. Australia is doing its thing. And it's left to the fringes of the empire to voice 'outriding' sentiments, such as the President of the Philippines stopping a breath short of calling for genocide. One only really has to glance at the pieces (and there are of course many more) to see that they fit together. I don't watch TV or really video online either, but has anyone been saying 'dark winter' yet, or is that phraseology yet to come?

Anyhow, I've digressed. My question, really, is why now? It seems like there's an urgency to it all. My best guess is that we're soon to see the start of the autumn surge in various illnesses in the temperate northern hemisphere, and so there's a need to get this infrastructure in ahead of that. Then 'temporary' can be extended. Then 'just large venues' can be extended. Because, well, this is an emergency, and you don't want us to lock everything down again, do you? And, really, it's victimless, because the unvaccinated are the perpetrators of this all. There's also the potential wildcard of engineered food shortages, which could deepen this all a hell of a lot, but that's something that looks a bit more speculative at this point, even if there look to be building blocks for that in place. Again, why now? Is it urgency linked to the global economic system? Is it before the population 'wakes up'? Or something else entirely?

I can't help myself signing off with a note of exasperation: why are so few seeing this, including people I previously thought of as possessed of thinking, sceptical minds? I suspect this is the source of much of the heated discussion on this thread, including about Nazi comparisons. I too just want to scream at people sometimes.
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Re: Coronavirus Crisis: Main Thread

Postby The Bernician » Fri Sep 10, 2021 5:00 am

Up-thread, someone raised the point of people being vaccinated thus becoming more bought in to the narrative. Obviously, the more someone signs up to a position and the longer they hold it, the harder it is psychologically for them to shift it. But encouraging, cajoling and ultimately forcing people to change their physical selves in a show of obedience will surely make that entrenchment all the deeper. And the vax passports will force people to take this on as an identity. For that among many other reasons, my position - until such point as the threshold for my compliance is met (which, of course, I don't know yet. Would it be losing my job? My home? My child? I'm not sure, but it is higher than going to the pub) is that I refuse to share my vaccination status, as I would refuse to share all medical records for non-medical reasons. In the real world, of course, this would be tantamount to declaring myself as unvaccinated, but I think it's important that we all refuse to play along with that labelling - regardless (of course) of our vaccination status. (I don't intend to discuss my own here.) I'd be interested to hear from anyone here who self-declares as vaccinated who disagrees with this. After all, this entails turning down a 'privilege' granted for compliance, at a personal cost, however large or small.

There are many red flags showing that the passports have no public health intention, but the red-est of all is the refusal (increasingly becoming uniform) to accept natural immunity. The nurse quoted up-thread who gave that reason is making an argument to which there is no possible counter that doesn't involve an outright lie. I don't think any argument should rest on that - there is a higher principle in play - but it's not bad to have an irrefutable justification to hand.
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Re: Coronavirus Crisis: Main Thread

Postby Joe Hillshoist » Fri Sep 10, 2021 5:06 am

I don't really have time to dedicate my life to reading all these articles. Whenever i have pointed the flaws in one you do what you did above which is basically say this:

"Well instead of criticising that why don't you read this new article instead." And ignore what I said.

But I'll concentrate on the one I've already quoted for now:

[i]From a 2003 study [my emphasis]: "Until SARS appeared, human coronaviruses were known as the cause of 15–30% of colds... Colds are generally mild, self-limited infections, and significant increases in neutralizing antibody titer are found in nasal secretions and serum after infection. Nevertheless, some unlucky individuals can be reinfected with the same coronavirus soon after recovery and get symptoms again."

In other words, the coronaviruses involved in colds (there were four human coronaviruses before SARS, MERS, and COVID) all trigger such a weak immune response that they do not lead to any long-lasting immunity whatsoever. And why would they if, for most of us, the threat is so minimal that the generalists are perfectly capable of neutralizing the attack.
[/i]

How is "significant increases in antibody titer found in nasal secretions" "such a weak immune response."?

Can you answer that question BelSav?

Or point out how he has misunderstood how colds and immune responses work?

