706 thoughts on “Open Thread: July 21”

  1. MikeN,
    “I haven’t seen if any school districts are mandating, but in Virginia it looks like masks will be required for unvaccinated students.”
    .
    I wonder who they are protecting: the vaccinated teachers (who are at near zero risk), the already vaccinated students (who are at zero risk) or the unvaccinated students (who are at very low risk). It is bizarre.

  2. MikeN,

    The judge wrote that the university wasn’t actually forcing students to undergo injections, but letting them choose between vaccination and attending on-campus.[…]

    Most of the student plaintiffs have gotten exemptions from the vaccine requirements and can attend in the fall semester, so long as they wear masks indoors and get regularly tested for the virus. The plaintiffs still objected to the mask and testing requirements.

    Someone at Volokh posted the student cases. 6 of the 8 have exemptions. 1 could apply but hasn’t submitted the paperwork. I don’t remember the final one’s objection. Some of the mask complaints were pretty trivial when put next to any remotely arguable public safety worry. (Literally: Thinks mask gives them acne.)

    I don’t know how this would have come out if the students didn’t have the online option. But they do– that’s the same option the entire school had last year. So basically masks aren’t “mandated” to attend classes. They are mandated to attend in person classes. Otherwise, they can do what everyone did last year.

  3. SteveF (Comment #203769): “I wonder who they are protecting”.
    .
    I think you know the answer to that. They are protecting their own power by saying that even if they can’t force people to get vaccinated, they can make you miserable if you refuse.
    .
    The harm that masks will inflict on the unvaccinated students will be far greater than any possible benefit.

  4. Just for reference (because I think it didn’t matter to the ruling) but this is some discussion of the students’ reasons to not get vaccinated.
    From https://reason.com/volokh/2021/07/19/court-refuses-to-block-indiana-universitys-student-vaccination-requirement/#comment-9001549

    The eight plaintiffs in this case, all students of Indiana University, don’t want the vaccine. Six of the eight have received exemptions already. One would qualify if she applied. The other appears not to qualify for an exemption.
    .
    Ryan Klaassen is concerned that the vaccine is too new to be safe.
    He objects to the masking and testing requirements because of their unreasonableness and the potential for discrimination. He complied with the university’s mask policy during his freshman year, including wearing a mask in most places, and has undergone many COVID-19 tests.
    .
    Jaime Carini has up to seven more years to finish her joint dissertation after she finishes her exams. Her physician provided a letter saying she should not take the vaccine, though the letter has not been presented to the university or to the court. She applied for a religious exemption and received one. She did not apply for a medical exemption.
    .
    Despite wearing a mask in public spaces when required and previously taking several COVID-19 tests, she objects to the mask policy because it makes it difficult for her to breathe, she gets bad acne from the mask, and she struggles deadlifting with a mask. She also doesn’t like surrendering her biological information for testing.
    .
    In total, she views the university’s policy as a cultural harm.
    .
    Daniel Baumgartner says he has a deeply held religious objection to wearing a mask and being tested. He wore a mask while attending religious services, in school, and at stores in the past. He previously contracted COVID-19 and says he has “natural” COVID antibodies, though for how long he doesn’t know.
    .
    Ashlee Morris believes she previously contracted COVID-19. She has been tested before and acknowledges that she did not suffer any lasting harm from the test. She wore a mask to work, on a plane, and when she went to a casino, but not to stores even if signs were posted. She testifies she has a religious objection to wearing a mask and being tested [id. 45-48]. She admits that she has never experienced
    discrimination because she did not wear a mask [id. 56].
    .
    Seth Crowder has a deeply held religious objection to wearing a mask and being tested. He has worn a mask once or twice a week since March 2020, including to stores and restaurants.
    .
    Macey Policka objects generally to the extra requirements of masks and tests because of the minimal risk to those in her age group, also stating that vegans and pescatarians are less likely to experience serious illness [Ex. 125 at 28]. She lived on the Bloomington campus for the 2020 school year, complied with the university’s masking policy, and underwent weekly mitigation testing from which she states she did not suffer any harm. She has never experienced judgment or alienation due to wearing a mask at the university but is concerned about having to wear a mask while pursuing her theatre degree.
    .
    Margaret Roth objects to the mask and testing requirements because she thinks masks are silly and she claims nasal swabs cause cancer [Ex. 126 at 12, 29, 35-36]. She has worn a mask while at school, shopping, and working [id. 31-33]. She has a religious objection to the vaccine but did not file for an exemption because she doesn’t want to be subject to testing or wear a mask [id. 45-47].
    .
    Natalie Sperazza complied with the university testing and masking requirement during the 2020 school year [Ex. 127 at 30-32]. She has been tested for COVID-19 many times, including while working at Amazon, where she would occasionally go to get tested just to have a break [id. 25-26, 30].

  6. Russel,
    Looks like vaccinces and infection both trigger antibodies but the antibodies fade over time. I think everyone here is aware of that. I’m not sure why you’re worried someone will tell you it’s “not statistically meaningful”.

  7. Russell Klier,

    It’s not the statistical significance, it’s the idea that neutralizing antibodies are the be all and end all of immunity, leading to denigrating infection acquired immunity. If you’re going to use convalescent plasma to treat COVID-19 infections, then a high antibody level in the plasma should make it more effective.

  8. Mike,

    The harm that masks will inflict on the unvaccinated students will be far greater than any possible benefit.

    I think you need to state the harm so we can begin to guess how we might compare it to the possible benefit.
    .
    One student complains it makes it hard for her to deadlift and will get acne. I find it hard to see these as big harms (and honestly, I’m dubious about the acne claim). Others think they will experience discrimination by people reacting to their wearing masks. I think this is unrealistic pearl clutching. Most admit that they have never experienced discrimination from mask wearing.
    .
    Most (possibly all) did wear masks previously.
    .
    All have the option of taking classes online which reduced the amount of mask wearing time.
    .
    I don’t like masks. But I don’t think being forced to wear one causes any significant harm.
    .
    There may be something wrong with requiring the vaccine. But the argument intermittent mask wearing causes these students harm strikes me as really weak– in fact bogus.

  9. For children masks have been shown to increase blood CO2 and to collect all sorts of harmful stuff. I don’t know of studies showing the same for adults, but the effect on blood CO2 and O2 is almost surely true. Adults are more likely to change and handle masks properly, but I imagine most people don’t do so. Also, people wearing masks tend to breathe through the mouth. That reduces the effectiveness of natural defenses and causes significant dental problems. If one is aware of that, one can train oneself to not do it.
    .
    For adults, the harms of mask are small and the potential benefits are small. For young adults, benefits are non-existent.
    ———–

    lucia (Comment #203776): “But the argument intermittent mask wearing causes these students harm strikes me as really weak– in fact bogus.”
    .
    Irrelevant in the absence of demonstrated benefits.

  10. Lucia,
    I think Mike M has it right: the burden is on the school to show significant benefit from mask mandates not on the students to show significant harm. Once vaccines are available to all (and they obviously are), then IMO mask mandates are impossible to justify. It is all just PC virtue signaling….. and that is itself a significant social harm if it is forced upon people.

  11. The ∞intely long ruling:
    https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.innd.107499/gov.uscourts.innd.107499.34.0_1.pdf

    Worth noting:
    The court only considers the potential injury to and standing of the specific 8 litigants. (That’s what courts do.) Also: 6 of these students have gotten exemptions, 1 could if they bothered to submit the paperwork (which they haven’t) and 1 appears ineligible.

    . In short, the court won’t decide today issues that would not redress the injuries these particular students allege.

    .
    It’s also a ruling about a preliminary injuction.

    To obtain an injunction, the students “must make a threshold showing that: (1) absent preliminary injunctive relief,[they] will suffer irreparable harm in the interim prior to a final resolution; (2) there is no adequate remedy at law; and (3) [they have] a reasonable likelihood of success on the merits.” Tully v. Okeson, 977 F.3d 608, 612-13 (7th Cir. 2020) (quoting Turnell v. CentiMark Corp., 796 F.3d 656, 662 (7th Cir. 2015)); see also Winter v. Nat. Resources Defense Council, Inc., 555 U.S. 7, 20 (2008). If they make these threshold showings, the court “consider[s] the balance of harms between the parties and the effect of granting or denying a preliminary injunction on the public interest.” Tully, 977 F.3d at 613 (quotation omitted).

    .
    The court finds
    *A. These Students Aren’t Likely to Succeed on the Merits.
    (They discuss the 14th amendement, and Jacobsen — a case about smallpox vaccination. I think the relevant thing is they use the case to say that state compulsion about vaccination is evaluated under a ‘rational basis’ not “strict scrutiny”. They point it has been applied this way in scads of vaccination cases. The court does not think Cuomo overrules Jacobsen on this matter. This discussion goes on and on and on….)
    Anyway they don’t think the students case will survive a rational basis test.
    .
    Some one above asked who or what IU is trying to protect. This question appears legally relevant (not surpridingly). There is a bit on who IU is trying to protect: More than just the students.

    In addition, the student’s position overlooks the larger Indiana University community. Dr. McCullough, in fairness, takes a wider snapshot yet, pointing to a longitudinal serosurvey (blood sampling) of community residents near Pennsylvania State University suggesting that students’ return in August 2020 had limited transmissible effect on the local community [Ex. 117 ¶ 29-30].82 But Indiana University’s perspective was more intimate. The university analyzed the number of individuals
    within its campus population known to have increased risk factors for COVID-19 and determined that over 8,500 faculty and staff remained at increased risk of complications if they contracted the disease [Ex. 116 ¶ 26], with the ongoing risk of asymptomatic spread that vaccines help address [Ex. 129 at 53-54]. Faculty and staff at Indiana University who have daily contact with students represent an even broader demographic than just the student body, and this policy was intended to protect them too. The court credits Dr. Carroll and Dr. Beeler over Dr. McCullough on this point given their firsthand knowledge of Indiana University’s specific circumstances.

    .
    There is a discussion of the difference between “passports” and “requirements”

    The Indiana General Assembly has prohibited a vaccine passport in this state, but not a vaccine requirement. See Ind. Code § 16-39-11-5. Still, in assessing the reasonableness of vaccination mandates, the law considers underlying legislative authority. See Zucht, 260 U.S. at 175; Jacobson, 197 U.S. at 12-13; see also Washington, 494 U.S. at 221-22 (recognizing liberty interest under both state’s policy and due process clause, but “no greater right than that recognized under state law”). On this preliminary record, Indiana University faces still an “objectionable” and “serious threat” to the “academic community” that its vaccination policy seeks reasonably to address for campus health. See Zimmerman v. Bd. of Trustees of Ball State Univ., 940 F. Supp.2d 875, 890-91 (S.D. Ind. 2013) (defining “objectionable”). This is consistent with the Fourteenth Amendment

    .
    The court also discusses the point that mortality isn’t the only bad thing about Covid. Debilitating symptoms and long term Covid are worth protection too.

    Without vaccination, college-aged students remain at risk for serious long-term complication from COVID-19, including prolonged debilitating symptoms that interfere with normal life such as myocarditis, reduced aerobic capacity, and brain damage [Ex. 319 ¶ 5].84 Long COVID remains a studied phenomenon. With Indiana reporting that individuals aged 20-29 have had more positive cases than any other age demographic [Ex. 115 ¶ 14], and with more than 260,000 cases linked to American college and universities since January 1, 2021 [id. ¶ 17], this proves still a legitimate risk.85 Focusing only on mortality disregards the serious compromise to the quality of life that face some students who contract the virus [see alsoid. ¶ 10-11]

    .. more to follow.
    (I’m obviously just reading and posting things that seem to address comment I saw above, and also the general case.)

  12. SteveF

    I think Mike M has it right: the burden is on the school to show significant benefit from mask mandates not on the students to show significant harm.[…]then IMO mask mandates are impossible to justify.

    Evidently neither of those is the law.
    .
    To some extent the legal question is separate from other “should” questions. The court only decides if IU is violating the law by imposing this. (In particular, it only looks at the alleged harms to the 8 people filing the suit.) A legislature could change this all by taking away IU’s right to make this rule. But evidently the Indiana Legislature hasn’t done that.
    .
    I’m still reading the ruling.

  13. Oh– I should add the “rational basis” standard doesn’t mean the school must be correct in its interpretation of the science as applied to its goal. I think it’s goal must be legitimate (protecting public health from a not-fictional danger is legitimate) and it can’t be utterly irrational to think science supports that goal.
    .
    So the school doesn’t have to prove masks work. They only need to show there is a rational basis for thinking they may. They do have the burden of showing that— but it’s a pretty light burden. Trivial in the circumstances as there is at least some evidence they may
    .
    Even if IU is wrong about masks and even if there is counter evidence, that’s not enough to make them fail to meet their burden. Once they’ve met it, the student’s need to show that it’s not even rational to think masks work. Even if you think they don’t work, it’s pretty much impossible to prove there is no reason to think they do!

  14. Moe from the ruling. (Then I’ll stop for now because I need to get ready for my dance lesson.)

    More from the ruling…
    After a long bit discussing the evidence presented from both sides

    Today, Indiana University has a rational basis to conclude that the COVID-19 vaccine is safe and efficacious for its students. The vaccine has been used on about 157 million Americans; and data now about eight months later, though it will grow more robust in years to come, is considerable and shows major side effects are rare. Much like over 500 universities and colleges in the United States that have done the same,116 Indiana
    University reasonably relies on the vaccine as a measure to return to normal school functioning. The students say the mandate is unreasonable because no other Indiana government agency mandates the vaccine. But just because it has gone above what others have done doesn’t make it unreasonable. Indeed, universities are unique places, with lots of people gathered and living together in close quarters for months at a time. That Indiana University’s mandate goes beyond what other public universities in Indiana have done doesn’t compel a finding that this policy is unreasonable; indeed, other universities in the state have mandated the vaccine, and many others around the country have too.

    Here’s a bit on the “rational” basis thing. (Which relates to Mike and Steve’s notion that the burden is on the school to show masks work

    Overall, the students’ arguments amount to disputes over the most reliable science. But when reasonable minds can differ as to the best course of action—for instance, addressing symptomatic versus asymptomatic virus spread or any number of issues here—the court doesn’t intervene so long as the university’s process is rational in trying to achieve public health. […]
    No student, including those not yet exempt, have shown that Indiana University’s vaccine mandate as applied to them violates rational basis review. The court thus denies their request to enjoin it preliminarily.

    This relates to the vaccine (not specifically the mask) but the legal principle would be the same.
    .
    So all the school needs to show is a rational basis for their rule. They don’t need to prove they are actually right.
    .
    Meanwhile, the students need to prove there is no rational basis, which means they practically need to prove the school is definitely wrong and that there is nothing to suggest they could possibly be right.

  15. Ok.. lied. On on page 83 of the 101 page thing

    Because the students challenge the additional requirements under substantive due process, the court again begins by first examining the specific right they assert. SeeDoe, 377 F.3d at 768. These students argue that they have rights to refrain from wearing a mask and to refuse nasal testing. But there is no fundamental constitutional right to not wear a mask. […] Nor is there a fundamental constitutional right to not be tested for a virus before entering a place of public accommodation
    […]
    The court declines the students’ invitation to expand substantive due process rights to include the rights not to wear a mask or to be tested for a virus.

    On this record, the court finds no merit in the students’ contention that wearing masks essentially labels them with a “scarlet letter” that targets them for religious bullying. Indiana University has both medical and religious exemptions, and the same requirements are imposed on both groups. There is no evidence that any exempted
    person must reveal publicly which exemption they obtained. Wearing masks thus doesn’t signify to others that the individual religiously objects to the vaccination; they could fall within either exempted category, or they could be a vaccinated individual who chooses to take the extra (and unrequired) precaution to wear a mask. A student wearing a mask may well just be precautious in light of COVID-19 variants or because of immunosuppressing conditions. This record is devoid of any evidence of bullying or discrimination.

    (In other words, when we see someone wearing a mask they might just be someone like Russel who wants to be extra cautious.)

    he students once more assert another alleged right—this time the right to the confidentiality of their medical information—to obtain strict scrutiny. But this circuit has never recognized one’s constitutional right to privacy to medical information. Franklin v. USDC IN/ND case 1:21-cv-00238-DRL-SLC document 34 filed 07/18/21 page 88 of 101
    This right may exist by statute, but isn’t found in the Constitution. And this circuit recognized that such a right, if any, is minimized when in the public context. See Franklin, 110 F. Appx. at 719 (describing hospital emergency rooms, doctor’s offices, and school infirmaries). The court declines finding such a fundamental right in the context here.

    Now I really am stopping on page 91 of
    https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.innd.107499/gov.uscourts.innd.107499.34.0_1.pdf

  16. The Texas Fugitive Democrat super spread event is now up to 8 cases. Six of the 50 fugitives, plus a person in Pelosi’s office and another in the White House. 8 out of 8 fully vaccinated.
    .
    How is that possible? Real puzzlement. Individual cases here and there among the vaccinated, sure. But a super spread event?

  17. Mandating a drug under EUA to engage in normal activity is a step too far. The solution to that is the FDA giving full approval, not sure what is holding that up.
    .
    Requiring masks if not vaccinated is questionable, it implies that these are equal substitutes. Mask efficacy is debatable and I would guess constantly overstated, I just haven’t seen the clear and convincing evidence. Alternately it isn’t really a big imposition, so either/or to engage in normal activity is OK by me, but they also need to identify an endpoint where this requirement would stop. it needs to timeout, have caseload endpoints, etc.

  18. Mike M,
    That’s possible because delta clearly evades the vaccines better than the original covid virus. It’s possible because everyone is getting tested and most are either asymptomatic or minor symptoms. So the cases are more easily found by looking harder. The vaccine is not an impenetrable bubble around you. Every one of those Democrats was likely exposed to the highly transmissible virus. Their happy unmasked plane picture is of note. Some of their immune systems suppress it better than others. The original source may have been unvaccinated or the disease progressed far enough in one of the vaccinated to spread. If the virus studies are close to reality, then it is unlikely any of them will become seriously ill. It is a pretty good case study though. Somehow there isn’t any moral posturing with this event though. I wonder why? Not a real question.
    .
    What do yo think it happening? Real question.

  19. For your entertainment only.
    .
    This email is from a guy I know who is a very quirky 70 year old engineer (UFO’s etc.), and I know he is serious about this. Enjoy.
    .
    “Dear friends and clients,

    If not too late, do NOT take the vaccine – it looks like slow death.
    This expose and the danger of the vaccines might get taken down by the cabal/ one world order soon
    – so don’t delay in seeing it– it looks like genocide to me. Bill Gates has said they intend to depopulate
    by 90%. This may be “it”. Moderna vaccine is featured in this video but they all appear to have nano-carbon
    poison. Blood coagulation will lead to blood clots, strokes, myocarditis, neuromuscular degenerative disease, etc.

    Stay healthy, XXX YYYY, Chief Engr., ZZZ

    see:

    BREAKING DISCOVERY! What COVID Injections Do To Your BLOOD! Doctor Releases Horrific Findings!

    https://www.bitchute.com/video/TxNfoBsMPrFK/

  20. I will once again state that I find it absolutely perplexing that Indiana would force students to get vaccinated and not require nursing home employees to get vaccinated. This doesn’t apply to the legal standard but just shows how arbitrary this requirement is.

  21. I think that lucia is correct that from a judicial point of view, the imposition of masks is slight enough that the rule only need clear the lowest level of scrutiny. That is a mighty low bar. So the students probably have no judicial recourse unless they can show that whoever made the rule (university administrators?) have no such authority. It would seem to be a political question that is up to the Indiana legislature and governor. So are they asleep at the switch?

  22. Tom Scharf,

    I will once again state that I find it absolutely perplexing that Indiana would force students to get vaccinated and not require nursing home employees to get vaccinated.

    Students don’t have a union. Nursing home workers have the SEIU. Students don’t vote as a bloc and often don’t vote at all. The SEIU donates money and services to favored political candidates.

  23. Tom Scharf (Comment #203786): “It’s possible because everyone is getting tested and most are either asymptomatic or minor symptoms.”
    .
    Ah, yes. The good old nothing-to-see-here-folks. It is fine if Tom just wants to shrug it off. But public health authorities should not be so casual. If they do, then the Texas Fugitive superspread event will be just one more item undermining confidence in the vaccine.

  24. From today’s WSJ:

    India’s Covid-19 Death Toll Is Likely in the Millions, Study Finds
    Researchers estimated number of fatalities caused by the disease at about four million, which would be 10 times the official count

    […]

    About two-thirds of Indians have antibodies against the virus, according to a separate study released Tuesday by the Indian Council of Medical Research. But that leaves about 400 million people still vulnerable to the coronavirus. About 6% of the population is fully vaccinated.

    That implies that India has passed the HIT. Daily new cases and deaths are indeed dropping. Note that confirmed cases are 2.2% of the population. Four million deaths would put the population fatality rate at 0.29%, which is high, but in the range of population fatality rates in other countries like the Czech Republic at 0.28%

    At this point, vaccinations will probably not be very effective as likely 2/3 of those vaccinated are already immune.

  25. Tom. Those slides look like random dust contamination and what you see when you focus on the “wrong thing” ie air bubbles in slide fixative.

  26. Mike M.,

    Since The Texas Fugitive event is pretty much confirmed as a superspreader event, it’s possible that the immune systems of those infected were overwhelmed by a high dose of virus. OTOH, if the vaccine offered no protection, then all 50 (or 49, assuming the superspreader was a Texas Fugitive) could have been infected. 95% protection would predict ~3 cases (or four counting the superspreader) so six cases is probably not sufficient to claim less than 90% effectiveness. Note, I’m not including those who weren’t on the plane as we don’t know how many other people were exposed off the plane.

  27. “Fugitive Democrats Super-Spreader Tour” …..
    A big hot political story about eight breakthrough cases from not wearing masks. It’s a godsend!.. Now, the statistics, percentages, risk analysis etc are all meaningless. The publicity is priceless. My work is done here. I rest my case. [It’s icing on the cake that the Democrats are getting a poke in the eye!]

  28. WRT to Texas Fugitive: I wonder if air filtration was not working on the airplane? Or it those people hang out together a lot, did they do something in doors in an enclosed space with little air refresh?
    .
    At least it sounds like all the cases are mild.

  29. Russel,
    It isn’t going to do your position any good. These people’s symptoms are so mild they wouldn’t have been diagnosed if they weren’t being tested!

  30. DeWitt Payne (Comment #203794): “Since The Texas Fugitive event is pretty much confirmed as a superspreader event, it’s possible that the immune systems of those infected were overwhelmed by a high dose of virus.”
    .
    From where? People who are vaccinated are not supposed to get so sick, so they should not produce that much virus. And there ever been a case of overwhelming the immune system, other than in animal experiments gone wrong?
    .
    DeWitt Payne: “OTOH, if the vaccine offered no protection, then all 50 (or 49, assuming the superspreader was a Texas Fugitive) could have been infected. 95% protection would predict ~3 cases (or four counting the superspreader)”.
    .
    Except that such event never result in the infection of everyone exposed.

  31. “Fugitive Democrats Super-Spreader Tour”
    What I find utterly breathtaking is the idea of that there exists procedural maneuvers by which the clear wishes of the majority can be circumvented. But then I am clearly a majoratarian… (and an admirer of the Swiss direct democracy model).

  32. The members of the Wisconsin Legislature have done it fairly recently too. I’d have to look up if it was GOP or DEM’s who fled. (Of course…. no I will.)

  34. Oregon Republicans have fled multiple times to stop global warming legislation.
    Vox had an article how they were subverting democracy, but their article on the Texas Dems was more positive.

  35. Back to the ruling.

    There is no “right to not wear a mask” or “to not be tested”. (That’s realkt what 7 out of 8 are really suing for since they have or can get an exemption from the injection.)

    In other contexts, the government has lawfully mandated wearing protective gear, like a mask, when it also provides benefits to the public—like mandated bicycle helmets, hair nets, ear plugs, and any number of personal protective equipment. See, e.g., Burr v. Atty. Gen. Delaware, 641 F. Appx. 194, 196 (3d Cir. 2016) (per curiam) (seatbelt mandate held constitutional); Picou v. Gillum, 874 F.2d 1519, 1519 (11th Cir. 1989) (Powell, J.) (state statute requiring motorcycle riders to wear protective headgear was constitutional). It is no less reasonable here.

    It them moves onto harm. This is important vis-a-vis an injunction since you don’t get an injunction if you aren’t harmed by waiting. It first explains what “harm” is.

    Irreparable harm is “harm that cannot be repaired and for which money compensation is inadequate.”

    .

    A delay in collegiate or graduate education isn’t typically irreparable harm

    .

    Any concerns about the hypothetical segregation or discrimination are only speculative and don’t constitute irreparable harm.

    .

    Though some students say the extra requirements are unnecessary or inconvenient, neither concern rises to the level of irreparable harm

    .

    And because the students aren’t being forced to take the vaccine against their will, the harm is demonstrably less. Though the students may have to forego a semester of school or transfer somewhere else—certainly a difficult and inconvenient choice, and not one lightly tossed aside—they have options

    .
    This segues a bit into the difference between the role of the court vs. legilature:

    The public interest also favors denying a preliminary injunction. The court isn’t a policymaker: that role is left to the States. On multiple occasions, the Supreme Court has “recognized the role of the States as laboratories for devising solutions to difficult legal problems.”

    .

    Enabling the this state university to work through these problems reasonably fosters public health and safety in areas of scientific uncertainty. […]. To be sure, if the students had shown a likelihood that the university was unreasonably infringing on their constitutional rights, enjoining that violation would be in the public interest.

    .
    .

    This university policy isn’t forced vaccination. The students have options—taking the vaccine, applying for a religious exemption, applying for a medical exemption, applying for a medical deferral, taking a semester off, or attending another university. This policy applies for the fall 2021 semester only. Students may make their choice after being advised of the risks and benefits of the vaccines, thereby giving informed consent. The court recognizes that for certain students this may prove a difficult choice, but a choice nonetheless. The choice isn’t so coercive as to constitute irreparable constitutional harm. Although it proves a condition to attend this fall, it is reasonable under the Constitution.

    ..
    closing

    One might well hale a certain Emersonian self-reliance and self-determination as preference—an unfettered right of the individual to choose the vaccine or not—but, given a preliminary record such as today’s, the court must exercise judicial restraint in superimposing any personal view in the guise of constitutional interpretation.
    Reasonable social policy is for the state legislatures and its authorized arms, and for the People to demand through their representatives.

    That final sentences is basically: This is not our call (in the circumstances.)

  36. Phil,
    Oddly, the “fleeing” manoever exists because of worries that if a quorum is not required, then minorities can pass laws. The might try to prevent legislators from arriving and have a sub-set pass a law in their absence!

  37. I recently mentioned that pharma companies are good at gaming clinical trials. Here is a piece describing some of that and a study on the real world incidence of severe adverse events compared to clinical trials:
    https://sebastianrushworth.com/2021/07/19/do-drug-trials-underestimate-side-effects/
    Spoiler: Adverse events are far more common in the real world.
    .
    In grasping for reasons, Rushworth speculates that maybe reporting of adverse events is suppressed. I thought that iffy. He gets quite a bit of pushback on that in the comments, including from one person familiar with trials who claims that the pharma companies are much better at gaming the trials than Rushworth imagines.

  38. lucia (Comment #203804): “Oddly, the “fleeing” manoever exists because of worries that if a quorum is not required, then minorities can pass laws. The might try to prevent legislators from arriving and have a sub-set pass a law in their absence!”
    .
    I recall that something like that happened at the 1848 Democratic convention. Van Buren’s opponents called the convention to order early and rushed through some rule changes designed to deny him the nomination.
    .
    I think a better system would be to require a majority of all members rather than just those present.

  39. “Oddly, the “fleeing” manoever exists because of worries that if a quorum is not required, then minorities can pass laws. ”

    That is a good reason, but in our parliament the proxy vote rules achieve the same end. The only quorum that I am aware of still operating is requirement for 60 members (out of house of 99) for a vote on suspending Standing Orders.

  40. Hopefully that kind of underhand tactic will be expensive in the next election.

  41. Lucia,
    “These people’s symptoms are so mild they wouldn’t have been diagnosed”. The numbers no longer matter. The media and politicians have picked up the ball and are running all over the field with it. It will be fun to watch for a week or two. I have no idea how the political thing will end, but three thing have already happened: 1] The public is aware that this outbreak can be dangerous even to people who are vaccinated. 2] The public is aware that virus has not run it’s course and more precautions [vaccinations!] need to be taken. 3] The public is aware that masks are necessary in some situations.

  42. MikeM
    It’s plausible that healthier people are more likely to volunteer for trials. OR less hypochodriachal ones. Or … something.
    It’s not necessarily “gaming”. There may be no way to avoid this sort of self selection. They do randomize within the group.

  43. Lucia,

    You correctly draw a distinction between what is legally permissibly for the school and what is sensible for the school. On the second count, I think the school is way out of line; there is nobody they are actually protecting with their covid rules: anyone who wants a vaccine can get one. And those who don’t get the vaccine? Well, it is their life after all. The school is just asserting the power to force students to conform, exactly as they try to do in every aspect of college life. I will not be surprised if the state legislature steps in and over rides the school administrators. Concurrent firing the upper levels of the school administration would be even more constructive, though unlikely. These people are petty tyrants who are drunk on PC power, nothing more.

  44. lucia (Comment #203797): “These people’s symptoms are so mild they wouldn’t have been diagnosed if they weren’t being tested!”
    .
    How do you know?
    .
    That does raise an important issue. Maybe they are actually ill, with symptoms like a fever and loss of taste, which would be very concerning. Maybe all but one is completely asymptomatic and the others are not even infected; they just test positive since the test picks up the virus particles to which they were exposed.
    .
    Yet another possibility is that they have mild symptoms with the infection confined to the upper respiratory tract. It has been suggested for over a year that vaccines might not be so effective against such infections, although it would keep such infections from spreading to the blood stream or cause viral pneumonia. That would allow the virus to circulate without causing severe symptoms, until it gets to a vulnerable person. Such a mechanism would undermine the idea of herd immunity. It might explain how the UK can have high vaccination rates, high case rates, and very few deaths.

  45. SteveF,
    I won’t be surprised if the legislature takes up removing the right of IU to have these rules. But I’m not sure what the outcome will be because I’m not that familiar with Indiana politics. It’s possible they had just enough votes to pass the law making it illegal to ask for proof, but not enough to go further. So, we’ll see what happens.
    .
    The problem, of course, is that we need to recognize there is a difference between what the government is actually barred from doing, and what various people think the wisest or best course should be. It does look like IU did look at what they were allowed to do, and their administrators think this is what they should do. It also looks like the are likely allowed to do this.
    .
    It is interesting to see some of the “legal arguments” addressed by court. So I’m glad the court wrote up their extremely lengthy opinion. (Which, of course, is not the last word.)
    .
    I wouldn’t be quite as tough on the administration of IU as you are. It’s not entirely irrational to think there still is at least a risk that things could go wrong. Having dorms full of sick kids would not be fun. I think that would not have happened, but given the known unknowns it’s not outside the realm of possibility.

  46. These walkouts don’t really work, they are political stunts for attention. They have to come back eventually. Pretty ironic that the people walking out are worried about a threat to “democracy”, ha ha.

  47. MikeM

    How do you know?

    Because the news reports tell us the cases were only discovered because of routine ongoing testing and all people have is sniffles.
    .

    Maybe they are actually ill, with symptoms like a fever and loss of taste, which would be very concerning

    The news reports say the worst anyone has is sniffles. Of course, that could be a lie, but that’s what they say.
    .

    Such a mechanism would undermine the idea of herd immunity. It might explain how the UK can have high vaccination rates, high case rates, and very few deaths.

    Yes. The reports of symptoms so mild that it can only be picked by testing, but still capable of spreading is consistent with what’s happening in the UK. And it’s consistent with the whole “asymptomatic spreading” notion that people use to justify masking.

  48. lucia (Comment #203815): “Because the news reports tell us the cases were only discovered because of routine ongoing testing and all people have is sniffles.”
    .
    And politicians never lie to the media and the media never lie to us. Or full symptoms have not had a chance to develop. But sniffles would be consistent with an actual infection that is limited to the upper respiratory tract, which might be the most plausible explanation.

  49. UK case rates by age group:
    https://www.portsmouth.gov.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Cases-by-age-2007.png
    .
    https://www.brighton-hove.gov.uk/covid-19-key-statistics-brighton-hove/confirmed-case-rates-trend-age
    .
    There is definitely a change in age of cases. I can’t find a median age trend or an all UK graph of age groups for the past year. However it looks like the cases are much younger now which explains at least part of the lower death counts.
    .
    I haven’t seen any clear data on whether delta is deadlier or not. It seems to be hard to figure out because of the age demographic change or something.

  50. The covid vaccines were 95% effective against symptomatic disease and 90% effective against (asymptomatic + symptomatic) disease based on studies against original covid.
    .
    It is known that the vaccines offer less protection against alpha/delta, but the exact number against asymptomatic delta is hard to pin down, it seems to be about 5% to 10% lower depending on how it is measured and against which vaccine and how many doses. It’s also unclear if delta can be more easily transmitted by vaccinated people. Vaccinated people have lower viral loads but delta also reportedly reproduces faster internally. There is little question that delta is going to continue to spread quickly.
    .
    The most relevant measurement data still remains the vaccinated / unvaccinated ratios of death and hospitalization, as well as the age groups being infected.
    .
    My official guess is the US is in for moderately high case rates for the next couple months, but death rates similar to the UK.
    .
    Some data here. 80%, 79%, 64% against asymptomatic delta. I didn’t review this very closely.
    https://www.healthline.com/health-news/heres-how-well-covid-19-vaccines-work-against-the-delta-variant

  51. MikeM

    And politicians never lie to the media and the media never lie to us.

    Sure. And how do you know the story about cases related to the Texas Fugitive flight is true at all? Maybe there are no cases.
    .
    The fact is, you are also relying on news stories. In fact you are relying on the exact same news stories which report it happened , also report it’s sniffles and also report how they were detected.

  52. I haven’t seen any numbers to support this, but it seems reasonable to me that the deaths may be lower this time around partly because the herd has already been culled…twice. More incidental evidence that old folks are not taking this round seriously… My wife is going to lunch today with a friend who is 83 and only has one lung left.

  53. Tom Scharf (Comment #203817): “There is definitely a change in age of cases. I can’t find a median age trend or an all UK graph of age groups for the past year. However it looks like the cases are much younger now which explains at least part of the lower death counts.”
    .
    Thanks. That is interesting. Curiously, cases were much younger back in October, then shifted. Which also seems to be happening now.
    .
    Looking at the UK data in Financial Times graphs, the age difference last fall does not seem visible:
    https://ig.ft.com/coronavirus-chart/?areas=gbr&cumulative=0&logScale=0&per100K=1&startDate=2020-09-01&values=deaths
    Deaths seem to lag cases by about 2-3 weeks. Deaths were rising strongly in October, even when cases were almost entirely in the 15-29 group. So maybe Portsmouth is not representative of the UK.

  54. Mike M wrote: “So maybe Portsmouth is not representative of the UK.”
    .
    It is a retirement capital.

  55. lucia (Comment #203819):

    Sure. And how do you know the story about cases related to the Texas Fugitive flight is true at all? Maybe there are no cases.
    .
    The fact is, you are also relying on news stories. In fact you are relying on the exact same news stories which report it happened , also report it’s sniffles and also report how they were detected.

    .
    Sure. But we know the direction of media bias. Is the mainstream media calling this a superspread event? From what I have seen, they seem to be following the White House lead and refusing to do that.
    .
    A positive test is what it is. Characterization of symptoms allows much more room to shade the truth.
    .
    Reports are that no more info on positive tests from the Fugitive Democrats will be released. And Psaki seems to have admitted that there have been (apparently unrelated) positive tests among White House staff that have not been revealed.
    .
    It is only reasonable to *suspect* that things *may* be worse than we are told.

  56. Lucia:
    This maybe is the evidence that ivermectin works:
    https://trialsitenews.com/uk-based-meta-analysis-peer-reviewed-published-suggests-ivermectin-a-key-public-health-weapon-in-the-war-against-covid-19/
    We recall that Lawrie has responded to the one study included in the above paper that is being questioned. I posted a link to that upthread.
    They types of things discussed, for instance the safety of ivermectin, exist as a subset within the terrain. I’ve argued that the terrain relevant here is best described as authority hierarchies. We can find many examples of subset specialties existing with authority hierarchies. I while being a personal income tax CPA exist within a number of hierarchies, including authority ones. Some people call these hierarchies the real world. So the goals are to save people and take on the real world to the extent it stands in the way of saving people. What is well demonstrated across space and time is the tendency for authority hierarchies to protect themselves, not those under their authority. I’ve been suggesting that has been happening. But I haven’t had good results. I need better marketing.

  58. Lucia, mild symptoms is still symptoms, and I think would not represent asymptomatic spreading.

  59. MikeN,
    Sure. But it would be spread by people who don’t notice they have symptoms. So with respect to the mask argument, that it’s not strictly “symptomless” is a distinction without a difference. These are people who would not have recognized they had symptoms and would not have put masked on. That’s all that matters to the ‘pro-masks’ on everyone argument.
    .
    But yes: if we are talking about whether it’s literally symptomless, the sniffles is not literally symptomless.

  60. MikeM

    Sure. But we know the direction of media bias.

    Yes. The direction is toward alarmism and over statement. So bias or not, if the media reports symptoms were mild, I think we can safely know the reporters were told the symptoms were mild.

    It is only reasonable to *suspect* that things *may* be worse than we are told.

    Not given the known direction of bias.

  61. Ragnaar,
    It's nice to see crowdfunding happened. I'll read the paper when I find it. (That's a link to a news article. Which is fine… but for some reason, authors still often don't link to the underlying article. I understood that back in 2000. But now? Ok.. I'll find it.)

  63. Ragnar. I haven't fully read the paper. But the first thing I looked for is whether the screened out papers with obvious confounding effects. They didn't. I specifically looked for the paper from Argentina:

    Chahla 2021142 Argentina Open-label None reported Health care

    https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.03.26.21254398v1

    To evaluate the protective effect of the combination Ivermectin / Iota-Carrageenan (IVER/IOTACRC), intensive treatment with repeated administration in oral- and nasal-spray, respectively, as a prophylaxis treatment prior to exposure to SARS-CoV-2, in health personnel at Public Healthcare Centers.
    This used two proposed prophelactics simultaneously. Unless the later meta-analysis takes care to check whether the effect might have been due to iota-carrageenan giving credit to ivermectin is a serious flaw.
    It doesn't stop being a flaw because this is a "meta-analysis". The paper (and any others like this) should be screened out.

  64. The next paper under the "prophylaxis" studies was reltracted yesterday

    " Elgazzar 202047 Egypt Open-label Self-funded Health care and family contacts"

    https://www.medpagetoday.com/special-reports/exclusives/93658
    "Large Ivermectin Study Retracted
    — Preprint publisher finds evidence of plagiarism, problems with raw data"

    This looks sufficiently bad that any meta-analysis that uses this data would also be flawed. So that's a strike against relying on this new pre-print.

  65. For prophelixix effect, if we exclude the two included studies that clearly should be excluded, we are left with one study:
    https://www.researchgate.net/publication/348755915_Use_of_Ivermectin_as_a_potential_chemoprophylaxis_for_COVID-19_in_Egypt_A_Randomised_clinical_trial

    Scanning, I don't see any obvious confounding treatment. I haven't found it to be withdrawn for data problems. It looks like it found support for use as a prophelaxis– but of course, it just remains 1 study– sema as before the "meta analysis".

    I'll hunt around a little more on this one. It's been out a while.

  66. Anyway, Ragnaar:
    I only looked at the prophelaxix branch.
    My quick look is the paper needs to:
    1) Go through their acceptance criteria and add a rule that requires them to remove any studies that used two measures simultaneously but then credits any results to ivermectin.

    2) Go back and check whether the underlying data in any paper is suspicious. Of only three papers in the prophelaxis branch, one has been withdraw because it looks like it may be plagiarized and may have "data problems". That happened after this paper sucked it in and used it as part of the meta-analysis, but it still means the paper needs to be excluded and then the numbers rerun.
    (It's not necessarily the fault of the current authors that they didn't know one of these papers would be retracted. But it does mean their method of looking at data doesn't catch these flaws while someone else did. Usually, people doing meta analyses should look at the included papers well enough to find things that tare suspicious in the data.)

    In the prophelaxis branch (the only one I searched the papers on) this eliminates 2/3rds of the papers (leaving 1 paper.) In this case, there can be no "meta-analysis" as there is only 1 paper left.

  69. I remember when there was a covid outbreak in (he who shall not be named)'s White House. The NYT's was running an almost a daily lineup of what looked like mugshots of the infected. There is bias in how these outbreaks are framed. One side are victims of the disease or society's mistreatment of them, the other side are victims of their own immoral decisions and the people they elect. This type of stuff is what has really changed over the last 50 years. It's just a new media model, partially driven by desperate revenue requirements for survival.

  71. Tom Scharf.
    " It's just a new media model, partially driven by desperate revenue requirements for survival."
    .
    I think you are far too kind. It is mostly driven by lefty indoctrination of journalism majors at colleges and universities for the last 20 years, combined with the social exclusion/firing/punishing of anyone working in journalism who does not tow the lefty party line. They are unapologetic socialists who don't give the tiniest sh!t about truthful, factual reporting…. it is 100% about advancing their political goals. The MSM is populated with these lowlifes, and they are so dishonest that the MSM should be simply be ignored.

  72. Tom Scharf
    "Everything we've done in college football in the past is to be equal," Saban said in his appearance at SEC media days on Wednesday. "Now that's not going to be the case."
    Yep. The colleges and NCAA wanted the equality of "all the players stay poor". Yeah, this kid is going to make more. But this kid getting endorsements isn't hurting any college student.

  73. Lucia,

    I have long considered Saban a jerk; he has just proven it without any doubt. He is on the wrong side of both fairness and common human decency. I think he should be ashamed of himself, but I am sure he isn't. Perhaps his $9 million per year guaranteed salary has blinded him to the economic realities of his often very poor 'student athletes'. Perhaps if star athletes are more fairly compensated, then star coaches' stars will shine less bright. Saban's pitch to the best players is simple: "Alabama places many players in the NFL, so to maximize your chances of getting rich, you should come to Alabama…. which also helps support my 'legacy'……. and my enormous salary." If the best go directly to the NFL without Saban's coaching, then why the $9 million salary for Saban? My answer: there is no reason for it; he should make a tenth what he makes.
    .
    The next shoe to drop will be court orders declaring illegal the (blatant!) collusion between the NFL and the NCAA which keeps talented players from signing pro contracts. The top players are pros in everything but name, and the NCAA and the NFL should stop their ridiculous charade, so that outstanding players are compensated according to what their talents merit.

  74. SteveF,
    This is the Saban quote that I thought shows what a jerk he is
    "And it's like, the guy hasn't even played yet," Saban said, according to The Athletic. "But that's because of our brand."
    Uhhmmm…. It's not like you picked this kid as quarter back at random. He must be very talented in and of himself. And Alabama's brand rests on the backs of lots of kids you picked before.
    .
    So yes, it's partly the brand developed on the backs of past (and current) student athletes that gets him the endorsements. But a heck of a lot of it is that the quarterback is a star athlete. And he could easily blow all these endorsements by acting 'badly' in some way that makes him no longer marketable.
    .
    Of course, I can also see your point that their history was not 'everyone is equal'. The students were clearly not equal to Saban who was paid mega-sh*t-tons of money. And I have no doubt you are correct that Saban lured them to Alabama with promises that the choice could maximize their earning power eventually.
    .
    Of course this might affect the power dynamics of teams in many ways. Heck, students having money right now could permit them to stand firmer when mistreated!

  75. Lucia,
    "Heck, students having money right now could permit them to stand firmer when mistreated!"
    .
    Combine that with a player's ability (I hope in the future) to sign a pro contract at any time, and people like Saban will have greatly diminished influence…. and salaries. Really, this is 100% about money. Schools take advantage of the best players (those with a likely pro contract) to make a ton of money, while those very talented players make nothing and risk career-ending injury in every play. It is grotesquely unfair, and I am sure the college-is-minor-league-football model is going to end in the coming years. Gracefully or otherwise. I suspect it will be otherwise.

  76. You know what? Coaches get endorsements and or speaking engagement too. But I bet coaches endorsement/speaking engagment earnings will fall! The reason is that endorsements basically act as advertising, and often the advertisers will get more bang for their buck endorsing an athlete or even inviting an athlete to speak. ( Being verbal will be an asset for an athlete, but even that might not matter all that much in some cases.)

    Estimates of coaches endorsements/ speaking engagements:
    https://247sports.com/LongFormArticle/Highest-paid-college-coaches-through-endorsements-Nick-Saban-Alabama-Crimson-Tide-Jim-Harbaugh-Michigan-Wolverines–164183344/#164183344_1

    This kid got more than what's listed for these coaches. But then, he's probably worth more in advertising!!

  77. I guess if Saban and the NCAA believe in equality they could mandate coach's salaries at some piddling level they pay the rest of their employees. Surely people will still line up to coach Alabama for $100K/year.
    .
    The NCAA could give away their TV contracts for free, or at least at cost of transmission. Want an Alabama jersey? No licensing fees!
    .
    It was all so absurd. I don't dream for a minute that this new situation is going to make things better for the sport I really like, but it was wildly out of control because of the massive paydays being distributed in lunacy.

  79. Russell Klier (Comment #203846): "“ How the UK’s Covid-19 vaccine rollout has dramatically reduced deaths” An amazing bar chart, but I can’t verify the data."
    .
    Nice graphic, but it tells the same story that we have discussed here previously: The case fatality rate in the UK has been very low, for whatever reason. Maybe the vaccine, but there is no data that shows that. It is curious that the vaccine seems to have had no impact on the rate of increase in cases; i.e., no impact on R.

  80. Tom,
    I don't think the new situation can make things worse for sport. We are getting predictions all over the place. One promising player evidently signed at a less dominant school precisely to get play time and potentially capitalize on endorsements for image and likeness sooner!
    .
    We don't know how it will pan out. But certainly, a $10M a year coach claiming it used to be about "equality" is bogus on many levels.

  82. I have occasion to hear NPR for short periods (all I could take anyway) because a relative I sometimes visit pretty much has it on 24/7.
    .
    They offer pretentious drivel, always firmly stated, and never actually address a contrary argument…. indeed, they act like no contrary argument even exists. NPR is just another piece of the leftist "megaphone" (AKA the MSM), and is functionally a propaganda outlet for Democrats.

  83. "Local officials across U.S. are starting to reimpose Covid mask rules as delta variant takes hold" Boy who could have predicted this. What's next, leaning on people to get vaccinated? "Nation’s largest hospital group supports mandatory coronavirus vaccines for health workers"
    https://www.cnbc.com/2021/07/21/covid-local-officials-across-us-are-starting-to-reimpose-mask-rules-as-delta-variant-takes-hold.html
    https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2021/07/21/covid-shots-health-care-workers/

  84. Trump was bad at a lot of things, but he was very good at drawing out partisan media and exposing their bias. Sadly NPR took that bait. They always leaned left but made an effort to be non-partisan. The last 5 years have shown them to be just another liberal outlook whose editor is Twitter, just in a calmer gentler manner.
    .
    The petty hit piece on Shapiro would never have happened 5 years ago, this article was just bizarre. It is blatantly obvious that it needlessly alienates a section of their audience. It's an editor failure, people get fired over this kind of stuff, but it won't happen here.
    .
    The DailyWire popup today: "NPR is BIG MAD that Daily Wire is speaking the Truth" DefundNPR. Ha ha.
    .
    Shapiro has a clear point of view and he monetizes it. He doesn't hide it and people know what they are going to get. The stuffy elite going on about threats to democracy and real journalism is about all I can take.

  85. Here's an example of typical framing bias by NPR:
    "In May, Clapton said that he had experienced a "severe" reaction to the AstraZeneca vaccine, and that he was afraid that he would "never play again.""
    .
    Alternately: "Clapton had a severe reaction to the AZ vaccine". No scare quotes and no implying that he is making it up or overstating it without evidence. Some people have severe reactions to vaccines. It happens. Note the URL text here.
    https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/eric-clapton-disastrous-vaccine-propaganda-1170264/
    .
    It doesn't help to .. ahem .. refute people's lived experiences with the vaccine. They are trying too hard to squelch rare bad outcomes and it is backfiring.

  86. Russell
    States reimposing is happening. I think even (or especially) those against mandates predicted this. That's true even of those who think it is unnecessary.

    On this:
    "Nation’s largest hospital group supports mandatory coronavirus vaccines for health workers"
    Hospitals requiring Covid vaccines for health workers is not new. There has even been a court case in TX. It's old enough for there to have been a ruling! The workers who did not want to take the vaccine lost.
    .
    It would have been odd to "predict" hospitals were going to (future tense) require vaccination while it was already happening.
    .
    I suspect you'll find people and "groups" supporting mandatory vaccines for teachers if you look around. And military. And you'll find other people and "groups" opposing that. Both the existence of support and opposition is not new.

  87. lucia,

    I question whether you can have a real meta-analysis of only three studies in the first place. You have essentially no statistics on the between studies variability. If the between studies variability is small, then you don't really need a meta-analysis.

  88. "I suspect you'll find people and "groups" supporting mandatory vaccines for teachers if you look around. And military. And you'll find other people and "groups" opposing that. Both the existence of support and opposition is not new."

    You will find people who support kicking unvaccinated out of restaurants, churches, schools, grocery stores, and every other place.

  89. I missed the context about masks vs asymptomatic spread. I was thinking in terms of Fauci initially said he didn't believe asymptomatic spread was a thing, as it is not the case for other respiratory illnesses. I am wondering if he was right at the time, or whether he would have done things differently if he believed it.

    Not recognizing covid as an airborne illness was and is a major failure.

  90. DeWitt Payne (Comment #203874): "If the between studies variability is small, then you don't really need a meta-analysis."
    .
    Then the meta analysis would not much affect the central value, but it would reduce the error limits. Three separate studies that individually fall short of the magic p value of 0.05 might collectively give p

  91. MikeN

    You will find people who support kicking unvaccinated out of restaurants, churches, schools, grocery stores, and every other place.

    Russell wants them to be required to wear masks to those places. I mostly don’t, but would want it in special circumstances.
    .
    I do want cruise ships leaving for international waters to be allowed to require vaccines.

  92. MikeM and N,
    I think that paper shows how very few studies there are on ivermectin. They did want to collect stuff together, and did manage to get crowd source funding. But there just aren’t many good studies.
    .
    I don’t know about the “treatment” research. But I’m pretty sure most the “pro ivermectin” crowd are rooting for prophelactic since they are pushing for that as a substitute for vaccination.

  93. I am shocked (shocked!) by this very recent development:

    BEIJING (AP) — China cannot accept the World Health Organization’s plan for the second phase of a study into the origins of COVID-19, a senior Chinese health official said Thursday.

    Zeng Yixin, the vice minister of the National Health Commission, said he was “rather taken aback” that the plan includes further investigation of the theory that the virus might have leaked from a Chinese lab.

    Most likely it was from a Chinese lab…. that is the only explanation consistent with their unwillingness to provide requested data from the labs in Wuhan.

  94. Lucia,
    People should have both agency and accountability. With vaccines available to all, I can see zero justification of using vaccination status to exclude people from anything. If one is vaccinated but still concerned that there might be a breakthrough case, don’t go on a cruise ship. Next flu vaccinations will be required, then a complete health history and list of past vaccinations.

  95. SteveF,

    AFAICT, the CCP has all the earmarks of a pathological liar. They lie even when they don’t have to. Even if they knew for certain that it spread from an infected wild animal, they would probably still not want to admit that it originated in China. Hence their emphasis on the completely ridiculous hypothesis that it came from the US via frozen fish. Save face at any cost.

    The local officials also routinely lie to the central government, although that could prove damaging to their health via a bullet to the head (don’t want to damage transplantable organs).

  96. Meta-analysis of randomized trials of ivermectin to treat SARS-CoV-2 infection Published:
    06 July 2021
    This links to the paper:
    https://bwi.forums.rivals.com/threads/another-profoundly-positive-meta-analysis-by-who-ivermectin-research-team-lead-dr-andrew-hill.299305/
    “In 11 randomized trials of moderate/severe infection, there was a 56% reduction in mortality (Relative Risk 0.44 [95%CI 0.25-0.77]; p=0.004; 35/1064 (3%) deaths on ivermectin; 93/1063 (9%) deaths in controls) with favorable clinical recovery and reduced hospitalization.”
    Someone had commented at the link that had me looking at this:
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remdesivir#United_States
    Where we see the government doesn’t do a very job with many things. The government handling of Remdesivir was not science or medicine but incompetent politics involving large corporations and a really expensive drug.

  97. DeWitt,
    Pathological liars exist; Hillary and Bill were indeed pathological liars…. they used to lie about innocuous things seemingly just to stay in practice. Like Hillary claiming to be named after Sir Edmund Hillary…. when she was born long before Edmund Hillary was famous…. just an unknown farmer who had never climbed Mt Everest.
    .
    I think if the Chinese CC could actually identify an animal source, they would disclose that, and if they had nothing to.hide from work at the Wuhan labs, they would allow release of what they were working on. The first SARS was found in China and within several months it’s animal source was identified and conclusively proven. China did not try to blame imported frozen fish for the original SARS. Covid-19 is clearly different; William of Ockham would probably say they are hiding a lab release. YMMV.

  98. SteveF,
    I agree people should have agency. But that includes cruise operator.
    .
    If someone get ill on a week long cruise, the cruise operators will be in a position of needing to provide access to care. That’s not what they are in business to do. I think the cruise operators should be allowed to exclude people at risk of this serious illness to protect their own bottom line. Some cruise operators seem to want to do this. (NCL in particular.)
    .
    Florida is prohibiting NCL from exercising their preferences and so taking away their agency.

  99. Ragnaar,
    The paper doesn’t analyze prophalaxis (which is the use you advocate.) That’s the bit I’ve been interested in anyway.
    .
    I would assume otherwise the meta-analysis is sifting over the same studies as in the other paper. As I said: I didn’t sift through those. However, I notice this in comments at your new paper:

    Are the authors aware of the the retraction of the pre-print by Elgazzar et al. (https://www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-100956/v1) over concerns of potential scientific fraud and breach of ethical conduct? This study was the largest study by patient number included in the meta-analysis, and also had the largest drug effect. Given the outsize effect this would have on the meta-analysis and concerns of the scientific integrity of this study, will the authors consider revising their analysis with this study excluded from the meta-analysis?

    It’s a new concern about the underlying paper. But if those concerns pan out, the authors of the paper you cited will need to redo their entire analysis. (Which isn’t necessarily a negative for them since they’d get a new paper out of it. Publish or perish they say. An excuse to publish again ain’t bad!)

  100. SteveF,
    I’d say CCP is hiding something they think puts their reputation at risk. It might be a lab leak. It could be something else.

  101. lucia,

    The leadership of the CCP was different in 2002-3 for the SARS outbreak. They were actually willing to admit that they had made mistakes then. Xi Jinping is simply not going to admit to anything COVID related, other than how successful they were in containing the internal spread.

    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK92479/

  102. Lucia,
    “Florida is prohibiting NCL from exercising their preferences and so taking away their agency.”
    .
    We can put aside any argument about if corporations have agency like individuals do.
    .
    But the cruise line can simply say to potential passengers that they board at their own risk and they only recommend that fully vaccinated people without compromised immune systems should consider going on a cruise. Individual agency again. The Diamond Princess cruise had no vaccinated people, and the virus spread quickly, infecting about 20% of passengers in a couple of weeks. Cut the Diamond Princess risk of infection by a factor of 20 (for vaccinated people) and by another factor of x (number vaccinated on board divided by unvaccinated on board), and the risk to vaccinated individuals would be pretty low. DeSantis is not likely going to let them demand proof of vaccination, and he is probably more stubborn than they are. Any such ‘proof’ of vaccination could be easily forged in a few minutes anyway, even if DeSantis relented, as we have both noted. I think the cruise lines will suck it up and start cruises. The “everybody is vaccinated'” claim is by no means certain, and any advertising to that effect would be deceptive at best; dishonest at worst. And good luck to the Cruise lines if they start demanding nasal swabs at the dock. They just have to start cruising, and when the first customers don’t get sick, their traffic will increase. The supermarkets and restaurants are operating, with no masks and no demand for proof of vaccination. So can the cruise lines.

  103. Lucia,
    BTW, short cruises (under 5 days) are very common in Florida, and with a short cruise it is very unlikely anybody would contract the virus and become gravely ill. Someone could walk on the boat already infected, and get sick during a short cruise, but the risk of that is pretty low. The risk could be reduced by measuring passengers temperatures (remote IR sensors) before boarding.
    .
    Cruises hold no attraction for me, so I won’t personally be involved.

  104. lucia (Comment #203886): “If someone get ill on a week long cruise, the cruise operators will be in a position of needing to provide access to care. That’s not what they are in business to do. I think the cruise operators should be allowed to exclude people at risk of this serious illness to protect their own bottom line.”
    .
    Should cruise lines be permitted to demand a letter from your cardiologist verifying your heart health? Should they be allowed to ban anyone over a certain age? How about diabetics? People with transplanted organs? Those are all probably at greater risk of a serious medical event than someone who is unvaccinated. Definitely at more risk than someone middle age or younger.

  105. lucia (Comment #203888): “I’d say CCP is hiding something they think puts their reputation at risk. It might be a lab leak. It could be something else.”
    .
    Indeed. It seems that the Chinese military has been very much involved in work at the WIV. There are reports that *all* Chinese virology research has a weapons connection; but those are unverified stories from unnamed individuals in the intelligence community, so need to be taken with a teaspoon of salt. However, if true it could explain what the CCP is hiding.

  106. New study, basically the same results:
    “Two doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine offer 88 percent protection against symptomatic disease caused by the delta variant, compared to 94 percent against the alpha variant that was first discovered in Britain and became dominant across the globe earlier this year, the study said.”
    .
    “A double dose of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine was 67 percent effective against delta, according to the British researchers, down slightly from an efficacy rate of 75 percent against the alpha variant.”
    .
    “The authors of the new study said a single dose of either the Pfizer-BioNTech or the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine was significantly less effective against the delta variant than two doses. One dose of the vaccine developed by U.S. firm Pfizer with German partner BioNTech was just 36 percent effective, the study found, while a single shot of the vaccine from Oxford University and British-Swedish company AstraZeneca offered 30 percent protection.”
    https://nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2108891?query=featured_home

  107. Tom Scharf,

    Interesting study. Seems to support the idea that a booster would be prudent to reduce risk of variants. Of course, a slightly modified m-RNA vaccine targeting the delta variant (and other variants that arise) would probably be better.

  108. An interesting study indeed.

    In brief, we compared vaccination status in persons with symptomatic Covid-19 with vaccination status in persons who reported symptoms but had a negative test. This approach helps to control for biases related to health-seeking behavior, access to testing, and case ascertainment.

    That sounds smart. Very smart. It seems that symptoms are “high temperature, new continuous cough, or loss or change in sense of smell or taste”. So not sniffles.

    testing for SARS-CoV-2 in the United Kingdom is undertaken by hospital and public health laboratories, as well as by community testing with the use of drive-through or at-home testing, which is available to anyone with symptoms consistent with Covid-19 (high temperature, new continuous cough, or loss or change in sense of smell or taste).

    At-home testing might have a high false negative rate, so I wonder if that might bias results. They do note that:

    Low sensitivity or specificity of PCR testing could result in cases and controls being misclassified, which would attenuate the estimates of vaccine effectiveness.

    Does that mean it would make the vaccine seem less effective? Or just that it would make the estimate less reliable?
    .
    It does leave open the question of whether the vaccine stops the circulation of the virus via mild infections limited to the upper respiratory tract.

  109. MikeM

    Does that mean it would make the vaccine seem less effective? Or just that it would make the estimate less reliable?

    I think mostly the former. If the PCR test is just the flip of a biased coin with x% positive, then the result of the experiment will tend toward tests saying both the vaccinated and unvaccinated having x% infected. The odds ratio for infection for vaccinated vs unvacinated will be 1. This would look like entirely ineffective vaccine and you’d get this result even if the vaccine actually gave 100% protection.
    .
    If the PCR test is perfect both with a zero false negative and zero false positive rate, the results of tests will tend toward the true odds ratio. So a perfect vaccine will show 100% protection.
    .
    For a somewhat imperfect PCR test will tend make the vaccine look less effective, but saying how much requires calculation and it depends on both the false positive and false negative rates. I’d have to think a bit to figure out if there is any combination of false positive that can make the vaccine look too good. (I have to think about the effect of false negatives.) 🙂
    .

  111. In the past month, new cases in the UK have risen by a factor of 5, from 14 to 72 per 100K (data from the Financial Times site). In the big surge last fall, from late Set. to late Oct., cases rose by a factor of 4 in a month; that was very similar to the next surge, from early Dec. to early Jan. In other word, Reff has been somewhat larger in the most recent surge than in the earlier surge.
    .
    How is that possible? With 2/3 of the population vaccinated, the delta variant would have to be three times as contagious to give the same Reff. But most reports I have seen say it is 50% more contagious; I think that is the WHO number. But it is worse than that when you take into account acquired immunity.
    .
    I think the WHO number comes from reIative incidence of the two strains. So I suppose that you could reconcile those numbers by claiming that changes in behavior have enhanced transmission by a factor of 2 or 3. But if that were so, why did we not crush the virus last year?
    .
    Does anyone know of a really careful analysis of the numbers? The only thing I am sure of is that they need a much more careful analysis than the superficial one that I have done.

  112. The lying press continues to amaze:

    Nearly a year and a half into the most serious pandemic in modern times, a growing number of conservative leaders are at long last urging followers to get vaccinated against COVID-19.

    https://www.startribune.com/a-welcome-vaccine-push-from-gop-fox/600080514/?refresh=true
    .
    Republican leaders and Fox News personalities have been uniformly pro-vaccine since at least last fall, when Cuomo and Harris were expressing doubts. Trump, in particular, has been pro-vaccine. Curious how the corporate media claim that Republicans and Fox are in thrall to Trump on everything except, it seems, this.
    .
    What has been the case is that the corporate media have been ignoring conservative support for the vaccine. Some Fox commentators, notably Tucker Carlson, have raised inconvenient questions while still supporting the vaccine. One of Tucker’s main points has been that if authorities want the public to have confidence in the vaccines, they need to answer people’s questions and concerns. But the corporate media depict that as attacking the vaccines.

  113. Delta changes Reff by about a factor of 1.5 compared to alpha. ~2.2X to the original. That’s the biggest factor I think. The most compelling evidence for this is how fast they take over as the primary variant in the community. There isn’t any good reason a variant would be choked out of existence across large regions unless something else was way more transmissive.
    .
    So you do the math with more a transmissive disease across a smaller vulnerable population and you get a messy result. I wouldn’t be surprised if there is more to the story that is unknown. Tidy math hasn’t been very predictive so far.
    .
    “This approach helps to control for biases related to health-seeking behavior”
    This has always been an issue with case counts. The main problem being if you test positive then it is medically irrelevant, you stay home and hope to get better. No effective widespread treatment. Getting tested doesn’t affect your medical outcome.
    .
    The best study I saw was when they followed a bunch of vaccinated/unvaccinated first responders around earlier this year and tested them frequently so they could pickup asymptomatic cases. The vaccinated group was 90% protected against asymptomatic infection. That number would be lower with delta, but hard to say how much lower.
    .
    Most people don’t care much about low level covid at this point. I think this is mostly covid fatigue at work. Also with the opening of society all the regular maladies are also making their rounds.

  114. If you question anything about the vaccine then you get thrown in the anti-vaxxer group by the Twitterati. You might have heard that Republicans are vaccinated at a lower rate than Democrats. Have you heard that? I only ask because I have only heard it mentioned about a googleplex times in the media over the past few months. I just thought I could make it a (googleplex + 1) to do my part.
    .
    This is hard evidence that Republicans are stooopid. Let’s face it, some people are anti-vax for dumb reasons. Many people are dumb about a lot of things. Alternately with vaccinations there are rural/city, educated/uneducated, rich/poor, racial, and regional differences which nobody attaches any emotional significance to whatsoever.

  115. Tom Scharf (Comment #203904): “You might have heard that Republicans are vaccinated at a lower rate than Democrats.”
    .
    Yes, I have heard that a time or two thousand. But never any evidence, other than that vaccination rates tend to be lower in red states. But there are other reasons for that.
    .
    Actual anti-vaxxers tend to be either extreme religious conservatives or liberals. I don’t know which is more predominant, but they are only a few percent of the population.
    .
    CDC data shows that one group with a very low covid vaccination rate is blacks. That might actually create a correlation with the “redness” of a state since most states with a really high proportion of blacks are red states: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:African-Americans_by_state.svg
    .
    The other red states tend to be rural, which might be a factor in getting vaccinated.

  116. The preachers of vaccine efficacy hold part of the blame for being bad at their jobs of convincing people. A certain part of the population will not take their word for it and requires further convincing from people they trust.

  117. Important article from The Atlantic today. We are now at (googleplex + 2), or +3 if you count Mike M.
    https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/07/vaccinated-america-breaking-point-anti-vaxxers/619539/
    .
    “Experts list many reasons for the vaccine slump, but one big reason stands out: vaccine resistance among conservative, evangelical, and rural Americans. Pro-Trump America has decided that vaccine refusal is a statement of identity and a test of loyalty.”
    .
    “Compassion should always be the first reaction to vaccine hesitation.” (for the in group)

    … a few lines later …

    “Will Blue America ever decide it’s had enough of being put medically at risk by people and places whose bills it pays? Check yourself: Have you?”
    .
    I’m pretty sure this was just written by a liberal AI. Just regurgitation of Twitter.

  118. I think the reported Republican bias against vaccination is based on polls. And we know how accurate polls are on political issues. /sarc I read something about that recently, but can’t find it now. I, for one, never talk to pollsters.

  119. Tom Scharf,
    “Compassion should always be the first reaction to vaccine hesitation.”
    A call to arms for the unvaccinated, aka “The Great Unwashed”. Now is the time for you to go out to the crowded dancehalls, bars and restaurants. Do not wear a mask. Breath deeply. Inhale through your nose and exhale forcefully through your mouth. Linger a while. Smooch a few strangers. Spread it around. Take one for the team. Don’t worry if you are hospitalized, the government will be there for you. They will pay for your month in solitary confinement. Don’t worry, if you don’t make it I will be there for you…. Dancing on your grave.

  120. Russell,

    Don’t worry, if you don’t make it I will be there for you…. Dancing on your grave.

    You’re coming across as a little deranged there.
    Just sayin.

  123. Mike M,
    “How is that possible? With 2/3 of the population vaccinated, the delta variant would have to be three times as contagious to give the same Reff.”
    .
    I think the answer is in the behavior of relatively young (and many un-vaccinate) people. If you kiss a hundred people a night in a bar, you may be more likely to catch something. OK, “100” is an exaggeration. But the issue is the same: people who do not consider themselves at significant risk of serious consequences from covid -19 illness are going to behave differently than people who think they are at risk. Add to that the greater spread potential for the delta variant, and you have a perfect storm of infecting lots of young, unvaccinarted individuals. Fortunately, they are very unlikely to die…. as the UK death rate data shows.

  129. Russell Klier (Comment #203919): “Vaccine was 39% effective at reducing infection risk and 91% effective at preventing severe illness, Health Ministry says”.
    .
    Numbers like that would go a long way toward explaining the UK data, both the rapid case growth and the very low CFR.

  130. Lucia, “I assume you are now going to stay home!”
    Yes, I threw in the towel last week. A day or two after I gave up I posted something here that the train has left the station. Only been out to the grocery, and only at 7 AM when they opened. I did my DR. visit by phone. Finally got my wife to accept the facts too.

  131. Mike M. “Numbers like that would go a long way toward explaining the UK data” Yes, I thought the same thing. The UK data makes me think that maybe the “91% effective at preventing severe illness” may be too low. But the NYT hospitalizations bottomed out a couple weeks ago and are starting to climb…. always new angles [slopes, actually] to ponder.

  132. Lucia said open thread, and I need a break from Covid, so here goes. I am diving into the Olympics…. and trying to maximize coverage on the flat screen TV. Here’s my current scheme… Download the “NBC Sports Channel” app to the ROKU streaming device. So far, it is very impressive. There were 15 live events on at 1 AM … [I got hooked on women’s badminton!]. They claim there will be a full archive. The schedule and archive are searchable by date and sport.
    It’s free but you need to authorize it through a paid service that airs NBC. [I use YouTubeTV.] I found the app on Amazon Firestick, but I didn’t do the full setup to try it. google Chromecast says they have it, but my device isn’t hooked right now up so I can’t confirm it.
    If anyone has other Olympic TV scenarios let me know.

  134. Good for you Russell. I often say that sarcastically but I mean it in this case. If I had any free time I’d watch them some as well so I could talk about it here with you.
    Alas.. My behind schedule project awaits me this fine Saturday morning.

  135. DeWitt Payne (Comment #203931): “My Olympic scenario is to avoid it as much as possible.”
    .
    Ditto. I have not watched them much since Vancouver. Any enjoyment I might get this year will likely be more than wiped out by displays of anti-American wokeness.

  137. Russel,
    I rarely watch much of the summer Olympics. The only sports I want to watch are womens’ gymnamstics and both male and female diving.
    .
    Generally, speaking I think participating in sports is fun. But watching most of them is just a big snooze. I mean: yeah they are running fast. One crosses the line first. But whip!
    .
    Even team sports I generally only watch if there is a party. Then I go for the party. The sports are on, so you sort of watch it to some exent. But otherwise: s_n_o_o_z_e!

  138. We can put aside any argument about if corporations have agency like individuals do.

    Well, I think they do both for 1A rights and economic rights. 🙂
    .

    But the cruise line can simply say to potential passengers that they board at their own risk and they only recommend that fully vaccinated people without compromised immune systems should consider going on a cruise.

    .
    That doesn’t solve either the ethics nor the economic liability problem for the cruise. Sure, you can say “board at your own risk”. But if someone gets seriously ill, or needs medical care, most people think it would be unethical to not provide care. It’s not really different for Covid, heart attack or late pregnancy. If a woman goes into labor on a cruise ship, people are going to feel they need to provide assistance. Having said “at your own risk” isn’t going to change that.
    .
    And courts are likely to think the same dang thing.
    .
    I case you are wondering: With some possible humanitarian exceptions, I think cruises traveling into international waters and staying off shore for more than 24 hours should be allowed to not take on women who are within 2 months of the anticipated delivery date. I don’t think the law should require them to ban this, but I think they should be allowed to do it.

    I support this precisely because I think people should have individual agencies and that includes people joining together as a corporation. They shouldn’t be stripped of their agency just because they are joined together to form a businesss.
    .
    Your statistics argument is all well and good. But that’s your risk assessment. It may be De Santis’s. But I don’t think it’s right to take away their agency, which means the cruise line should be allowed to make their own risk assessment and make their own decision.
    ,

    They just have to start cruising, and when the first customers don’t get sick, their traffic will increase.

    Or vice versa. The risk is theirs so they should be able to make this decision. That’s individual agency.

    The supermarkets and restaurants are operating, with no masks and no demand for proof of vaccination. So can the cruise lines.

    Honestly, I wouldn’t even be agasnst letting supermarkets and restaurants ask. If asking loses them customers, they will experience that harm. If asking gains customers they will gain.
    .
    But the fact is the economic risk to businesses that serve customers for less than 2 hours, and/or where someone who is suddenly ill can easily get medical care is much less than for cruise lines that travel into international water and whose itenerary has them off shore for more than 24 hours. So I think depriving cruise lines of their agency is much worse than depriving a restaurant or store.
    .
    So the cases of on land businesses is much different from cruises.

  139. Lucia, I haven’t watched the Summer Games in years…. but this year ain’t a normal year. After 18 months under lockdown, my interests have changed. It was an effort at first, but I’m getting into it . Good woman’s soccer match on NBCSN now… Nederland vs Brazil.

  140. I brought up banning pregnant women.

    https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/10882#2

    The longer the pregnancy continues the higher the chance that labour will occur. For this reason most major airlines will not allow pregnant women to travel after 34 weeks1 (this includes the return flight!). This is because cabin crew are not trained to cope with obstetric emergencies.2

    Note this isn’t to protect the pregnant woman or baby. It’s to protect the airline crew. Also, airlines are permitted to allow the woman on. But they are permitted to block the travel too.
    .
    https://www.cruisecompete.com/pressrelease010810.php
    Cruises.
    Carnival, Celebration, Celebrity and so on and so on only allow pregnant women to embark if their pregancy is less than 24 weeks.
    .
    The rule isn’t they just tell them they board at their own risk. The Cruise line is allowed to protect themselves for this. I can’t see any reason they shouldn’t be allowed to protect from Covid!

  141. The Israeli study came out about a week ago. The Ministry of Information is dismissing it as small sample size. It is an outlier compared to several other recent studies like the recent one from the UK, and even older ones from Israel. Some other explanations may be that Israel was one of the first highly vaccinated countries so it could be a diminishing effect of Pfizer, it could be seasonality allowing it to be more infectious at this time, or maybe one the other unknown unknowns. It still showed protection against severe illness at 90% which seemed more likely than the oft quoted 98%.

  142. Vaccinated only cruises are wise as a business decision. I think DeSantis is erring here.

  143. Florida is at 10K cases/day for the last week, 90% unvaccinated (It’s not clear how they know that fact). I don’t know if I’m surprised or not, but the new vaccination rate in Florida went from 20K/day to 30K/day over the past week. Given the multipliers, there are as many vaccinations as new cases. The media covid fear campaign is their one trick pony, but it is working better recently it appears.
    .
    As I mentioned before, it is very likely best to just get this phase over with ASAP. It’s really hot and humid (mid July) so Florida is in indoor hibernation mode for most residents. I would suggest this phase is coming for every region sooner or later if they haven’t reached the mysterious herd immunity number which is MIA in media coverage.

  144. I like watching swimming for reasons I don’t even really understand, maybe just because the US is dominant. Women’s gymnastics is always a highlight, but I kind of miss the old East/West grudge match with the USSR. The US is no longer an underdog here, and it was really great to beat the Ruskies when they were. Those women in US gymnastics are some amazingly tough athletes, both physically and mentally. I don’t think there is that kind of pressure anywhere else except maybe a World’s Cup final.
    .
    Political activism is really a drag, I don’t wish these athletes failure, but I don’t especially feel sorry when they lose. I don’t even want to see other country’s athletes lecture me from the podium even if I agree with their cause. It would be nice if a lesson learned was that these distractions are detrimental to performance and it disappears.

  145. Tom,
    The political activism is annoying. But it’s the snooze-fest aspect that makes me not watch. I can perfectly well hear who won the marathon tomorrow! For me, the same goes for the 100 meter dash. And anyway, they have too much time between heats and before events. I don’t need to watch heats at all. If I wanted to watch the 100 m dash, I’d want the result to be secret but to be able to know it’s about to start rather than watching everyone walking back and forth, shaking their legs, “warming up” and so on.
    .
    I think swimming can be more interesting to watch than track and field. The linear element lets you see who is ahead. Of course, I would only watch relatively short events. It seems like there is less wasted time of “nothing go on” between aired events too.

  146. lucia (Comment #203936): “That doesn’t solve either the ethics nor the economic liability problem for the cruise. Sure, you can say “board at your own risk”. But if someone gets seriously ill, or needs medical care, most people think it would be unethical to not provide care.”
    .
    Cruise ships have doctors, nurses, and reasonably well stocked and well equipped medical facilities. For example:

    Our medical facilities are stocked with a variety of equipment, including cardiac monitors, automated external defibrillators, ventilators, x-ray machines and processors, laboratory equipment, a formulary of acute care medications and a variety of minor surgical and orthopedic supplies.

    https://www.royalcaribbean.com/faq/questions/medical-services-onboard-regulations

  147. Due to the age profile of cruisers, they are also prepared for dying customers. This is not uncommon. My sister’s father in law died on a cruise I was on. It was handled very graciously, they had obviously seen it before. Cruises are scheduled far a head of time, so sometimes people go when they may not be feeling their best, it’s a big event, and it can’t be refunded.

  148. Of course. If they didn’t people would avoid cruises.
    .
    But being prepared for unforseen emergencies doesn’t mean they are ready for everything nor that they should be forced to take on liability associated with giving care (which can be botched.)
    .
    Nor does being equipped mean they should be forced to take on passengers who they judge are more likely to fall ill, nor should they be forced to take on passengers who increase the likelihood that a number of passengers might need care and swamp their medical faciliities.
    .
    I’m sure they could deliver an infant if a passenger went into labor. But I also think they should not be required to board a heavily pregnant woman if they don’t wish to take be put in a position to have to provide that care. And they aren’t required to take her on.
    .
    In the case of preganacy, they can blocked based on being able to anticipate an elevated likelyhood that care will be required– and that care might exceed their capacity. I think they should have precisely the same right wrt to people who are not vaccinated and are more likely to develop or transmit Covid that the vaccinated. I think the state should not take away the cruise lines agency on this and the cruise should be able to use their own judgement.
    .

  149. Lucia,

    Someone could easily forge the little yellow CDC vaccination card with some yellow heavy-stock paper, a laser printer, and a desktop computer. As far as I know there is no national data base of the vaccinated, so there is no way to check. So there is never going to be a for-real all-vaccinated only cruise, even if DeSantis relented, and I very much doubt he will. It’s hard to fake not being late pregnant; not so hard to fake covid vaccination. Anyone who goes on a cruise because the cruise line tells them everyone has been vaccinated is living in a fantasy world.
    .
    Last week I visited a customer in Pennsylvania that required masks for anyone visiting who had not been vaccinated. I told them I had been. They didn’t ask for the yellow card. I could just as easily have not been vaccinated and told them I had been.
    .
    The whole “show me your papers” approach to covid risk is simply not going to work in the States. Forcing people to get vaccinated by punishing them for not being vaccinated is also not going to work.
    .
    Sensible people, and especially sensible people over 45, will all get vaccinated. People with compromised immune systems will have to be extra cautious about catching covid… or any other illness… just as they should always have been. I doubt the cruise lines are going to start asking about the strength of their customer’s immune systems. People with weakened immune systems are probably just as likely as the unvaccinated to catch the virus, but they can go on a cruise, “risking the lives of everyone on the ship” as some might say. Heck, the vaccine is only 95% effective (maybe a bit less for the delta strain), so when you choose to go on a cruise, you are automatically accepting some level of risk of exposure to covid… just as you do in every interaction you have with others. Just as you do with flu, pneumonia, and the common cold. Life has risks, and they are not going to disappear.
    .
    The cruise lines will operate out of Florida, with no covid papers required. Royal Caribbean has a 4 night cruise out of Miami departing on Monday, and every room except the very expensive suites ($1,100+ a person) appears sold out.
    .
    The virus will eventually infect most people who have not been vaccinated or don’t have natural resistance. That will be mostly younger people, but some foolish older ones too. Some of those foolish older ones will die; nobody’s fault but their own.

  150. Lucia, Last night I found out woman’s badminton can be fun. Tonight, I am going to learn to like men’s skateboarding. This evening’s live events 7:30-12 PM.: Rowing, Shooting, Badminton — medal event, Beach Volleyball, Fencing — medal event, Handball, Skateboarding Men’s Street Qualifying, Volleyball, Archery — medal event, Hockey, Weightlifting — medal event, Artistic Gymnastics, Baseball/Softball, Taekwondo — medal event, 3-on-3 basketball, Boxing, Cycling Road, Judo — medal event, Table Tennis. https://www.nbcolympics.com/full-schedule

  151. SteveF,
    Sure. It could be forged. But that means a passenger has to take the step of forging it. Make them do it. Forgery on the part of the passenger would have a protective effect for the cruise line in the event of an outbreak. Since much of the damage to the cruiseline is economic, that would be better than not allowing them to bar passengers.
    .
    Forcing those who want to sneak on the force would not perfect, but it’s better than nothing.
    .

    Anyone who goes on a cruise because the cruise line tells them everyone has been vaccinated is living in a fantasy world.

    Sure. But that’s purpose of forcing people to show the documents. The purpose is to allow the cruiseline to better protect their own economic interests.

    The whole “show me your papers” approach to covid risk is simply not going to work in the States.

    It won’t work perfectly. But that’s not the same as not working at all. There are a sufficient number of people who won’t want to forge papers that it will reduce the total number of people subject to illness boarding cruise ships.
    .

    The cruise lines will operate out of Florida, with no covid papers required.

    They very well may. But that’s doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be allowed to require people to prove vaccination status. They manage to operate barring pregnant women too. They might operate if they weren’t allowed to bar pregnant women. But tnat doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be allowed to do so.
    .
    NCL may also win its lawsuit and be given the right to bar the unvaccinated. I hope they are allowed to do so. Will they succeed in 100% accurate screening? No. But that’s not a reason they should be legally barred from doing so to the best of their ability.
    .
    I agree with a number of things you say. The only thing is it doesn’t follow that NCL should not be allowed to bar the unvaccinated from the cruiseships. I think they– a private company– should be allowed to bar the unvaccinated. Those people can take different vacations or take their dream cruise sometime in the future. It’s not much of a harm. No one has a constitutional right to take a cruise!

  152. lucia,

    Apparently the new PC, LBGTQ+ inclusive term for pregnant woman is ‘birthing person’. After all, just because a person who was assigned as a female at birth (ridiculous phrase, sex is determined at conception, not birth, but I digress) decides that they are actually a man, but still has a female reproductive system and the ability to get pregnant, is supposed to mean you can’t call them a mother when they get pregnant and delivery a baby. I should cut that sentence up, but it’s too much work.

  153. Gov. Mike Huckabee @GovMikeHuckabee
    “If they were giving medals for kneeling, we might be winning some.” Looks like basing the Anti-Americans on the American team is becoming a thing! “USA wins no medals to open Summer Olympics, first time since 1972” https://mol.im/a/9821669 via
    @MailOnline

  154. Lucia,
    Turns out, it is mostly moot for now: a week ago a 3 judge panel for the 11th circuit blocked enforcement of a district judge’s ruling that blocked the CDC from enforcing a laundry list of requirements for ocean . 10 minutes before midnight, when the CDC’s authority to block cruises was to disappear, the three judge panel (2-1) issued an order delaying the district judge’s ruling until all appeals are exhausted. Of course, the two judges voting to keep the CDC rules in force were appointed by Democrats, while the one who voted to have the district court ruling go into force was appointed by a Republican. Under the CDC rules, cruises look pretyy much like a nightmare, with no end in sight. DeSantis says he will ask the entire 11th circuit to hear the case.
    .
    The 11th circuit court of appeals is closely divided: 7 Republican appointees and 5 appointed by Democrats. If the full court hears the case, the full court will likely allow the court order blocking the CDC rules take effect.

  155. On the other hand, the very last place an older unvaccinated person would want to be is on a cruise ship.
    .
    I think it is purely a marketing effort to put their customers at ease. The vaccines aren’t perfect and with 1000’s on board it isn’t unlikely someone will bring it on board or pick it up in port. It’s going to be interesting how this works out. My prediction is it will be very hard to stay at covid zero, and the cruise line can’t just shut operations and stay at sea for months with a boatload of passengers until it hits covid zero again. I have no idea what their covid at sea handling protocol will be, but I would want to know before signing up.

  156. Tom Scharf,
    “I think it is purely a marketing effort to put their customers at ease”
    .
    I agree. They want to sell out their cabins ASAP. They were very happy that the CDC rules were going to be lifted, making their cruises a lot more attractive to customers, but now that looks months away….. if ever. I fully expect the CDC will NEVER lift mask requirements in airports and on airplanes….. at least not until there is a Republican president who directs them to do so.

  157. Turns out, it is mostly moot for now: a week ago a 3 judge panel for the 11th circuit blocked enforcement of a district judge’s ruling that blocked the CDC from enforcing a laundry list of requirements for ocean . 10 minutes before midnight, when the CDC’s authority to block cruises was to disappear, the three judge panel (2-1) issued an order delaying the district judge’s ruling until all appeals are exhausted.

    I don’t think this moots it because that’s not the only reason NCL is suing. They are also disputing FL’s law on their own behalf. So that part still stays.
    .

    If the full court hears the case, the full court will likely allow the court order blocking the CDC rules take effect.

    But this will not moot NCL’s case. It just takes away one plank.

  158. Tom Scharf

    I think it is purely a marketing effort to put their customers at ease.

    Which NCL should have the agency to do. I don’t see any reason why they should be forced to take on unvaccinated passengers to operate. This is stripping businesses of agency. Leaning libertarian I think this is wrong-headed.

  159. Here’s the part why setting the CDC ruling aside (even if permanently in a full ruling) would not moot the NCL suit

    6. As set forth herein, Florida’s categorical prohibition against requiring ocumentation of vaccinations from customers, as applied to NCLH, violates federal law in multiple, independent respects: Florida’s prohibition (1) […] (2) blocks communications between a business and its customers, in violation of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution (as applicable to the State of Florida under the Fourteenth Amendment); (3) profoundly disrupts the proper flow of interstate and international commerce without advancing any substantial state interest, in violation of the Dormant Commerce Clause; and (4) inexplicably precludes this business from protecting the health and safety of its employees and customers against the extraordinary backdrop of a deadly pandemic, in violation of substantive due process as protected by the Fourteenth Amendment.

    Plank (1) which I replaced with […] goes away. But plan (2-4) remain. So the case is not moot even if the CDC rule is unenforceable.