This is from his bio:

Besides, the less you know about me, the less reason you will have to trust me. Which means you will be forced to consider the quality of the evidence I lay on the table based solely on its own merits. And you will have nothing but my thought processes to help you judge whether the conclusions I reach are justified.

I am doing that.

A human adapts to its environment by altering its behaviour (that's one type of adaptation). But the behaviour of a single viral particle never changes.

No, a human doesn't have to adapt to its environment because it can change its behaviour. Fundamental difference.

So, fear mongering about the Delta variant being even more contagious leaves out the fact that this is exactly what you would expect as a respiratory virus adapts to its new host species. We would expect new variants to be more contagious but less deadly as the virus fades to become just like the other 200+ respiratory viruses that cause common colds and flus.

That bold bit is true enough but the rest of it is misleading. Over time that (new variants to be more contagious but less deadly) will be the trend but its not necessarily linear in progression. A virus may be more contagious and more deadly till the less deadly variant turns up and spreads more as people don't take precautions to avoid it. We don't know how deadly delta is on its own cos of the way vaccines have been added to the equation. Someone has probably worked it out somewhere to some degree of accuracy. Most likely. It does generate higher viral load, which when combined with how it attacks the body, means its potentially alot more dangerous.

He actually mentions this later on. Its just who dies in the meantime, and yes it probably is only the useless eaters who this virus will really kill. Well at least the people who are less economically productive and more of a burden on the system. Once population numbers get big enough.

But as far as how covid evolves and delta - it could be more deadly and the next variant less deadly. Eventually there will be less deadly, more contagious versions of the virus but that could take (human) generations (or it could take six months. More likely generations tho.)

The thing is with modern travel and the size of the human population right now is that it might take quite a while for the selection pressure of "less dealiness, more contagiousness" to make its presence felt to the virus. At any other time in history people travelled more slowly and there were less of us so any illness had to adapt to not killing local populations faster than it does now in order to become an endemic, non fatal disease.

And their were still very dangerous viruses everywhere. Polio, smallpox and measles for example. Some of those viruses are still everywhere.
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Re: Coronavirus Crisis: Main Thread

Postby Joe Hillshoist » Fri Sep 10, 2021 5:21 am

The Bernician » 10 Sep 2021 19:00 wrote:Up-thread, someone raised the point of people being vaccinated thus becoming more bought in to the narrative. Obviously, the more someone signs up to a position and the longer they hold it, the harder it is psychologically for them to shift it. But encouraging, cajoling and ultimately forcing people to change their physical selves in a show of obedience will surely make that entrenchment all the deeper. And the vax passports will force people to take this on as an identity. For that among many other reasons, my position - until such point as the threshold for my compliance is met (which, of course, I don't know yet. Would it be losing my job? My home? My child? I'm not sure, but it is higher than going to the pub) is that I refuse to share my vaccination status, as I would refuse to share all medical records for non-medical reasons. In the real world, of course, this would be tantamount to declaring myself as unvaccinated, but I think it's important that we all refuse to play along with that labelling - regardless (of course) of our vaccination status. (I don't intend to discuss my own here.) I'd be interested to hear from anyone here who self-declares as vaccinated who disagrees with this. After all, this entails turning down a 'privilege' granted for compliance, at a personal cost, however large or small.

There are many red flags showing that the passports have no public health intention, but the red-est of all is the refusal (increasingly becoming uniform) to accept natural immunity. The nurse quoted up-thread who gave that reason is making an argument to which there is no possible counter that doesn't involve an outright lie. I don't think any argument should rest on that - there is a higher principle in play - but it's not bad to have an irrefutable justification to hand.


Once the virus is endemic, and it almost is, vaccination passports won't be any use anyway. The vaccines we have now don't always prevent infection. They will most of the time for most people tho. (And they do seem to lower the risk of death or serious illness significantly. You don't have to accept this. I'm not gonna argue about numbers with you or anyone else. Its pointless.)

So the reason for a vaccine passport - to prevent infection spreading - no longer exists.

If anything it will create a false sense of security.

Rapid forms of testing will be necessary to control outbreaks and probably will become part of the process for attending first world circuses like sporting events, concerts and the like. (Dunno what happens to the local pub in all this.) Because vaccinated people will still spread the virus.
Joe Hillshoist
 
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