  162. It’s worth noting: There are two suits.
    (1) FL suing CDC . FL won this at the 11th circuit level. The CDC would *require* cruises to check for vaccination. FL not only doesn’t want cruises to be required to check, they want to forbid it.
    .
    (2) NCL against Florida. Florida want to forbid checking. But NCL wants to check.
    .
    The libertarian position – pro-private agency position should want
    (1) FL to win their suit against CDC.
    (2) NCL to win their suit against FL.
    .
    This is entirely possible because NCL’s suit is not made moot if CDC loses. They have multiple independent reasons for wanting to be allowed to make the decisions themselves and happen to not want to do what FL wants to force them to do.
    .
    If it goes that way, private entities retain their agency. So NCL could use their own judgement rather than that imposed by either the FED (via CDC) or FL.
    (2)

  163. Lucia,
    I was not aware that the 11th circuit had finally sided with Florida (just Friday afternoon), reversing the three judge panel. My guess is that the SC let the 11th Circuit know they would be reversed if they sided with the CDC.
    .
    Which means the NCL suit is now more important. We will see if Florida or NCL wins, but considering the ruling from the 11th circuit, I’d say Florida has a good chance to win. Keep in mind, Florida restricts all public facing retail businesses from forcing customers to document their vaccination state. If NCL were to win their suit against Florida, then every public facing business would logically be allowed the “show us your papers” type operation…. I really doubt that will happen. I think at bottom this is a question of simple discrimination against individuals, and the SC as currently constituted is very unlikely to allow that. Finally, discrimination by insurance companies against high health risk individuals (eg pre-existing conditions) is widely prohibited, even though the insurance company’s financial interest in being able to discriminate is far greater than a cruise line’s.
    .
    NCL is a Bermuda corporation (to reduce US taxes), operates all foreign flagged ships, has lots of foreign nationals running the ships to reduce costs, and does not have to comply with US labor laws or other US regulations, even though they operate most of their ships exclusively out of Florida ports, and their customers are almost exclusively US nationals. The largest shareholder is a Hong Kong based holding company, and the second and third largest are US based private equity firms. Norwegians are not involved. They are an unsympathetic party in any lawsuit against a US state. I will be shocked if they win.

  164. Clarence Thomas is the SC Justice assigned to the 11th Circuit… he probably had a field day with the initial (2-1) panel’s stay of the district court’ order blocking the CDC regulations. The CDC simply has no statutory authority to do many of the things they were (and are!) doing. That was the principle finding of the district court. End of legal argument. The last minute stay of the district court order was a glaring error, which has now been fixed. The Biden administration is surely unhappy with this, but I hope they recognize they are just not going to win if they push the Justice Department and the CDC to appeal to the SC…. the SC will probably not even agree to hear the case.

  165. SteveF

    We will see if Florida or NCL wins, but considering the ruling from the 11th circuit, I’d say Florida has a good chance to win.

    I have no idea who will win. But I hope FL loses.
    .

    If NCL were to win their suit against Florida, then every public facing business would logically be allowed the “show us your papers” type operation….

    Not necessarily. Most businesses don’t subsequently take travelers into international waters or to other jurisdictions that may require people landing to be vaccinated or take tests.
    .
    But even if every business would be allowed to do that, that’s hardly fatal to NCL’s case. It may be that every business will be allowed their own agency. I see nothing wrong with that. It’s not DeSantis’s preference, nor yours but maybe the courts would rule that the state can’t strip businesses of their right to decided to do that.
    .

    I really doubt that will happen. I think at bottom this is a question of simple discrimination against individuals, and the SC as currently constituted is very unlikely to allow that.

    There is no general principle of non-discrimination against individuals. I’m not sure SCOTUS will want to create such a stand alone right. The question is whether they will see this as an issue of problematic non-discrimination and whether they will think FL is allowed to make such a law.
    .
    Vaccination is not an unalterable trait.
    .
    I don’t know if the changes in insurance law under the Affordable Care act will or won’t be seen as meaning FL can require all businesses to not screen. Prior to the ACA, insurance companies could refuse you coverage and they could charge you more if you had pre-existing conditions. We’ll see.
    .

    Norwegians are not involved. They are an unsympathetic party in any lawsuit against a US state. I will be shocked if they win.

    I don’t think the fact they are not Norwegian but merely inernational is going to make any difference.
    .
    The issues will be whether FL can or cannot make a rule like this. I hope FL loses. I have no idea whether they will or won’t.

  166. SteveF

    The CDC simply has no statutory authority to do many of the things they were (and are!) doing.

    I don’t disagree. But I see FL and the CDC as essentially doing the same thing: making a global decision that should best be left to private actors. I hope both FL and the CDC should be slapped back.
    .
    I think private actors– including businesses– should retain their right to make a decision to judge the risk of COVID to themselves, their employees and customers, and impose mask, vaccine or whatever requirements if they judge the risk higher than the government does. I think laws to take away their right to their own judgement should be looked at with strict scrutiny. I think the same holds for laws requiring then to impose mask, vaccine and so on requirements.
    .
    So I hope the CDC loses vs FL and I hope NCL wins against FL. I don’t see this as inconsistent. This would be supporte the agency of private individuals and companies over governments.
    .
    Of course, the CDC’s case has bigger problems than the issue of whether the FEDs could impose the rule. On of the problems is that the CDC is an agency is supposed to be bound by rules the legislature actually made. It appears they likely have exceeded those. So the CDC losing doesn’t mean the government doesn’t have such a right.
    .
    We’ll see what happens.

  167. Lucia,
    Unlike the wholly arbitrary CDC cruise rules, unfounded in law, there is clear statutory authority for DeSantis to insist the cruise lines (and all other public facing businesses) not require proof of vaccination if they do business in Florida. The legal issue is if the people of Florida, through their elected representatives in the state legislature, have the Constitutional right to do that. I am pretty sure the 11th Circuit and the SC will agree they do.
    .
    You may remember the case of a Florida woman who had suffered severe brain damage from lack of oxygen (had stopped breathing for several minutes). Under longstanding Florida law, the spouse of a person unable to make medical decisions for themselves is automatically allowed to make those decisions. After three years with the woman in a vegetative state the husband decided to withhold treatment (IV’s and feeding tube), which meant she would die within several days. The woman’s family filed a lawsuit to block the husband’s decision. The family lost at the SC, even while the Bush Justice department argued for the family. The good people of the state of Florida, through their elected representatives, had already decided who should make heath care choices in this kind of circumstance.
    .
    Properly enacted state laws are rarely overturned except on clear Constitutional grounds. I doubt Florida’s no covid papers law will be overturned. Same thing with voter ID laws; very likely to survive legal challenges.

  168. SteveF (Comment #203971): “The legal issue is if the people of Florida, through their elected representatives in the state legislature, have the Constitutional right to do that.”
    .
    I think that is exactly right and ought to be the basis of any judicial decision.
    .
    Lucia clearly has a different idea of what the law *ought* to be. And it seems that she is hoping that the courts will agree with her and impose that. But it seem to me that even if courts agree with lucia as to what the law ought to be, they should refrain from making law. That always works out badly.
    .
    The rights of individuals and the rights of corporations are fundamentally different. Individuals are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights. The rights of corporations are granted to them by legislation. The State can expand or restrict those rights in any way it sees fit, subject only to respecting the individual rights of those who might be part of the corporation or do business with it.

  169. Another of the CDC’s covid rules (the eviction moratorium) has been declared unlawful by another circuit court: https://reason.com/volokh/2021/07/23/thoughts-on-the-sixth-circuit-ruling-against-the-cdc-eviction-moratorium/
    .
    6 of 9 circuit courts have now declared the CDC rule unlawful. But since it will expire on July 31, the issue probably won’t make it to the SC… Roberts hates to hear cases he can duck if they are politically divisive. And most of the CDC covid rules qualify as divisive.

  170. MikeM,
    “The rights of individuals and the rights of corporations are fundamentally different.”
    .
    That is right. While there is some overlap, government is generally prohibited from imposing many things on individuals which are routinely forced upon businesses. For example, discrimination against racial ethnic, or political groups is explicitly prohibited for businesses, but nobody can force you as an individual to like the Irish if you don’t like the Irish. Or force you to interact with socialists if you loath socialists (or conservatives!). People are not businesses, and businesses enjoy only limited constitutional protections.

  171. My position is I’d rather not have FL or the CDC telling private cruise operators how to run their business. However I do recognize there are some things like health regulations of kitchens and so forth that are applied across all businesses that need to be maintained. Norovirus outbreaks are common on ships.
    .
    When you board a cruise ship, they already ask you if you have any fever or other symptoms, one assumes if you answer yes, you will get further queried and will be denied boarding in some cases.
    .
    I don’t really have a problem with (temporary) vaccinated only cruises as a single line item, however I really worry about the busy bodies out there who want to ban Big Gulps and McDonalds for the good of the rubes. These people need to have a very hard line drawn to prevent them from burrowing into everything. People who are excessively risk averse should not get to make the rules for everyone else to calm their anxiety, but yet we should do things like enforce a requirement for back up cameras on cars when it is economically viable.
    .
    The specific line item matters a lot, but we need to give preference to no restrictions. The people who make these rules need to be accountable.

  172. There are wiser and dumber ways to do things. In my view you need to completely exhaust the debate and try other ideas phase before you enter the blunt instrument of government regulation phase. For example the wiser way to enhance childhood nutrition for those in poverty and who weren’t stellar parents was to offer free school breakfast and lunch. God knows how much school spinach is thrown away every day at taxpayer expense! I certainly did my share.
    .
    I don’t think cruise lines are that interested in anything but the health of the people’s wallets at this point. They could enforce covid testing on board every few days of every employee and passenger, but I doubt they really want to know that answer. Too disruptive to their business.

  173. ““I think what happened is that at the outset of the pandemic, it was decided that all information must go in one direction, from the Gods of Science down,” says Kory. “But that’s not the way it works. Science happens on the ground. That’s where the little discoveries are made. They don’t happen at the top of the mountain.””
    – Why Has “Ivermectin” Become a Dirty Word? – Taibbi

    When the top regions of the hierarchy are corrupt, we can see that. We can see when it tends to authority. Kory makes the point much better than I have been able to make it.

  174. SteveF

    The family lost at the SC, even while the Bush Justice department argued for the family. The good people of the state of Florida, through their elected representatives, had already decided who should make heath care choices in this kind of circumstance.

    I don’t see how this ruling would mean the the Florida legislature could block a business from making their own judgements about vaccination requirements for boarding customer. I don’t even see how it’s very similar.

    .
    I guess I’d see a parallel if the hospital had wanted to end life support but been blocked by the family or husband. Hospitals generally can terminate life support without family consent if the patient meets conditions. But that wasn’t the issue under debate in Terry Schiavo’s case. It was the other way around.
    .
    (Of course, we do have laws to prevent hospitals from refusing care under many circumstances. But that’s precisely because hospitals give special types of services. We don’t require restaurants to keep feeding people indefinitely irrespective of ability to pay. So the analogy with hospitals can be quite strained.)
    .
    Nevertheless, in the analogy it seems to me Terry’s husband’s decision was closer to that of a customer who decided to not take a cruise. Terry’s parents didn’t have a right to force him to take the cruise, nor did the cruise line. He can refuse to take the cruise.

    Customers have a right to refuse to take a cruise.

  175. MikeM

    The rights of corporations are granted to them by legislation.

    Some rights are granted to corporations through legislation. But SCOTUS appears to think some other fundamental rights are granted to corporations as “persons”. (See Citizens United and Hobby Lobby.)

  176. lucia (Comment #203981): “Some rights are granted to corporations through legislation. But SCOTUS appears to think some other fundamental rights are granted to corporations as “persons”. (See Citizens United and Hobby Lobby.)”
    .
    I don’t think that is true. The only rights that corporations have as “persons” are those granted by law to them as fictional persons. But the individuals who form a corporation do not surrender their individual rights merely by forming a corporation. So to force Hobby Lobby to act contrary to the religious convictions of its owners is really no different from forcing the owners to act contrary to their religious convictions.

  177. Tom Scharf

    They could enforce covid testing on board every few days of every employee and passenger, but I doubt they really want to know that answer. Too disruptive to their business.

    .
    Could the require passenger to prove vaccination once they are in international waters? And if not, pay a fee to cover testing and be tested every two days? (Real question.)
    .
    I see the bill here:
    https://flsenate.gov/Session/Bill/2021/2006/BillText/er/HTML

    creating s. 381.00316, F.S.;
    141 prohibiting a business entity from requiring patrons
    142 or customers to provide documentation certifying
    143 vaccination against or recovery from COVID-19;

    381.00316 COVID-19 vaccine documentation.—
    1122 (1) A business entity, as defined in s. 768.38 to include
    1123 any business operating in this state, may not require patrons or
    1124 customers to provide any documentation certifying COVID-19
    1125 vaccination or post-infection recovery to gain access to, entry
    1126 upon, or service from the business operations in this state.
    1127 This subsection does not otherwise restrict businesses from
    1128 instituting screening protocols consistent with authoritative or
    1129 controlling government-issued guidance to protect public health.

    Once they are in international waters, the business operation is no longer in the state of Florida. The service operation in the state of Florida could be to get them to international waters? Or does the item in 1126 mean something else? (I honestly don’t know how this is interpreted.)

  178. MikeM

    So to force Hobby Lobby to act contrary to the religious convictions of its owners

    All corporations have owners. And Citizen United isn’t a religious excemption and recognize free speech rights of the group as a corporation. Obviously all individual owners had free speech rights even before Citizens United was decided. So this clearly applies to the corporation.

  179. Lucia,

    My only point with the Schiavo case is that the SC is very reluctant to overturn state laws duly passed by the legislatures, even when there are lots of people who disagree with the law… and even think the law is immoral.
    .
    In the case of businesses wanting “show me your covid papers” to do business with a customer, there indeed are lots of people who think businesses should be able to do that. Heck, there are lots of people who want to de facto force everyone to be vaccinated, by whatever coercive/punishing methods it takes (as this thread clearly shows). Coercion never goes over well in the States, as the history of required health insurance demonstrates. Florida law says demanding covid documentation is explicitly prohibited for businesses operating in Florida. The only real legal question is if that is Constitutional.
    .
    I will be shocked if the Florida statute is overturned by the SC. I’ll actually be shocked if NCL gets a favorable ruling from any Federal or Florida state court. I just don’t think it is a close case (in a legal sense). You clearly think the law is wrong, and that is perfectly OK, but the Florida legislature and DeSantis think otherwise…. and they pass and enforce Florida laws.
    .
    I think losing in court will actually give NCL a strong defense against lawsuits by future customers who claim they caught covid on an NCL cruise. “We wanted to screen passengers for covid vaccinations, but the state of Florida prohibits it.”

  181. Lucia,

    “Once they are in international waters, the business operation is no longer in the state of Florida.”
    .
    I guess they could just make people walk the plank if they don’t comply with a covid testing protocol. Or keel haul them.
    .
    Seriously though, the cruise lines are in fact Florida businesses, with home ports in Florida, ship maintenance done in Florida, and operational management in Florida. They really will not like the response of the Florida legislature if they try somehow to bypass Florida law. I suppose they could refuse to allow passengers back on the ship once they go ashore in the Bahamas unless they produce a covid vaccination document; that too would not go well for them, if only from a PR perspective.
    .
    They could relocate to the port of New York and have all the covid restrictions they could ever want. I urge them to do it and wish them luck… which they will need operating out of NYC.

  182. I wanted to see what argument NCL makes. The CDC branch is dead for now. But there are 3 other reasons they argue the FL laws should be set aside:
    .
    NCL’s case that the law is a violation of NCL’s 1st amendment rights starts on 14. (Citizen’s united recognizes corporations 1st amendment rights just like individuals have them.) Basically: It is a content based restriction on speech and so requires strict scrutiny.
    .
    On page 16 NCL says fl’s law violates the Dormant Commerce Clause. (I can’t even begin to pretend I know much on this. . .) Anyway, since the cruise line operates internationally, they say the Commerce Clause of the constitution applies. And that says “Congress shall have Power . . .
    To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States”.
    .
    NCL then states ““Although the clause speaks literally only to the powers of Congress, it is well settled” that the Commerce Clause “has a ‘dormant’ aspect as well, namely, one that serves as ‘a substantive restriction on permissible state regulation of interstate commerce.’” ”
    .
    In contrast to hotels, bars or what not, cruises are involved in international commerce. So the law is interruption international business, which, according to NCL is not something a state can do. It’s reserved to the federal government.
    .
    On page 17 they allege the law violates due process.

    Florida’s Ban violates the fundamental due process rights of NCLH, its crew, and its passengers to make well-informed medical decisions affecting oneself and to exercise autonomy over one’s body. See Washington v. Glucksberg, 521 U.S. 702, 720 (1997).

    In the context of a deadly pandemic, Florida’s Ban also prevents NCLH and its employees from supporting themselves via their chosen occupation, which likewise implicates a fundamental due process right. See Cnty. of Butler v. Wolf, 486 F. Supp. 3d 883, 920 (W.D. Pa. 2020).

    (Now I have to read Washington v. Glucksberg and Cnty. of Butler v. Wolf. )
    These are here: https://www.oyez.org/cases/1996/96-110 for the former (I think it’s SCOTUS)

    I htink this is the latter: https://casetext.com/case/cnty-of-butler-v-wolf-1 (District court of PA.)

    .
    I don’t know how strong these areguments are nor what those cases say. But they do point to existing rights that have already been recognized by some courts. Though, of course, I haven’t actually checke what these cases are nor what they say.

  183. SteveF

    I guess they could just make people walk the plank if they don’t comply with a covid testing protocol. Or keel haul them.

    Unattractive option. But I think that migth be why NCL may actually have a case under the dormant commerce clause. Yes: the operate in FL. But it’s also quite clear they are involved in international commerce when they take people to Mexico or the Bahamas!

  184. Lucia,

    I read the first few pages of the NCL suit. It is in dire need of revision…. since the 11th circuit reversed itself on the authority of the CDC (lots of moot complaints about being caught between Florida law and the CDC). The CDC is no longer an issue; since they have only an advisory role and they have no legal authority. Florida does have legal authority. Any judge that gets this complain as it is currently written is going to beat up on them.
    .
    The request for a jury trial is just weird. It is a constitutional issue, and juries don’t settle those questions.

  185. Lucia,
    The cruise lines could easily get in bed with the Bahamians, Jamacians, Mexicans, etc and make sure that passengers without proof of covid vaccination could not leave the ship in those ports of call. Florida could not complain about that. But it would be really bad for business, and once word got out, people could (and would) just fake documentation if they didn’t want to be vaccinated.
    .
    Seriously, this is all much ado about nothing. The cruise lines are going to operate without CDC oversight, and will adhere to law in their home port (AKA Florida). The Bahamians, Jamaicans, Mexicans, etc need the tourism as much as the cruise lines. A high covid rate country turning away people from a low covid rate country (and turning away their money!) is crazy, and so I think very unlikely.

  186. Dormant Commerce: “The Dormant Commerce Clause is used to prohibit state legislation that discriminates against interstate or international commerce. Courts first determine whether a state regulation discriminates on its face against interstate commerce or whether it has the purpose or effect of discriminating against interstate commerce.”
    .
    No, that has nothing to do with the Florida law. The Florida law has zero to do with interstate commerce; its purpose is to prohibit specific actions of business in Florida. Florida wants to promote and maximize the cruise line business…. which is why it was fighting with the CDC over endless restrictions on cruises.

  187. SteveF,
    I agree the CDC part isn’t winnable (unless SCOTUS overrules the 11th circuit). I don’t know that courts require the plaintiffs to immediately refile if one portion isn’t winnable. It’s already submitted. The judge would presumably read the other parts for their merits.
    .

    Any judge that gets this complain as it is currently written is going to beat up on them.

    We’d need to ask a lawyer on that. As far as I can tell, a judge would not beat them up on having written that before the other case was ruled on. He’d just rule against them on the CDC point and move on to the other arguments. That seems to be what rulings do.
    .
    In fact, it seems entirely routine for cases to say they should win for 3 reasons. A judge might tell them reasons 1 and 2 are riduculous, but you win based on reason 3. They don’t say “well, you would win on reason 3. But you stuffed in 1 and 2, which are ridiculous, so I’m ruling against you!”
    .

    Florida does have legal authority.

    It has legal authority to do things states can do. The question is does it have legal authority to do this. NCL’s argument is it doesn’t.
    .

    The request for a jury trial is just weird.

    Seems weird to me too. But I don’t think a judge would throw out the case for that reason.

  188. SteveF

    once word got out, people could (and would) just fake documentation if they didn’t want to be vaccinated.

    And if caught in MX perhaps they would be arrested by the Mexican’s and rot on a Mexican prison.
    .
    I agree that I’m not sure about how the Dormant Commerce Clause helps the NCL case. The law seems to apply equally to everyone in FL. It’s not trying to treat FL business preferentially.
    .
    But I do get the 1st amendment argument and the due process argument. Seems to me those could fly. If they do, it doesn’t matter if the other two arguments are trash.

  189. Lucia,
    “And if caught in MX perhaps they would be arrested by the Mexican’s and rot on a Mexican prison.”
    .
    Nah. How would the Mexicans prove they did anything illegal?

    Not many Americans sit rotting in Mexican jails, and those who do? Real criminals; they are not people guilty of going on a cruise.

  190. I have to admit that with respect to NCL lawyers citation of of Washington v. Glucksberg and Cnty. of Butler v. Wolf, they probably should have added “You connect the dots and figure out what we mean”. I can see some connection between bodily autonomy being a right in Washington and Glucksberg and some statements that people have a right to try to earn a living. I also think those rights exist and are recognized. But it might be nice if that was fleshed out more.
    .
    This may fall in the category of “if you don’t state a claim at all you can’t bring it up on appeal. But if you state it you do get to flesh it out on appeal. ” (My understanding is that’s a legal point. OTOH: I am not a legal eagle.)

  192. It looks like the new case rate may be peaking in the UK. Still very few deaths and a low number of serious,critical cases. From May 15 to yesterday, the case fatality rate is 0.1% from 1.26 million confirmed cases. The surge in the US started about a month later. The confirmed CFR in the US from June 21 to yesterday was also 0.1%. The COVID fear porn industry, however, is in full cry.

  194. Cases still rising in Illinois. . . Deaths still flatish.
    .
    It is hard not to worry a little. But I’m still taking dance lessons and going to parties.

  195. DeWitt,
    The CFR is always going to be much higher in the USA because so many people over 50 refuse vaccination. A Florida woman my wife knows has a 55 y.o. husband who looks like he will die from covid within a few days. The whole family refused vaccination. The whole family caught it. You can lead a horse to water…..

  196. DeWitt Payne (Comment #204002): “Oops, that’s 1% CFR in the US from June 21 to yesterday.”
    .
    What lag between cases and deaths did you use?

  197. I assume cruises could force those who test positive into “passenger detention”, which would ruin their vacation. They could offer the test at the port, which could be declined by passengers, but the test would be mandatory at sea. This would effectively side step the requirement.
    .
    The cruise line very much just wants to signal they are on the side of passenger safety. They have a very, very, big problem on their hands with dormant ships. They would paint their ships purple and yellow if that is what it takes to get them to sea. The media is guaranteed to give them bad press on the first case at sea. Of all industries I feel sorry for them, the fact that they incorporate elsewhere on the globe and employ low cost labor makes me not feel sorry enough to offer direct aid.

  198. Mike M,
    Data from Worldometers, 7 day lagging average:
    Assuming a 20 day lag, deaths from June 1 to now in the UK total 1,376, while cases from May 11 to July 5 total 506,336, for a CFR of 0.27%.
    .
    For the USA, same time periods, deaths total 16,527 while cases total 977,365, for a CFR of 1.69%.
    .
    Interesting graphic from the CDC: https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#variant-proportions
    .
    The delta variant is now overwhelmingly dominant in all parts of the country, and this happened in less than 2 months. This suggests to me that most of the recent increase in cases has been due to the greater infectivity of the delta variant among people who were able to resist the original variant.

  199. Tom Scharf,
    “They could offer the test at the port, which could be declined by passengers, but the test would be mandatory at sea. This would effectively side step the requirement.”
    .
    That is going to cut into their potential market, especially if the testing is required more than once. If a passenger refuses the test, then they could be tossed into the sea I guess, but that would be really bad PR. Confining them to their room would obviously require 24/7 armed guards…. also bad for PR. And expensive/impractical. Maybe they could set up a covd jail on each ship to reduce the number of armed guards needed…. more very bad PR. No, nothing like that is ever going to happen.
    .
    I have had the nasal swab test done five times….. it can be, and four out of five times was, remarkably unpleasant… it just plain hurt. Try to force that on people and plenty will say no thanks. The cruise industry’s incorporation, ownership structure, and procedures used to avoid compliance with national laws (to reduce operating costs!) makes it not very sympathetic. They just need to suck it up, put their ships back in service, have all passengers sign a covid waiver, and stop worrying about possible lawsuits. The worst that can happen is lawsuits bankrupt them. But that is going to happen anyway if they don’t put their ships in service.

  200. SteveF

    I have had the nasal swab test done five times

    A saliva test exists. It’s not the gold standard, but they could use it.
    .
    They could (and perhaps should) test waste water. If it’s testing all clear, there either isn’t any or not much Covid on the ship. Some communities are doing this.
    .
    The saliva test could be done if and when waste water shows Covid. Of course, this would also result in worry to those on board. But it reduces the need to test everyone regularly.
    .

    Try to force that on people and plenty will say no thanks.

    The problem is they also have some people say “no thanks” to a cruise because they are letting unvaccinated onboard. There is no solution that won’t make some potential customers turn away. The economic question is which solution repels the most customers.
    .

    …stop worrying about possible lawsuits

    Not worrying doesn’t prevent them from happening!

  201. Lucia, “But I’m still taking dance lessons and going to parties”
    This article is for you then…. “Compromise Reached: Everyone Still Afraid Of COVID Will Be Locked Down, Everyone Else Will Live Lives As Normal”
    “https://babylonbee.com/news/compromise-reached-everyone-still-afraid-of-covid-will-be-locked-down-everyone-else-will-live-lives-as-normal

  202. Lucia,

    Saliva tests would be a more practical option… but not cost free, especially if done more than once per passenger.

    The waste water test is better, but as you say, any announcement on the ship that covid is in the wastewater and everyone has to be spit tested would flip out some people. Might even ruin their cruise. And once again, you then have to throw any people who refuse the test into the sea, or lock them in their rooms and guard the doors. Physical confrontations would be a real possibility (“I don’t need to be tested, I was vaccinated! Get away from me!”). Besides, the ships don’t have HEPA filters, so locking people in their rooms (people who are mostly not infected!) doesn’t even reduce the risk of spread significantly. It would just be punishing their customers for bad behavior.
    .
    I really don’t see any approach that is better than the risk of lawsuits….. especially if everyone signs an “iron clad” covid liability waiver. If the industry is going to survive, they have to start cruising… while at the same not generating horrible PR with whatever covid procedures, if any, they choose to adopt.
    .
    Some cruise lines have joined the NCL suit, some have not. I expect those that have not are willing to run the risk of lawsuits. Cruises are already departing Florida ports, and that is not going to change. The longer NCL and co-complainants delay starting operation, the happier they will make their competitors.

  203. STeveF

    Cruises are already departing Florida ports, and that is not going to change. The longer NCL and co-complainants delay starting operation, the happier they will make their competitors.

    Sure. But I still think they should have the option of requiring vaccination or not. Some cruises would require them; others wouldn’t. I think most wouldn’t– but that’s not an argument against not letting them do it if they want to.

  205. Oh, I’m sure it’s easy. You just need to know someone who got a vaccine to know a lot number.
    Still, this isn’t true

    specially since most vaccination sites aren’t documenting who gets the vaccine

    Vaccination sites are taking down information. Among other things, they want to bill either the insurance company or the government.
    What most place aren’t doing is creating a some sort of data base to allow anyone to verify the information on the card.
    .
    The advice on aging the card…. probably not necessary. Mine is magnetized to the fridge. I’m not carrying it around! The only time we showed it was when one of the dance studios first opened up. The very new owner had phoned around and been told she needed to keep track so she did. (She was the first to open mask free. Other places just didn’t open!)
    .
    I’m sure faking it would be a crime in Illinois. (I googled about this– and there is a rather general “faking” things law. It looks like this fit. I don’t know where the law is anymore!) I’m equally sure almost no one would catch you. But it could hypothetically happen.

  206. These ships cost a $1B, adding a few covid testers on board isn’t going to break the budget. I sure hope they spent their time off installing better HVAC filtering. I imagine retrofitting these boats isn’t an easy thing though.
    .
    Since most cruises are less than a week most customers would probably feel comfortable with a negative test or a vaccination of everyone on the boat. Whether this is truly adequate is another story.
    .
    If each room had HEPA filtering and one spent most of the time in the room, got room service, and spent time on the outside decks then risk would be minimized. I just don’t see this happening in reality. A lot of exposure to thousands. These boats are unfortunately worst case scenarios for transmission I think if you do the regular cruise thing.

  207. I wouldn’t get too worried about potential vaccinated cheaters. I imagine that number would be relatively low.

  208. The WSJ becomes one of the only media sites to note that the development of treatment options is badly lagging. Although this is US focused the rest of the world isn’t doing any better. It doesn’t help that any time someone mentions a potential treatment they are immediately vilified as spreading misinformation because the treatment is not proven to FDA standards yet.
    .
    Covid Treatment Options Remain Elusive, Despite Months of Effort and Rising Delta Cases
    Researchers have been held back by a lack of relevant research, a scattered array of clinical trials and a fragmented U.S. healthcare system
    https://www.wsj.com/articles/covid-treatment-delta-variant-cases-symptoms-11627312440
    .
    They dared mention the “I” word, ha ha.
    “Government-funded researchers in the U.S. and U.K. recently began large studies of ivermectin—an antiparasitic pill used for decades to treat river blindness in sub-Saharan Africa.”
    “Looking ahead, the best solution would be an antiviral that can be taken early in the disease as a pill, doctors say.”

  209. Tom Scharf,
    Yes, an antiviral to take early in the illness would be a boon. But unless it is a repurposed existing medication, the development and approval process would likely takes several years…. if even possible.
    .
    I do hope Pfizer and Moderna are well along their way to a delta-variant targeted booster, because a new (even more virulent) strain is most likely to develop from the delta variant, which is now dominant.

  210. lucia (Comment #204013): “But I still think they should have the option of requiring vaccination or not. Some cruises would require them; others wouldn’t.”
    .
    That *sounds* perfectly reasonable. Except that requiring a vaccine amounts to requiring people to surrender medical information that is normally confidential. And there is no guarantee that people would actually have a choice of not doing that. So it seems to me that this is very much stepping out on a slippery slope.
    .
    In general, I think it sounds nice to let people have a choice to go on a cruise where everyone has been vaccinated or can otherwise demonstrate probable immunity. But I also think it essential that people not be coerced into medical treatment or required to divulge medical information. It might well be that we can have only one of those two. If so, I think the second is clearly better.

  211. Lucia,
    “specially since most vaccination sites aren’t documenting who gets the vaccine”
    .
    I don’t think I wrote that.

  213. Those are the averages over time I think, the new mega boats for 3K+ people are all over $1B. There are certainly lesser boats. Viking’s boats are all for about a 1000 people and cost about $300M. I think the current new cost is effectively about $400K per stateroom more or less, not including the HEPA filter

  214. MikeM

    That *sounds* perfectly reasonable. Except that requiring a vaccine amounts to requiring people to surrender medical information that is normally confidential.

    This is an utterly made up principle.
    .
    People are allowed to provide medical information to whomever they wish. And other people are allowed to ask. And other people are allowed to make decisions based on information and lack there of. That’s the normal situation.
    .
    It’s just their doctors, insurance company and so one who are bound to confidentiality.
    .
    Claiming some non-existent not-normal tradition is what is “normal” just because you don’t want cruise ships to screen doesn’t make a good argument.
    .

    But I also think it essential that people not be coerced into medical treatment or required to divulge medical information.

    No one is coerced to do anything just because they can’t otherwise take a cruise. They retain their right to not get vaccinated. They retain their right to not answer the question.
    .
    They just can’t coerce the cruise line to let them on the cruise unless they show they have been vaccinated.
    .
    Heck, no one is “coerced” into wearing dress clothes just because a disco won’t let you in wearing jeans or cut-off. You can just not go to the disco. No one calls those rules “coercion”.

  215. SteveF

    I don’t think I wrote that.

    No. The link that was explaining how to get away with the forgery said it.

  216. Great volleyball match just concluded…. USA women upset China in straight sets. China was the 2016 Gold medalists and are returning a lot of veterans. The USA is a team of rookies [called debutants!]. The girls huddle up during breaks and chant USA-USA-USA.
    Live streaming the events is groundbreaking. Even the obscure sports have been fun. [judo, epee] Today, the surfing competition had big swells from a distant typhoon. After some wipeouts I was concerned for the safety of the kids, but they always popped up unscathed. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/surfing-makes-its-olympic-debut-and-the-waves-should-be-world-class-thanks-to-wind-sand-and-a-typhoon-or-two

  217. SteveF (Comment #204019)
    “”‘I do hope Pfizer and Moderna are well along their way to a delta-variant targeted booster, because a new (even more virulent) strain is most likely to develop from the delta variant, which is now dominant.”
    –
    Certainly a new delta related strain,or lots of them, will develop from the current delta variant, particularly as it is the most dominant, so undergoing the most reproductions.
    –
    As long as whatever strain develops is still Corona virus Mark 1 subset delta the current vaccines should provide some immunity.
    –
    It is when the variety changes away from the current Delta or whatever alphabet varieties exist sufficiently to not be affected at all by the vaccines that problems arise..
    –
    Covid Mark 2 non alpha beta delta is the worry.
    –
    Developing a delta variant targeted strain is not going to help much with a real different strain change.
    –
    Rud Istvan had a post up explaining how most changes are deleterious to the virus and usually result in weaker strains which means in the long term we are much more likely for it to revert to a normal cold virus albeit with a tendency to clotting and death in older people still.
    –
    More virulent strains are bad for the virus [wipes out their host and reduces transmittability] and usually unlikely.
    This is born out by the fact that we are still here despite viruses being around for millennia and having had oodles of time to have wiped us out before.

  218. There is also a gamma and a lambda. λ might be vaccine resistant.
    .
    The α vaccine seems to do ok against a range of variants. So I’d be happy with one that covers β,λ,δ. Each might cover themselves well and some yet to come.
    .
    I think so far no ε. But we know there will be.
    .
    This is going to be like the flu. We’ll need vaccines every year or two. I’ll certainly take them.

  220. angech,

    HIV isn’t going to evolve into a less virulent strain even though, in the absence of drugs, it’s 100% fatal. Death occurs years to decades after infection. As long as SARS-CoV-2 infectiousness peaks well before the host dies, there is zero evolutionary pressure to become less virulent. I doubt rabies will evolve into a less virulent strain either. The idea that all diseases evolve towards less virulence is highly flawed, IMO. Virulence and infectiousness are, again IMO, independent properties.

  221. DeWitt

    The idea that all diseases evolve towards less virulence is highly flawed, IMO. Virulence and infectiousness are, again IMO, independent properties.

    Agreed.
    .
    The better rule is that all viral and bacterial diseases that have survived multiple victim generations will already have evolved towards a level of virulence and infectiousness that allows the pathogen to survive. Then the pathogen and the species survive with an endemic disease.
    .
    But there is nothing in evolution that prevents the pathogen from mutating to be both so transmissible and so infectious it kills all the victims before they can reproduce. If that happened, both the victim species and the pathogen would go extinct (unless the pathogen could infect multiple species.) But there is no ‘intelligence’ to mutation. There is nothing to prevent this from happening. It’s not as if the pathogen “knows” and avoids mutations that will ultimately cause it to die!

  222. lucia,

    The effectiveness of all the Chinese COVID vaccines, even against the original strain, is questionable. I believe the UAE was one of the most highly vaccinated countries, but IIRC, they mostly used Chinese vaccines. There are peaks and valleys in the daily new cases, but the eyeball long term trend is upward.

    The UAE has a low population adjusted death rate, but I think that’s true for all the Arab countries.

  223. lucia (Comment #204030): “This is going to be like the flu. We’ll need vaccines every year or two. I’ll certainly take them.”
    .
    There is absolutely no basis for that. Coronavirus is *nothing* like influenza. Other than both being viruses.
    .
    Coronaviruses evolve slowly. The Wuhan virus is new, so by comparison with long established versions it evolves fast. It started out imperfectly adapted (but very well adapted) to humans, so it had lots of potentially beneficial mutations. There have been a huge number of cases, spread out over a long time, thus giving lots of opportunity for those mutations to happen by chance and spread. And vaccines developed against the early versions still work. There *might* be a mutation that evades the current vaccine, thus requiring a new one. But there is no reason whatever to believe that will be common, if it happens at all.
    ———–
    angech (Comment #204029): “More virulent strains are bad for the virus [wipes out their host and reduces transmittability] and usually unlikely.”
    .
    That makes no sense. It makes no difference to the virus if the host ends up dead or immune. All that matters is that the host survive long enough to transmit the virus.
    .
    angech: “This is born out by the fact that we are still here despite viruses being around for millennia and having had oodles of time to have wiped us out before.”
    .
    That is due to evolution of the host, not the virus. Along with the fact that killing the host is of no advantage to the virus.
    ———–

    I have seen a claim that there is a reason why viruses often become less fit over time. I did not understand it. I’ll see if I can find it.

  224. MikeM

    There is absolutely no basis for that. Coronavirus is *nothing* like influenza. Other than both being viruses.

    There is a “basis” for believing we are going to need boosters.
    .
    The basis is we are seeing transmissible mutations and at least some loss of efficacy. Corona viruses and flu viruses, like all viruses share the feature of “they mutate”. That’s one of the relevant features. Another is whether those mutations escape immunity. We’re seeing it.
    .
    With respect to need for boosters: It looks like it’s going to share this with flu.

    Coronaviruses evolve slowly.

    Well, it’s all well and good to call it “slowly”. That fast and slow are relative terms. We have evidence they don’t evolve slowly enough to avoid boosters. That evidence is that the variants seem less controlled by the vaccine targeting α.

    But there is no reason whatever to believe that will be common, if it happens at all.

    It doesn’t need to be “common”. It only needs to be common enough to create variants people have insufficient immunity to. I’d like a booster even if you would skip it.

  225. MikeM

    But there is no reason whatever to believe that will be common, if it happens at all.

    I would imagine one optimum for a virus is behaving like the herpes series. Chicken pox–>hide–> Shingles seems very optimal. The victim gets Chicken pox and is infectious. Some die, but plenty survive. (I survived chicken pox!)
    If infected survive, the virus lies dormant in the body. The later on– after they are old enough to be grandparents, Shingles pops up. They are infectious again and can infect the next two generations. Perfection!!
    .
    Endemic diseases will have found ways to infect and survive. If you sample over all endemic diseases you will see certain characteristics. But this group of characteristics represents survival bias. Viruses that died off will not be endemic. Either the victim species all died, or after herd immunity was reached, the virus couldn’t find sufficient victims and died. (The latter has happened on islands. Then visitors bring back ‘the cold’ and reintroduce!).

  226. I agree it is likely new strains will evolve to overcome at least some level of resistance in the population, as the rapid dominance of the delta variant shows. Delta is infecting mostly unvaccinated people, and is probably responsible for the recent surge. The only question is if delta can evolve rapidly enough to infect vaccinated (and recovered) people before it runs out of the unvaccinated. if so, boosters targeting the new strain(s) will for sure be needed.

  227. SteveF

    Delta is infecting mostly unvaccinated people, and is probably responsible for the recent surge.

    Yes. But the protection for the vaccinated is somewhat less than for α. If it’s still hanging around, I’d love to have 90% protection against non-lethal illness rather than 60%.
    .
    The higher protection seems possible now and I think sufficient numbers of people are going to want it. I anticipate we’ll see boosters. The rate of uptake will probably be lower — the same way annual flu vaccines uptake is hardly near 100%. It’s closer to 40% and it’s only that high because children are vaccinated at higher rates than adults.
    .
    https://usafacts.org/articles/how-many-americans-get-flu-shots-vaccine-cdc/
    .
    Mike M
    I should also note that even though corona virus is “nothing like” flu, at least the α strain was able to infect other mammals– civets, minks, cats. So like flu (which is otherwise nothing at all like corona) this is a virus that could continue to circulate in mammals that are in some contact with humans. This feature makes long term herd immunity harder to achieve and argues for continued vaccination over time. If we are going to continue to vaccinate, it’s prudent to cover the different strains in circulation, not just stick to a vaccine that covers only α.
    .
    I think there is a strong basis for thinking boosters will be created and they will be recommended. Once they exist, some already vaccinated (like me) will want them. Unless they are contra indicated I think a fair number in the medical community will suggest the booster is prudent. So I think with respect to continued vaccination this will be similar to flu for at least a period of time.

  228. Looks like that east/west grudge match in gymnastics is back on! The US gets upset by the “Representatives of the Olympic Committee” ha ha. That’s why they have competitions.

  229. In today’s episode of “this is effing ridiculous” : Google is censoring my text dictations and replacing the word bitch with “b****”. Even when using the word in the proper inoffensive context. I just find this insulting and clearly over the line. These are private conversations, get your nose out of my a** Google.

  230. The most “successful” viruses never kill their hosts of course, and if they were smart they wouldn’t injure them in any measurable way either. They would peacefully coexist and use the mobile bioreactor for their own needs. The perfect virus would kill other harmful viruses, make us live longer, and up the dopamine in our brains! Killing the required host is a very bad design defect.
    .
    We might have to be a bit careful we aren’t too successful with a mRNA flu vaccine. One can imagine it being mostly eradicated for over a decade and then evading and causing a huge deadly pandemic because everyone is susceptible again. Low level endemic transmission might be the best option if we can’t go full global eradication. An interesting problem.

  231. In a sign of the non-apocalypse, 69% of local parents support a recall of the San Francisco school board.
    https://californiaglobe.com/section-2/san-francisco-school-board-recall-effort-grows-according-to-new-polling-data/
    .
    “The memo also notes that the SF School Board has an overall 71% negative rating among voters, with the District itself getting a 57% unfavorable rating. This was a drastic rise from a 2016 poll that showed that only 17% of voters had an unfavorable view of the School District.”

  233. In letters to the editor in the online WSJ it’s pointed out that the incidence of COVID-19 for overweight and obese people in the US (78%) closely matches the fraction of overweight and obese people in the general population (74%).

    And the UK is not planning to vaccinate youths less than 18 years old unless there is an underlying health condition.

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/age-overweight-kids-covid-risk-vaccine-11627334606?mod=opinion_major_pos17

  234. DeWitt,
    I had already snickered at the “78%” statistic….. idiots.
    They don’t vaccinate under 18 because they don’t have teachers unions controlling the elected government.

  235. On the subject of viral evolution, it seems that under suitable conditions, viruses can evolve to become *less* fit. It is a result of something called Muller’s Ratchet. I have seen it claimed that it accounts for viruses becoming less dangerous over time. I can’t say I really understand the process or the conditions that might make it applicable in the real world.
    .
    I guess my point is that evolution is often not as simple as it seems.

  236. Lucia “I think so far no ε. But we know there will be.”
    –
    -Some abridged information.
    “The virus is a member of Coronaviridae family, genus Betacoronavirus, and has a positive-sense single-stranded RNA genome. The genome is about 30kb and encodes sixteen nonstructural proteins and four structural proteins .
    * The spike protein is involved in SARS-CoV-2 entry into host cells through binding with angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) receptor. The receptor binding domain (RBD) in the S protein interacts with ACE2 receptor that eventually leads to the fusion of virus to host cell membranes*
    *Why it effects older people.
    Recently, the detection of a D614G [Delta] mutation in the S protein of SARS-CoV-2 and subsequent global spread has received tremendous attention. The D614G mutation causes a more transmissible variant of SARS-CoV-2.
    The G614 variant which arose in Europe during February 2020, rapidly spread to other parts of the world occurring in over 74% of all published sequences by June 2020 [9].
    –
    “the SARS-CoV-2 sequences have been grouped into 6 major clades i.e. L (the clade harboring the Wuhan reference strain), G, GH, GR, S, & V.”
    –
    I am sure there are over 1000,000 variants in the major groupings but cannot find it for you.

  237. Points to ponder.
    –
    Viruses are not innately evil.
    Viruses and phages have been around almost since cellular life evolved.
    In fact they are best considered as part of our cellular structure.
    We make them.
    We are programed to make them.
    Originally this helped transfer useful information between bacteria to help them overcome problems.
    Sort of a messenger or exchange service that multiple different bacteria used.
    –
    When a virus mutates to causing problems this is unintended.
    Like the body cells developing cancer.
    Machines with faulty programing lead to both the machine and the program being deleted in time.
    –
    The cell is a machine that wants to survive. Its successful programs therefore lead to detecting and trying to prevent faulty programs. Plus mechanisms for coping when this does not work.

  239. “But there is nothing in evolution that prevents the pathogen from mutating to be both so transmissible and so infectious it kills all the victims before they can reproduce.”
    –
    Evolution is better than that.
    It is true in an enclosed environment, take a chicken coop with a lethal bird flu as an example.
    But we do not live in a sufficiently enclosed environment.
    Evolution does prevent this in other ways.
    The important idea here is that the more you reproduce the less likely that a significant event can kill all of the hosts because they live beyond the area of the pathogen.
    –
    Hence if such a virus was to develop, and it probably has innumerable times, isolated communities of humans would survive and recolonize once the hosts and their viruses all died.
    –
    The second point is it would not wipe out all life, just the hosts it was adapted to so humans could eventually be reformed from other closely related animals.

  240. angech,
    “…so humans could eventually be reformed from other closely related animals.”
    .
    That may be the ultimate eye-roll comment I have seen on this blog.

  241. I’m sorry, but if you are the team leader and you have a mental breakdown and don’t even participate in the biggest team event in 4 years, that doesn’t make you a “hero”. Some of the takes on this are a bit crazy. She let the team down, but perhaps it was necessary. What normal person wouldn’t crack under that kind of pressure? 99.9999% of us.
    .
    Empathy is one thing and appropriate, but the complete lack of criticism here is very strange.
    .
    There is little doubt that this amount of pressure is ridiculously high, but that’s why there is such drama. The Tiger Woods and Michael Jordans of the world could routinely perform in that pressure cooker which is why they are so great. This is not going to ruin her career, but it is going to damage it. I truly hope she can recover and do well in the further events.

  243. SteveF (Comment #204057)
    ” That may be the ultimate eye-roll comment I have seen on this blog.”
    –
    Thank you.
    I am on a roll at the moment.
    At an ecology presentation lamenting the removal of snags in our local rivers which wrecks the habitat for fish.
    Innocently I asked if our Rotary club could help out by having sausage barbecues on the river banks.
    The only snag was that some of them did not get it!

  245. Tom Scharf,

    Did you see Simone Biles’ vault just before she dropped out? It looked to me like a physical problem, inner ear maybe, not mental. She was clearly having problems from the start with lots of errors that she normally doesn’t make. She was becoming detrimental to the team.

  246. DeWitt,

    That is very poorly written…. seems almost designed to confuse. They make it sound like some kind of confusion/cross-reaction between covid and influenza testing, when I THINK they are saying there are better tests, and that both covid and influenza tests should be done at the same time.
    .
    I listed the USA state covid deaths per million population in order of decreasing death rate (Worldometers USA), then compared the recent “surge” in covid cases to the number of deaths per million for different states. Looks to me like those states with high deaths per million population have smaller recent surges, while most states with lower overall deaths per million have larger recent surges. Suggests perhaps that deaths per million population is a better measure of the extent of resistance due to recovery from infection than is confirmed cases per million population.

  247. WRT to Biles,
    I think if she knew she was dragging the team down, she made the right decision. It would be a difficult one to make. But if it’s correct, she’s right to be applauded.
    .
    Hero might be a bit over the top. But ok.

  248. lucia,

    Something like this happened to Biles in 2013 when she was just starting to compete at a high level. In that case it was the coach who threw in the towel. Gymnastics are (is?) dangerous. Serious injuries, including quadriplegia, have happened.

  249. Biles says it is a mental thing. She just withdrew from all around competition which she hasn’t lost since 2013 when she was 16.
    .
    “In the end, the pressure was just too heavy for her to bear, she said after withdrawing from the team final on Thursday.”
    “Biles told her coach and a team doctor that she was not in the right “head space” to continue because she was afraid of injuring herself, and also because she didn’t want to jeopardize the team’s chances at winning a medal.
    “I’m still struggling with some things,” Biles said after the event. “It just sucks when you are fighting with your own head.””
    .
    I don’t know why she would not say it was physical if it was. That’s an easy out, and they have doctors. It’s all very strange. She has been stellar in all other high profile competitions leading up to this (not that I follow it closely), but she did seem to be below her normal performance.
    .
    The Twitter mobs are out on anyone critical on this. The TV media talking about it is all really awkward and bizarre. Another example of suppressing very obvious thoughts. It’s entirely possible to feel sorry for her and be disappointed at the same time.
    .
    She was the face of the games. It may be easier to handle this when you are 16 than 24. You have to look at the coach as well, it is their job to handle a crisis like this. It’s not always solvable and she may be a lot less coachable at this point.
    .
    I think it was US speed skater Dan Jansen who had a miserable Olympic experience over 10 years even though he was favored to win many races. He eventually did win a gold medal on his last race. His story involves his sister dying from cancer.

  250. DeWitt Payne (Comment #204067): “CDC recommending dropping the PCR test as soon as possible with the EUA being removed by the end of this year because it can’t distinguish between influenza and COVID? ”

    ———
    SteveF (Comment #204069): “That is very poorly written…. seems almost designed to confuse. They make it sound like some kind of confusion/cross-reaction between covid and influenza testing, when I THINK they are saying there are better tests, and that both covid and influenza tests should be done at the same time.”

    ———
    If I trusted the CDC, I’d go with SteveF’s reading. But why make it so confusing?

    If there are better tests, then what is wrong with the one they are withdrawing? False positive? False negatives?

    Is this the equivalent of withdrawing essentially all extant PCR tests? I think it must be, since otherwise they would not need to provide 5 months lead time.

    So does that mean that all of the numbers that have terrorized us for the past 17 months might be seriously in error? Might the surge last fall/winter been largely influenza? Was the amazing absence of influenza due to misclassifying it as covid?
    .
    It is amazing how many questions can be raised by six sentences. Maybe the confusing wording is mere incompetence. I don’t see a way to read the notice that reflects well on the CDC.

  251. It may be the right call, that’s impossible to say unless we run alternate time lines. If Tom Brady decided he wasn’t going to play the Super Bowl because he wasn’t in the right head space then an entirely different standard is going to be applied. Criticism is fair game there. That’s my point.
    .
    Why? Because he is a man? I don’t want to make this a gender thing, but a minor point here is that if women’s sports want to be on the same platform as men’s sports then along with that comes the crushing and unfair weight of expectations. Jim Kelly (QB of Buffalo) got to the SB many times, never won, it’s his legacy. Alternately there are many stories of people who struggled to get to the top but eventually succeeded.
    .
    Simone Biles has met those expectations over and over which is why this is such a shock. Everybody has bad days and unfortunately in sports such as this you cannot reschedule. It’s a tragedy.
    .
    The thrill of victory, the agony of defeat.

  252. “Maybe the confusing wording is mere incompetence. I don’t see a way to read the notice that reflects well on the CDC.”

    Now I really really want to run out and get the vaccine as quickly as humanly possible.

    Andrew

  253. It’s impossible to interpret those phrases from the CDC. It should be noted that this is the potential downside of EUA’s, these devices may not always work so great. Why it would take this long for them to figure that out would be another mystery.

  254. If the young lady gymnast truly did withdraw for mental health issues I wish her well.
    Her statement was “being the head star isn’t an easy feat”. Well her staying in the competition now rockets her star status even higher. There is a lot of money at stake and my intuition warns me that this may be a publicity stunt.

  255. Tom Scharf

    If Tom Brady decided he wasn’t going to play the Super Bowl because he wasn’t in the right head space then an entirely different standard is going to be applied. Criticism is fair game there. That’s my point.

    Sure. He’s paid jillions. In his case, if he was under performing during the game, the coach would make the call and put in a substitute. I think it’s the money more than the sex. But I can’t claim to be sure about that. I don’t pay enough attention to sports to say.
    .
    I feel bad for Simone. It’s sad all around. But yes, criticism is fair game. If she really was in a bad mental state, she probably made the right decision for the team. But it’s a bit much to have it elevated to adulation.
    .
    It think another big issue with women’s gymnastics is people know how singularly members of the women’s team were mistreated in recent history. And team members were mistreated from a very young age. So people sense that the nature of the stress is somewhat different from a football quarter back who, likely, at least has more or less “normal” treatment during his developmental years.
    .
    Also: I think gymnastics is not only strenuous, but events like the vault and especially the balance bean are potentially dangerous. People have crippled themselves. And given the game, the crippling can result entirely from ones own mental state affecting performance. So in some sense, if someone is suddenly unable to concentrate, just saying “get a hold of yourself”, might not be the appropriate response.
    .
    Now, I’m sure everyone knows football is also dangerous. But In contrast, in football, it’s a collision sport. So crippling and injury comes from other people hitting you. So your mental state might not matter quite as much.
    .
    Anyway: Feel sorry for her. But yes, criticism is fair game.

  256. lucia (Comment #204082): “He’s paid jillions. In his case, if he was under performing during the game, the coach would make the call and put in a substitute.”
    .
    If Tom Brady’s coach replaced him during a game, he would very shortly be an ex-coach. 🙂
    .
    I don’t think that any NFL coach would replace his quarterback during a game, other than because of injury, unless he was OK with benching that quarterback indefinitely.

  257. MikeM

    If Tom Brady’s coach replaced him during a game, he would very shortly be an ex-coach. 🙂

    Well, I suspect that depends on what Brady was doing. I suspect you just can’t imagine Tom doing anything that would make taking him out a good judgement call.
    .
    I’m pretty sure if Tom suddenly fell into a catatonic state and stood motionless in the field, the coach would replace him!

  258. It seems more and more like the vaccine does not prevent positive covid tests. 12 members (including 4 players) of the Washington Nationals just tested positive. 11 were vaccinated. That is just the worst of a bunch of similar outbreaks among vaccinated baseball people. I think the Yankees have had two. But nobody seems to have gotten significantly ill.
    .
    My guess is that the vaccine limits the virus to the upper respiratory tract. Maybe a mild infection or maybe the test just detects exposure. Or maybe the test is junk and responds to all sorts of viruses.

  259. I thought it was already accepted that the test detects exposure. Again, “we’re” busy obsessing over irrelevancies. The key metric is outcome. The “narrative” relies on an assumption of outcome built upon the scaremongering of the early pandemic. Infections, cases, things rising fast, are all top stories. Perspective is benched.

  260. “The key metric is outcome.”

    DaveJR,

    I don’t think is this is the whole story, either. There has to be a verifiable robust scientific process somewhere before that to make determinations along the whole way, and I don’t see it being presented anywhere. I mostly see crying nurse and football coach commercials.

    Andrew

  261. DaveJR (Comment #204114): “I thought it was already accepted that the test detects exposure.”
    .
    Accepted by whom? Certainly not by Fauci, MLB, Biden, the corporate media, etc.
    .
    DaveJR: “Again, “we’re” busy obsessing over irrelevancies. The key metric is outcome.”
    .
    Indeed. But that data is hard to come by.

  262. The public health response has been sporadic and confused, no doubt about it. Remember flatten the curve? They want to go back to mandatory mask and closing schools again. These are judgment calls but there is no observable logical and scientific basis by which they are making these judgments, it is like they are sticking their finger up daily and measuring the Twitter wind and responding accordingly.
    .
    A big problem is that these committees and organizations don’t really have enough forcings on them to prevent them from being overly cautious. The end result is people just start ignoring them.
    .
    There is some science and a lot of uncertainty. The messaging always infers science has no uncertainty, but after reality proves them wrong (over and over), they say there was always uncertainty, and then right back to inferring certainty again.
    .
    The fact that there is still a great deal of uncertainty on many subjects is a stain to their field.

  263. Here are two data sources I haven’t seen mentioned here that may be of interest. I don’t know about their accuracy:
    Award for data site with most interesting buttons that change the graph Covid features: https://covidestim.org/ [From: The covidestim project,Yale, Harvard, Stanford]
    Award for best use of color in Covid data graph presentation: https://covid19florida.mystrikingly.com/ [From Jason L. Salemi, PhD, MPH, U. of South Florida]

  264. Tom Scharf,

    ‘We can flatten the curve’ morphed into ‘we can crush the virus’ with zero justification. Unless you lived on an island, were self-sufficient and could completely restrict access, the reality was that you could flatten the curve, but without vaccines, the area under the curve would remain the same. And there was a limit on how much you could flatten the curve.

    But we can’t have that because then we can’t put the blame for all the deaths in the US on Trump.

  266. And we are told that:

    (a) The current surge is an epidemic among the unvaccinated.

    And that therefore:

    (b) Vaccinated people should wear masks.

  267. Tom Scharf, I am looking at the other one, covidestem now. The Effective reproduction number (Rt) curve inflection points for the various states may be telling a tale.

  268. The Salemi site appears to have at least one glaring error: New York is rated low in covid deaths per 100,000 population, when in fact it is second highest in the country (after New Jersey, and just ahead of Massachusetts). Something is not right.

  269. Russell,
    If they really knew that number (Rt) then it would be interesting, unfortunately they are just deriving that estimate from other things that can be measured. Ultimately it is still deaths, hospitalizations, and case counts in that order that matter.
    .
    Rt is going to depend on a crapload of other assumptions. Nothing wrong with trying to model it, I just wouldn’t base any decisions on that model.
    .
    Delta is way more transmissive than original covid. You only need to look at the relative ratios of the variants over time to learn that.

  270. Tom Scharf, “If they really knew that number (Rt) then it would be interesting”. I don’t care what the number is. I look at the changes to the slopes of the curves. As long as they are consistent in the derivation of the number, the curve dynamics might tell a story. I haven’t drawn any conclusions yet but I have noticed some interesting things. For most states the numbers are rising very quickly and falling very quickly, but the amplitudes vary all over the map. There are no gradual increases or decreases. There are no flat lines. Inquiring minds want to know why.

  271. So I’m reading the comments to a column by Peggy Noonan on Pelosi’s January 6 investigation committee. When the death of Ashli Babbitt is brought up, the progressives all insist it wasn’t murder. One even claimed it was suicide by cop. That’s an interesting contrast to what happened to George Floyd. If Chauvin committed murder, then so did the officer who shot Ashli Babbitt. But that officer will never be charged, much less tried.

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/jan-6-house-select-committee-capitol-hill-riot-trump-11627594907?mod=opinion_featst_pos1

  272. The police officer that did the Capital shooting was never even identified to my knowledge. There is some debate about whether it was justifiable, there is an actual video. He basically just walks up and shoots her in the neck while she is half way crawling through a broken door. It’s not pretty. She had agency in her own death like many others, but the fact that there are different standards being applied is indisputable.

  273. Re the CDC statement on the the Covid PCR test and influenzas. It didn’t seem that confusing to me. At the moment the test protocol can only detect Covid (since it only uses a Covid spike primer) and makes no call, either yes or no on influenzas. The CDC is saying that a change in the protocol (by adding influenza specific primers) will allow the one test to make a call on Covid as well as on influenzas and that this will be necessary as for many people (especially younger people) the symptoms are very similar and as the NH heads into winter this will be useful. So the CDC is proposing making the test target multiple viruses rather than the single virus at the moment.

  274. Andrew Kennett (Comment #204143): “Re the CDC statement on the the Covid PCR test and influenzas. It didn’t seem that confusing to me.”
    .
    They are not just asking for a new test, they are cancelling approval for the existing one. They are doing that in the absence of a dual test. And there will be other tests just for the Wuhan virus. It does not make sense.

  275. Tom Scharf (Comment #204141): “The police officer that did the Capital shooting was never even identified to my knowledge. There is some debate about whether it was justifiable, there is an actual video.”
    .
    People are pretty sure they know who the shooter was, but are reluctant to publish without confirmation. The Capital Police refuse to say who it was; something that would be illegal for almost any other police force in the nation.
    .
    Babbit’s actions would have deserved a stint in prison, unlike many of the other trespassers. But no explanation has been given for shooting her. There were officers near her on the outside of the door who did not seem to feel the need to intervene. None of the other cops on the inside saw fit to draw their weapons. Maybe it was justified. But not providing that justification is outrageous.

  276. Mike M. (Comment #204144): from the CDC statement
    “CDC will withdraw the request to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) of the CDC 2019-Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV) Real-Time RT-PCR Diagnostic Panel, the assay first introduced in February 2020 for detection of SARS-CoV-2 only.” Notice the word *only* so a singleplex test.

    And then the release says:
    “CDC encourages laboratories to consider adoption of a multiplexed method that can facilitate detection and differentiation of SARS-CoV-2 and influenza viruses. Such assays can facilitate continued testing for both influenza and SARS-CoV-2 and can save both time and resources as we head into influenza season.” Multiplex means multiple detections in the one test, in this case Covid and influenzas.

    So clearly they are upgrading the rules from, to paraphrase, ‘only use a singleplex test’ to ‘now use a multiplex test’.

  277. Lets not forget the CDC effed up the test “first introduced in February 2020”

  278. Andrew Kennett (Comment #204146),
    .
    Your interpretation may well be correct, but the CDC statement sure is confusing.
    .
    It turns out that multiplex tests were given an EUA on July 2, 2020:
    https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/lab/multiplex.html
    So it is plausible that the recent change is withdrawing approval for the covid-only test, effectively requiring that influenza is always tested for at the same time.
    .
    That leaves open the question of why the covid-only test is being banned. It also raises the question of whether the multiplex test was being encouraged last fall, when they were worried about simultaneous flu and covid epidemics. Why was the covid-only test OK then, but not now? There may be a good reason, but it would be nice to know the reason.
    .
    It used to be that we trusted the CDC and FDA. Now, when they seem to be leaving something unsaid, my first reaction is to suspect they are hiding something.

  279. From today’s WSJ:

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/new-cdc-mask-guidance-spurs-criticism-over-messaging-11627651554?mod=hp_lead_pos6

    New CDC Mask Guidance Spurs Criticism Over Messaging
    Many health experts support change as Delta variant spreads, but some are frustrated by lack of clarity

    New mask guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released this week has met with criticism from some public-health experts who are frustrated by the agency’s messaging and the lack of transparent data behind the change.

    CDC Director Rochelle Walensky on Tuesday said she had seen new data that vaccinated people who experienced rare breakthrough infections of Covid-19 carry a similar level of viral load as infections among unvaccinated people and could potentially spread the virus, spurring a renewed recommendation for vaccinated people to wear masks in areas of high or substantial transmission. She said the CDC had collected data from outbreak investigations but provided few details on the call. Some of that data collected by the CDC is unpublished, according to the CDC’s website.

    The recommendation—to wear masks in public indoor spaces where the virus is circulating widely—came a little over two months after the agency said vaccinated people could forgo masks in most situations. The U.S. now faces a fresh wave of infections and hospitalizations spurred by the highly transmissible Delta variant.

    Where’s the data that show that wearing cloth or surgical masks significantly reduces the spread?

    I also saw a reference to an article in Forbes that claimed that for people who were vaccinated with the Pfizer vaccine in January, 2021 the effectiveness is only 16%. I don’t have a subscription to Forbes, so I didn’t bother to look it up. Hence, I don’t know from where Forbes got their data. If it was from Israel or from Pfizer from their trial participants, who were vaccinated in August, 2020 then it might be believable. But then it would be headline news everywhere, not just in Forbes.

  280. Not only are a lot of people not getting vaccinated, some of them are not wearing seat belts either. Well, I don’t know if the two sets overlap, but I suspect they do.

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/rise-in-car-crash-deaths-prompts-new-seat-belt-push-11627637400?mod=hp_lead_pos13

    Rise in Car Crash Deaths Prompts New Seat-Belt Push
    Americans have driven less during Covid-19 pandemic, but crash fatalities rose last year, with more than half involving unbelted people

    [—————-]

    In a recent two-week span, law-enforcement agencies across Colorado issued about 2,000 tickets for seat-belt violations during Click It or Ticket, a recurring nationwide effort. Sgt. Dan Silvia, who heads the traffic unit at the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office in metro Denver, said he heard different excuses as he handed drivers $75 citations.

    “It’s usually, ‘I forgot,’” he said. But he said some drivers complained about the government telling them what to do, and one man vowed he would never wear a seat belt.[my emphasis]

    Across the U.S. last year, fatalities in which vehicle occupants were ejected rose 20% compared to 2019, and such deaths were higher among young men than other demographic groups, said Essie Wagner, who directs NHTSA’s Office of Behavioral Safety Research. She said ejections are linked to not wearing a seat belt.

    I have this vague memory, though, that we were told that air bags alone would keep us safe.

  281. The Magic Covid Crystal Ball [MCCB] has awakened from it’s slumber and cranked out a prediction. Within 30 days the CDC will issue guidance for old sickos, like me, to get a third injection of the Moderna or Pfizer vaccines, administered six months after the second injection. That is all.

  282. The Magic Covid Crystal Ball [MCCB] prediction of the CDC authorizing a third jab of Moderna or Pfizer is based on three factors: 1. The money…. the manufactures have boatloads of vaccine on hand and are geared up to crank out a lot more. They need Uncle Sugar to fork over some cash. 2. The media is in a frenzy right now [as the MCCB foresaw]. 3. The politicians and bureaucrats have a need to be seen as responding [as the MCCB foresaw]. It’s a perfect storm.

  283. “Tuesday said she had seen new data that vaccinated people who experienced rare breakthrough infections of Covid-19 carry a similar level of viral load as infections among unvaccinated people and could potentially spread the virus, ”
    .
    And? Like a few breakthrough cases spreading are going to make a big difference. Might as well hand out fire extinguishers to those trapped in the towering inferno. I’m pretty sure the real reason is that they can’t make unvaccinated people wear masks unless everyone wears masks.

  284. It seems that Biden’s vaccine mandate for federal employees is illegal. They can’t actually require vaccines, so Biden is saying that he will make life miserable for the unvaccinated by making them take covid tests once or twice a week. But the American with Disabilities Act prohibits an employer from requiring a medical exam

    unless such examination or inquiry is shown to be job-related and consistent with business necessity.

    https://www.eeoc.gov/laws/guidance/enforcement-guidance-disability-related-inquiries-and-medical-examinations-employees

    That applies to all employers, public and private. And Biden has admitted that the purpose of the exams is coercion. A covid test is clearly a medical examination. According to the EEOC (link above):

    A “medical examination” is a procedure or test that seeks information about an individual’s physical or mental impairments or health.

    It goes on in some detail that makes it quite clear that a covid test qualifies.

  285. The great thing about Biden is that he is nothing more than an Alzheimer’s patient filling in for an actual president who is able to exert a measure of judgement. He is now so debilitated that the puppet masters are going to have to pull his strings back ever more from public communication. He is a joke. Of course, Biden has always been a joke in an intellectual sense. But now it is a sad joke, where, because of his dementia, you feel sorry for laughing at his idiocy.

  286. Mike M. (Comment #204149), I agree that effectively withdrawing the Covid-only test looks a little odd and I would also like to see some of the reasoning, the CDC doesn’t medal for transparency. I can guess a few ideas but these are just my guesses.
    – last winter lockdowns were very widespread and influenza was markedly reduced (supported by data from Europe and Australia, influenza deaths in 2020 about 10% of 2019) so multiplex tests weren’t needed and may have led to diagnosis confusion
    – with lockdowns likely much less this winter and with a lot of people protected from Covid by previous infection or vaccination it is expected that influenza will come roaring back so there will be plenty of people presenting with coughs, sore throats, fever etc that could be either Covid or influenza so a test that differentiates ie multiplex, will be important
    – it could also be that there now improved primers for multiplex tests with less chance of cross-reactivity ie false positives

  287. Andrew Kennett,

    The idea that influenza will come roaring back this fall sounds like more ‘expert’ speculation. I see a lot of ‘may be severe’ warnings. We’re currently heading into the peak of the Southern Hemisphere influenza season and so far there doesn’t seem to be much action. Australia and New Zealand are still pretty much locked down or isolated, but I don’t think it’s possible to actually lock down Brazil.

  288. DeWitt Payne (Comment #204204): the ‘roaring back’ speculation was mine, so not an expert 🙂 and Aust and NZ are still mostly locked down so what give much guidance about NH winter. South Africa and Brazil may give some insight although they have other issues like poverty and multi-generation households which may muddy the waters. However even if the NH winter is like 2019 or 2018 there will be plenty of people presenting with Covid/influenza symptoms that need differentiation.

  289. Two more pieces from the WSJ about the incompetence of the CDC:

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-centers-for-disease-control-and-prevention-delta-variant-panic-covid-vaccines-11627682562?mod=hp_opin_pos_1

    The CDC’s Delta Variant Panic
    The agency spreads needless worry about vaccinations.

    As the coronavirus evolves, so does the science. The Delta variant is creating uncertainty about how much vaccines prevent transmission, but the overwhelming evidence shows they are highly protective against severe illness. Please get vaccinated if you aren’t already.

    That should have been the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s straightforward message to Americans this week, along with a candid analysis of its evidence.

    Instead, the CDC on Tuesday issued murky new guidance, without backup evidence….

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/delta-variant-covid-19-coronavirus-vaccine-hesitancy-natural-immunity-herd-11627679672?mod=hp_opin_pos_3

    Maybe With Delta the CDC Will Learn to Count
    In Britain, they know 92% of the public has antibodies; here we panic in the dark.

    Britain has seen its Delta surge wane rather quickly. And unlike the U.S., it is not flopping around in the half-dark about what’s going on. Thanks to biweekly blood-sample surveys, the U.K. government knows how many people have antibodies from vaccination and/or infection. Thanks to surveys and modeling it also has a good idea how many are currently infected, invariably a multiple of those who get a positive test.

    This is infinitely more useful and relevant than any information U.S. authorities produce, a point starting to break through thanks to former FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb’s appearances on CNBC.

  290. And in other news, I’m seeing a lot of whining about how Biden isn’t getting any credit for the apparent improvement of the economy. I guess the whiners forgot how long Obama blamed Bush for anything that was wrong with the economy starting in 2009 and continuing for years thereafter. Conversely, if you credit Biden with the economy, then you should blame him for, among other things, the decreasing rate of vaccination, which peaked in April on his watch. But no. Everything good is Biden and the Democrats and everything bad is Trump and/or Republicans.

  291. This is curious: Nobel Prize winning virologist Luc Montagnier (co-discoverer of HIV) says the vaccines are causing new, more infectious variants to evolve.
    https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/nobel-prize-winner-mass-covid-vaccination-an-unacceptable-mistake-that-is-creating-the-variants
    .
    He is nearly 90 and his Wikipedia article indicates that he has become a crackpot:

    Montagnier was a promoter of the conspiracy theory that SARS-CoV-2, the causative virus, was deliberately created in, and thereafter escaped from a laboratory. Such a claim has been refuted by other virologists.

    Oh, wait a minute. 🙂
    .
    He seems to be saying that we expect that from basic principles and that the data show it is happening:

    You see it in each country, it’s the same: in every country deaths follow vaccination

    Well, no. Quite a few countries seem to have had surges in cases (Israel now has as many per capita as the USA). But no big increase yet in the USA and not much in the UK or Israel. Also very few deaths in the EU or Canada.

  292. DeWitt

    I’m seeing a lot of whining about how Biden isn’t getting any credit for the apparent improvement of the economy.

    Oh. Sheesh. The Covid pandemic is a rare situation where we know why it tanked and we know why it is recovering. It’s often said the President isn’t all that responsible anyway. But in this case we all know for sure that Trump was not responsible for most of the economy tanking and Biden is not responsible for most of the recovering. All comparisons are against hypotheticals of what it might have been if someone else was in charge. But Covid had a HUGE effect.

  293. MikeM,
    Well, perhaps Montagnier’s language skills aren’t good. Because this from is not true

    “The history books will show that, because it is the vaccination that is creating the variants.”

    Vaccination itself doesn’t create variants. Mutation happens whether or not there are vaccines.

    It is the antibodies produced by the virus that enable an infection to become stronger,”

    There is nothing about the vaccine that will create a tendency toward “stronger”. Antibodies can create bodies that evade antibodies which is different from “stronger” in any sense.
    .
    There will be a general tendency to more transmissible even if people have no antibodies (or natural antibodies.)

    Plus, “the data” don’t suggest that, for example, Δ was created by vaccines. It first popped up and multiplied in India where almost no one was vaccinated. So the evidence indicates that variants happen without vaccines.
    .

    You see it in each country, it’s the same: in every country deaths follow vaccination,” he said.

    Uhmmm what country? The deaths from Δ preceded vaccination in India. The β variant first appeared in September 2020. In South Africa. Where no one was vaccinated. So the data don’t suggest that was created by the vaccine. The suggest it happens in places where they have no vaccine.
    .
    Now, there is some truth to pressure toward anti-body resistance. After a population has antibodies to a virus, mutations that get around those antibodies are preferred over those that are blocked. But it doesn’t follow that vaccines are a special threat. Antibodies from infections block the original virus as well as those from vaccines. So this hardly argues against vaccines. Just having a population of people who got sick and recovered will create the same pressure toward antibody resistant viruses. (And, in fact, these seem to have sprung up on places where lots of people got infected– which makes statistical sense.)
    .
    In fact, as far as I can tell, the pressure toward antibody resitance still argues     for vaccines. Because we create antibodies without being infected, the α virus can’t mutate in people who don’t infected. If there is no mutation, then you can’t create a antibody resistant mutation in the first place. If it’s not created, selection pressure is irrelevant. So the vaccines will reduce the rate that antibody resistant mutation occurs relative to people developing antibodies by getting sick.
    .
    So sure anti-body resistant mutations can arise. And those viruses will be favored when people have antibodies. But the both antibody resistant viruses and more transmissible viruses can arise anyway. And the data we have data we have point to the existing mutations having occurred and multiplied in locations where people were not vaccinated. And the basic principles argue against his notion that vaccines make the problem of antibody resistant mutations happening faster.
    .

  294. Mike M.,

    Such a claim has been refuted by other virologists.

    I would say disputed rather than refuted. Reason alone cannot prove or disprove the origin of the virus and science is not a democracy. Consensus views have frequently been shown to be wrong. The lab creation hypothesis is still viable.

  295. lucia (Comment #204210),
    .
    Although what you are saying isn’t wrong so far as I can tell, I am pretty sure that Montagnier knows far more about virology than you or I. Maybe he is wrong, but more likely you are misinterpreting.

    Vaccination itself doesn’t create variants. Mutation happens whether or not there are vaccines.

    That is quibbling. He obviously does not mean that the vaccine causes mutation. He is claiming that it creates selective pressure for new variants.
    .
    People use sloppy language all the time. Sometimes it is worse in their own areas of expertise since they know that everyone else in the field knows what they mean. Chemists and physicists routinely use the word “heat” as if the caloric theory of heat were valid.

    There is nothing about the vaccine that will create a tendency toward “stronger”.

    Quibbling. Selective pressure makes an organism fitter, at least in some sense. Stronger and fitter are synonyms. Stronger is not the best word choice in English, but the guy is not a native English speaker.
    .

    It first popped up and multiplied in India where almost no one was vaccinated. So the evidence indicates that variants happen without vaccines.

    For sure. But the issue is selective pressure.
    .
    When did delta become dominant in India, if it did become dominant? Real question. From what I can find, WHO did not get worried about it until early May, around the time cases peaked in India. That suggests that the big surge in India was alpha and that there was no increase in cases there associated with delta, but I don’t have the data. Whereas what has happened in the UK, USA, and Israel is big surges associated with delta.
    .
    Fred Singer was a brilliant scientist who, IMO, went off the rails late in life. Maybe that is the case with Montagnier. But I am not going to dismiss or accept what he has to say based on your or my interpretation of a brief second hand report. For now, I merely note the existence of a contrarian view by someone with a great deal of expertise.

  296. DeWitt Payne (Comment #204211): “The lab creation hypothesis is still viable.”
    .
    Not merely viable, highly probable. I was makng fun of Wikipedia. At least, I thought I was. 🙂

  297. Mike M wrote: “That is quibbling. He obviously does not mean that the vaccine causes mutation. He is claiming that it creates selective pressure for new variants.”
    .
    ISTM that arguing vaccines create selection pressure which selects better variants is quibbling. Natural immunity also creates selection pressure. Antibiotics create selection pressure. The question is, is it really a better course of action to allow diseases to run their course, as we used to have to do, to avoid this other selection pressure?

  298. DaveJR (Comment #204214): “ISTM that arguing vaccines create selection pressure which selects better variants is quibbling. Natural immunity also creates selection pressure.”
    .
    Yes, but the pressures are quite different. The vaccines being used create a response to small snippets of Wuhan virus proteins. So they might well be more easily evaded than acquired immunity that responds to more of the virus.
    .
    Also, the vaccine only creates a response in the humoral immune system (not sure that is the correct term). Natural infection also produces a response in the mucosal immune system. So natural infection is likely much better at preventing upper respiratory infections. So the vaccine allows the virus to reproduce in close proximity to the antibodies that it might want to evade. That sounds like it might be a good way to encourage the virus to evolve in a way that we might not like.
    .
    I have no idea how likely it is that the vaccine will cause a problem. Probably not at all likely. But it seems foolish to just dismiss the possibility.

  300. Well the virus better mutate to evade natural protection and vaccines or it will go to the dustbin of history. The vaccines are very specific in their protection, if the vaccines evade that then we will need a vaccine variant. I don’t know if anyone can say how difficult it would be for the virus to evade the spike protein vaccine from a virology point of view. That might be a very unlikely mutation.
    .
    I would speculate today that the virus is beginning to evade the vaccine by becoming transmissive enough that it allows vaccinated people to retransmit the virus before it is suppressed, this occurs at a high enough level to sustain some outbreaks. The people don’t get very sick though. This may be an acceptable unnegotiated truce.

  301. The entire argument that the vaccine is putting mutation pressure on the virus to evade the vaccine is trivially true. I have no idea what point you are actually making. Should we have not had a vaccine and let a crapload of seniors die because we are afraid it might evolve?

  302. Mike M

    Although what you are saying isn’t wrong so far as I can tell, I am pretty sure that Montagnier knows far more about virology than you or I. Maybe he is wrong, but more likely you are misinterpreting.

    Appeals to (absent) authorities are always so convincing. 😉
    .

    There is nothing about the vaccine that will create a tendency toward “stronger”.
    Quibbling. Selective pressure makes an organism fitter,

    No. This is not quibbling. It does not create a tendency to make the virus stronger in any sense of the word. It’s not an issue of “best choice”. It neither relates a tendency to kill more nor the transmit more readily. So this is just fundamentally wrong. .

    For sure. But the issue is selective pressure.

    Selective pressure exists— as I said.
    But someone either you or your absent authority needs to explain why the selection due to vaccine induced antibodies is any different from the selection pressure due to infection itself.
    .
    You seem to have ignored that point I brought up, and prefer to to to argument by authority.

    When did delta become dominant in India, if it did become dominant? Real question

    Before the country was vaccinated. Real answer. And like I wrote.

    From what I can find, WHO did not get worried about it until early May, around the time cases peaked in India.

    Even by the end of may only 12 % of those in India has even had 1 vaccine. Around 3% were fully vaccinated. Meanwhile lots of people had antibodies from infection.. So WHO was worried about it before they were all vaccinated. So Delta existed and the Who was worried before appreciable vaccination. You can find vaccination data online

    But I am not going to dismiss or accept what he has to say based on your or my interpretation of a brief second hand report.

    A brief second hand report you brought to our attention for consideration. I’m not going to think think something that sounds silly is correct until you go find some not 2nd hand discussion and/or can explain why the idea makes sense in your own words.
    .
    Your support of the idea seems to be appeal to authority.

  303. Russell Klier (Comment #204216): “I haven’t checked the maths, and doubt the accuracy of the data available, but it’s a unique way of looking at it.”
    .
    It is a useless way of looking at it since there is no context. In the last 3 months, known cases amount to about 1% of the population, so fractions of 1% are hardly impressive.
    .
    According to the link, 4% of the vaccinated who get infected are hospitalized and 1% die. About the same as the unvaccinated. Oops.
    .
    Much more likely is that cases among the vaccinated are massively under counted since they have no reason to get tested if not very ill or subject to routine testing, like MLB players.

  304. lucia,

    I neither argued from authority nor supported Montagnier’s claims. Quoting myself: “For now, I merely note the existence of a contrarian view by someone with a great deal of expertise.”

  305. DeWitt,
    According to the WHO, all the countries in South America reported zero cases of influenza in May 2021. Most other places around the world reported exceptionally low numbers of cases.

  306. MikeM
    This is an argument from authority

    I’m pretty sure that Montagnier knows far more about virology than you or I.

    It’s an argument from authority because your basis for being “pretty sure” is who he is (an authority) and not the substance of his argument.

  307. People getting their first vaccination shot in FL:
    .
    One week ago: 26K
    Today: 49K
    .
    Better late than never, but it is very late. FL set highest one day total of pandemic with 21K new cases. Deaths are still relatively lowish but rising. Going to be a rough month.

  308. Tom Scharf,
    The problem is that there are a couple million people in Florida still unvaccinated and over 55. Even if most of those 49K are older people, at that pace it will take a couple of months for the number of vulnerable people to fall to a low level (say 95% of at risk people fully vaccinated). It will be sad for the families of all those who die because they were not vaccinated. Sad, but not surprising…. bad choices often lead to bad outcomes.

  309. lucia (Comment #204223): “This is an argument from authority”
    .
    It is not an argument from authority. Because I say so. 🙂

  310. SteveF,
    .
    I think one of the things we see is all other things equal, higher case rates increase vaccination uptake. High death rates do so even more.
    .
    Yes. It’s late. But for the reluctant, there will always be a lag with cases rising first and vaccination later.
    .
    If a booster with multiple spikes was available to me now, I’d get it. If I a nasal spray booster for the same spike was available, I’d do that too!

  311. Catherine Herridge and Rand Paul both made comments yesterday about the DOJ Durham investigation… Could be a coincidence, but maybe not. I monitor both of those two every day because they are often first to break things.

  312. “ One-Third of COVID-19 Survivors Develop a Brain Disorder”. I doubt they can measure this very well…. They are dealing with old looney people. https://feeds.aarp.org/health/conditions-treatments/info-2021/brain-disorders-in-covid-survivors.html?_amp=true&cmp=OUTBRAIN-DSM-DESK-HEALTH-CORONA-SL-RSSFEED_One-Third%20of%20COVID-19%20Survivors%20Develop%20Brain%20Disorders_001f1559664e5315f642f31813e75c9c46_CNN&dicbo=v1-42b5b8977d7c05a73c0d13d75370a526-00b0d91fea41c4b1db6f9822c0399f54d7-gaztkmtcmi2ggljxmu4wiljugizdellcgjsdellgmezwmolbhbtgcmjzgq&__twitter_impression=true

  313. Russell,
    The risk ratios appear to be compared to influenza patients. It’s too bad there is no “healthy” baseline. (Though given that they went through medical records of people who got sick, I understand they really couldn’t have done otherwise.)
    .
    It’s an interesting study.
    .
    I don’t want to get COVID. That only shows one more reason why I shouldn’t want to get COVID!

  314. “Florida on Sunday broke a previous record for current hospitalizations, as the number of patients in hospitals because of COVID-19 once again broke through the 10,000-person threshold.”
    In late June, I was being hammered because I foresaw difficulty based on the Covid data trends in Florida and worldwide. The situation is not worrisome they said. My data was antidotal and not statistically meaningful they said. The old people are protected by the vaccine and the young people don’t get severe cases they said. Florida was approaching herd immunity they said. The best strategy is to just let Delta harmlessly burn through the unvaccinated population they said.
    Well, they were wrong. The hospital situation is dire in some locations and not good everywhere else.
    https://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/breaking-news/os-ne-covid-hospitalizations-florida-20210801-gory6e3slrbrxdzycu6g4cehfm-story.html
    https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/covid-hospitals-near-you.html?action&&login=email&auth=login-email#x3D;click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage

  315. Russell,

    About half of the patients were under 12, Mestre said, and the rest were older and eligible for the vaccine. But none of the patients with COVID-19 at Nicklaus Children’s on Friday were vaccinated. Most children who get COVID-19 do not need hospitalization, Mestre said.

    The vaccine does seem to be working though.
    That doesn’t help kids younger than 12 or older ones whose parents didn’t have them vaccinated.

  316. Russell,

    About half of the patients were under 12, Mestre said, and the rest were older and eligible for the vaccine. But none of the patients with COVID-19 at Nicklaus Children’s on Friday were vaccinated. Most children who get COVID-19 do not need hospitalization, Mestre said.

    The vaccine does seem to be working though.
    That doesn’t help kids younger than 12 or older ones whose parents didn’t have them vaccinated.
    .
    The orlando sentinal article you linked is otherwise sparse on demographic info.

  317. “For nearly 13 percent of these patients, it was their first time receiving such a diagnosis.”
    .
    So 87% of these 200,000 + with mental health issues were already diagnosed in the past with these same mental disorders. Sounds to me like some people on the edge of crazy are in fact driven crazy by the stress of covid; this doesn’t seem so surprising. Reminds me of the “78% of covid victims are overweight or obese”, which sounds impressive until someone points out that 74% of all adults are overweight or obese, and more among the age groups most likely to die from covid-19. There may be some added susceptibility to covid due to being overweight, but it is not large. There may be some added susceptibility to going crazy due to added stress and anxiety from having covid, but that doesn’t suggest at all that covid is a neurological illness. The hysteria is now totally out of control.

  318. Steve F, I agree. Here was my comment when I posted it…. “ I doubt they can measure this very well…. They are dealing with old looney people”.

  319. Most people should get vaccinated; that reduces risk of illness and death by about 95%. But the risk to children (under 12) is so low that the FDA does not recommend vaccination. The risk to adolescents (under 16) is very low, although it probably makes sense for them to be vaccinated. The risk to everyone else is high enough that vaccination for sure makes sense, and the older the person, the more critical they are vaccinated. People need to be aware that risk increases by a factor of two to three for each added decade… an 18 year old has much, much less than 1% of the risk of a 78 year old. The failure of the CDC and the MSM to explain this clearly to the public is IMO bordering on criminally negligent. The lack of accurate information about risks has caused lots of unnecessary deaths and lots of unnecessary financial/economic/social damage. And the worst part is: it continues to this day. Instead of useful information about risks, we hear nothing but hectoring, scolding, and hysterical anecdotal stories designed to mislead about risks, not inform. All of which is almost guaranteed to make many people MORE resistant to getting vaccinated, not less.

  320. Hospitals in New Mexico are stressed, but with only a fraction of the Wuhan virus cases they had last fall. The reason is all the medical care that was deferred by the lockdown. So the lockdowns that were meant to keep hospitals from getting overloaded have resulted in hospitals being overloaded.
    .
    My guess is that half of the hospitalizations with Wuhan are not due to the virus. I base that on the fact that last fall it was so for about 1/3 of the hospitalization and there are now more hospitalizations for other causes. It is ridiculous that we have to rely on fragmentary data for such things.
    .
    Note that the “startling rise in the number of children with the virus at hospitals in Miami” reported by the Orlando Sentinel is based on all of 24 cases. That could be just a statistical fluctuation, especially since it sounds like they checked with hospitals all over the state.
    .
    Terror must be maintained!

  321. Mike M.,

    So the lockdowns that were meant to keep hospitals from getting overloaded have resulted in hospitals being overloaded.

    The hospital’s ICU’s were stressed, much of the rest of the hospital was emptied and staff laid off. That also created a serious cash flow problem for hospitals as elective surgery is a major profit center.

  322. “The best strategy is to just let Delta harmlessly burn through the unvaccinated population they said”
    .
    I don’t think anyone used the word “harmlessly”, at least anyone who understood the situation. There is no reason to wait or lockdown if everyone who wanted vaccinated had already done so. The question is why slow it down at this point?
    .
    Slowing it down by masking and lockdowns is fundamentally just protecting the unvaccinated from their own decisions. They can get covid sooner, or get covid later. I don’t think their overall longer term risk changes that much either way.
    .
    The reality though is that the delta surge has clearly scared some people into getting vaccinated as the vaccination rates have gone up considerably in affected areas.

  323. Tom

    The reality though is that the delta surge has clearly scared some people into getting vaccinated as the vaccination rates have gone up considerably.

    Good that they are getting vaccinated!
    .
    The WSJ also reported that various employers are now requiring vaccinations for some or all employees. Some places of business are requiring customers to show vaccination status. (Some states are barring them from doing that.)
    .
    Yeah. Some people will fake their cards. But some who don’t like to lie will go get vaccinated.

  324. Fox News story on a report from the House Foreign Affairs Committee’s Republican staff: https://www.foxnews.com/world/wuhan-lab-report-raises-further-questions-about-possible-covid-19-lab-leak
    .
    Some things I had not heard before:

    Republicans on the Foreign Affairs Committee have built their argument on a timeline that claims the virus escaped the Wuhan Institute of Virology “sometime prior to September 12, 2019.”

    On that day, the Wuhan University, less than a mile from the WIV’s headquarters, issued a notice for laboratory inspections. Hours later, the WIV’s viral sequence database disappeared from the internet. Later that evening, the institute published an announcement for bids for “security services” at the lab “to include gatekeepers, guards, video surveillance, security patrols, and people to handle the ‘registration and reception of foreign personnel,’” according to the report.

    and

    Satellite imagery of Wuhan in September and October 2019 showed a significant increase in hospital visits and internet searches for COVID-19 symptoms.

    They can monitor internet searches from satellites? Maybe just a badly worded sentence.
    .
    And this seems especially damning, if true:

    In October, Wuhan hosted the 2019 Military World Games, which drew thousands of military personnel to compete in Olympic-style events. International press reports cite athletes claiming events were conducted without fans and that Wuhan was a “ghost town.” Athletes from several countries complained of COVID-like symptoms and four countries that sent athletes have confirmed the presence of COVID-19 in November and December of 2019, before the outbreak became public, according to the report.

  325. DeWitt Payne (Comment #204253): “The hospital’s ICU’s were stressed, much of the rest of the hospital was emptied and staff laid off.”
    .
    I think ICUs were stressed in a few places, like New York City. But not so much that they needed the emergency field hospitals of hospital ships. But there was much less need for ICU beds once they figured out that putting patients on ventilators was usually a bad idea.

  326. From an unlikely place. A discussion of noble lies and public trust that is spot on.
    https://slate.com/technology/2021/07/noble-lies-covid-fauci-cdc-masks.html
    .
    “Noble lies—small untruths—yield unpredictable outcomes. Nietzsche once wrote, “Not that you lied to me, but that I no longer believe you, has shaken me.” Public health messaging is predicated on trust, which overcomes the enormous complexity of the scientific literature, creating an opportunity to communicate initiatives effectively. Still, violation of this trust renders the communication unreliable. When trust is shattered, messaging is no longer clear and straightforward, and instead results in the audience trying to reverse-engineer the statement based on their view of the speaker’s intent. Simply put, noble lies can rob confidence from the public, leading to confusion, a loss of credibility, conspiracy theories, and obfuscated policy.

    Noble lies are a trap. We cannot predict the public’s behavior, and loss of trust is devastating. The general population is far too skeptical to blindly follow the advice of experts, and far too intelligent to be easily duped.”

  328. Russel,

    There is never a suitable time for coercion, only for honest communication…. and establishing trust. The CDC has seemingly done everything possible to avoid honest communication and to destroy trust. They strike me as idiots, mainly motivated by leftist political inclinations, never thoughtful analysis.
    .
    Tom Scharf,
    “When trust is shattered, messaging is no longer clear and straightforward, and instead results in the audience trying to reverse-engineer the statement based on their view of the speaker’s intent. Simply put, noble lies can rob confidence from the public, leading to confusion, a loss of credibility, conspiracy theories, and obfuscated policy.”
    .
    Sure. Honest information, stated plainly: “Maybe cloth masks and social distancing won’t do much (we don’t have any solid data, but are looking for it). But until we have a vaccine, that is the best we have. N95 masks would help, but there are just not enough of those available to go around; hopefully we will have more N95 masks available for those at greatest risk very soon.” That is honest communication.
    .
    “Don’t you dare wear an N95 mask. Sales of those masks to the public are prohibited; N95 masks are reserved for health care personnel… and any other mask won’t do much.” Followed later by: “You must wear a cloth face covering/mask in public or you are endangering everyone… don’t dare ask for proof it makes any difference. No, you still can’t buy an N95 mask, even if you could benefit from it more than a health care worker. And don’t you dare complain… just shut up, you stupid racist clown.” That is destructive, dishonest communication. Which, sadly, seems what the CDC is best at.

  329. Tom Scharf (Comment #204258): “From an unlikely place. A discussion of noble lies and public trust that is spot on.”
    .
    Nice to see someone on the left finally figuring that out. Although the authors never really admit that the “noble lies” are a big part of why people are suspicious of the vaccines.
    .
    But they got this part totally wrong:

    Noble lies—small untruths—yield unpredictable outcomes.

    The result was totally predictable. Tucker Carlson pointed that out in March, 2020:

    In any crisis, trust is critical — and not just for moral reasons, for practical reasons. The government can’t coordinate a national response if the public doesn’t believe what it says, if it doesn’t believe the government is looking out for its best interest.

    That’s why honesty is essential at times like this. When the government lies, people know. They can tell, and then they stop listening.

    https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/tucker-carlson-shortage-medical-masks-stop-lying
    .
    I.C. Fraud has done enormous damage to the cause of getting people vaccinated.
    ———-

    Anyone besides me like anagrams? 🙂

  330. “Noble lies—small untruths”

    If you lie “small” about something important, you aren’t really lying small.

    Andrew

  331. Mike M,

    Fauci is indeed a jerk. He has by himself done much to undermine honest communication with the public; he has been utterly dishonest…. at every turn. I hope he is fired the moment a Republican assumes the presidency, but he may well resign to avoid that before a Republican takes office.

  332. I just need to vent. Joe Biden is committing treason. I do not exaggerate.
    .
    Treason: The betrayal of allegiance toward one’s own country, especially by committing hostile acts against it or aiding its enemies in committing such acts.
    .
    That is what Biden is doing at the southern border. We are being invaded and Biden is aiding and abetting the invasion. Many of the invaders are truly enemies of the USA: MS-13 gang members, Arab terrorists, other foreign agents. Tens of thousands of covid carriers are being shipped all over the country. If a foreign power did that, it would be biological warfare.
    .
    Biden is betraying the country. Treason is not too harsh a word.

  333. Man dies from covid: liberal is saddened.
    Turns out he was unvaccinated: liberal is then happy.
    But crossed from Mexico illegally 3 weeks earlier: liberal is sad again.
    But the man was a conservative christian: liberal is happy again.
    .
    The intellectual dishonesty on the left is unlimited.

  334. Mike M,
    The concept of a sovereign country controlled by its citizens is rejected by the left. It has been since Marx. Nothing new. They believe those born in Guatemala, Cameroon, or Egypt have as much right to reside in the USA as someone born and raised in the USA. Their fundamental political beliefs are inconsistent with true national sovereignty. The rest, including what you describe as ‘treasonous policies’, flows from that….. the ultimate goal is a world-wide government, like a globally metastasized UN, that oversees and controls what is allowed to happen in individual ‘nations’…. all run by the left, of course. Voters allowed to choose their own form of government? No. Personal self defense? No. Freedom of speech? No. Freedom of thought? No. Any personal liberty at all? No. 100% Orwellian dystopia. I hope enough people see this in 2022 to stop the crazy headlong rush to the left.

  335. SteveF (Comment #204270): “The concept of a sovereign country controlled by its citizens is rejected by the left.”
    .
    Exactly right. And to act on that is to commit treason: The betrayal of allegiance toward one’s own country.

  336. Steve F, your comment, “but that doesn’t suggest at all that covid is a neurological illness” Some other reports do…. “There is strong evidence for brain-related pathologies in COVID-19” Other than this catchy first line, this article is above my pay grade. https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.06.11.21258690v2
    “The long-term effect of a Covid-19 infection could include a drop in intelligence, according to new research.” This [sensationalized] news article I understood. https://metro.co.uk/2021/08/03/people-recovering-from-covid-may-have-substantial-drop-in-intelligence-15030236/

  337. Russell Klier,

    We know that SARS-CoV-2 can infect the human neurons. That’s how it causes the loss of the sense of smell, anosmia. It attacks the olfactory neurons in the nose. They do grow back, but sometimes the connections are scrambled and things smell different. For one chef I read about, everything smelled like rotten meat. That’s called parosmia. The olfactory neurons connect directly to the brain, so that could be a path for a deeper attack on the brain. Smell disorders can be caused by other sinus and upper respiratory infections besides COVID-19.

    https://www.nidcd.nih.gov/health/smell-disorders

  338. RUSSELL KLIER (Comment #204272): “The long-term effect of a Covid-19 infection could include a drop in intelligence, according to new research.”
    .
    A good discussion of that study is here:
    https://sebastianrushworth.com/2021/07/26/does-covid-cause-brain-damage/

    Many problems with it, including:

    A major problem with the study is that 97%(!) of the people who thought they’d had covid lacked testing to confirm the diagnosis. Of the 12,689 that thought they’d had covid, only 386 actually had a confirmed diagnosis. The only group in which the majority actually had a positive test confirming that they had had covid was the group that had been on a ventilator in an intensive care unit! If you can’t even be sure that 97% of participants actually had the disease you’re trying to draw conclusions about, then you really don’t have a leg to stand on.

  339. Russell,
    We will see how well the study holds up to peer review. Three possible issues come to my mind:
    1) Were there any matched controls which had suffered other significant viral illnesses between the first and second brain scans?
    2) Would local damage to odor and taste systems (nose and throat) reduce stimulation of the corresponding brain areas, causing slight atrophy (and so slight loss of volume in those areas)?
    3) Why only the left hemisphere? I am pretty sure the odor and taste sensory nerves go to both sides of the brain, so a reasonable expectation of direct viral infection/damage to brain tissue would be loss of volume to both hemispheres, but change is only seen on the left.
    .
    If I were the authors, I would try to separate right and left handed people in both groups and re-do the analysis. If the effect is due to atrophy, then perhaps the effect will be reversed in left handed people, and the effect in right handed people stronger when left handed (a minority) are excluded from the estimates of the right handed.
    .
    Finally, while statistically significant in four areas of the brain (associated with tase and smell), the effects are very small…. the variability in the volume measurements between the two tests (for both groups) is enormous compared to estimate of the covid effect on volumes…. this raises questions about how reliable the brain volume measurements are versus how much a person’s brain volume actually fluctuates over time. My guess: the measurement itself causes most of the measured variability, and so is a very blunt tool. It would be enormously beneficial to the quality of the paper if the authors separated and quantified the contribution of the measurement’s variability (that is, separately from variability over time in actual brain volumes).

  340. This is from the news section of the WSJ. The news staff is far more progressive than the editorial staff.

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/cdcs-covid-19-mask-mandate-clouded-by-flawed-data-11627983001?mod=hp_lead_pos6

    CDC’s Covid-19 Mask Mandate Clouded by Flawed Data
    Some health experts say agency relies on data that is lacking or inconclusive

    [=============]

    “Not providing data transparently and honestly is eroding public trust,” said Tracy Høeg, a physician and epidemiologist who teaches at the University of California, Davis.

    That quote is the tip of iceberg. There’s quite a bit on the new mask mandate, for example. Also, according to the CDC, over 200,000 children under 12 have been vaccinated. Even they recognize that is unlikely, but they blame it on incorrectly entered birth dates. The article is a pretty damning indictment of the incompetence at the CDC, as if we needed more evidence. But I am a bit surprised to see that even the news staff is noticing it.

  341. Russel
    From your metro uk link

    ‘Previous studies in hospitalised patients with respiratory disease not only demonstrate objective and subjective cognitive deficits but suggest these remain for some at 5-year follow-up,’ the authors note.

    In the worst cases, when people had been on a ventilator to beat the disease, the researchers recorded a seven-point drop in intelligence

    .
    Honestly, I would not be surprised if people who got sick enough to be hospitalized for anything don’t experience other weird issues including IQ drop. It appears this has been seen with other respiratory diseases so perhaps it will be true for Covid. Maybe Covid will turn out to be worse than other diseases.
    .
    We’ll see how this holds up… but yeah. Don’t want to get Covid.
    .
    I’m interested in the long Covid stories. I have a friend who says she has it, so I’ve been reading it.
    .
    This is just an internal musing. But I predict they will find a high proportion of “long covid” sufferers, especially those who never had a positive Covid test, have past histories that are consistent with suspecting hypochondria or Munchhausen’s. Perhaps not all of them.
    .
    I also predict any study on this will be muddy.
    .
    But right now, Long Covid is the perfect disease to imagine you have if someone does have pre-existing hypochondria or Munchhausen’s.
    * Everyone is talking about it.
    * The symptoms are vague and to a large extent self reported. (e.g. Brain fog. Muscle pain.)
    * It can get someone a lot of sympathy right now.
    * It can be e “reason” (or excuse) to not get out there and look for work, or avoid study etc.
    * You can even use it as an excuse to not socialize if you also have been having reclusive tendencies.
    * It has the potential for being seen as “not being crazy” or ‘weak’ when you never emerge from your cocoon. Whereas you won’t gregif you reason for not going out is ‘agrophobia’, ‘fear of sending out resumes’ or “fear of meeting people who are going to ask questions like ‘what do you do’?” is having been caused by an infection.
    .
    Of course the down side is if you convince yourself you have this, you then do have to manifest the symptoms– report being “too weak”, or “too tired” often even when offered something fun. So even a hypochondriac or munchausen patient might eventually have a motivation to ‘recover’.
    .
    Mind you: I don’t think hypochondria or munchausen is intentional. I think they really think they have the symptoms they have. But that doesn’t mean the mind might not latch onto something that is being discussed and is sort of “convenient” given other issues in that persons life.
    .
    Also: not a psychiatrist. So, my thoughts are just my musings. And also: that a particular disease will be sort of especially attractive to hypochondriacs and those with Munchauses doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. Debilitating back pain, head aches and a large number of problems also fall in the category of “convenient to get” in a way that something like measles or Chron’s disease does not.
    .

  342. lucia,

    Long COVID sounds a lot like Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. I believe that has been accepted as a real thing, but it’s hard to prove it.

  343. MikeM

    A major problem with the study is that 97%(!) of the people who thought they’d had covid lacked testing to confirm the diagnosis. Of the 12,689 that thought they’d had covid, only 386 actually had a confirmed diagnosis.

    My friend who says she has long covid was not tested for Covid itself. She also did not have an antibody test or at least not one done within months of her initial Covid. And she did not see a doctor in person when she had Covid. She saw a brand spanking new doctor who she had never seen before and reported her own description of symptoms by telemedicine.
    .
    Her language describing what doctors tell her is also not credible. It may be what she’s hearing, but I’m sure it is not what they are saying. Specifically, she says the doctor who diagnosed her first Covid (which was very near the early part of the pandemic was totally sure she had it. The current doctor supposed says they are absolutely sure she has Long Covid. These are not the same doctors because, among other things, she moved.
    .
    WRT to the first doctor I find it nearly impossible to believe any doctor would tell a patient they are absolutely sure they have a disease when a test exists and the patient did not take it (for ‘reasons’.) I doubt it even more when the disease is new, the doctor has never met the patient before, the appointment was by telemedicine and the range of symptoms is still not entirely known. Plus the doctor has not actually seen patients with the disease before.
    .
    WRT to the Long Covid: I find it nearly impossible to believe any doctor would tell a patient they are absolutely sure they have a disease for which there is no objective test, which is entirely new, which has no objectively criteria for diagnosis and so on. The lack of a test for the initial Covid would also make it unlikely a doctor would say they were sure.
    .
    And beyond that, there are other reasons I suspect she might be a hypochondriac or have Munchausen based on her fuller life story. But of course, all of those other things could be real.
    .
    Beyond that, if a doctor said they were absolutely sure under those circumstances, you should run fast.
    .
    I suspect it’s much more likely that the doctors said they would presume the disease and give advise based on that. Since in the case of Covid, the advise would be to stay at home away from people and call a hospital if certain things happen, that’s not going to do any patient harm. In the case of long Covid, the advise will be to run a shit-ton of tests to try to rule out other things and give a number of other things a shot.
    .

  344. DeWitt

    Long COVID sounds a lot like Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. I believe that has been accepted as a real thing, but it’s hard to prove it.

    I’m sure it is a real thing. That’s not to say I believe everyone who “has it” really “has it”.
    .
    I once met a woman who supposedly had it. She volunteered her disease during conversation. She was evidently on disability because of it. So, she received some income and didn’t work.
    .
    I was pretty stunned because the woman had a stupendously active social life involving heading two volunteer associations, being in my choir and so on and so on. She also took her dog to dog training regularly, reported exercising him herself– and often– and showed him in competitions.
    .
    She definitely believed she had this ailment.
    .
    Now, perhaps being wildly energetic, able to run with dogs, having constant hobbies and able to focus enough to head volunteer organizations is consistent with “chronic fatigue”. But if so, then it’s not a disease that necessarily ought to qualify you for disability payments. She certainly had enough energy, all the time to be able to report to work and so on and so on.
    .
    I would guess there is a larger fraction of hypochondria or Munchausens in the cohort of those who “have” Chronic Fatigue than in those diagnose with most other diseases that.
    .
    That doesn’t mean Chronic Fatigue isn’t real though. I’m sure some people really have it.

  345. lucia (Comment #204279): “I find it nearly impossible to believe any doctor would tell a patient they are absolutely sure they have a disease when a test exists and the patient did not take it”.
    .
    I am sure there are plenty of doctors who would do that. Just not any *good* doctors.
    .
    lucia: “if a doctor said they were absolutely sure under those circumstances, you should run fast.”
    .
    Indeed.
    ——–

    lucia (Comment #204280): “I once met a woman who supposedly had it …”
    .
    Sounds like an allergy to work.

  346. “To the Why are you worried about covid if you’re vaccinated crowd” …..and “I, for example, have an elderly mom who has COPD, who got vaccinated six months ago, but would probably die from a serious breakthrough infection. Statistically, the risk may be small, but you see, I don’t have enough mothers to form a statistical universe. I only have the one.” From Meghan McArdle, my favorite scribe. She articulates my thoughts much better than I do. I’m sure many of you will not read Twitter, but here is the link anyway: https://twitter.com/asymmetricinfo/status/1422561820640952320

  347. The WSJ article I linked above referred to unique circumstances wrt the the COVID-19 infections used to justify the new masking guidance. I just found out what those circumstances probably were:

    …Provincetown is perhaps the best-known gay summer resort on the East Coast. The 2010 US Census revealed Provincetown to have the highest rate of same-sex couples in the country, at 163.1 per 1000 households.

    Also, 85% of the infected were male with a median age of 40. So we need to wear masks again because a bunch gay men partied too hard in noisy, crowded bars?

  349. DeWitt

    Also, 85% of the infected were male with a median age of 40.

    It’s probably not PC to speculate in public or to ask things based on speculation. I wonder what fraction were gay? What fraction might be controlling HIV with antiretrovirals? (Which control the HIV but don’t necessarily fix any existing damage to the immune system. And who knows what else it might do for viruses that aren’t HIV.)

    https://www.who.int/news-room/q-a-detail/coronavirus-disease-covid-19-hiv-and-antiretrovirals

    One systematic review, notably published as a pre-print, found of 144,795 hospitalized COVID-19 patients in North America, Europe, and Asia the pooled prevalence of HIV in COVID-19 patients was 1.22% [95% (CI): 0.61%-2.43%)] translating to a 2-fold increase compared to the respective local-level pooled HIV prevalence in the general population of 0.65% (95% CI: 0.48%-0.89%) – which hinted at a potential susceptibility among PLHIV [9].

    I’m guessing people are looking at the data and mining at least.

  350. Lucia,
    The town of Provincetown, Massachusetts had a huge outbreak of covid a couple of weeks ago. Provincetown is… ahem… a town with a very large (majority?) population of gay and lesbian residents and lots of similar visitors in summer. The outbreak followed a big “pride” celebration; an annual event in the town. PC or not, it makes sense to ask the circumstances leading to a big covid outbreak in a state with low cases over the last couple of months, and with among the highest vaccination rates in the country.

  351. SteveF
    Obviously it makes sense to ask. In fact, the gay community needs these questions to be asked. It’s important for them to know if they are at special risk.
    .
    But I also notice that the articles I read just said in Province town. I certainly didn’t try to dig deep as to whether Province town had any unusual demographic features. Now that I know it does have them, obvious questions arise.
    .
    Since most the striken were males and the location is a gay-resort town, since HIV affects the immune system, since medications may and so on and so on, I think it would be pretty obvious that someone might want to do some data mining to see what pops out.
    .
    Correlation isn’t causation. Nevertheless, looking at data to see if it suggest anything is useful. And in this case, there is something worth looking at.
    .
    If, for example, it turns out that the outbreak is mostly among gay males who are being treated for HIV and take some particular drug, someone is going to want to specifically test whether they vaccines trigger insufficient antibodies or insufficient T-cell in response to the vaccine. It would be absolutely important for those taking treatment to know this– if it’s true.
    .
    If the data shows bubkiss, then it will show bubkiss.

  352. Gay men represent about 4 to 5% of the male population and about 1 in 5 or 1 in 6 have HIV. The year-round population in Provincetown is only ~4000, but can reach 50,000 in peak summer season, more than half men. So in the summer, there may be 4+ thousand HIV positive men in the town.

  353. The odd thing about the CDC report is that they do not even name the town where the covid outbreak took place, never mind how many of the breakthrough cases were among those with HIV and how many were among those not infected with HIV. This is a case where being PC is doing a real disservice to the public; the public needs to know the actual risk of a breakthrough infection, and the CDC is obscuring that information. Just another of the CDC’s many failings.

  354. SteveF and lucia,

    If you scroll down to the bottom of the report (or search the page for ‘HIV’), there’s a footnote at the bottom of the page that said 30 or 6% of the infected were known to have been HIV positive. But the source was the state database. There’s no mention of how many of the infected were from out of state and wouldn’t have been found. But there are also drugs that are supposed to prevent infection. As the article in the WSJ said, the circumstances of this outbreak were unique.

  355. Dewitt

    said 30 or 6% of the infected were known to have been HIV positive

    Even within the state, does the state database always identify that person “X” is HIV positive if they are positive? A heck a lot of the ‘privacy’ stuff got implemented precisely because there is/was animus toward gays. So having databases that accurately count everyone who is HIV positive is rather ‘out of vogue’. (They did try to keep track of who had syphilis or gonorhea before HIV reared it’s head.)

  356. According to this https://www.hiv.gov/hiv-basics/overview/data-and-trends/statistics 1.26% of the US population has HIV.

    HIV incidence declined 8% from 2015 to 2019. In 2019, the estimated number of HIV infections in the U.S. was 34,800 and the rate was 12.6 (per 100,000 people).

    So 6% being infected is higher. But that over representation might only reflect the fact that HIV is more prevalent in gays– who tend to be over-represented in gay pride events.
    .
    There is a lot of outlier in this event. It shouldn’t be discounted, but it might turn out that the lack of protection is something other than Δ or the vaccines losing efficacy with time.

  357. lucia: “According to this https://www.hiv.gov/hiv-basics/overview/data-and-trends/statistics 1.26% of the US population has HIV.”

    A small correction: that page says, “At year-end 2019, an estimated 1.2 million people in the United States aged 13 and older had HIV in the U.S.” [sic…don’t know why they repeat “in the US”]

    According to this spreadsheet, the Census Bureau estimated 276 million aged 13 and older in 2019 (technically, as of July 1, 2019), out of a total population of 328 million.

    1.2 million out of 276 million is only 0.43%.

    As a check, the prevalence of *diagnosed* HIV cases is given here as 379.6 per 100K, or 0.38%. The higher figure includes an estimate of undiagnosed cases.

  359. We are dealing with some bad spit right here! Both my son and daughter-in-law have lost childhood friends to Covid in the last week. Both were in there early 40s and lived in Orlando. When I get a lot of contemporaneous bits of data that point in the same direction, I can spot a trend. This is not your fathers Covid.

  360. DeWitt,

    I am pretty sure HIV status is protected as confidential, and the state’s database is unlikely to reflect the true numbers with HIV. Different sources suggest different true rates of HIV prevalence; the most common seems to be 10% to 15% of gay men are HIV positive. Unless those testing positive for covid were also tested for HIV antibodies, I think it will be impossible to draw any conclusions about the influence of HIV on the chance of breakthrough covid. The CDC does say that there is some evidence HIV positive people are more susceptible to severe covid illness, but describes the data as “preliminary”. It would surprise me if having HIV did not make someone more susceptible to covid illness.

  362. Steve F, One was not vaccinated. BUT, BOTH were not vaccinated during the pervious Covid spikes and they were living in wide-open Orlando and NEITHER got sick. Today’s Covid killed them.

  364. Steve F, I don’t know the answer to your gay question. The young man was married to a pretty young lady. Orlando [and a lot of Central Florida] was very much anti-lockdown the whole time. DeSantis is strong in this part of Florida. We have had a lot of both national and international visitors [I live in the flight path of the Sarasota airport and hear the aircraft] so we should have been vulnerable. We have had relatively low covid numbers [even though we have lots of old people] till this last outbreak, then all heck broke loose.

  365. lucia (Comment #204293): “So 6% being infected is higher. But that over representation might only reflect the fact that HIV is more prevalent in gays– who tend to be over-represented in gay pride events.”
    .
    6% is an under representation.
    .
    SteveF (Comment #204289): “Gay men represent about 4 to 5% of the male population and about 1 in 5 or 1 in 6 have HIV.”
    .
    That is roughly consistent with the 0.4% overall incidence found by HaroldW (Comment #204295). From lucia’s link, 66% of new cases are among gay men, so if they are 2-3% of the population, we get 9-13% of gay men infected. But the proportion among gay men has been dropping, so that is a significant overestimate. And of course, even higher among attendees at a gay bacchanalia (*not* merely a gay pride event).
    .
    It would be surprising if HIV status was not at least a small risk factor, given what HIV stands for.

  366. The democrats have called the SC’s bluff and had the CDC issue another eviction moratorium.

  367. STeveF

    It would surprise me if having HIV did not make someone more susceptible to covid illness.

    Me too. And if anti-retrovirals prevent the virus from multiplying but don’t fix pre-existing damage to the immune system then one might expect those with under control HIV to still be immune compromised and vulnerable. And I think they do nothing to fix the immune system.
    .
    The weird thing is I sort of hope that that’s the problem in Providence because it would be a special population remains vulnerable. If compromised immunity is not the explanation it means everyone might be. Everyone includes that special population. Everyone, including those with HIV being vulnerable strikes me as worse than only the subset being vulnerable.
    .
    But… sigh….
    .
    I do think I’ve heard there is an HIV vaccine in trials. So at least that would be hopeful. But it doesn’t help anyone whose immune system is already compromised. So, we’ll see.

  368. A bit of media framing bias between outbreaks in a Sturgis motorcycle festival and a Gay Pride festival. Blame the disease vs blame the immoral people. This can go both ways obviously. I would also say the type of event was described only as a outdoor July 4th festival in the articles I read.

  370. Russell,
    The I-4 corridor with Tampa and Orlando is basically a 50/50 split between red and blue.

  371. Tom

    I would also say the type of event was described only as a outdoor July 4th festival in the articles I read

    That’s how I read reports, though I admit I didn’t follow a long way.
    .
    It seems to me that in general, the motorcycles were definitely mentioned for ND outbreak. The Gay was not mentioned for the Providence out break.
    .

  373. So the first “openly transexual” Olympic competitor occurred last week when a weightlifter competed. NBC has covered this at least 5 different times when I was watching. The competitor didn’t win any medals and in fact never completed a single lift. Ironically whoever did win the medals in this division was never mentioned, ha ha.
    .
    Why don’t we just eliminate women’s sports and just have one division? I have an answer. This year they had a first ever mixed relay swimming events. In this race 4 of the best women started the backstroke against 4 of the best men. I know its hard, but see if you can tell the difference after one lap.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5dSnlvim55k

  374. DaveJR,

    Of course ignoring a Supreme Court ruling by the Biden administration is not a tyrannical act or a threat to ‘our’ democracy. If the Trump administration had done something similar, all hell would have broken loose.

  375. lucia (Comment #204307): “The weird thing is I sort of hope that that’s the problem in Providence because it would be a special population remains vulnerable. If compromised immunity is not the explanation it means everyone might be.”
    .
    Everyone who has not had the virus probably *is* vulnerable to infection, but hopefully not serious illness. The reason is that injected vaccines typically do not induce immunity in the upper respiratory tract. The delta variant seems to do very well in the upper respiratory tract, making it very contagious, so such an infection would seem quite possible even for the vaccinated.
    .
    But the vaccine-acquired immunity ought to keep the infection out of the lower respiratory tract and the blood stream. So that would limit the illness to just a head cold.
    .
    After that, one should have both mucosal and systemic immunity, thus providing an extra layer of protection. That could be really good once antibodies fade and one must rely on a secondary immune response.
    .
    Here is a good 2005 overview paper on “Mucosal Immunity and Vaccines”:
    https://www.nature.com/articles/nm1213

  376. The Provincetown declarations really didn’t make a lot of sense to me. It seemed like they were saying vaccinated people with a lot of symptoms had similar viral loads to unvaccinated people with a lot of symptoms. Well, duh.
    .
    They never really determined the relative bin counts of the groups and apparently based it on those who went to get tested, which is pretty much those who are already showing symptoms. Perhaps a big self selection bias.
    .
    Then articles said things like “although the vaccinated cases were rarer”. How much rarer? There wasn’t enough data to say this wasn’t just business as usual, a lot vaccinated people in higher risk situations getting more cases. This isn’t news.
    .
    From Zeynep today:
    https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/04/opinion/cdc-covid-guidelines.html
    .
    “In a seashore town with about 3,000 residents, the vast majority of whom were vaccinated, and 60,000 summer visitors, the C.D.C. noted more than 450 infections between July 3 and 17. Health officials later traced more than 960 cases to gatherings in Provincetown. Attendees said it rained a lot during those two weeks, driving more people to crowded, poorly ventilated bars and restaurants, probably worsening the spread.”
    .
    “On July 31, a more systematic study from Singapore showed that viral load from Delta could get high but that it quickly peaked and then crashed in breakthrough cases among the vaccinated — as their immune system responded to quickly clear the virus. The potential infectious period lingered much longer in the unvaccinated.

    The Provincetown study was certainly useful. It provided one more example of how well the vaccines worked in preventing severe disease or worse, but also of the need to take Delta seriously: to expand vaccine mandates, speed up formal approval of vaccines, work hard at increasing vaccinations and urge the use of masks for everyone, especially in crowded, poorly ventilated indoor spaces in areas where infections are high and vaccinations are low.

    However, by itself, the study should not have been presented as the primary cause for the alarm it set off, and the public certainly should not have been left waiting many days for the data itself while details leaked out in dribs and drabs, often through anonymous sources.”

  378. Ton Scharf, (Comment #204318) “It provided one more example of how well the vaccines worked in preventing severe disease or worse, but also of the need to take Delta seriously: to expand vaccine mandates, speed up formal approval of vaccines, work hard at increasing vaccinations and urge the use of masks for everyone, especially in crowded, poorly ventilated indoor spaces in areas where infections are high and vaccinations are low.”
    I agree with everything you wrote there.

  379. Fauci….”“People who are not getting vaccinated mistakenly think it’s only about them. But it isn’t. It’s about everybody else, also.” I think the good doctor is stealing my material,. And…”Fauci fears a COVID variant worse than Delta could be coming” and …..“You’re not exempt from long COVID if you get a breakthrough infection.” https://www.axios.com/fauci-delta-variant-covid-d1c0d550-6624-417d-bde6-33c8f56deaba.html

  381. ”Fauci fears a COVID variant worse than Delta could be coming”

    Wow. Another self-fulfilling prophecy. Maybe there will be more after that. Lockdowns second week of August. And show us your papers.

    Kinda like the Climate Crisis is always worse than we thought as we move through time. Lets build some more windmills.

    I can’t believe people believe this stuff. Out of the mouths of known liars they still believe.

    Andrew

  383. Fauci: fears a worse covid strain. Happy to support and engage in gain of function experiments because he doesn’t fear that accidents happen. What more needs to be said about the guy?

  384. Andrew_KY , ETAL,
    Your personal feelings toward for Dr. Fauci as a human being are irrelevant. He is the duly appointed Director of the NIH and the official leading our nations response to the crisis. My understanding of our country’s official response is for everyone to get vaccinated and in hot spots, like Florida everyone wear a mask indoors. I am following the plan and would do so even if I didn’t agree with it. It may not be the best plan, but it is the one we have been requested to follow.
    You and your ilk are trying to undermine the only plan we have. It is similar to a foot soldier refusing to go into battle because he doesn’t agree with the general.
    While we are talking generals…
    General George S. Patton had a saying: “A good plan violently executed now is better than a perfect plan executed next week.” I had that saying framed and mounted on my office wall when I was a working man.

  385. Covid isn’t going to get less transmissive. There is only one direction for that to go evolution wise. It’s a crapshoot on whether it will get more deadly or not. Generally speaking these things get less deadly over time but there is no particular forcing here.
    .
    I think people need to just start accepting they are going to get exposed to covid on a regular basis throughout the next several years, similar to the flu. Your immunity, vaccination status, and general health are either up to the task, or they aren’t. Most people who die from the flu were frail and likely to die from something else in the near term, and covid might just be the new flu, just worse, pushing frail people over the edge a little earlier.
    .
    My general sense is that the war has been lost. Covid zero is a hopeless fantasy. The good news is the longer term outlook is not bad, after covid rages the globe with all the fresh meat being exposed, then only young people will be the newly exposed group after that and they can ward it off easily.
    .
    You are going to get exposed eventually, deal with it. I suspect a great deal of people have already been exposed and don’t even know it. Keep your head down during large outbreaks over the next year, but otherwise take general precautions and live you life.

  386. Russell,
    The mask plan isn’t going to work. It absolutely has not worked previously, and it will not work with a more transmissive variant. It may reduce risk somewhat but this is more a * social psychology * exercise than medical science. There is no logical end game here. This is going out with a bucket to stop a tidal wave.
    .
    If you want something effective then you need to be arguing for hard core lockdowns Australia / Wuhan style. Australia has the military enforcing lockdowns. That can work in the near term … but then what?
    .
    What is your proposed global eradication plan? Wear a mask forever outside and then take it off inside your house with others there? I’ll wear a mask, but I don’t really believe this is doing much other than social signaling and helping lower anxiety for some. These aren’t worth nothing, but they aren’t a real answer. People should get vaccinated, but even that won’t stop delta completely, and there will be more variants.
    .
    But no, I evaluate orders from generals on whether they make sense or not. The convinced me on vaccines with data, they haven’t convinced me on masks, nor partial half-a**ed lockdowns. The virus simply comes back on reopening.

  387. Tom Scharf,
    “… but otherwise take general precautions and live you life.”
    .
    Sounds good to me, but our friends in the Biden administration, along with the endless totalitarian left, have very different ideas…. “shut up and submit to our demands or suffer the consequences” just about sums up their preferred policy. They need to be told very clearly to go to Hell.

  388. Tom Scharf (Comment #204331): “I think people need to just start accepting they are going to get exposed to covid on a regular basis throughout the next several years, similar to the flu. Your immunity, vaccination status, and general health are either up to the task, or they aren’t.”
    .
    Wise words. But not limited to the next several years. The virus will be with us indefinitely.
    .
    The coronavirus OC43 jumped from cattle to humans in the late 19th century. It likely was the cause of the “Russian flu” pandemic of 1889-1890, with smaller recurrences over the next 5 years. That killed a lot of people, mostly very elderly. It is now considered one of the major causes of the common cold. My guess is that the Wuhan virus has a similar future.

  389. “You and your ilk are trying to undermine the only plan we have.”

    Russel,

    I doubt you know what the plan is. The plan obviously changes as we go. You are just conforming to whatever you’re told by your betters. I have more self-respect than that.

    Andrew

  390. Russell, maybe you follow the plan but you can’t expect a whole country to when it is led by Fauci who has lied already.

  391. Russell Klier,

    From today’s WSJ:

    Eradication of Covid Is a Dangerous and Expensive Fantasy
    It seemed to work in New Zealand and Australia, but now ruinous, oppressive lockdowns are back.

    Much of the pathology underlying Covid policy arises from the fantasy that it is possible to eradicate the virus. Capitalizing on pandemic panic, governments and compliant media have used the lure of zero-Covid to induce obedience to harsh and arbitrary lockdown policies and associated violations of civil liberties.

    [———————-]

    Humanity’s unimpressive track record of deliberately eradicating contagious diseases warns us that lockdown measures, however draconian, can’t work. Thus far, the number of such diseases so eliminated stands at two—and one of these, rinderpest, affected only even-toed ungulates. The lone human infectious disease we’ve deliberately eradicated is smallpox. The bacterium responsible for the Black Death, the 14th-century outbreak of bubonic plague, is still with us, causing infections even in the U.S.

    While the eradication of smallpox—a virus 100 times as deadly as Covid—was an impressive feat, it shouldn’t be used as a precedent for Covid. For one thing, unlike smallpox, which was carried only by humans, SARS-CoV-2 is also carried by animals, which some hypothesize can spread the disease to humans. We will need to rid ourselves of dogs, cats, mink, bats and more to get to zero.

    IOW, zero COVID isn’t going to happen in the real world. Deal with it.

  392. RUSSELL KLIER (Comment #204330): “You and your ilk are trying to undermine the only plan we have. It is similar to a foot soldier refusing to go into battle because he doesn’t agree with the general.”
    .
    The soldiers would be perfectly entitled to balk if the general were sending them into battle with pop guns on the grounds that they are the only weapons available.
    .
    If I am not mistaken, Klier refuses to follow Fauci’s plan, since he wears a mask with exhaust valves. Or was that someone else? In which case I will owe Klier an apology.

  393. “It seemed to work in New Zealand and Australia, but now ruinous, oppressive lockdowns are back.”

    I think there is a pretty misleading framing going on. NZ and Aus pursue elimination strategy as cheapest option until the population is vaccinated . Ditto I suspect for China.

    NSW is in its current mess because of reluctance to do a short,hard lockdown early – a strategy that has worked well for NZ and other Australian states.

    Australian lockdowns still seem pretty tame to me – a long way from NZ or Chinese style. A look at businesses affected (eg a Bunnings hardware store) suggests many non-essential businesses operating. If you are going to pursue elimination, then going early and very hard reduces the time in lockdown.

    Any known cases of SARS-CoV-1 left in the world?

  394. It makes sense to do hardcore lockdowns if you don’t already have widespread transmission and can construct a workable barrier. You can call this barrier NZ or you can call it your own house which you never leave or let anyone enter who hasn’t been heavily screened.
    .
    It makes sense to do this if you can until everyone who chooses to get vaccinated can get vaccinated.
    .
    However once that is done with, you are going to get covid transmission unless you keep these barriers up indefinitely which just doesn’t seem workable. All the fingers in the dikes work until they don’t.
    .
    The UK has a lot of delta transmission with 94% of the adults having antibodies.
    https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/conditionsanddiseases/bulletins/coronaviruscovid19infectionsurveyantibodyandvaccinationdatafortheuk/4august2021
    .
    “In England, it is estimated that over 9 in 10 adults, or 93.6% of the adult population (95% credible interval: 92.5% to 94.5%) would have tested positive for antibodies against SARS-CoV-2, the specific virus that causes coronavirus (COVID-19), on a blood test in the week beginning 12 July 2021, suggesting they had the infection in the past or have been vaccinated.”
    .
    You aren’t going to vaccinate your way to covid zero. You aren’t going to be able to wait it out with quarantines indefinitely. You can certainly come out of this much less damaged than most places, but I think the chances of this becoming endemic globally are now very high.

  395. Apple will be scanning your iPhone and reporting back to their information ministry to protect us from child predators.
    https://www.wsj.com/articles/apple-plans-to-have-iphones-detect-child-pornography-fueling-privacy-debate-11628190971
    “Apple’s system will use new techniques in cryptography and artificial intelligence to identify child sexual abuse material when it is stored using iCloud Photos, the company said. Using software that runs on both the iPhone and Apple’s cloud, Apple will detect whether images on the device match a known database of these illegal images. If a certain number of them—Apple declined to say exactly how many—are uploaded to iCloud Photos, Apple will review the images.”
    .
    Ummmm … NO. Surely this will never go wrong. Certainly our data overlords would never consider expanding this monitoring system beyond child predators. Only the real Nazis like Alex Jones are going to be scanned and banned. Not people who, errr, Think Differently.
    .
    This is such an incredibly bad idea that I doubt it makes it past one week from now.

  396. Tom, agreed on all points. Especially, “I think the chances of this becoming endemic globally are now very high.” There was a window, I think, where the virus could have been eliminated like SARS-cov-1 but you had to pull the planes out of the air much, much earlier.

    NZ and Australia will both open up (and undoubtedly cop a lot of cases) once a significant proportion of population is vaccinated. Fortunately, NZ is now getting significant supplies of Pfizer and vaccination is ramping up. I am getting second shot tomorrow.

  398. Phil Scadden,

    There was a window, I think, where the virus could have been eliminated like SARS-cov-1 but you had to pull the planes out of the air much, much earlier.

    That would have had to happen in China, probably in late October while the local officials were still in denial. The central government did, in fact, eventually restrict internal travel, but not international travel. Italy seems to have borne the brunt of that. It was the Italian variant that seems to have been most prevalent in the initial US infection. By late January, 2020 when Trump tried to restrict air travel (and was roundly condemned in the media by the usual suspects), it was already too late to prevent an epidemic in the US.

    SARS-CoV-1 was, IIRC, somewhat less infectious and much more virulent than SARS-CoV-2 and transmission was mainly from symptomatic victims. That made it a lot easier to control.

  399. I remember counting down the days until 2 weeks past my second shot, what a relief. That puts you in a much better spot. It will be interesting to see how many people in NZ/AUS end up getting vaccinated. I’d expect it to be better than the US, but even the US has >90% of the seniors nowadays and we finally reached 70% of adults recently.

  400. DeWitt Payne (Comment #204344): “That would have had to happen in China, probably in late October while the local officials were still in denial.”
    .
    That probably would have been too late. It is quite likely that the Military World Games, held from October 18–27, spread the virus globally.

  401. Tom Scharf (Comment #204332): the military is *not* enforcing the lockdown in Sydney, New South Wales, the military is providing logistic support, driving stuff around, doing some of the contract tracing calls, delivering care packages etc they specifically have not been given any police or police-like authority. These questions get asked at every press conference and it gets re-explained at every press conference and all the rumours have been proved untrue.

  405. Op-ed on why the vaccination strategy may be critically misguided.
    https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2021/aug/5/biden-teams-misguided-and-deadly-covid-19-vaccine-/

    Basically, the vaccine is “leaky”, thus allowing the virus to replicate in vaccinated individuals. That creates an environment where the virus can evolve under strong selective pressure from the vaccine. Since the vaccine is narrowly focused, there is great potential for mutations to find a way around it. If that happens, everyone will be suddenly unvaccinated. Perfectly plausible, but:
    .
    They do not mention the reason the vaccine developers think that unlikely: The assumption that the spike protein must be strongly conserved as the virus evolves. If that plausible assumption proves true, we should be fine. If not, uh-oh.
    .
    The authors are far from being anti-vaxers:

    One of us (Dr. Malone) invented the core mRNA technology being used by Pfizer and Moderna to produce their vaccines and has spent his entire professional career developing and advancing novel vaccine technologies, vaccines, and other medical countermeasures. The other (Mr. Navarro) played a key role at the Trump White House in jumpstarting Operation Warp Speed and ensuring timely delivery of the vaccines.

  406. Russell,

    I don’t see much point in getting a shot until there’s one specifically designed to include Δ or there’s evidence that it will make a significant difference in actual infection rate for those of us with infection acquired immunity We’ll think about getting my wife a booster in September, since that will be six months after she was vaccinated. She doesn’t go out much so her exposure risk is low.

  407. I think its semantics on the military “help”. The military doing other things just frees up the civilian police force for more enforcement duties. It sends a clear signal of forced compliance to the populace.
    .
    Almost every tax increase on the ballot is for “education” or other popular things. They then dutifully put those funds in education but with a slight of hand remove part of the education funding from the general budget funds.
    .
    I don’t follow this situation closely but the headlines in the US were pretty clear. It wouldn’t be the first time they got something wrong though.

  408. The virus may be partially defeating the vaccine by replicating and retransmitting faster than the immune system in some individuals can suppress it. This leaves a window open long enough to stop herd immunity from being achieved. The good news is that this is less serious because most people have adequate defenses to suppress it, just not acting fast enough to stop the spread.

  409. DeWitt Payne (Comment #204355) “She doesn’t go out much so her exposure risk is low.” It’s the exact opposite in our house. Today we had a disagreement about whether or not a pedicure is an essential service. She is in her mid 70s but otherwise not at risk and I am the poster boy for high risk [four co-morbidities!], so that probably explains our different perspectives. I told her I was going to write a book… “How To Stay Home for Dummies”

  411. Washington Post once again with whiplash coverage of Sturgis versus Provincetown on the same day.
    .
    Sturgis Motorcycle Rally revs up, drawing thousands and heightening delta superspreader fears
    https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/08/06/sturgis-motorocycle-rally-covid-superspreader/
    “460,000 attendees … concluded had many characteristics of a superspreading event … At least 649 covid-19 cases were linked to Sturgis”
    .
    … meanhwile …
    .
    How Provincetown, Mass., stress-tested the coronavirus vaccine with summer partying and delta
    https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2021/08/05/provincetown-covid-outbreak/
    “a town of about 3,000 swelled to more than 60,000 … Provincetown’s outbreak of overwhelmingly mild or no-symptom cases would grow to more than 1,000 people … and no single superspreader event Instead there were infections linked to myriad indoor spaces … Infections were concentrated among younger men as they flocked to signature summer events like Bear Week, part of gay culture for guys on the huskier and hairier side”
    .
    I question their superspreader judgment calls. It’s just blatant tribalism. What a disaster these people are to their profession.

  412. MikeM,
    The article you have does not make a convincing argument to support it’s claim that

    This strategy will likely prolong the most dangerous phase of the worst pandemic since 1918 and almost assuredly cause more harm than good – even as it undermines faith in the entire public health system.

    First:

    The first is that universal vaccination can eradicate the virus and secure economic recovery by achieving herd immunity throughout the country (and the world).

    I don’t think this is an assumption. The goal is to reduce deaths and illness. Not eradication.

    Herd immunity is also not eradication. We have generally had herd immunity for measles and polio without eradication. That’s the goal with Covid too.
    .

    The second assumption is that the vaccines are (near) perfectly effective.

    Absolutely no one assumes this. In fact, every says it is not perfectly effective nor even nearly so. That’s why they are advising masks.
    .

    The third assumption is that the vaccines are safe.

    Huh? Short term safety was shown empirically. Everyone knows continued monitoring is required for long term safety. They seem safe so far.
    .

    The failure of the fourth “durability” assumption is the most alarming and perplexing.

    No one every assumed durability! We have been discussing the likely need for boosters here, and did so before vaccines even underwent phase 1 testing!! I said I’d gladly get a booster every 2 months back then. I still would. I’m not remotely concerned if we need a booster every 6 weeks. I gave my cat two insulin injections a day. I know people who take injections weekly. Not being durable for ever was anticipated and is not a big deal

    The more people you vaccinate, the greater the number of vaccine-resistant mutations you are likely to get,

    First this is tenous. But if we accept the under lying argument related to evolution, then more people you don’t vaccinate but who recover and develop natural immunity to current variants, the more natural antibody resistant mutations you would get. So it’s the same result of viruses evolving to escape immunity.
    .
    But with vaccines, you get the result more slowly (because fewer people become virus factories and those who do are virus factories for a shorter time and so there are fewer mutations.) Without them it happen even faster. That’s why all the dangerous mutations are coming from countries where almost no one is vaccinated!
    .
    And as for ivermectin &etc: viruses can also evolve to evade medicine. Like penicillin resistant gonorrhea. So if you are going to worry about evolution, medical treatment isn’t a panacea either.

  413. Mike M.,

    The more people you vaccinate, the greater the number of vaccine-resistant mutations you are likely to get,

    By the same logic, we should stop using antibiotics. Admittedly, antibiotics were overused, leading to nasty things like MRSA. But the mutated viruses aren’t vaccine resistant, they’re antibody resistant. And that resistance can develop whether or not vaccines are used. IMO, in a fully vaccinated population, the rate of production of new mutants should be lower than in a completely susceptible population, as lucia points out above.

  414. According to this in the online WSJ, China was responsible for a flu virus leak in 1978.

    Independently in 1978, two groups in New York City and Germany came to the same conclusion: The previous year’s flu was so genetically similar to a variant last seen in the early 1950s that it could only have started from a stored lab specimen. The obvious candidates: China or Russia, in whose border regions the virus first manifested itself.

    It was only in 2004, thanks to a Chinese virologist’s private word to a U.S. counterpart, that the world at large finally learned the release was likely the result of a vaccine trial in which Chinese military recruits were intentionally exposed to the 1950s virus.

  415. DeWitt Payne (Comment #204364): “By the same logic, we should stop using antibiotics.”
    .
    Good analogy, but incorrectly applied. The important thing with antibiotics is to continue their use until the infection is crushed. Stop too soon, and you risk selecting for a resistant strain.
    .
    The vaccines do not produce sterilizing immunity since they produce little to no response in the mucosal immune system. That permits upper respiratory infections that become laboratories for probing the body’s defenses. It is like treating a bacterial infection with an antibiotic that will stress it but not eliminate it. Natural infection produces mucosal immunity that blocks significant replication in the upper respiratory tract.
    .
    DeWitt: “But the mutated viruses aren’t vaccine resistant, they’re antibody resistant. And that resistance can develop whether or not vaccines are used.”
    .
    It is far easier for the virus to evolve to evade vaccine induced antibodies. That is because the latter expose the immune system to only a small snippet of the viral proteins. So only that bit of the virus will need to mutate. Natural infection produces a range of antibodies that react with different parts of the virus. So even if the virus mutates to evade some antibodies, the others will get do it in.
    .
    Natural antibodies vary quite a bit from person to person, so a virus that mutates to avoid mine might not be able to avoid others. But your vaccine induced antibodies should be very similar to mine, meaning that a mutation could create a virus that evades everybody’s antibodies.

  416. MikeM

    Natural infection produces mucosal immunity that blocks significant replication in the upper respiratory tract.

    Whether the immunity is mucosal or humeral doesn’t matter if the variant is resistant to the immunity from a previous virus.
    .
    Now it would be nice to get mucosal immunity too. I’d like to see nasal spray vaccines. They are being worked on and may be available. But lack of mucosal immunity doesn’t make the evolutionary pressure to get around immunity any stronger. If immunity to α doesn’t confer immunity to δ, having α immunity in your nose doesn’t prevent δ from escaping.
    .

    It is far easier for the virus to evolve to evade vaccine induced antibodies.

    You haven’t shown so. You have to give a reason. (Assuming you think the nasal issue is one, then you haven’t shown it.)
    .
    We wiped out smallpox with vaccines. If vaccines “create” antibody resistant viruses, how? Real question. Because you need to test this theory of what viruses do to empirical evidence. There really isn’t any favoring your theory.
    .

    Natural antibodies vary quite a bit from person to person,

    Is this even true? Why and how much? Also real questions.
    And we have different vaccine platforms. That’s likely to create some spread in antibodies also.
    .
    It does seem it might be better to have many vaccines. Or it would be good if Big Pharma worked on once to deal with other variants. Guess what? They are.
    .
    Honestly, I’m not seeing the downside to mass vaccination. At worst if your theory is true we are left with vaccines that don’t work– which puts us in exactly the situation we have if we don’t vaccinate people. So this is hardly an argument to not vaccinate people!
    .
    But in fact, Big Pharma can come out with other vaccines that cover other variants. So like it or not, that article argues for more vaccines– nasal and covering other variants. It doesn’t argue for not vaccinating people.

  417. Mike M. (Comment #204351): so you don’t accept eye witness accounts and you don’t accept government accounts — what evidence would be acceptable?

  418. lucia (Comment #204367): “We wiped out smallpox with vaccines. If vaccines “create” antibody resistant viruses, how?”
    .
    I already explained that. Smallpox vaccines produce sterilizing immunity. They use whole virus, not just a tiny piece. Totally different from the Wuhan virus vaccines.

  419. Andrew Kennett (Comment #204368): “so you don’t accept eye witness accounts and you don’t accept government accounts — what evidence would be acceptable?”
    .
    The only eyewitness account I’ve seen is military helicopters warning people off beaches.
    .
    Being a reasoning person, I do not trust government reports when they are potentially self-serving. I have seen a lot of press accounts disagreeing with the government story.
    .
    I found the down under ABC coronavirus page and could find nothing on what the military is doing. More than passing strange.

  420. lucia (Comment #204367): “Whether the immunity is mucosal or humeral doesn’t matter if the variant is resistant to the immunity from a previous virus.”
    .
    So what? The variants that exist are not resistant.

  421. Tom Scharf (Comment #204356): “I think its semantics on the military “help”. The military doing other things just frees up the civilian police force for more enforcement duties.”

    While this may be true in the general case the empirical evidence disputes this in this case. Before the ADF was involved there were about 350-360 Covid infringement notices issued each day (population of over 6 million), if the ADF presence was freeing up the police to do more enforcement then we would expect to see more infringement notices but today there were 332.

  422. Mike M. (Comment #204370): well Mike as I wrote I’m in Sydney and can report on my own observations and from those of friends across Sydney including the 8 local government areas of major concern that the police are not doing any enforcement. There have been numerous media reports of the ADF’s activities and none that I have seen (and I follow 4 different media organizations and a number of ‘plandemic’ crusaders on social media) have them doing enforcement. As to the beaches issue do you have a link as I’ve only seen reports of police helicopters being used to spot excessive gatherings not of ADF.

  423. Vaccines and Delta — numbers from the Sydney outbreak. In case people are interested. I know our numbers are low compared to other locations but I think that helps make Sydney a useful case study. So currently up to today there have been 27 deaths (youngest 27 and oldest 93) all unvaccinated, 56 on ventilation, 51 unvaccinated and 5 having received a single dose none with 2 doses. About 1/2 of those on ventilation are under 50. About 50% of the population have had one does, 22% have had 2 doses. We are getting about 105,000 people tested each day. Greater Sydney population is about 6 million

  424. MikeM

    Smallpox vaccines produce sterilizing immunity.

    That doesn’t explain it. The project took years and years. A variant that happened in a non-immunized person that escaped the vaccine would be able to infect a vaccinated person. So it would still escape and there would still be evolutionary pressure to escape..
    .
    The fact is: immunization is not what drive escape.

  425. MikeM

    So what? The variants that exist are not resistant.

    You seem to be admitting that vaccines have not yet driven escape. If so, then you have no evidence they will do so.

  426. Mike M
    ,
    This article discusses adaptive immunity in common corona viruses which respond to evolutionary pressure due to human immunity. These are adapting to natural immunity because there are no vaccines for these common corona viruses.
    .
    The idea that adaptive immunity in viruses is a feature limited to vaccines is just wrong.
    .
    Yes. There is evidence that viruses can adapt to evade immunity. Know one has denied it because it is known they can evade natural immunity. That’s why we need flu vaccines updated every year. It the same adaptation has been observed in some common corona viruses.
    .
    There is also evidence that natural immunity wanes for some corona virus. That’s too bad, but oh well.
    .
    Because of either one, the other or both factors, we might have to get boosters. That’s not an argument against vaccines! Everyone has accepted this from day 1. No one predicted the first group of vaccines would create sterilizing immunity.
    .
    Only the very silly thought we would have a good chance of wiping covid off the earth. We’ve only done that with one virus. That’s not what anyone sane thought was going to happen.
    .
    The goal has been herd immunity. We all know it might be difficult. We all know it might take a series of vaccines.

  427. lucia (Comment #204376): “You seem to be admitting that vaccines have not yet driven escape.”
    .
    I suppose. But that is a straw man since I never said otherwise.

  428. lucia (Comment #204377): “The idea that adaptive immunity in viruses is a feature limited to vaccines is just wrong.”
    .
    Did somebody make that claim? Not me.
    .
    I said that a partially immunizing vaccine drives viral adaption much more than either a highly effective vaccine or immunity from infection.
    .
    I said that a vaccine targeted narrowly at a small piece of the virus will be more easily evaded.
    .
    I also said that a vaccine targeted at a highly conserved part of a virus will be difficult to evade and more likely to be long lasting.
    .
    The first two are potentially problems with the Wuhan virus vaccines and the last is a point in favor of those vaccines.

  429. Mike M,

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/unvaccinated-more-than-twice-as-likely-to-get-covid-19-again-cdc-says-11628276064?mod=e2tw

    People who were unvaccinated were 2.34 times more likely to be reinfected than those who were fully vaccinated, the researchers found.

    Getting sick doesn’t provide perfect immunity either. People get some natural immunity but remain susceptible to variants. So once again: the variant get around natural immunity. This drive the same darn evolutionary process of vaccine escape you are worried about with vaccines.
    .
    Getting vaccinated improves the natural immunity if you’ve already had covid. So vaccination of those who recovered from Covid would reduce the ability of viruses to escape immunity.

    —
    Updated to fix link to correct article.

  430. MIkeM

    I said that a partially immunizing vaccine drives viral adaption much more than either a highly effective vaccine or immunity from infection.

    Well sure. But partially immunizing infections do the same darn thing. And Covid only give partial immunization from an infection. So we’d see the same viral adaptation without vaccines. In fact: we’d see more because more people would have larger and longer viral loads.
    .

    I said that a vaccine targeted narrowly at a small piece of the virus will be more easily evaded.

    Hypothetically, this could happen. But the emipircial evidence shows COVID virus is evading natural immunity even better than it’s evading the vaccine. So there are other factors at play here.
    .
    You’ve got an interesting theory. But the evidence/data is pointing against the idea that natural immunity is stronger than the vaccine.
    .

    I also said that a vaccine targeted at a highly conserved part of a virus will be difficult to evade and more likely to be long lasting.

    Sure. Better vaccines would be nice. No one disagrees with you there. But that doesn’t mean vaccines drive the evasion any worse than natural infections. The evidence during this pandemic is:
    (1) The bad variants came from places with big outbreaks in groups who were not vaccinated.
    (2) The variants are mostly not evading the vaccine.
    (3) Common corona viruses are adapt to evade natural immunity and
    (4) People who have natural immunity gain better immunity if they get vaccinated.
    All this cuts against your theory.
    .

    potentially problems with the Wuhan virus vaccines

    Potentially. Meaning hypothetically. But the data is pointing the other way.
    .
    Yes, vaccines could be improved. Everyone wants that. But that’s not an argument that mass vaccination is a mistake or in anyway a worse decision than not mass vaccinating. All the evidence suggests that mass vaccination is the wiser decision even if vaccines aren’t perfect, even if we need boosters and even if we need to develop broader coverage.
    .

  431. lucia,

    Where does that quotation about the probability of reinfection come from? It wasn’t in the article in the WSJ you linked. I clicked on the link and went to the WSJ site.

  434. Lucia,
    Some people just want to say bad things about covid vaccines, no matter the question.
    .
    WRT eliminating covid completely (like smallpox). That is not ever going to happen, for multiple reasons, ranging from the relative instability of coronavirus RNA (compared to smallpox DNA) to the relative level of social motivation: smallpox killed about 30% of its victims, and permanently maimed many more, while covid-19 probably kills about 1% overall, and those who die are mostly the very elderly. I note that the MSM doesn’t carry on much about a 78 YO retired man who dies from covid, but if a 39 YO dies (often with other major health issues) the death is reported breathlessly, and how dangerous the virus is repeated, much like like a ‘hail Mary’ chant, over and over. This is no coincidence: Old people die from lots of illnesses, and while tragic, the death of an 80 YO has neither the economic nor social cost of a young person’s death. There just is never going to be the level of consistent personal motivation needed to really suppress spread. Which is why so many politicians who insist on draconian covid restrictions, ignore their own rules whenever it is convenient for them personally. The sorry truth is: many people, including Democrat politicians, understand the covid rules can’t be justified by the risk the illness poses, but support them from a desire to be politically correct, pleasing mainly the Left, Karens, and the terrified. Unless the virus morphs into something much worse, I doubt that is going to change. People should just get vaccinated (and maybe get boosters), and forget the rest of the nonsense.

  435. This week in Florida… some light at the end of the tunnel.
    For the third week in a row the rate of increase in case numbers has decreased. It is very similar among all age groups. The % positive on tests has followed a similar bell shaped curve. The Magic Covid Crystal Ball [MCCB] predicts next week’s case numbers will be essentially the same [134,000] as this weeks and % positive will actually decrease. [I am playing with numbers that many here think are useless, I know, spare me the lecture.]
    http://ww11.doh.state.fl.us/comm/_partners/covid19_report_archive/covid19-data/covid19_data_latest.pdf
    https://covid19florida.mystrikingly.com/

  436. SteveF,

    from the relative instability of coronavirus RNA (compared to smallpox DNA)

    Yes. It’s pretty clear that viruses that sufficiently unstable, but able to survive antibody evading mutations evade antibodies. Flu, common colds, corona viruses are in this category. The first two seem to be on the more unstable end, and corona less. Nevertheless, until the Bio/Pharma guys learn more, we aren’t going to have a shot that last a long, long time.
    .
    Measles is evidently stable. Or when it mutates to try to evade infection, the integrity of the entire virus dies. The reason we have a stable vaccine isn’t entirely that it gives sterilizing immunity (though that helps) it’s because the virus doesn’t mutate to evade immunity.
    .
    Because it doesn’t evade, even if we needed boosters, it wouldn’t need to be a new vaccine like flu. We’d just get a booster to improve our response to the same darn thing.
    .
    If Corona viruses were stable like measles and small pox there wouldn’t be zillions of variants in bat caves. Or spread over hamsters, civets, cats and what have you. They evolve to become more infections to different mammals fairly easily and do so without dying. These are going to be hard to eliminate.
    .
    This is not an argument against vaccine, nor is it an argument that vaccines make things “worse”. They don’t. Flu vaccines aren’t what drive “escape”. They are what prevent deaths from a virus that is going to escape with or without vaccines. That’s going to be the same with Corona.
    .
    None of this is a convincing argument that vaccines in general or the current Covid vaccines make things worse. Everything in that argument sounds like nonesense.
    .
    They are explanations of why we might need boosters. Why we should support and applaud research to find vaccines that give broader immunity that can anticipate new variants so we don’t have to play whackamole constantly. Maybe we can even get to the point where it would be possible to eliminate COVID (only to see some other corona virus pop up.) But the fact is: we won’t. There are almost certainly always going to be people who refuse vaccines, who don’t get around to taking vaccines and so on. And a large mammalian reservoir is possible — we’d need a vaccine breakthrough (possible over time) and we’d probably have to vaccinate everyone and their pets. Not to mention minks!
    .
    So no: we aren’t going to wipe out Covid or Corona virus type infections off the earth. But we can reduce illness and death especially in those who are willing to seek protection. That’s an entirely valid goal.

    And to those who don’t like shots: Well, boo hoo. I want my shot. I’m not getting to protect you. I’m getting it to protect me and I should have every right to do that. I’d gladly take one a month. Big deal.
    .

  437. Lucia,
    “I’d gladly take one a month. Big deal.”
    .
    If the booster makes people sick for a day or two, there will be many who resist frequent (every couple years or less) boosters. This is especially true of younger people. One of my sons (35) got violently ill for 36 hrs with the second dose of the Moderna vaccine; he may not be too excited about getting frequent boosters. Most people, given the option, will do a rough risk/benefit calculation, then decide. But some people want to take that decision away from individuals. Therein lies the political conflict.

  438. The reinfection study in KY only had 250 people and then they compared against 500 “similar” people. So the accuracy is in doubt. It wouldn’t be very surprising if it was accurate I think, but this is one of those basic measurements that I still find it incredible we aren’t getting a firm handle on with the huge money dump into public health.
    .
    Nobody thought it was a good idea to track this? How hard is it to ask people who tested positive if they were vaccinated or previously infected and compare those numbers.

  439. Russell,
    That is the correct way to interpret the data. There are inflection points of when the acceleration of cases turns negative and then one can predict the peak. There are of course exceptions and bumps in the road, but I was also predicting the FL peak to be next week or week after. Generally speaking delta declines have also been pretty rapid. Just another mystery.

  440. Tom Scharf,
    “Just another mystery”
    .
    Doesn’t seem so mysterious to me. The virus spreads more easily among the unvaccinated who have not already gotten sick from covid. That is a diminishing population, so fast burn, then run out of fuel. The pattern has been the same almost everywhere, but tempered by two factors: 1) how many people have been vaccinated, and 2) how many people already died from covid in that region. States near the top of the list of deaths per million have had tiny (or no!) surge from the delta variant, especially if they also have a high rate of vaccination. In the early stages of the pandemic lots of people died (NY, NJ, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rode Island, etc), with relatively few verified non-fatal cases….. indicating that there were lots of early undiagnosed cases. Those people remain resistant, so have effectively reached herd immunity.

  441. Tom Scharf, Klier’s Axiom… The second derivative absolves (almost) all data sins.

  442. Lucia,
    “… we’d probably have to vaccinate everyone and their pets. Not to mention minks!”
    .
    And don’t forget much of the wild deer population, and who knows what else. Viruses are extremely difficult to eradicate. A property they share with government rules and regulations.

  443. SteveF,
    I had extremely mild pain at the injection site.
    .
    I agree that if I became noticably ill for even 1 hour, I would be reluctant to have a booster very month. It just wasn’t my experience. I believe those who had the problem.

  444. Tom

    Generally speaking delta declines have also been pretty rapid. Just another mystery.

    R increased. If incubation time did not get larger, then the peak will be higher that could be because incubation period is greater. So the whole process is faster. I think even if incubation time is the same if Ro gets bigger the entire process is faster because the total susceptible population is exhausted faster. But I would need to check that.

  445. Tom Scharf,

    Nobody thought it was a good idea to track this? How hard is it to ask people who tested positive if they were vaccinated or previously infected and compare those numbers.

    It’s easy if you do it and record it at the time they are treated.
    I also couldn’t tell if the people who got covid had their vaccines before of after they were sick.
    .
    But what I could tell is people who got Covid did get reinfected. So my point to Mike M is that infection does not provide sterilizing immunity. And we have evidence that it does not provide better immunity.
    .
    And he has provided none that it does provide better immunity. A theory about nasal immunity is not evidence that the immunity is “better”.

  446. Development in the world of solar panels: Recently a couple of companies have been selling 5Kw lithium ion batteries for off-grid solar power storage for $1500 plus tax and delivery (another $300). The batteries are guaranteed for 5 years with no depth of discharge restrictions, and the suppliers claim 7,000 charge/discharge cycles if depth of discharge is limited to 80% (4 Kw net). So, lifetime storage cost per Kw is $1,800/28,000 Kw, or $0.064 per KwH. This is a dramatic improvement on battery cost compared to just 5 years ago.
    .
    Looks like you might get down to $0.25 per KwH levelized cost for a stand-alone whole house system… which is twice what I pay for electricity in Florida, but only $0.03 per KwH over what I pay in the People’s Republic of Massachusetts. It is much cheaper than what people are paying in California.

  447. Another factor is that there aren’t many lockdowns with delta either, and people’s voluntary behavior isn’t changing as much as far as I can tell. The fire burns quicker without retardant and fire fighters. It’s just not intuitive to me whether that means unbalanced curves or just steeper balanced curves of the same time period or whatever.
    .
    FL had delta early and the south is in “covid season” apparently. Most people suspect delta will eventually burn all the available fuel wherever it is and partisan lockdown comparisons are being replaced by vaccination comparisons, which do matter, although+-10% isn’t a big factor. If you have 30% or 40% unvaccinated you are going to get a pretty big delta burn.
    .
    50+ year old people really need to get vaccinated, then let delta burn through the rest unhindered and get it over with.
    .
    Perhaps that won’t end it, but it will at least give us some breathing room for a while.

  448. Tom Scharf (Comment #204395): “The reinfection study in KY only had 250 people and then they compared against 500 “similar” people. So the accuracy is in doubt.”
    .
    I think that is putting it mildly. The had two groups of people, all of whom had covid in 2020. One group of 246 were reinfected in May&June of 2021. The other group were not known to have bee reinfected but were randomly drawn to “match” the first group. Then they looked at how many in each group had been vaccinated.
    .
    Overall, 63% were unvaccinated. It seems to me that if 63% of each group had been unvaccinated, there would have been no evidence of an effect of vaccination. Is there some reason why I am wrong about that?
    .
    As it was, there were 25 fewer unvaccinated than expected (based on the 63%) in the control group (284 vs 309) and 25 more than expected in the re-infected group (179 vs 154). That looks to me like pretty weak evidence of a difference. Whether it meets the magic p=0.05 level probably depends on doing the statistics exactly right. The paper does not say anything about consulting a professional statistician and none of the affiliations are suggestive of any of the authors being such.
    .
    The vaccinated are probably less likely to get tested, so that could easily be the difference.

  449. Tom

    Another factor is that there aren’t many lockdowns with delta either, and people’s voluntary behavior isn’t changing as much as far as I can tell. The fire burns quicker without retardant and fire fighters. It’s just not intuitive to me whether that means unbalanced curves or just steeper balanced curves of the same time period or whatever.

    Yes. The vaccinated people know they are somewhat protected. So they aren’t isolating as much. They are getting on with life.
    .
    Many of the unvaccinated thinks, “Covid, Shmovid”. They aren’t isolating.
    .
    Around here, bars are open. People are going to dance parties.
    .
    People aren’t masking. Whether they work or not is not entirely relevant. The non-masking is a sign many people aren’t going to lock down so much. Some are, but it’s not the way it was.
    .
    People want to get back to life. That’s an empirical observation, not a normative one.

  450. MikeM

    The vaccinated are probably less likely to get tested, so that could easily be the difference.

    Not sure that’s true. They might be more likely to be tested. But regardless, vaccination vs unvaccinated was self selected. So that’s an automatic difference that can’t be corrected for.
    .
    My main point: There’s no evidence getting Covid gives better protection. This study might not be great and it might not really meet statistical significance. But it sure as heck isn’t in the direction of showing getting Covid gives better immunity than the vaccine.

  451. lucia (Comment #204408): “There’s no evidence getting Covid gives better protection. This study might not be great and it might not really meet statistical significance. But it sure as heck isn’t in the direction of showing getting Covid gives better immunity than the vaccine.”
    .
    But the study is not at all on point. I made the claim that getting covid and not getting vaccinated probably provides better protection than not getting covid and getting vaccinated. There are good reasons to believe that is true, but so far as I know no epidemiological evidence either way.
    .
    The study only looked at people who had a positive covid test and then either did or did not get vaccinated. Nobody thinks that vaccination of such people would increase their chances of getting covid. We should expect some decrease even if the norm is that infection creates perfect immunity. Some of the positive tests might have been false positives, some infections might have been so mild that they were dealt with by the mucosal immune system and never produced a systemic immune response, and some people might have had a deficient immune response. So some positive effect should be expected.
    .
    If instead you looked at people with a positive covid test *and* a subsequent strongly positive antibody test, then it may well be that vaccination would provide no benefit. And such people might well be better protected than those who were vaccinated but never protected.

  452. MikeM

    But the study is not at all on point. I made the claim that getting covid and not getting vaccinated probably provides better protection than not getting covid and getting vaccinated. There are good reasons to believe that is true, but so far as I know no epidemiological evidence either way.

    When you find empirical evidence, I’ll accept that. I think there is equally good reasons to expect it to provide less good protection.
    .
    I know what the study looked at. And what I said is we see that people who had Covid obviously have imperfect protection. That stands regardless of whether that study has shortcomings.
    .
    It’s true it may– but the data leans toward infections providing less good protection.

  454. Russell,
    Thanks. If I read that correctly, it’s saying that vaccine response of people who had covid is even stronger in people who already had covid than in people who never had covid. So the vaccine likely improves immunity for people who had Covid.

    Researchers in the United States have conducted a study showing the difference in antibody evolution following vaccination against severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) between people who have not previously been infected with the virus and those who have.

  455. Lucia wrote: “It’s true it may– but the data leans toward infections providing less good protection.”
    .
    Unless I missed something, the data doesn’t seem to suggest this. Both groups acquired natural immunity. One group had a “booster”, the other didn’t. It shows that a booster may lessen the chance of infection after x months have passed. It doesn’t suggest a person vaccinated x months ago has more protection than a person with natural immunity x months ago.

  456. DaveJR,
    If infection gave great broad immunity, vaccination should not help. So I take this to suggest vaccination gives better immunity. It might not be so, but that’s the way it points.
    .
    This isn’t from the study itself but in the paper. It, but discusses why vaccination likely gives better immunity than infection.

    For example, a recent laboratory study found that sera collected from previously infected persons before they were vaccinated provided a relatively weaker, and in some cases absent, neutralization response to the B.1.351 (Beta) variant when compared with the original Wuhan-Hu-1 strain (1). Sera from the same persons after vaccination showed a heightened neutralization response to the Beta variant, suggesting that vaccination enhances the immune response even to a variant to which the infected person had not been previously exposed.

    The vaccination seems to give broader immunity, and this could be gained by those previously infected.
    .
    Contrary to Mike M’s theory there are reasons to suppose vaccination gives better immunity. It might not be so, but that’s the way the lab data and the field data point. Not the other way around.
    .
    Of course, vaccination could be improved. Or we could have combinations of nasal spray and injection would would probably be better. But there is no empirical support for Mike M’s theory that infection provides better immunity and there is some for it being the other way around.

  457. lucia,

    AFAICT, having had a COVID infection give one similar protection to not having had COVID and getting vaccinated. The reports of substantially increased antibody titers for those who had COVID and were then vaccinated says to me that it’s likely that the probability of a having an unpleasant reaction to the vaccine might well be higher for someone who already has immunity. That would seem to be likely as well for someone who was vaccinated getting a booster shot.

    The Kentucky data has not convinced me that I need to run right out and get a shot. We’re having something of a surge here in TN, but most people appear to be ignoring it. You see a few masks in the wild, mostly on servers in restaurants. Doctor’s offices and other health care providers are still requiring masks.

  458. There are good reasons to believe that natural infection will provide better immunity than vaccination, provided that the infection triggers a systemic immune response and not just a mucosal response. A mucosal but not systemic response can certainly happen, especially if the infection is really mild.
    .
    There is some evidence in support of naturally acquired immunity being better in the form of a much better mucosal immune response from infection than from vaccination. It is not much (one paper), but there is no evidence the other way.
    .
    We don’t really know either way. The way to bet would be that natural infection is better, at least if it is an even money bet.

  459. Lucia wrote: “If infection gave great broad immunity, vaccination should not help.”
    .
    No reason natural immunity couldn’t benefit from a booster, just as vaccination (third shot) could benefit from a booster. ISTM, this question cannot be answered with the method used.

  460. DaveJR,
    Fair enough.
    .
    But I think it does suggest that natural immunity alone isn’t going to cut it. I doubt if people want to be subject to a disease over and over if it’s not necessary. I know I don’t want to.
    .
    I am wanting a booster pretty badly. 🙂

  461. MikeM,
    .
    I am not going to be persuaded that natural immunity gives better protection until there is evidence to suggest it. There are reasons one might expect vaccines give better immunity too– among other things you can have a stronger challenge without having illness. That can result in better immunity.
    .

    The way to bet would be that natural infection is better, at least if it is an even money bet.

    Not seeing this.
    .
    But even if natural immunity does give both mucosal and humeral immunity and the vaccine only gives humeral immunity, vaccines are still a better choice. It’s better to get the humeral immunity without illness. Then perhaps, you might subsequently get the much less severe and not-deadly nasal infection. That nasal infection would give me the same nasal immunity with much lower illness. This is still a huge protective benefit. To my way of thinking this makes vaccines “better” and they will be what I chose.
    .
    I also think having the humeral immunity without illness also likely makes me less infectious over all than getting the nasal infection and having it propagate further and continue to multiply and mutate in my body. This would tend to result in fewer mutations which is likely why we see the mutations in countries where vaccines were not available.
    .
    Facing this virus with no vaccine is dangerous and it also makes a patient into a virus factory pumping out virus longer.

  462. SteveF: “Do you think The Guardian has it 100% wrong

    I am unsure what you think I said contradicts that article. If you mean the “hardness of lockdown” – then I agree it is getting tougher (what they should have gone for immediately as other states have learnt), but I trust the NSW health contact tracers list of transmission venues https://www.health.nsw.gov.au/Infectious/covid-19/Pages/case-locations-and-alerts.aspx for more than any media. The kind of venues on that list are copping negative press in NZ and in other Australian states.

  463. Well… since case are up in Illinois but mask wearing is still down and rumor has it we are all getting cases in our noses, I may have to go back to making my iota carrageenan nasal spray. It’s a little like always having snot in your nose, but I can use it before during and after dance parties at least.

  465. Most people who had natural smallpox did not get it a second time.
    The vaccination gave me a scar ( twice) .

  466. angech,
    Yep. Natural small pox gave immunity to those who didn’t die. But the way we wiped it out was vaccines. And before it was wiped out, most people were glad to have the vaccines or live in a country where nearly everyone was vaccinated.
    .
    Flu gives immunity to the strain you got. Vaccines are created every year and I’m glad to get one.

  468. Russell,
    Of course I googled and went to Amazon. I don’t know where someone would get Iodine-V commercially go concoct their own drops. Not Amazon. (Perhaps a chem supply store?) So not that easy to concoct yourself to make yourself a guinea pig.

    Looks like other formes of iodine have been explored too.

  470. Phil Scadden,
    Sorry, my comment was supposed to be addressed to Andrew Kennett, who said there were no police powers involved.

  471. lucia and Russell,

    It’s not iodine(V) oxide, i.e. I2O5. It’s, as stated in the article, a complex (clathrate) of elemental iodine (I2) and fulvic acid. The trade name for a 5% solution is betadine. I assume that EID is a dilute form of betadine.

    The test drug was Essential Iodine Drops (EID), obtained from IOI Investment Zrt. (Budapest, Hungary). It is the aqueous solution of Iodine-V. The Iodine-V (formula (C26H39N4O15)x * (I2)y) is a water-soluble elemental iodine in fulvic acid clathrate complex. Physical and chemical properties of Iodine-V are as follows: iodine content as determined by Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry (ICP-MS) was 10.01%; the melting point was 157°C, the maximum ultra-violate/visible (UV/VIS) absorption in the water at 340 nm was 96 μg/ml); the spectral signature of Iodine-V as analysed by Fourier-Transform Infrared Spectra (FTIR) in KBr pastille contained the following wavenumbers (ν; cm-1) of key signals: 3404, 2927, 2359, 2341, 1718, 1635, 1558, 1418, 1383, 1151, 1076, 1024, 668. The melting point was determined in an SRS 100 OptiMelt apparatus (Stanford Research Systems, Sunnyvale, CA, US). Ultraviolet was measured in a DLab SP1100 system. FT-IR was measured in FTIR650 (Labfreez Instruments Group Co., Ltd.).

    They’ve stopped using betadine as an antiseptic swab at blood banks because some people are allergic to it.

  473. Lucia, Just found this reference to iodine.”… there was significant evidence of povidone-iodine resulting in substantial coronavirus reduction in in vitro studies.” It also references studies of straight saline “There is supportive evidence for both isotonic saline and hypertonic saline (HS) efficacy in vivo.” [I use hypertonic saline (HS)]. The article is a compendium of references. JAMA network “Benefits and Safety of Nasal Saline Irrigations in a Pandemic—Washing COVID-19 Away” https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamaotolaryngology/fullarticle/2768627

  474. It’s prudent to point out the minor flaw in the comparison argument is that getting immunity the natural way can kill you.

  475. lucia,
    Just go get a booster. They aren’t tracking that closely and I doubt anybody gets turned away for any reason. At my grocery store you fill out a paper form and get poked. The booster they are going to give out is likely going to be identical shots to the existing ones. They have modified ones in progress but how much better they are is unknown and it seems we won’t really know for a quite a while.
    .
    If I had gotten J&J, I would be getting an mRNA shot.
    .
    Some in US getting COVID-19 boosters without FDA approval
    https://apnews.com/article/business-health-coronavirus-pandemic-coronavirus-vaccine-fe8ecebb3b61c7d3ee8ed4225500cb0e
    “Despite a lack of FDA approval, public health officials in San Francisco said Tuesday that they will provide an extra dose of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine for people who got the single-shot Johnson & Johnson variety — referring to it as a supplement, rather than a booster.”

  476. Lambda? Are they assigning labels randomly, or has there already been an epsilon, zeta, eta, theta, iota, and kappa?

    Also, is alpha the original or the sequel?

  477. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34216472/

    Powerline linked to this article as saying that previous infection produced better results than vaccination.
    The abstract does not say this, and shows a statistically insignificant worse performance for previous infection vs vaccination.

    If I am reading it right, the sample size is too small with vast majority taking one shot only.

  478. The USA edges out China on the last day for most gold medals! The US women were a dominant force. Congratulations to them.

  480. Lucia, I hate to be scatter brained but I’m gonna try the iodine mixed in my normal rinse… I have to work out the math. Delivery tomorrow.
    Amazon Brand – Solimo 10% Povidone Iodine Solution First Aid Antiseptic, 8 Fl Oz,
    4.7 out of 5 stars 7,588 rating, Amazon’s Choice
    $5.20 ($0.65 / Fl Oz) F

  481. MikeN,
    α is first named I think. I don’t know if that means “original”. λ is just my screw up. It’s γ that’s circulating. They are going in order. I don’t know if they have some protocol for bothering to name them. I think if we’d hit λ that would be scary.
    .

    https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34216472/

    Powerline linked to this article as saying that previous infection produced better results than vaccination.
    The abstract does not say this, and shows a statistically insignificant worse performance for previous infection vs vaccination.

    .
    Funny! It wouldn’t be the first link-article mismatch I’ve seen.
    .
    But I think I’ve googled and found claims in both directions. (I was between things so I didn’t keep the links.)
    .
    But as I mentioned, even if infection gave better protection, I think recommending vaccines would still be the way to go to protect life of the individual vaccinated person and reduce the rate that mutations occur and ultimately reduce the rate at which variants emerge.
    .
    I’m vaccinated. If I get a nasal infection and only have my protection kick in when it travels, I’m still better off. I get some immunity without becoming a virus factory. If the immunity is imperfect, I might get a natural infection which will be milder. After that milder infection, I should have natural in addition to vaccine protection. That means both mucosal and humeral. Also: to both the first spike and to whatever I get.
    .
    So to the extent someone criticizes vaccines for giving less immunity and perhaps giving one that means I may still be infective when I do get infected, it’s still no worse than no vaccination.
    .
    I won’t be a virus factory any longer than if I got infected without vaccine protection. (And the evidence that the peak viral load is equally high for vaccinated is equivocal.) So I’m either protecting myself without endangering any others more or I’m protecting myself and endangering others less.
    .
    And the “evolutionary pressure” to evade immunity exists with or without vaccines.
    .
    It’s not as if the “don’t get mucosal immunity” issue with vaccines actually makes it better to become a maximal virus factory and also get really sick and possibly die.

  482. I thought that alpha was the Italian variant, beta the UK, gamma South Africa, and delta India.
    .
    Political correctness causes confusion, among other undesirable effects.

  483. MikeN (Comment #204442): “Powerline linked to this article as saying that previous infection produced better results than vaccination.”
    .
    Do you mean this Powerline article?
    https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2021/08/the-cdcs-voodoo-epidemiology.php

    If so, that is not what it says. Quoting Powerline:

    found that previously infected health care workers who subsequently got vaccinated, were 3.5x more likely to get a symptomatic breakthrough infection with Delta, than if they were not vaccinated at all.

    Not a comparison of {uninfected and vaccinated} to {infected and not vaccinated}. A comparison of {infected and vaccinated} to {infected and not vaccinated}. The abstract says nothing about that, so the conclusion cited by Powerline presumably was dug out of a data table in the paper. Maybe the abstract ignored it because not statistically significant or maybe because it does not fir the narrative. Guess I have to read it for myself.

  484. Russell Klier,

    Since you say you have a lot of allergies, I would do a small skin test of the your iodine containing nasal lavage before actually putting in your nose. As I said above, they no longer use betadine to swab arms at the blood bank where I donate because of allergy problems.

  485. Full text of the UK paper here: https://academic.oup.com/cid/advance-article/doi/10.1093/cid/ciab608/6314286

    Table 2, under “Symptomatic PCR-confirmed infection” variable “Follow up group” the “Adjusted IRR” for “Unvaccinated seropositive” is 0.02 and for “Vaccinated, previously seropositive” is 0.07. So that is what is referred to in the Powerline article, as quoted in Comment #204448. So the claim is true. For those who were seropositive, the vaccinated were 3.5 times as likely to get reinfected as the unvaccinated.
    .
    But it is not the whole truth. The confidence intervals are <0.01-0.18 for unvaccinated and 0.01-0.51 for vaccinated. So the sample size is not large enough for anything like a definitive conclusion.
    .
    But the claim is fair in the context that it is made:

    This highlights a possible harm to individuals who were previously infected, who are coerced into receiving the vaccine.

    No evidence of benefit and very weak evidence of harm is very appropriate to the issue of coercion.

  486. DeWitt, Thanks, will do. Gonna approximate 0.08% in the final solution, …. Does that sound right?

  488. SteveF – ok that makes sense. However, I would back on-the-ground reports by Andrew ahead of a foreign media outlet looking for a headline. The text of the article cited also seems to stop well short of saying the ADF had police powers. If the premier is publically refuting police powers for ADF as Andrew claims, and it turns out that this was not true, the would be a huge stink. MikeM might think that Australian government has power to suppress the press, but frankly that does not ring true for Australia in general nor for their media. Nothing in our media about ADF using police powers – I doubt Australia is capable of censoring cellphone calls to NZ.

  489. Interesting paper on seaonality factors in Covid-19.
    “There is growing scientific interest in the potential seasonality of COVID-19 and its links to climate variables. This study aims to determine whether four environmental variables, namely, temperature, humidity, air drying capacity (ADC), and ultraviolet radiation (UV), are probable environmental determinants for the observed seasonal dynamics of COVID-19 prevalence, based on extensive country-level data spanning the first year of the pandemic. Although the influence of socio-economic factors may be dominant, we here suggest that ADC and UV are key environmental determinants of COVID-19 and can potentially affect the transmission and seasonality of the disease across a wide range of climates.”
    https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2021GH000413

  490. It’s just one data point, but South Africa’s surges peak almost exactly six months apart, 7/19/2020, 1/12/2021 and 7/8/2021. My guess would be that the average South African doesn’t have air conditioning. Perhaps humidity in the summer outweighs higher UV. Dunno.

  492. Lucia, DeWitt, There is a lot of newly published information about Povidone-Iodine and Covid. There are several recently started clinical tests of Povidone-Iodine for Covid prevention and treatment but I found no published clinical data. For safety, I am using this older article: “Povidone-Iodine Use in Sinonasal and Oral Cavities: A Review of Safety in the COVID-19 Era”
    https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0145561320932318
    I am starting out by trying 0.2% Povidone-iodine in 0.9% Isotonic saline solution. Using geezer math I came up with this rough approximation: 2 ounces warm water, 1/4 tsp of 10% Povidone-Iodine and 1/4 tsp of salt/baking soda mix.

  493. Russell,
    I think if you have lots of allergies, you should do the allergy test Dewitt suggests. That’s not saying you should try this– but do the allergy test.

  494. Lucia, I’ll be careful. It’s got to be less risky than when I started the saline rinses about 15 years ago. Back then, I canceled my standing appointment with the ENT doctor, threw out all her filthy prescriptions and started experimenting. I haven’t needed an ENT specialist since.

  495. Russell,
    I have a friend who is allergic to “everything”. (Milk, eggs, wool, cigarette smoke, cats, . . . ) I would definitely suggest she allergy test everything before trying. A 24 hour wait (0r 48 if more cautious) won’t interfere with you implementing your plan.
    .

  496. Russell,
    “I canceled my standing appointment with the ENT doctor, threw out all her filthy prescriptions and started experimenting.”
    .
    I want to hear her side. 😉

  497. Headlines…”Covid vaccine skeptics are ruining the return to normal.” and “CDC director: COVID-19 morphing into ‘pandemic of the unvaccinated”. Since my previous suggestions were met with knee-jerk opposition, I have a new one…. The Unvaccinated will wear a Scarlet Letter “B” when in public. The “B” stands for Butthead.

  498. There are many people who want to force everyone to get vaccinated. I read pieces advocating that and always left wondering WHY they want that. Note that I doing them the favor of assuming that they have a rational public health reason. not just emotional or reasons or a drive to power.
    .
    So is there a rational public health reason for wanting everyone vaccinated? The only one I can come up with would be effective eradication. By effective eradication, I mean the sort of thing that we have achieved with various childhood disease, like measles or pertussis.

  499. Russell

    ”Covid vaccine skeptics are ruining the return to normal.” and “CDC director: COVID-19 morphing into ‘pandemic of the unvaccinated”.

    Yes. But they are mostly ruining back to normal for themselves. And some of them are perfectly willing to behave “normal” and just risk it. So short of being a nanny state, to some extent we vaccinated need to be adults and just deal with it. They get choices too.
    .
    To some extent they are making things worse for children less than 12, the parents of children less than 12 by having this circulating more than necessary and those kids between 12-18 who want vaccines but whose parents wont permit it. The effects are less for kids but they aren’t always zero. So it would be nice if kids could have less potential exposure. But those are the groups at risk.

  500. MikeM

    The only one I can come up with would be effective eradication. By effective eradication, I mean the sort of thing that we have achieved with various childhood disease, like measles or pertussis.

    Yes. That would be the goal. Then those who have medical and/or religious reasons to not be vaccinated or who can’t form antibodies would have protection. Hospitals wouldn’t have to deal with bursts of incoming Covid patients and so on. It’s a reasonable goal. And it would be nice to do it with fewer deaths or illness.

  501. “Covid vaccine skeptics are ruining the return to normal.”

    Russel,

    The above is what they call mendacious. It’s for people who have abdicated their judgement. I’m telling you this not because I think it’s likely you can accept a different opinion, but because it’s a lie and needs to be opposed.

    Andrew

  502. lucia (Comment #204479): “It’s a reasonable goal.”
    .
    It is certainly a desirable goal, if achievable. There is no evidence that it is achievable for an upper respiratory virus. It certainly seems that the vaccines don’t stop circulation of the virus, although they do seem to greatly reduce the damage, at least in the short run. But that damage is on the unvaccinated, so not a reason to force vaccination.
    .
    A year ago, there were knowledgeable people pointing out that although a vaccine would be great, it would be unlikely to stop the virus from circulating. That just does not work with upper respiratory viruses. Especially if there animal reservoirs, as there are for the Wuhan virus.

  503. Upthread, lucia (Comment #204380) cited a CDC study puporting to show a benefit of vaccination for the previously infected. I expressed skepticism as to the significance of the results. I now realized that the study is garbage.
    .
    They selected control and test (case) groups ex post facto and one of the criteria was the effect they were looking for. Totally not kosher.
    .
    Here is a thought experiment to illustrate just one aspect of the problem. Imagine that infection provides 100% protection against future infection and that 5% of positive tests were false positives. Then 100% of the test group (all of whom were “reinfected”) would have been people with false positives while only 5% of the supposedly matched controls would have been false positives. And not a single one of the “reinfected” people would actually have been reinfected. Even with less than 100% protection, the test group would massively over sample false positives; that would invalidate the results, unless false positives are entirely negligible.
    .
    Any other hidden variable that would make people more susceptible to reinfection would also be over sampled in the test group. So the results are meaningless, other than as one more piece of evidence of how far the CDC has fallen.

  504. The vaccine evangelists express no doubt about any long term negative effects. I think the evidence clearly points to the tradeoff being for getting vaccinated now, especially if you are over 50. However if some undiscovered long term negative effects do crop up to the level that this trade off becomes less certain, it will do irreparable damage to public health for generations.
    .
    What I don’t hear from vaccine evangelists is a humility of the possible unknowns and an expressed freedom for people to make their own decisions. In a flawed process to convince more people they pretend there is certainty where there is none.
    .
    At this stage the brunt of the vaccination decision is almost completely borne by the unvaccinated upon themselves, this reflects very poorly on the evangelists as authoritarian busy bodies.

  505. Mike M,
    It’s not useless, it’s just a weak vector pointing in one direction. Better studies and better evidence can be completed, it’s just not clear why we don’t have those yet. The media definitely has a bias towards vaccines and masks are great. They may be right, but one has to dig deeper to find the truth because of this bias.

  506. The return to normal is being ruined by the virus. I think people are failing to understand the significance of the UK sustaining an outbreak with 94% of the population having antibodies. If correct, this put us into a new phase, global endemic. Perhaps a vaccine with sterilizing immunity can be created, but vaccinations aren’t going to solve the problem, just reduce the damage. We should reduce the damage, but pretending the unvaccinated are preventing us from reaching covid zero appears to be wishful thinking and frustration talking.

  507. Tom Scharf (Comment #204484): “It’s not useless, it’s just a weak vector pointing in one direction.”
    .
    No. It is a compass next to a magnet. The needle may be pointing in one direction, but it provides no information as to which way is north.

  509. Btw, I saw a comment on an article in the WSJ on masking children that cited IHME projections with and without masks to prove that masks work. *sigh*

    I did point out that was classic begging the question because the IHME model assumes masks work. I did get some likes, but it probably didn’t help.

  510. Looks like climate change is … worse … than … we … thought. Ha ha. Behold the completely predictable catastrophism in the media today. Yawn.
    .
    “2. Sea-level rise will be worse than once thought—and could occur quickly and catastrophically.
    In the past decade, climate scientists have arrived at more pessimistic views about sea-level rise, and those views are reflected in this report. Most researchers now believe that the oceans will rise roughly half a foot more than once projected. In a relatively optimistic “intermediate” emissions scenario, for instance, the IPCC once projected that oceans would rise about one and a half feet by 2100. The new report finds that just under two feet is more likely, and two and a half feet is not out of the question.
    The authors could not eliminate from their models the small chance that some of the largest glaciers in West Antarctica could catastrophically collapse this century. In that scenario, humanity could see more than six and a half feet of sea-level rise by 2100 and perhaps as much as 16 feet of sea-level rise by 2150.”
    .
    What? This is marketing spin as the very same outlets have been credulously parroting a reference free 2M of SLR by 2100 for years now as a likely scenario. I wondered what they would do as SLR has been maintaining its steady 0.1 inch/decade increase for decades now, showing only minor signs of acceleration. “Could not eliminate”, what a laugher.
    .
    I have zero patience with this stuff, I do wonder what they really had to say about the likelihood of RCP8.5 scenarios, but not enough to actually go find out at this point as I would need to sift through endless garbage.

  511. “…. authoritarian busy bodies.”
    .
    An almost perfect description of “progressives”. So it has always been. Idiots.

  512. Tom Scharf,
    ” I think people are failing to understand the significance of the UK sustaining an outbreak with 94% of the population having antibodies.”
    .
    The focus on “new cases” is completely insane, if not willfully dishonest. The UK at present has approximately one death for each ~1000 confirmed cases. This is approaching common cold level of risk, since for sure many covid infections remain unconfirmed. The endless focus on cases rather than deaths is making for very bad public policy and very bad personal choices to boot. If you want to minimize risk of serious illness and death, then get vaccinated. If you want to accept the risk, don’t get vaccinated. Nothing else much matters.

  513. Dr. Anthony Fauci: “Get vaccinated to stop risk of an even deadlier COVID variant”
    Look like everybody’s favorite little paesano thinks that there is a villain in this story too.

    “ When you get the overwhelming majority of the population vaccinated – and we don’t know what that threshold is – the virus will disappear, and then we won’t need to worry about it, at least in this country. If you don’t do that, you will get a smoldering level of infection that will just go right into the fall, get confused with influenza in the winter, and then come back again in the spring. Now for the unvaccinated who say I don’t really care, I’m young and healthy, if I get infected, it is true that, statistically, it is unlikely that you will have a serious outcome. If you were living in a vacuum, that would be fine, but you’re not living in a vacuum. You are living in a society. And if you become the vehicle for the virus to go from you to someone else to someone else, you are helping to propagate the virus. There’s a very firm tenet that a virus cannot mutate, unless it is replicating, and, if you allow the virus to freely replicate chronically in society, it will mutate. Now many mutations have no relevance functionally, but every once in a while you get a mutation like delta, where the mutations cause a variant. And the variant has a real functional consequence. With delta, we have a virus that spreads much more rapidly than the original alpha variant. What happens if over months and months and months you allow the virus to replicate, it is conceivable, not guaranteed, but conceivable, that we could get a variant that eludes the protection of the vaccine.”
    https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2021/08/08/anthony-fauci-covid-vaccinate-mandate/5507400001/

  514. Russell,
    Covid will rage worldwide for years to come, quite outside the influence of Fauci. Delta arose in India, and the next significant variant, assuming there is one, will likely come from outside the States as well. His pronouncements are as transparent as they are dishonest. No additional confirmation is needed…. Fauci is a political hack, and a dishonest one at that.
    .
    I note that he is very selective with telling the truth (no, creating completely new coronaviruses which are developed specifically to infect human cells is NEVER, EVER ‘gain of function’). He embraces whatever rubbish the totalitarian left proposes to ‘combat’ covid, yet always avoids criticizing Democrats when they behave contrary to his pronouncements. I look forward to the day he is fired.

  515. Tom Scharf,
    Long term sea level rise is one inch per decade, not 0.1 inch per decade.
    .
    But yes, ‘climate scientists’ and their fellow green travelers have been consistent since the late Stephen Schneider advocated ‘scary stories’ in place of honest discussion of reality. Absent scary stories, global warming remains of little interest to the public. People have long discounted the scary stories, so the stories become ever more outlandish in an effort to instill a sufficient level of alarm.
    .
    But I think the greater long term problem is the utter dishonesty about the cost of drastic reductions in CO2 emissions. The things that are routinely proposed will significantly reduce material wealth in every country with even a modest level of industrialization, and condemn the very poorest to indefinite poverty. By avoiding an honest discussion of costs and who will bear those costs, ‘climate scientists’ do a profound public disservice. This is never going to change.

  516. High damages comes from high amounts of warming and countries being too poor to adapt.
    High amounts of warming comes from high amounts of CO2.
    High amounts of CO2 comes from high amounts of economic growth.

  517. Help me out here. I am trying to read technical statements from the scientists who say Dr. Fauci is wrong about how to defeat the virus. Here is the list of scientists I have found who dispute him: ______ and ______ and______ and _____!!!
    Two names do keep appearing in all my searches: Tucker Carlson and Rand Paul!!!
    I have googled the following:
    1.renowned scientists opposed to dr fauci
    2.scientific papers saying dr fauci is wrong
    3.renowned virologists opposed to dr fauci
    4.scientific news stories disputing dr fauci
    Can you people suggest some alternate google searches for scientists calling out Dr. Fauci for me?

  518. Russell,
    Your belief in ‘experts’ is actually surprising, especially considering your very unhappy experience with experts in allergies. Very few people, experts or not, believe the virus can be ‘defeated’ like the Nazi’s in WWII, certainly not anybody who knows anything about viruses. WRT scientists speaking out against Fauci: most won’t waste the energy and then suffer the abuse the world’s Karens will heap on them. Those who have are consistently censored by the social justice warriors at google, facebook, and twitter. I will note here that the gatekeepers on the flow of information about covid blocked all discussion of a lab release for a year, even though lots of qualified people said that was a plausible, even likely, source of the virus. Now you can discuss it. Bizarre, and the direct result of people who know nothing being the gatekeepers on all public speech.
    .
    Do you think the UK (below 1 death per 1000 cases) has ‘defeated’ the virus? What exactly is sufficient to declare victory?

  519. Russell,
    Fauci is right in some sense. But what he says is easily misinterpreted and I think it may be intentional.
    .
    The US can corral the virus in the sense that if the overwhelming majority of us get vaccinated (and eventually take boosters against variants) then when someone from out of the country arrives with the virus, it will be contained due to local herd immunity. That is, the local Rt can be less than one– and if enough people are vaccinated, sufficiently low the infected person will be highly unlikely to encounter a person who is not immune.
    .
    But it’s pretty clear that this virus or variants are not going to be wiped out any time soon. It took a huge amount of time to wipe out small pox. The entire world was involved in vaccination. Small pox is stable and not harbored by other mammals. As horrible disease as it was, it’s gone because it was an “easy” case!!
    .
    We are going to need boosters. The question is “how often”. We are going to need advances in vaccines that protect against the part of the virus that is stable. We may need to vaccinate animals. (I’d vaccinate my cats if we had a vaccine for cats.) We may– likely will– need or want prophelaxis. (I hope Iota Carrageenan ends up working. Fingers crossed. But don’t hold your breath.)
    .
    Fauci is right to encourage vaccination. But he is wrong to make it sound like this will be ground into the ground. That. Ain’t. Happening.

  520. SteveF – it doesnt seem unreasonable to ask what evidence informed your beliefs. Your reply to Russell makes a great deal of assertions about what has happened. They dont seem necessarily unlikely, but dont immediately ring bells with anything I have seen reported nor with the contrary nature of many scientists.

  521. RUSSELL KLIER (Comment #204501): “Help me out here. I am trying to read technical statements from the scientists who say Dr. Fauci is wrong about how to defeat the virus.”
    .
    For starters:
    Luc Montagnier
    Robert Malone
    Scott Atlas
    Jay Bhattacharya
    Byram Bridle
    Peter McCullough

    You could stick “Dr.” in front of each of those.

  522. lucia (Comment #204503): “The US can corral the virus in the sense that if the overwhelming majority of us get vaccinated (and eventually take boosters against variants) then when someone from out of the country arrives with the virus, it will be contained due to local herd immunity.”
    .
    That is unlikely. The UK had a huge outbreak with 94% supposedly immune.

  524. Mike M. (Comment #204507), Thank you for the list of names. I’m on it….Tomorrow’s project.
    Also you wrote “You could stick “Dr.” in front of each of those.” Dr. in front of a name does not impress me…it’s the alphabet soup of credentials after a name that I home in on. I want to be sure the people I learn from are not armchair quarterbacks with no skin in the game who are just pontificating on the interweb. [Like me!]

  526. Phil Scadden,
    You might read the Great Barrington Declaration, then read the long list of authors and signers. You can ignore all the ‘non-qualified’ people you want, but the lockdowns were ‘anti-science’ in most places and in most circumstances, driven by irrational fear…. and politics, of course. All the authors suffered censorship and worse.

  527. Lucia,
    “The US can corral the virus in the sense that if the overwhelming majority of us get vaccinated”
    .
    I would say the virus can be ‘corraled’ if the overwhelming majority are either vaccinated or recovered from infection. States with a combination of high vaccination rate (over 60%) and a high rate of deaths from the period before vaccinations were available (proving widespread infections) are consistently suffering either a small or non-existent delta surge. You need only list states in order of decreasing total covid deaths to see the trend. Eliminating all infections seems as likely as eliminating all heart attacks.

  528. SteveF (Comment #204515): “States with a combination of high vaccination rate (over 60%) and a high rate of deaths from the period before vaccinations were available (proving widespread infections) are consistently suffering either a small or non-existent delta surge.”
    .
    I expect that to change come fall. The high case rate states this summer are roughly the high case rates last summer. Soon it will be time for the wave to start again in the north central states, then sweep south.
    .
    Weren’t you one of the people who confidently predicted that another summer surge was not going to happen?
    .
    I just checked: it looks like the fall wave is already starting in Wisconsin, Minnesota, North Dakota, and Montana.

  529. SteveF

    Eliminating all infections seems as likely as eliminating all heart attacks.

    Agreed. The best we can do is keep R below 1. Given the number of people who don’t want to be vaccinated (and the fact that kids below 12 can’t be yet), that’s probably not possible by vaccination.
    .
    If more people had been eager to get vaccinated maybe we’d have gotten that way by vaccination. But it looks like we’ll get there with a combination of vax and natural immunity.
    .
    We aren’t going to wipe it out. We’ll still have some infections– just mostly dying out. We’ll have boosters (like for flu.) Then if people get complacent and don’t take boosters we’ll have periodic surges– like flu. How often we need boosters and how often we have surges– who knows? Depends on what break throughs the BioPharma guys have on understanding what parts of the virus to put in vaccines, how fast this mutates and how much of the US and world get vaccinated.
    .
    Obviously, at some point, the attitude is going to be:
    1) If you don’t get vaccinated, that’s mostly on you.
    2) SOME private actors will refuse to interact or provide services to the unvaccinated. (It’s looking like a court is smiling on NCL vis a vis. Florida’s “don’t ask if you are vaxed ban”. Most states aren’t going to have these ‘don’t ask’ bans regardless of outcome anyway.)
    3) MOST private actors will interact and provide services to the unvaccinated because it’s not profitable to block them and the financial risk of serving them is negligible. ( No one is in a grocery store long enough to cause the store operator a big problem if they get sick. Even in overnight on-land hotels where people book for a week, you can just call an ambulance if someone gets sick. They’ll book those people. )
    4) Some public actors will require vaccines. ( Courts have ruled favorably on this so far. )
    5) Mostly, we’ll be back to “normal” soon because δ is seems to have a short time scale and we have quite a few people vaccinated. People are getting sick but mostly not dying.
    .
    We’ll see where the court cases go. But this is what I think will happen.

  530. Oh– Jim talked to his doctor yesterday about more protection since he too has J&J. The doctor is having him take an antibody test. If antibodies are low, he’ll get an mRNA booster. I’ve sent a note to my doctor.
    .
    This seems prudent to me, under the circumstances. There is evidence you get a bit of orthogonality in protection from different vaccines. But there could also be side-effects. So getting an antibody tests seem prudent. There is still a risk of side-effects. So we’ll see. I’ll report back.
    .
    Yes. I’m back to (likely as not useless) carageenan nasal spray. I’ve started with Xylotol sugar free gum. (Mentos). Xylotol is in testing as spray and mouth wash. It’s in overthe counter mints and gum claiming to help prevent cavaties, freshen breath and whiten teeth. So I figure that’s a no-risk possible zero gain thing to do. But it comforts me. 🙂

  531. Mike M,
    List the states in order of decreasing deaths per million population. Then consider which of those states also have relatively high vaccination rates. Minnesota is very low in deaths but pretty high in vaccinations. The Dakotas are very high in total deaths, and a bit lower in vaccinations. None of them are seeing much of a surge, though Minnesota more than the Dakotas.

  532. Mike M., I’m sticking with the Fauci “everyone should get the shot” approach. I reviewed your list. See if my analysis is accurate….

    Luc Montagnier: Impressive credentials, 80 years old and showing it, anti-vaxxer. “You see it in each country; it’s the same: The curve of vaccinations is followed by the curve of deaths.” and “the variants are the product of and result of the vaccination”

    Robert Malone: Impressive credentials, anti-vaxxer. “The [COVID-19] vaccine causes the virus to become more infectious than would happen in the absence of vaccination”; “the [viral] titers in the vaccinated are actually higher than in the unvaccinated” and from his consulting company web site: “….the inventor of mRNA vaccines and one of world’s foremost experts on messenger mRNA therapeutics – having invented the field in 1988, Dr. Malone…..” This is a stretch of the truth to say the least.

    Scott Atlas, crackpot, Trump Advisor, radiologist, not an infectious disease expert, zero credentials, Early anti-lockdown advocate, Herd immunity advocate “likelihood that only 25 or 20 percent of people need the infection,”

    Jay Bhattacharya, Impressive credentials, co-wrote the Great Barrington Declaration. The Declaration was written last year, pre-vaccine. It was an anti-lockdown treatise. It said: “Retired people living at home should have groceries and other essentials delivered to their home.” YES!
    Anti vax mandates, “It’s a medical decision that should be left to the doctor and the patient, not forced on people by the state,” Bhattacharya said. “There’s no public health reason for a mandate.”

    Byram Bridle, Ontario Veterinary College
    Impressive animal cancer credentials Claimed vaccine was toxic “Terrifying new research finds vaccine spike protein unexpectedly in [the] bloodstream. The protein is linked to blood clots, heart and brain damage”

    Peter A McCullough
    Consultant Cardiologist and Chief of the Division of Nutrition and Preventive Medicine, William Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak, Michigan, Loose cannon, A few credentials in cardiology and nutrition. No vaccine experience, Laura Ingraham guest expert, “There’s no reason right now, no clinical reason to go get vaccinated.” and this “Cardiologist sued by former employer for using its name when discussing COVID-19 with media”,

  533. Russell,

    The fact that this is a battle of credentials to you means that it’s not a battle of evidence to you.

    Which means your mind is closed.

    Andrew

  534. RUSSELL KLIER (Comment #204521): “See if my analysis is accurate”.
    .
    You asked for Fauci critics. You dismiss them on the grounds that they are Fauci critics. I suppose that your analysis is accurate if that means that you arrived at your predetermined result.
    .
    Interesting that you use “anti-vaxxer” to refer to a scientist who laid the groundwork for mRNA vaccines.

  535. AFAICT delta can sustain transmission through a vaccinated population, although at a lower rate. FL is right in the middle for vaccinated population and has the largest outbreak. Unfortunately FL doesn’t have any real numbers of vaccinated versus unvaccinated positive cases. No doubt the ratio is relatively high but probably on the order of 5:1 for symptomatic infections., and much higher for severe illness.
    .
    Anecdotal but my brother is a healthcare provider and was one of the earliest vaccinated (Pfizer, Dec?). Him and his wife just had breakthrough infections while on vacation, couldn’t get back on the plane and had to drive a rental car 2000 miles back home (or else had to wait 2 weeks).
    .
    I agree with Mike M that the rest of the country is likely to see a delta surge when it is their seasonal turn. Those with high vaccination numbers will see a smaller surge. Russell’s dream of squashing covid is not going to happen, and it’s not because of bad human behavior, we just have inadequate tools and the virus.is.winning.!!! Aim your hostility to where it belongs.
    .
    But it’s the first bout with covid that is likely possible deadly, the next exposures will be less dangerous, and one can think of vaccinations as the first bout. Things will get much better, but covid is not going away.

  536. Fauci is a government spokesman, and not a disinterested party. He has an agenda that is part science, part spokesman, and part social psychologist. He is very skilled at his job and an expert (like many in his type of position) at distorting unpreferred narratives and trying to promote preferred narratives. He will not always say what he believes because he has his marching orders. “Lying without lying” is part of the skillset of this caste.
    .
    Case in point is the drama over gain of function, Fauci and Paul are in a whizzing match over what the definition of gain of function really is, and from my reading Paul is winning that argument on the merits and Fauci is going for a gold medal in equivocation and disseminating. This doesn’t mean Fauci is wrong about most of what he says on other things, it just says he is rather defensive and emotional on this subject because it cuts to the core of his credibility and he knows his argument is weak so he pounds the table. Paul overstates his case and Fauci definitely overstates his defense.
    .
    Fauci has to be a spokesman in a highly divisive environment with a lot of uncertainty where some of his previous statements are inevitably going to be wrong. Like almost everyone in his class of experts, he overstates certainty when he thinks it serves the public interest (the noble lie). Eventually this catches up and credibility suffers, so the expert class just reloads with a new face and same plan.

  537. SteveF (Comment #204520): “None of them are seeing much of a surge, though Minnesota more than the Dakotas.”
    .
    FL, TX, MN, WI, NY all up by a factor of 8-10 over the last month, but the first two started at a higher level. NJ & ND a little behind, SD & MT just getting started.
    .
    It looks like MO, LA, MI, AL, & AR might be at or near the peak of this wave.

  538. lucia: “The best we can do is keep R below 1.”

    Yes, but keep in mind that (simplistically) there is a multiplier of
    1/(1-R) involved; that is, for each initially infectious person, there will be a total of 1/(1-R) infections. [That is, 1/(1-R) -1 = R/(1-R) additional infections.] For example, if R=0.9, there will be 9 subsequent infections for each “original” one. If R remains close to 1, each outbreak, although limited, will produce a long “tail”. I suspect there are places in the US with R>1 (likely Florida, for example), but a lot of others with R close to, but below, 1 (perhaps California).

  539. “Florida requests 300 ventilators from federal government as COVID cases keep rising
    Hospitals face ‘sheer exhaustion” …… Depressing news headline today

  540. I have read with amusement the many posts stating, with conviction, what my positions are. It’s only fair play for me to retaliate. [It’s also how I operate.] This is my understanding of the position of many here [You know who you are]: Dr. Fauci and the entire US Government medical apparatus might be wrong. Covid cannot be defeated by vaccination. SO… Let’s not even try.

  542. RUSSELL KLIER (Comment #204529): “This is my understanding of the position of many here [You know who you are]”
    .
    Speaking for myself.
    .
    “Dr. Fauci and the entire US Government medical apparatus might be wrong.”

    Absolutely. I’ll go further: Again and again they have been wrong. No reason for them to change now.
    .
    “Covid cannot be defeated by vaccination.”

    Quite likely true.
    .
    “SO… Let’s not even try.”

    An asinine statement. I don’t think anybody here has said that or anything akin to that.

  544. Russell,
    I’ve only refrained from opening fire on you, so to speak, because I’m sympathetic to the loss you and your family recently suffered due to Covid. Well, that and the fact that I don’t much like talking about Covid anyway. I will continue to refrain. Do not misconstrue my silence for agreement with any of your positions.

  545. Russell,

    FWIW: My position is that the info surrounding COVID requires that I make some judgements regarding my own health, which means I shouldn’t be forced to have chemicals I am dubious of injected into my body. If you want those injections, that’s your choice. Don’t force your beliefs about it on me.

    Andrew

  546. I don’t plan on getting vaccinated for a few years. Reasons, no FDA approval, vaccines usually have years of testing, and more importantly I figure there will be booster shots coming eventually so might as well wait.

  547. Andrew_KY wrote: “which means I shouldn’t be forced to have chemicals I am dubious of injected into my body.”
    .
    I believe the phrase you’re looking for is “my body, my choice”.

  548. MikeN (Comment #204535),Andrew_KY (Comment #204534) You choose to not cooperate with the vaccine program, and that currently is allowed. I think you should also chose to stay at home. It is the responsible way to protect the rest of us from your risky choice. I stayed home for 16 months, now it’s your turn.

  549. MikeN,
    “I figure there will be booster shots coming eventually so might as well wait.”
    .
    If you are willing to accept the personal risk of severe illness and death for someone your age while you wait, more power to ya. I think it is a mistake, but I do wish you luck. Of course, if you are 28, then it isn’t much of an issue.

  550. Russel wrote: “Florida requests 300 ventilators from federal government as COVID cases keep rising
    Hospitals face ‘sheer exhaustion” …… Depressing news headline today”
    .
    “The 2017-2018 influenza epidemic is sending people to hospitals and urgent-care centers in every state, and medical centers are responding with extraordinary measures: asking staff to work overtime, setting up triage tents, restricting friends and family visits and canceling elective surgeries, to name a few.”
    .
    In California, which has been particularly hard hit by this season’s flu, several hospitals have set up large “surge tents” outside their emergency departments to accommodate and treat flu patients. Even then, the LA Times reported this week, emergency departments had standing-room only, and some patients had to be treated in hallways.
    .
    The Lehigh Valley Health System in Allentown, Pennsylvania, set up a similar surge tent in its parking lot on Monday, in response to an increase in patients presenting with various viral illnesses, including norovirus, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) and the flu. “We’ve put it into operation a couples times now over the last few days,” said a hospital spokesperson. “I think Tuesday we saw upwards of about 40 people in the tent itself.”
    .
    Hospitals aren’t kitted out with staff and equipment to face much more than average use with wiggle room, so every time things are a lot worse than average, problems are going to arise. This happens all the time. An extra 300 ventilators. 21 million people live in Florida.

  551. Russell,
    “I stayed home for 16 months, now it’s your turn.”
    .
    I wonder if you understand how negatively that sentiment reflects upon you. If you are vaccinated and still think the risk of being in public is too high, it is YOU who should stay home. MikeN is taking a personal risk, and I think it unwise unless he is young (and so at very low risk), but his risk taking has nothing to do with you. Any more than someone who refuses the flu vaccine has anything to do with you.

  552. Russell,

    Do you really think that if 100% of the population were vaccinated that there would be zero risk of you being exposed to the virus if you went out in public? If so, then you are delusional.

    The UK with an estimated 94% of its population with SARS-CoV-2 antibodies had a population adjusted peak new case rate (seven day trailing average) on July 21, 2021 of 690 new cases/day/million. Florida currently has ~1050 new cases/day/million. That’s not all that much reduction in risk from Florida to the UK. If I were totally COVID risk averse, I would be staying home in both places.

    But if I were that risk averse, I would probably be terrified every time I had to drive or be driven in a car.

  554. Harold

    1/(1-R) involved; that is, for each initially infectious person, t

    That’s R0 not Rt.
    And if you apply the rule, you count all immune as “recovered” in an SEIR model to find the herd immunity threshold.
    .
    Yes. We’d like Rt to be well below 1. But 1 is the threshold for deeming us to have corralled the virus to some extent.

  555. Russell,

    I think you should also chose to stay at home. It is the responsible way to protect the rest of us from your risky choice. I stayed home for 16 months, now it’s your turn.

    I’m vaccinated. But honestly, I think you should stay home if you fear infection. You don’t get to assign people the job of protecting you. Yes. I know you are tired of being at home. But it’s your fear, it’s your life and so on.
    YOU stay home.

  556. Quick look at wikipedia stats would suggest driving risk in USA amounts to 0.3 deaths /day/million. Covid running 1.5 deaths/day/million, down from a average of 3 over entire span of pandemic.

    I suspect the risk difference would be substantially different for over 65.

  557. lucia (Comment #204545): “We’d like Rt to be well below 1. But 1 is the threshold for deeming us to have corralled the virus to some extent.”
    .
    Rt has been under unity multiple times in both the USA and individual states. It seems the Wuhan virus has a knack for escaping corrals.

  558. I take that back. Not substatially different. 0.4/day/million for driving deaths of over 65s against 2.1 for covid (july month figures). So Covid has 5x the risk of driving.

  559. Phil, for the vaccinated, the covid risk is reduced by somewhere near 95%….. so for vaccinated people, driving is probably comparable or greater in risk. I am normally terrified when I get in my car…… no, I am joking.

  560. SteveF, is 28 the cutoff age of risk of vaccine vs risk of infection?
    I figured it was much higher around 50-60.

  561. MikeM

    It seems the Wuhan virus has a knack for escaping corrals.

    One problem is problem is SEIR is a model. That model assumes Ro is a constant. That’s not really true. It actually depends on weather, behavior, and changes in the pathogen.
    .
    It remains generally true that if Rt<1 instantaneously, the virus is corralled for that period. We would obviously need it to stay there. Vaccination can potentially do that. Alternatively, natural immunity can for a while. Vaccination can do it with less death and illness and you can potentially get well below 1 and stay there if people continue to keep vigilant about watching for the need for boosters and population changes still getting vaccinated.
    .

  562. MikeN

    SteveF, is 28 the cutoff age of risk of vaccine vs risk of infection?
    I figured it was much higher around 50-60.

    I don’t think there is a bright line. I suspect it’s closer to 30 than 50. The vaccines have very few side effects.

  563. Risk of infection isn’t very meaningful if it doesn’t progress, it’s the risk of severe illness that matters.
    .
    Nobody cares about getting “infected” by a cold and that is where covid may be heading eventually we could hope. I imagine a current 10 year old’s twentieth exposure to covid by 2060 isn’t going to be very meaningful. Sucks for us in 2021 though. One doctor commented that the common cold would also be a pandemic if it was released on an unexposed world now.
    .
    The severe illness risk has to be balanced against the risk of the vaccine which is highly favorable for the vaccine given current data. What cannot be easily assessed is the future long term risk of the vaccine. That still seems pretty small in the grand scheme, but not to be dismissed out of hand.
    .
    One way to gauge the risk is compare death rates relative to the flu. I think under the age of 12 the flu is more dangerous than covid.

  564. Tom Scharf

    What cannot be easily assessed is the future long term risk of the vaccine.

    Nor Covid. Every known and unknown long term risk people worry about with the vaccine exists with an actual case of Covid.

  565. It’s also worth recognizing that if you don’t get the vaccine, with the δ variant, you will probably get a case of Covid. It could be mild; it could be medium. It could be severe. If you are young and fit, the lower range is more likely. If you are old, fat and out of shape, more severe range is more likely.
    .
    Kids may get it now, or they may get it later. We don’t know.

  566. Phil Scadden,

    I doubt that the risk of dying from COVID is 5x that of driving if you have either been vaccinated or have infection acquired immunity from before (or after) vaccines were available. The current death rate is biased upward by the unvaccinated.

  567. R needs to be assessed at it’s peak seasonality if you want to talk about keeping covid permanently suppressed. Since this is not well understood it is pretty difficult. What is clear is that R seems to change rather dramatically by season, environmental conditions, etc. The magnitude of this environmental change appears to be much greater than current interventions such as masks or partial lockdowns can suppress.
    .
    For example there was a large step change in mask wearing a couple months ago, and nothing really happened. A month or two later we have an explosion of covid caused by other factors. (And I would add that mask evangelists are not likely to study this very closely because they know what the answer will be).

  568. I don’t want to go turbo Negative Nancy here, but a world where we are all very likely to get covid over the next 10 years may be a real possibility. It’s like saying I never want to get a cold or a runny nose. The repeated exposures will make this a non-factor as long as it doesn’t mutate to something very unfortunate. Most people just don’t get the flu, even from people in the same house, but almost everyone has had the flu. You do not want your first exposure to the flu to be when you are 75 years old.
    .
    Survive your first exposure and you are good to go, and the vaccine ups those odds a lot. If you are young those chances of survival are very high either way.
    .
    Tom has progressed to stage 7, acceptance, ha ha.

  569. MikeN,
    I have never seen convincing data to say were vaccine risk outweighs covid risk. The FDA places it at 12 years old, but I suspect that may be a sop to the teachers’ unions. Truth is that across all age groups, the risk of death rises by about a factor of almost 3 per decade of age. The average 80 year old is probably at 1000 times the risk of a teenager. In the first 52,000 confirmed covid cases in Florida (about 2,000 deaths) the youngest person who died was 26; IIRC, the total number under 30 who died was three. Based on the Florida data, I estimated my risk of death at age 70 (from a symptomatic illness) was near 6%. If that is right, then the risk falls to about 2% at 60, and about 0.66% at age 50. If I were 20 and aware of the statistics, I probably wouldn’t be very highly motivated to get the vaccine unless I was living with someone at risk.

  570. Tom Scharf,
    “we are all very likely to get covid over the next 10 years may be a real possibility.”
    .
    Don’t tell Russell.

  571. DeWitt – I agree. Data clearly showing that vaccinated have much reduced chance of dying, even worst case figures would put it well below driving risk. Sorry, I missed that nuance in the discussion.

  572. Lucia, I’m not worried about the side effects of the vaccine as reported, but possible long term effects. It is reasonable for hihger ages to do so because of covid risk.
    Long term covid is also unknown so there is a risk there as well.

  573. Here is some limited data on breakthrough infections, hospitalizations, and deaths:
    https://healthy-skeptic.com/2021/08/10/reinfections-breakthrough-infections/
    .
    Data from Dallas show that among the vaccinated, almost 60% of hospital admissions are “with” the virus but not because of it. Sparse data from last fall indicated that about 30% of admissions were with but not because of. Taking that as an indication of the ratio of infections to hospitalizations, it suggests that vaccination reduces the risk of hospitalization by around 70% for those who get infected.
    .
    Data for Oklahoma indicate that 6-7% of cases are among the vaccinated, with half the population vaccinated. That would indicate that vaccination reduces chances of infection by over 90%. But it would be lower if the ratio of infections to cases is higher for the vaccinated.
    .
    OK also has the vaccinated being 24% of those hospitalized. That would seem to indicate that vaccination produces a reduction of only about 70% in hospitalization. If I assume 70% of the unvaxed and 40% of the vaxed hospitalized because of the virus, then the effectiveness goes up over 80%. The same assumption would give 40% of hospitalizations “with” covid being among the vaccinated.
    .
    I am really just thinking out load. It is very confusing.

  575. educes the risk of hospitalization by around 70% for those who get infected.

    Only? Even that’s a lot. I would gladly take the vax for a reduction of 25%.

  576. Mike M,
    “I am really just thinking out load. It is very confusing.”
    .
    Part of the confusion is helter-skelter reporting by the MSM in place of accurate national data gathered by the CDC, or at a minimum accurate data gathered by the individual states. It is to me absolutely astounding the CDC is not carefully keeping track of the number of cases/hospitalizations/deaths among vaccinated and unvaccinated groups versus age. It is almost like they prefer to name-and-shame people who have not been vaccinated rather than to convince them with clear data it is in the individual’s best interest to get a vaccination. The CDC simply isn’t doing its job.

  577. SteveF

    It is to me absolutely astounding the CDC is not carefully keeping track of the number of cases/hospitalizations/deaths among vaccinated and unvaccinated groups versus age.

    Me too! We all really need the information about vaccine effectiveness.
    .
    We get interviews of personnel at hospitals– who often don’t individually have that information. We know total vaccination rates. We have broad demographics of who takes them. We have some state by state information which strongly suggests the vaccines are working.
    .
    But they don’t seem to be asking or tallying whether people who are “cases”, “hospitalized”, “dead” were vaccinated. The public actually needs those. And outreach to encourage vaccines would benefit from that.

  578. The reason I bothered with the confusing data in Comment #204565 is that I am thirsty for anything resembling real data and I figured that others here might share that thirst.
    .
    The FDA gave an EUA for a medication that they knew would be given to hundreds of millions of people. They have never done anything like that before. It was grossly irresponsible for them and the CDC to not set up a decent reporting system to see how well it is working.
    .
    It is not like it would have been hard. An enormous amount of valuable information could have been obtained by the simple expedient of collecting and reporting vax status for people getting PCR tests. Reporting should also include age and the reason for the test: required for work, part of hospital admission procedure, patient/doctor concern, etc.
    .
    Also, hospital admissions should be broken down into people in good health (such as those admitted for elective procedures or due to accidents), non-covid health problem (stroke, cancer, etc.), and treatment for covid. Of course, they should have been doing that for at least the last year.
    .
    With such data we would know the relative incidence of illness among the vaccinated and unvaccinated, the relative tendencies to seek testing, and the relative risks of severe illness and death.
    .
    But no, they can’t be bothered. Much easier to impose trillions of dollars of costs and destroy millions of lives.

  579. lucia (Comment #204568): “Only? Even that’s a lot.”
    .
    70% is a lot if you are at high risk. But it drastically changes the vaccine risk/reward calculation for those at low risk. It would add about a decade to the breakeven age; e.g. MikeN (Comment #204560).

  580. Tom Scharf (Comment #204559): “I don’t want to go turbo Negative Nancy here, but a world where we are all very likely to get covid over the next 10 years may be a real possibility.”
    .
    Indeed. Let’s say that vaccination reduces your chances of infection by 80%. What does that mean? At one extreme, it could mean that 20% will be unprotected and the other 80% are safe. At the other extreme, it could mean that any given exposure has an 80% lower risk of infection. In that case, the vaccine does not actually reduce your chances of getting infected; it just spreads the risk out over a longer time.
    .
    If we are all eventually going to get infected, then what matters is whether the vaccine reduces the chances of hospitalization and death when we get infected (not if). The data I have seen indicates about a 10% chance of hospitalization and a 1% chance of death for the vaccinated who get infected. Not good. Not good at all.
    .
    I am pretty sure those numbers are very misleading for two reasons. One is mixing together people who are hospitalized or die “with” the virus and “from” the virus. The other is a likely massive undercounting of infections among the vaccinated.
    .
    But we should not have to guess. We should know.
    .
    Defund the CDC.

  581. MikeM,
    Of course the risk/reward calculation changes with the %protection. That affects reward.
    .
    I don’t think we have sufficient information that allows us to compute the appropriate “break even” age. The appropriate value is not based merely on death. Living a lifetime with symptoms from having sustained a severe disease is negative. Long Covid at a young age continuuing would be horrible. Transmitting a disease to someone you love is also horrible.
    .
    So I think everyone’s risk/reward calculation is mostly based on “gut feeling”. You can dress it up, but you don’t have the real info.
    .
    I agree that if I were 20, I likely would not be as strongly motivated to immediately get the vaccine for myself. If I could do it, my calculation would include facing my increased risk of Covid this year, next year, the following year and so on all associated with not taking the vaccine. Of course, this would be offset by my thinking booster will likely be required.
    .
    We don’t have good numbers to assign to most of the “risks” or the “rewards”. There are too many “unknown-unknows” in both categories.
    .
    For me, I’d rather not get sick even if I don’t die. I think even if I were 20 I’d probably get vaccinated. Among other things, getting sick for 2 weeks during midterms at school is stupendously inconvenient. People forget how little control students have of schedules. They think they are “busy” when they are older, but you are rarely in a situation where you missed 2 weeks and you somehow suddenly have to catch up on material on your own and racing toward finals week. (And no, an incomplete doesn’t help much. You now have almost no study partners, resources are much less available and yada, yada, yada. People sympathize, but that doesn’t create the resources.)
    .
    But I don’t think 20 year old’s not getting it are insane. I think 30 year olds are mostly highly imprudent not to get the vax. 40 and not taking it? You’re likely borderline nutso. But of course, your calculation can differ.
    .
    My dance teacher is about 29. He hasn’t gotten vaccinated. I think he’s imprudent but not nuts. I think some of his concerns are very unreallistic.
    .
    I also note he’s from the Ukraine.
    .
    Most the Eastern European dance instructors seem somewhat to strongly anti-vax. (One of the other dance instructors is really, really, really antivax and very vocal. He’s much more vocal than any pro-vaxxer I know! Eyerolls at the whole idea of anything protective of Covid! Vax? Eyeroll. Mask? Eyeroll? Distancing? Eyeroll? Mine teacher isn’t in the “eyeroll” category, but the outcome is the similar– he’s not vaxxed. But he doesn’t roll his eyes at masks or lecture people they shouldn’t get vaxxed.)
    .
    Even if I were young, knowing they aren’t getting vaxxed, I would be very inclined to do so. It would be that or no lessons for sure. Due to higher potential for exposure, I’d feel the need to do something to reduce chance of illness, and vax would be preferable to not dancing.
    .
    Employers seem to be starting to require vaccines. I”m betting J&J is going to benefit from that. You get one shot, paperwork says you are done in 2 weeks. Your company will now relax any behavior mandates. If you have no job currently, you have more opportunities to be hired.
    .
    It was bound to happen. I never objected. I know some of you do.

  582. Lucia,
    I think a reasonably strong case can be made for requiring vaccinations of public facing employees, and especially in businesses like restaurants, where bad PR could damage the business and even lawsuits are possible. Non public facing employees? Not so much. The people who work for my (smallish) company have zero contact with customers and suppliers, and most are either vaccinated, already had covid (they were out sick a few days), or are pretty young. I would just never consider it necessary to try to force those employees to get vaccinated.

  583. Employers seem to be starting to require vaccines. I”m betting J&J is going to benefit from that. You get one shot, paperwork says you are done in 2 weeks. Your company will now relax any behavior mandates.

    Lucia, you assume companies are rational actors that value the goodwill of their employees. Some are like that of course, others not so much. I doubt the guys I’m contracting with now will relax the mask mandate under any circumstances. There’s only risk and no reward they care about down that path.
    [Edit: under any reasonably probable near term circumstances is what I meant by any circumstances of course]

  584. But personally I’d prefer that. I’ve been vaccinated. I’d love it if I didn’t have to wear a mask in the office anymore.

  585. mark bofill (Comment #204577): “There’s only risk and no reward they care about down that path.”
    .
    That is an excellent reason for why employers should not be allowed to make health decisions for their employees.
    .
    Maybe there is a way to balance that. If an employer pressures an employee to get vaccinated and the employee is harmed by the vaccine, then the employee should be allowed to sue the employer. For megabucks, if the harm is great.

  586. For the week ending July 19, New York state reported 1.9 covid hospitalizations per million population among the vaccinated, and 12.5 hospitalizations per million population among the unvaccinated. That suggests a risk of hospitalization for vaccinated people that is 15% as large as for the unvaccinated. But it is a lot more complicated than that: the vaccinated population is *much* older on average than the unvaccinated population, so breakthrough cases will automatically have a higher risk of severe illness than unvaccinated cases. The data with no age adjustment is close to meaningless. We need good age adjusted data to know vaccine efficacy, and nobody is providing it.
    .
    The CDC claims it has recently provided hospitals with “guidance” on collecting accurate data about covid breakthrough cases. Buy why was this guidance not issued in December 2020? The CDC is run by incompetent nincompoops.

  587. SteveF,
    The CDC isn’t a complete mess, they are tracking some things very well and it is very accessible. Variant tracking is also done (not as good as the UK).
    .
    COVID-19 Vaccine Breakthrough Case Investigation and Reporting
    https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/covid-19/health-departments/breakthrough-cases.html
    .
    The data could be better presented, relative risk to the unvaccinated takes more work. Some things like the efficacy of masks are a complete mess.
    .
    The CDC recently reported that 21% of covid deaths are unrelated to covid, this number is consistent with the UK. So there is a floor to deaths.

  588. SteveF,
    I mostly agree with you on the public facing vs. non-public facing with some caveats. I can understand why Tyson would prefer vaccinated employees. While those employees are not public facing, there is an issue of crowding. An employer would likely want to balance the risk of costs due to absenteeism, plant shut down and slow down.
    .
    But I would imagine your company working conditions are quite different from those at Tyson. (I know papermills are. TONS of space around employees there. The have bicycles in large papermills so a single employee can access the beginning and end of the paper machine!). It likely doesn’t make sense for you force employees to get vaccinated.
    .
    It sounds like Amazon is going to require vaccination. I don’t actually know the level of crowding inside an Amazon distribution center. I can’t say if they are going overboard or not.

  590. Tom

    Lucia, you assume companies are rational actors that value the goodwill of their employees. Some are like that of course, others not so much.

    No. I don’t. I agree with you here. Mostly, I assume companies are very concerned with their bottom line. Some people in companies value the goodwill of their employees and customers. (Sometimes this is only because it affects the bottom line!)
    .
    I also think some companies will lean too heavily toward vaccinations, and some not heavily enough. I just think generally private companies should have as much a right to make employment decisions and decisions about working conditions as individual employees. Same for companies vs. customers. There will be mistakes made by many–including companies, employees and customers.
    .
    It looks like many companies that do ‘require’ vaccination aren’t necessarily totally requiring it. Some are providing alternatives for those who don’t get vaccinated. They may need to mask. They may need to be tested regularly. That’s inconvenient. But I don’t see it as some sort of horrible infringement on someones right to bodily integrity, religious freedom and etc.

  591. MikeM

    That is an excellent reason for why employers should not be allowed to make health decisions for their employees.

    But requiring vaccines isn’t making the employees health decision. It’s making an employment decision.
    .
    A company could similarly decide people in job “X” need certification “Y” or to pass training. Or to meet a sales quota. I had a dance-acquaintance accept then quit a job at Nordstrom’s because she was shocked, shocked to learn the job that paid commissions for sales had a quota you had to meet to earn commissions!! She was even more shocked to discover the established employees didn’t share their lists of established customers so she could call them with her suggestions! No team work! The Horror! ( I knew her background and so on. When she got the job in July, I told Jim I predicted she’d last about a month. She lasted a month and 5 days!)
    .
    It’s a pain to change jobs because you don’t agree with conditions, but it’s still an employment decision.
    .
    I know someone who quit her job over the vax mandate. She’s quit lots of other jobs before. I’ve known her about 5 years. I think she’s gone through 8 jobs in that time! Her decisions are employment decisions.

  592. Mike M,
    I think the important metric for a world where covid goes endemic like the flu and cold is the relative risk of severe illness upon your first exposure to covid. The vaccinated have 85% to 90% better odds here and this makes it very valuable.

  593. equiring vaccines isn’t making the employees health decision. It’s making an employment decision.

    Yes. If a company pisses me off enough with what I consider to be irrational requirements, I won’t work for them. So far, the money is worth the nonsense imposed. There is a theoretical point where I’d tell them to go fish that hasn’t been reached.

  594. I’m all for private company autonomy … but companies should not be allowed to force a drug into you that is under EUA. I can’t say that strongly enough. That is crazy. If the FDA hasn’t decided it is safe, then I cannot see this passing muster. The FDA needs to act here.

  595. Tom Scharf,
    I think that’s exactly correct: Vaccination reduces your risk of severe illness. It likely reduced the level relative to what you would have had in most cases. This is going to be endemic for a long time. If you don’t get vaccinated, you’ll almost certainly face it without any humoral immunity in place. I think self protection and not protection of “others” should be the main message.
    .
    That said, a friend from high school linked to this paper on substack (which I can get to)

    https://yourlocalepidemiologist.substack.com/p/latest-and-greatest-on-delta-among?justPublished=true

    That article lines to a preprint: https://spiral.imperial.ac.uk/bitstream/10044/1/90800/2/react1_r13_final_preprint_final.pdf (which I haven’t read.)

    The substack article shows a plot of Ct measurements of viral load as a function of time in the infected. It suggest that while the infected vaccinated hit the same peak viral load their viral load generally drops much more quickly. So they would be expected to be infectious for a much shorter period of time. That would tend to reduce Rt in a population. So the effect would still be to reduce spread, which is helpful. (Of course, there are issues with Ct measurements. But still: suggestive.)

  596. Tom

    but companies should not be allowed to force a drug into you that is under EUA.

    But they aren’t forcing it. You have a choice. It might be an expensive one.
    .
    The courts are seeing this as a choice– they did in the TX hospital case. They see it in the Univesity of Indiana case.

    If the FDA hasn’t decided it is safe, then I cannot see this passing muster. The FDA needs to act here.

    I agree the FDA should decree it safe instead of dilly dallying. Of course, the anti-vaxers actually prefer the FDA not decree it safe! 🙂

  597. Tom Scharf (Comment #204587): “I think the important metric for a world where covid goes endemic like the flu and cold is the relative risk of severe illness upon your first exposure to covid.”
    .
    I agree. I thought I said that, but I guess not clearly. And certainly not so succinctly.
    .
    Tom Scharf: “The vaccinated have 85% to 90% better odds here and this makes it very valuable.”
    .
    What is your basis for that? I hope it is true. I think it is probably true. But I have not seen any data to support that.
    .
    Note: My reason for thinking it probably true is because the vaccine does not produce much of a response in terms of mucosal antibodies. So even if lucia agrees with my assessment, I don’t think she’d agree with my reason.

  598. Fresh U.K. Covid-19 Data Boosts Hopes That Delta Variant Can Be Held in Check
    High vaccination rates seen as critical, along with evidence of public caution
    https://www.wsj.com/articles/fresh-u-k-covid-19-data-boosts-hopes-that-delta-variant-can-be-held-in-check-11628674201
    .
    “Between 90% and 94% of British adults have some degree of immunity to coronavirus from full or partial vaccination, or prior infection, the U.K. statistics office estimates, based on statistical analysis of blood samples. That is almost certainly playing a big role in keeping a lid on cases and ensuring subdued hospital admissions and deaths, say scientists, though school holidays, warm weather and other factors are also pushing against transmission.”
    .
    I think the headline here is very misleading, the high immunity numbers for adults and sustained outbreak are a disaster for vaccine evangelists who have been selling covid zero. I have no idea why they can’t see that, the case rates are about 50% of the peak level now. How could that possibly be happening? The very low UK death rate may be a function of repeated symptomatic exposures. That’s great news, but it means we are well into Plan B territory.
    .
    Negative Nancy says we aren’t out of this severe illness wise until almost everyone is vaccinated or infected, look at those antibody numbers! Competent.Data.Gathering. Ninety,Four,Percent. Sustained.Transmission. You can’t polish that turd. For those who are unvaccinated, I don’t see them getting out of this without being eventually infected in the next few years. Prime your immune system for that eventuality.

  599. lucia (Comment #204592): “I agree the FDA should decree it safe instead of dilly dallying. Of course, the anti-vaxers actually prefer the FDA not decree it safe!”
    .
    That is why full FDA approval will have no effect on the vaccine hesitant.
    .
    At this point, there is no way to be confident that FDA approval will not be down to political pressure. Unless, of course, you believe everything the authorities tell you, in which case you are already vaccinated.

  600. Mike M,
    For the Israeli article:
    “As of August 8, the ministry recorded 85.6 severe COVID-19 cases per 100,000 people among the unvaccinated over the age of 60, compared to 16.3 per 100,000 people among the fully vaccinated. This makes the unvaccinated elderly more than five times as likely to experience a severe case than their immunized counterparts.

    For those under the age of 60, the rate of severe illness among the unvaccinated stood at 1.4 cases per 100,000 people – 2.8 times more than the 0.5 per 100,000 among those who received two doses of the vaccine.”

  601. There are some subtleties in the legal question, EUA is one, and requiring vaccination after being hired is another. Making it a condition of employment after hiring is a different ballgame. I think they would need to (or should) compensate those who decline that condition and go elsewhere. Some places are allowing a choice between vaccination and routine testing which is also acceptable. I am obviously pro-vax, but effectively forcing vaccinations upon citizens needs a much higher bar, “clear and convincing” versus “preponderance of the evidence”. It is arguable we are already there but I think FDA full approval is a required precondition. Presenting evidence you have been previously infected should also be OK.
    .
    The timing is also late. Making this mandatory after delta has burned through your region and you reach UK type antibody numbers is a moot point.

  602. MikeM

    Note: My reason for thinking it probably true is because the vaccine does not produce much of a response in terms of mucosal antibodies. So even if lucia agrees with my assessment, I don’t think she’d agree with my reason.

    I’m not sure which part you think I disagree with.

    (1) It appears the vaccinated have 85% to 90% relative risk of severe illness. That number might not be correct, but it’s what the data on hospitalizations and death’s seem to be showing. (We all agree we aren’t getting what we need to be sure. If your objection is to the numerical value, I think we all agree it’s not firm.)

    (2) I don’t disagree that the vaccines may not give mucosal immunity. They might not. My position is “so what?” Regardless of whether immunity is only humeral or both humeral and mucosal, the vaccines are giving better odds of escaping severe illness on first infection. And the vax fails to grant mucosal illness and you catch it in your nose, your own mucosal lining should create mucosal immunity on your first exposure to natural covid. There’s nothing about the vaccine that ought to prevent that. So after that, you have both. The population effect is for people to not become severely ill on first exposure but for immunity to build just the same.
    .
    I simply disagree with the notion that a vaccine that would produce only humeral response and no mucosal response makes anything “worse” in anyway or that it leads to faster creation of variants and any other parade of horribles that some people seem to want to dream up.
    .
    The arguments are simply not plausible and leave out the obvious counter arguments: Among them that those who get the light infection will develop the absent mucosal response same as if they got severely ill. And that the person who got this is a virus factory for a smaller amount of time. And that if there is no mucosal immunity, there is no reason why the lack of mucosal immunity will result in biological pressure for immunity escaping variants. Because there can be no pressure to escape nasal immunity that doesn’t exist! Mutation happens with our without vaccines. Mutations that become more contageous have positive selection pressure with or without vaccines and with our without immunity. Evolutionary pressure to escape immunity happens with or without vaccines. There is simply nothing in the “vaccine” path that would tend to make anything ‘worse’.
    .
    Beyond that, none of the alternatives — even if they work– would stop the hypothetical parade of horribles. I mean… even if Ivermectin ‘works’ some amount, no one is claiming it’s 100% effective. Those studies that exist have not even explored whether those protected might can’t spread Covid. Maybe they all get light nasal infections too and breath Covid over everyone else too.
    .
    Certainly those who get sick despite the Ivermectin still become virus factories and spread. Presumably, they tend to spread the Ivermectin resistant strains. (This might be all of them if it doesn’t work at all. So there is no pressure to evade because there is nothing to evade!)
    .
    Theories that ‘other’ non-vax methods are somehow robust against the highly speculative flaws vaccines might have seem very poorly thought out. Every single supposed “flaw” in the vaccine has it’s analog in the     other method someone is trying to promote. (And the other method generally has additoinal ones– like more people die.)
    .
    So even with the anti-vax preference of ivermectin, we would still have the same darn evolutionary pressure to get around something. The same goes with everything that is not 100% effective and fully cleansing.
    .

  603. Tom Scharf,
    “The data could be better presented, relative risk to the unvaccinated takes more work.”
    .
    You are very kind to the CDC. I can’t begin to estimate the relative risk the unvaccinated and the vaccinated face based on the CDC information. The CDC can issue a detailed, nationwide mandate prohibiting eviction for lack of payment of rent, but can’t find the time to work with a representative selection of hospitals to generate age weighted data on the risk of breakthrough cases? IMO, that is not doing their jobs.

  604. Lucia,
    “But requiring vaccines isn’t making the employees health decision. It’s making an employment decision.”
    .
    That seems a stretch for me. If an employer were using vaccination status as a criteria for hiring, that would be perfectly OK. But this is a “do it or get fired” choice for an existing employee, and I am certain the employers didn’t tell the prospective employee of any vaccination requirement before starting work. I suspect that if companies had contracts for all employees (most don’t, but more should I think) the contracts wouldn’t say, ‘we can tell you to get any kind of injection into your body we want, or we can fire you’.
    .
    This is for me a close legal and ethical call, and dependent on the specific situation. It is not at all a slam dunk for employers. I think that if it had been adjudicated *before* a huge pandemic hit, the legal outcome might have been very different.

  605. Steve,
    I don’t know. At will employment seems pretty consistent with get vaccinated or get fired. I’d object to the ‘we can tell you to get any kind of injection’ characterization – that could be construed to violate an implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing. It’s not clear that requiring a vaccination during a pandemic would similarly violate that covenant.
    But maybe.

  606. Tom Scharf (Comment #204596),

    Yes, rates of hospitalization and deaths are lower for the vaccinated. But is that because they are less likely per unit time to get infected or less likely to get really ill when infected? If it is the former and we all eventually get infected, then there will be little benefit. If the latter, then the benefit is clear. I hope it is the latter. I think there are good reasons to expect it is the latter. But I have not seen any clear evidence that it is in fact the latter.

  607. STeveF

    That seems a stretch for me. If an employer were using vaccination status as a criteria for hiring, that would be perfectly OK. But this is a “do it or get fired” choice for an existing employee, and I am certain the employers didn’t tell the prospective employee of any vaccination requirement before starting work.

    Generally, the policies I’ve been reading aren’t “do it or get fired”. For existing employees, it’s “do it or mask and get tested”. For new hires it’s a requirement to be hired.
    .
    This may vary from company to company. But some companies do create new and change old requirements after hiring. It happens. Some companies have instituted non-competes for existing employees. Some companies change remuneration practices especially for commissioned people. The latter happened to my Dad in one job. These things happen and it’s not unique to vaccination.
    .

    I think that if it had been adjudicated *before* a huge pandemic hit, the legal outcome might have been very different.

    Might? Sure. But changing some employment rules aren’t unique to vaccines. It would likely depend on existing contracts and employee handbooks. But employment rules can be changed. Absent contracts- especially ones with a union–companies can institute uniforms, eliminate them. They can provide perks, eliminate them. They can change health benefit plans and make all sorts of material changes that employees weren’t specifically told before starting.
    .
    They often grandfather for existing employees, or give more flexibility for existing employees. If not, they might be stunned by the sudden turnover and have a worker shortage. But that’s not the same as not doing it because it’s not permitted.
    .
    Having an rational basis for the change only makes the companies position stronger. In law “rational basis” doesn’t mean being right or preponderance of the evidence. You just have to be able to explain the reasoning and link it to something. It can be as simple as “We want our company culture to be XYZ but not W”.

  608. SteveF (Comment #204599): “I can’t begin to estimate the relative risk the unvaccinated and the vaccinated face based on the CDC information.”
    .
    Indeed. the CDC page reads as if written to support a desired conclusion and gives few data tidbits in support of the argument. But the few numbers given lack the context needed to decide if they actually do support the conclusion. It reads like they included numbers because that makes it look sciencey and figured that would satisfy most people, i.e. the functionally innumerate.

  609. MikeM

    But is that because they are less likely per unit time to get infected or less likely to get really ill when infected? If it is the former and we all eventually get infected, then there will be little benefit.

    You’ve left out “less likely to be infected at all” which is better. Your theory of lack of nasal immunity while having humoral strongly suggests “less likely to get really ill” while infected.
    .
    The mechanism for “less likely per unit time” with the same overall likelihood on integration over all time to ∞” would seem to require vaccines to become less effective over time. But if vaccine immunity becmes less effective over time, one would expect the same or similar for natural immunity. And with monitoring, on the vaccine path we should be able to detect the drop in immunity and get boosters. In the natural path and non-durable immunity (for whatever reason), we also just get sick again and possibly with the same bad outcome. But on the non-vax path we have no other option than to just endure the outcome.
    .
    What if boosters fail? Well, we are back on the no-vaccine path. It looked less good, but we aren’t     worse off. So I’m not seeing how the vaccine -monitor- booster path doesn’t end up better off.
    .
    And the anti-vax argument can’t be limited to we ware frozen in time with only the current vaccines. There is lots of work underway. Many remedies to your hypotheticals about vaccines are being developed and explored. Nasal vaccines are being tested. Human trials are underway in Thailand: https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/thailand-start-human-trials-covid-19-shots-via-nasal-spray-2021-08-11/ Israeli’s are working on a pill form: https://www.labiotech.eu/trends-news/oral-nasal-covid-19-vaccine/ The hope is it will create antigens against a broader range of variants. The article lists 10 vaccines under development that would be delivered internasally or orally and have a potential for either intestinal or nasal mucosal immunity– which are evidently separate. And all are working on better understanding for broader immunity.
    .
    Just being protected better per unit time is just fine if these additional vaccines are developed and give you some protection orthagonal to what you got from the current injectables. You survive and then get the next vax before getting seriously ill. Then you never get seriously ill. That’s a good thing.
    .
    You don’t get to make the outcome “worse” on the vax path by insisting that for some reason treatments don’t exist on the vax path but magically do on the non-vax path. Treatments are being worked on regardless of whether we take the vax or non-vax path. It may turn out we don’t need them on the vax path, but that would be a good thing. Whether we need them or not, are standards for testing safety and efficaccy just as there are standards for vaccine testing.
    .
    Also, in the end: Getting a shot isn’t like having your balls chopped off which few men want to undergo and is at best two chops and done because they don’t grow back.
    You can keep getting shots. People taking insulin take shots every day.
    .
    You need to ask “If hypothetical X happens on the vaccine path, then what can we put on the path” instead of “If hypothetical X happens, then it’s all over!”. You also need to ask “If hypothetical the exact same X happens on the non-vaccine path, what would we do?”
    .
    If you don’t ask the same question for Vac vs non-Vax path, you need to explain why you aren’t subjecting both to the same hypothetical.
    .
    Generally speaking, the Vax path wins because it does some good right now and retains options. The no-Vax path is just the no-vax path. We get worse outcomes now and every negative hypothetical on the vac path exists on the no-Vax path. The no-Vax path gives us almost options other than “continue enduring all the horribles”.

  610. Mike M,
    You bring up a good point, but I’m not sure how we can define “infected” very easily for the purposes of this discussion. I think I would use the word “exposed” to covid. Exposed to enough covid that it got into your system and started multiplying so your immune system had to suppress it and subsequently developed some (perhaps additional) immunity. Clearly that number is not the same as counted cases, and with the vaccinated it might be vastly undercounted if their infections are mostly mild.
    .
    Symptomatic infections are more common with delta (79% efficacy Pfizer, 60% efficacy AZ)
    https://www.bmj.com/content/374/bmj.n1960
    “But Riley points out that the PHE data to date are consistent with estimates that suggest—despite these drops in efficacy—vaccines in use in the UK (Pfizer BioNtech, AstraZeneca, and Moderna) all reduce the risk of death by more than 85%, regardless of variant.”
    .
    My reading so far is that the vaccines are very protective of you not getting to the hospital with a severe illness after first exposure, but it’s less clear if you do get a severe illness if you are better off than the unvaccinated at that point.

  611. Lucia,
    “But changing some employment rules aren’t unique to vaccines.”
    .
    Sure, employers often change benefits, pay, hours, and work conditions all the time; they even lay people off when business justifies it. So long as these steps are reasonable, they usually pass muster with courts…. though changing retirement benefits is more tightly regulated and closely reviewed.
    .
    But forcing or coercing someone to get an injection is qualitatively different, and I think should be very closely scrutinized by courts. Should someone who gets violently ill from a flu vaccination, as I did, be forced to get a flu vaccination as a condition of continued employment? I very much doubt that would fly in most courts. I think the covid pandemic has (unfortunately) distorted and damaged the long established balance between personal liberty and perceived social benefits. I hope this distortion doesn’t become a permanent fixture, but I have my doubts. As someone once said, those who would trade liberty for security may end up with neither.

  612. WSJ: “This year the IPCC acknowledged those concerns, calling the likelihood of RCP 8.5 low.

    Roger Pielke Jr. of the University of Colorado Boulder, one of those scholars, said the IPCC still gives RCP 8.5 disproportionate attention, but added: “The scarier…extreme scenarios are less plausible than we once thought they were. That fact alone should be cause for a little bit of optimism.””
    .
    “James Glynn, a scholar at Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy, credits this increased confidence to advances in the science of attributing weather events to temperature. ”
    .
    This is still circular reasoning. Using models that are known to predict more extreme weather to verify attribution just isn’t valid. Backwards looking attribution is mostly a marketing exercise, try predicting future outcomes with accuracy first.

  613. SteveF

    Should someone who gets violently ill from a flu vaccination, as I did, be forced to get a flu vaccination as a condition of continued employment? I very much doubt that would fly in most courts.

    I do think reasonable medical exemptions are warranted.
    .
    But many people want the rule to be that vaccines can’t be required merely because they don’t wish to be vaccinated. Or they assess the hypothetical unknown future risk as “high” and think that assessment should overwhelm an employers economic risk of financial loss due to shut downs as a result of absenteeism.

    For some jobs leaving the choice entirely up to the employees is simply unreasonable. For others jobs, there should be flexibility similar to religious exemptions: the employee might need to be given reasonable accommodations to do their work. If there are no possible reasonable accomodation, then the employee may not be able to keep that job. (So for example, if a disease is contageous and ER physician or nurse who refuses to get vaccinated and refuses frequent testing, they can’t really be given work in the ER even if their have a health or religious objection. This might also hold for jailers. Similar )
    .
    A job as an online tutor? There is really no need to require a vaccine at all. (I’m vaccinated anyway!)
    .

    I very much doubt that would fly in most courts.

    What has been flying in courts are requiring it while providing medical and religious exemptions. But in those cases, masking, online courses and testing are being required. The ruling in the U of Indiana case suggests the requirement might have been permitted with no exemptions, but was easier because the exemptions were permitted.
    .

    As someone once said, those who would trade liberty for security may end up with neither.

    Yes. Which is one of the reasons I think the liberty of private employers must be maintained just as much as that of employees. One sided liberty is not liberty.
    .
    I know you are an employer and have your leanings and needs. But some other employers have different businesses and different needs.

  614. Tom Scharf,

    The 8.5 scenario is very unlikely, and that is admitted even by the IPCC, but the IPCC refuses to discount it. 8.5 continues to receive the overwhelming majority of attention in projections of climate change costs, and those projections are consistently cited by the IPCC. The IPCC is simply dishonest.
    .
    The climate models run wildly hot, and that is becoming ever more widely understood. The IPCC ignores this and takes the crazy model predictions of extreme warming at face value. The IPCC is simply dishonest.
    .
    The models predict robust warming in the upper tropical troposphere; the overwhelming preponderance of the temperature data says the model are simply wrong. The IPCC ignores this and takes the crazy model projections of extreme climate sensitivity at face value. The IPCC is simply dishonest.
    .
    The IPCC reports should be ignored.

  615. mark bofill,
    “At will employment seems pretty consistent with get vaccinated or get fired.”
    .
    We will see what happens when existing employees are fired. Except in the case of public facing employees, I am not sure how the courts in different states will rule. I think it should be kept in mind that the people with (by far) the lowest rates of vaccination, and with apparent reluctance to be vaccinated, are blacks and Hispanics; firing them may open a business to lawsuits and bad PR.

  616. SteveF

    nd with apparent reluctance to be vaccinated, are blacks and Hispanics; firing them may open a business to lawsuits and bad PR.

    If a someone brings the suit claiming the firing was pre-textual specifically to fire blacks or Hispanics, and the court thinks the evidence shows the firing is pre-textual, the employees might win on that basis. That doesn’t mean courts don’t uphold the right of employers to require vaccination.
    .
    I’m not sure how successful a vaccination refusing employee is going to be in convincing a judge a vaccination rule was pre-textual. After all: in most cases, simply choosing to be vaccinated fulfills the requirement and the employee isn’t fired. And if masking and testing was allowed for those refusing, it’s really going to be difficult to make a showing that the real reason for the firing was racial animus.
    .
    It’s not as if vaccines are selectively dangerous for Blacks or Hispanics. They have been electing not to get them, sometimes merely because it’s inconvenient.
    .
    Anyway, employees claiming they were fired for being in a protected category under a pretext to hide that fact is not new nor will it be unique to vaccination. (And sometimes employers do use pretexts to fire employees.)
    .
    Yes. If the statistics look bad, there could be a PR problem. But that’s separate from whether employers have a right to require vaccines, fire people who won’t take them or what accommodations might be required when exercising the employers right. PR problems always exist. That’s a factor an employer needs to consider especially if sales of their product of services are at serious risk from PR problems. This also doesn’t tell us what is legal.
    .

  617. Says Charlie Allnut: “So, ya pays your money and you takes your choice.” The Covid deniers are getting locked down in solitary confinement in hospitals all over the country. And the Grim Reaper is stalking them too. A quote from Elbert Hubbard “Men are not punished for their sins, but by them.”
    “Vast majority of ICU patients with COVID-19 are unvaccinated”. ““Nearly all COVID deaths in the US are now among unvaccinated”.“How Rates of New Covid-19 Hospital Admissions and Deaths Compare”
    https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/08/10/us/covid-breakthrough-infections-vaccines.html

  618. Thankks Steve. I actually wasn’t aware of that about blacks and hispanics having lower vaccination rates. The vaccine is free; gotta wonder why the rates are lower.
    I mean, obviously systemic racism and climate change, like everything else, but. Besides that. You know, the real reason.

  619. I think much of the lower rates has to do with where people live. Especially initially when cases were high, vaccines were more readily available to people who had cars, lived near pharmacies and so on. Also, many were made available to people working at hospitals, schools and so on. This tipped “educated”, “skilled”, “professional” and so “white”.
    .
    My understanding is rural whites are also vaccinated at lower rates than urban whites.
    .
    But to some extent Blacks and Hispanics were also more vaccine reluctant. (Yes. Some people said “Tuskeegee!”. )
    .
    Once cases dropped, vaccine urgency isn’t terrific. So black and hispanic vaccination rates remained low.
    .
    I still don’t think an employee is going to get much traction with claiming they were fired because they were black or hispanic if the actually refuse a vaccine, provided others are also being fired. Refusing the vaccine is an overt intentional act. Did they get the vaccine? yes? No. Pretty objective answer.
    .
    It’s not like firing someone for being a lazy malingerer where the employee can claim they are actually a high achieving productive employee but the employer just doesn’t give them credit because they are black or hispanic.

  620. mark bofill,
    My guess is that those lower vaccination rates come from multiple causes. But I would guess at least some black people will say they don’t want to be vaccinated because they don’t trust the health authorities (and cite the infamous non-treatment of black men with known syphilis). That may not convince a judge…. but in a jury trial, who knowns what would happen.

  621. Thanks Lucia.

    I still don’t think an employee is going to get much traction with claiming they were fired because they were black or hispanic if the actually refuse a vaccine, provided others are also being fired.

    I hope not. These crazy days, I worry about critical [race] theory activism by courts popping up. So far as I know, knock on wood, it hasn’t been happening. I hope that remains largely the case.
    [Edit: Steve, thanks for your response as well. Yes, my very limited experience serving on juries causes me to mightily fear juries. No telling what people will do.]

  623. https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/08/1-1-million-americans-received-a-covid-booster-shot-report.html
    “According to an internal CDC briefing reviewed by ABC News, an estimated 1.1 million people have already gotten unauthorized booster shots. The number is most likely an undercount because it includes Moderna and Pfizer recipients who have re-upped but not those who received the single-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine and then sought out another shot. “

  624. Mike M,
    Ya, the Biden administration is looking to dump on DeSantis over anything…. even made-up stuff. The CDC’s posting of two days of covid cases in Florida as if they came from a single day lead to nationwide blaring headlines about Florida’s covid case rate. They aren’t going back to blare fixes to those false stories, so the misinformation will stay out there uncorrected. It looks like Florida’s cases have already peaked.
    .
    As far as I can tell, no hospital administrator in Florida has said they were short of equipment, including ventilators.
    .
    DeSantis is smart, and Biden was dumb even when younger(and now is demented), but with the MSM amplifying the Biden administration’s fabrications, DeSantis needs to not lose his temper and let that influence his judgement. He should push back against lies and exaggerations, of course, but I think he should stay away from angry reactions as much as possible.

  625. Mike M. (Comment #204623) you posted “Fake news, it seems: https://www.dailywire.com/news/desantiss-team-blasts-back-after-biden-admin-tries-to-politicize-florida-ventilator-order” You are wrong again Mike. Even that dailywire article you cited verifies what I posted is accurate. Here’s another report of it “Yes, Florida hospitals did request hundreds of ventilators for COVID surge” https://news.yahoo.com/yes-florida-hospitals-did-request-hundreds-of-ventilators-for-covid-surge-181401370.html
    The State of Florida did request hundreds more ventilators. DeSantis loudly objected to it being publicized and got his nose rubbed in it.

  626. Says Charlie Allnut: “So, ya pays your money and you takes your choice.” The Anti-Vaxxers are getting their lockdowns in solitary confinement in hospitals all over the country. And the Grim Reaper is stalking them too. A quote from Elbert Hubbard “Men are not punished for their sins, but by them.”
    “Vast majority of ICU patients with COVID-19 are unvaccinated”. ““Nearly all COVID deaths in the US are now among unvaccinated”. “How Rates of New Covid-19 Hospital Admissions and Deaths Compare”
    https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/08/10/us/covid-breakthrough-infections-vaccines.html

  627. As I said before. 300 ventilators. 21 million people. For so few extra ventilators to be needed (they’re used for many other things besides covid), the ocean must be very small indeed for such a tiny drop to make a difference. Of course, they may not be needed. They might be required in case they’re needed.

  628. Tom Scharf,
    I am surprised it is only 1.1 million. Pfizer has already said they will sell their vaccine as a booster (after the Federal program ends) for a much higher price, with $125 to $150 per dose being informally suggested. It is $19 per dose to the Federal government. There is a substantial inventory of vaccines and a large population not interested in getting vaccinated. Somebody ought to use them.

  629. Yep. There are plenty of people who would pay out of pocket for a booster if it’s permitted. I think currently paying privately is not permitted! I know if I want an unauthorized booster, I need to go to CVS, request it, tell them I don’t have insurance to make it more difficult for them to check (and possibly get their $17 from the government). And I have to count on them not checking the Illinois registry because it turns out we have one!
    .
    Perhaps paying privately will be allowed when the FDA authorizes boosters and recognizes there is no shortage. When they do, I’m sure many of the vaccinated will go in and get boosters.

  630. I suggest telling them you are an undocumented immigrant will ironically waive all checks, ha ha.

  631. Israel, 80% Vaccinated, Suffers Another Covid-19 Surge
    https://www.wsj.com/articles/israel-80-vaccinated-suffers-another-covid-19-surge-11628769603
    “The decision (for booster shots) came after preliminary data made available to medical experts advising Israel’s government showed that protection against severe illness for vaccinated people in the (over 60) age group had dropped to 81% from 97% in mid-April.”
    “Health Minister Nitzan Horowitz and medical experts advising the Israeli government said they hoped Israel would soon have its own evidence regarding the efficacy of the booster shot, possibly this week.”
    .
    They have had vaccine passports for months, and 30% of people over 60 have gotten booster shots, you must be 5 months out from your last shot to be eligible.
    .
    If the US has vaccines laying around unused, they should be offering them to people who want them. I doubt it is going to take very long for this to happen given what is happening in the UK and Israel.
    .
    This is all rather dreary as it looks like we are shut out of herd immunity until we get more effective vaccines or get better immunity the hard way. The current vaccines are now a damage limitation instrument instead of a path out.

  632. Here is a review of randomized controlled trials on mask wearing:
    https://www.city-journal.org/do-masks-work-a-review-of-the-evidence?wallit_nosession=1

    The money quote:

    It’s striking how much the CDC, in marshalling evidence to justify its revised mask guidance, studiously avoids mentioning randomized controlled trials.

    14 RCTs, 13 of which used surgical masks but only one of those for the Wuhan virus. There *might* be a slight benefit to surgical masks, but it is far from certain. But the influenza studies did show that hand hygiene is really important.
    .
    One study compared surgical masks to cloth masks in health care workers in Vietnam. The cloth mask wearers were 13 times as likely to get the flu as the surgical masks wearers. Statistically significant, but it looks like it was actually 13 cases vs. 1, so the relative risk is hugely uncertain. Likely because the cloth masks compromised hand hygiene.
    .
    Bottom line: Masks don’t work, at least if not N95. Cloth masks might actually increase transmission.

  633. “One of his biggest accomplishments was being a father and grandfather. He was known for his famous pancakes (which quickly became known as “Papa’s pancakes”)”. My wife talked to her brother’s widow a few minutes ago. They never had much money and Covid wiped them out financially. She is struggling with the paperwork, but expects to get about $7,000 from FEMA toward funeral expenses. His daughter wrote a lovely closing narrative: http://www.evansfuneralhome.com/obituaries/obituary/mark-alan-reynolds/

  634. Mask efficacy is likely heavily dependent on the virus under study. I completely agree that mask efficacy is in question and hasn’t been * proven * to be * highly * effective. There are some studies that use a lot of complicated models to try to sort out observational data with craploads of confounders, they tend to find small differences. They haven’t even queried hospitalized patients as to their mask wearing habits and compiled that data to my knowledge.
    .
    We had huge breakouts last Jan with mask wearing at 80% or more. We had a step change two months ago when the CDC lifted requirements and there wasn’t a linked increase in cases. They simply pretend this data doesn’t exist.
    .
    Vaccine efficacy is pretty solid with real data, mask efficacy is hand waving and now religiously guarded. The recent banning of Rand Paul from YouTube is unjustified given the lack of convincing data. They may work, especially N95’s, but they need to show their work before deplatforming the other side of the argument.
    .
    I wore a mask today in FL, they may help and aren’t very intrusive, but they are overselling the science here.

  635. Tom Scharf (Comment #204636): “Mask efficacy is likely heavily dependent on the virus under study. I completely agree that mask efficacy is in question and hasn’t been * proven * to be * highly * effective.”
    .
    The virus probably matters. Surface transmission seems much less with Wuhan than influenza, so masks are less likely to be detrimental.
    .
    Surgical masks have been *proven* to be no more than marginally effective, at least as normally used. They are likely to be of *some* benefit if properly fitted, changed frequently, and carefully handled.
    .
    Cloth masks are known to be much less effective than surgical masks. So not beneficial at all. For influenza, they are probably detrimental, but we don’t know that is so for Wuhan.
    .
    If you want to protect yourself, follow Russell’s example and get one of those N95 masks with exhaust valves.
    ———

    Addition: There is much better evidence in favor of hydroxychloquine and ivermectin than masks.

  636. Mike M,
    “Masks don’t work, at least if not N95.”
    .
    Sure, they only serve one clear purpose: force people to comply with arbitrary demands using social pressure. That is and always has been the main point.
    .
    If the CDC *really* wanted to use masks to reduce severe illness and death, they would long ago have concentrated on distributing N95 masks in huge numbers to people most at risk. But they very clearly are not focused on reducing severe illness and death, in spite of their name. The CDC has lots of other agenda items, including increasing their own agency’s budget, promotion of ‘social justice’, and waging political war against conservatives. I would support any effort to disband the CDC.
    .
    To which I will add: the reason unvaccinated people not having to show their papers drives ‘progressives’ crazy is not just that they can more easily catch covid than vaccinated people, it is that unlike masks, if you can’t demand their papers, you have no way to identify and socially shame people who resist vaccination. Social control of individual behavior is always a big thing with “progressives”.

  637. Same goes for the California law (recently struck by the Supreme Court as unconstitutional) that required non-profits to disclose the names and addresses of large donors. The law was routinely used to publicly identify donors to causes progressives disagree with, then to subject those donors to social attacks.
    .
    Indeed, that was the most obvious purpose of the law being instituted in the first place, as the SC recognized. Even though the donors were never supposed to be publicly identified by the state, by the strangest of coincidences, large donors to conservative causes were almost always disclosed. And strangely enough, no state employee was ever identified, never mind prosecuted, for those unlawful disclosures.

  638. Tom Scharf,
    “I wore a mask today in FL, they may help and aren’t very intrusive, but they are overselling the science here.”
    .
    I hope it was N95 and not just a virtue signal.
    .
    I find them very intrusive.

  639. What’s with people who aren’t obliged to wear a mask, choose to do so anyway, and then wear it under their nose…?

  640. I have N95’s, they are definitely more intrusive than surgical masks. You can’t do anything remotely aerobic with these things on. I would say the grocery store was 60% masked today. I didn’t detect anyone being uptight about it.

  641. Tom Scharf, Masks designed for workmen and athletes have exhaust valves and only filter on the intake. They are not approved by the mask police but really protect the wearer. This is mine, https://rzmask.com/

  642. SteveF

    I hope it was N95 and not just a virtue signal.

    My am-am dance partner and I wear virtue signal masks while practicing. He has asthma and noticed he hasn’t had any colds since mask wearing. So he’s decided he’ll lean toward masks. I wear them when we practice and it means we don’t breath directly on each other.
    .
    We are both vaccinated and consider that the most important thing.

    Otherwise, I’m not wearing them unless required.

  643. Lucia,

    Most common allergens, like pollen, which can trigger asthma attacks, are larger than 10 microns (and often more than 30 microns!). I would not be surprised if a cloth mask filtered many common allergens.
    .
    As for catching colds: the social distancing and hand washing inspired by covid 19 probably reduces the chance of spread. (Unlike covid 19, common colds are often spread by hand contact.)

  645. SteveF,
    I don’t disagree. But under the circumstances, I’m happy to wear the mask during am-am practices. If it’s really a mental crutch, so be it.

  646. CDC guidance actually recommends cloth masks. It is on those posters taped up everywhere.

  647. Would people objecting to a vaccine mandate, have had the same objection if the vaccines had come out 7 months earlier?

  648. MikeN,
    Not sure I understand your question. If the vaccine had come out during Trump’s administration, nobody would have been talking about mandates, and Trump would probably still be president. Or are you suggesting the resistance to mandates is only because Biden is president? I think many people would object to mandates no matter who was president. Lots of people don’t like being told what to do….. whether it is to buy health insurance or get a vaccine injection, it is the ‘mandate’ that people object to.

  649. MikeN (Comment #204653): “Would people objecting to a vaccine mandate, have had the same objection if the vaccines had come out 7 months earlier?”
    .
    Absolutely, although they would likely have been joined by many of those who are now demanding mandates.
    .
    If the issue is vaccine resistance, there might be more or there might be less. And it would likely be somewhat different people.
    .
    There are religious people who object to the vaccines on ethical grounds. I doubt they would find it any less objectionable if Trump were in office.
    .
    There are people, mostly younger, who are making a rational attempt to assess risk vs benefit. I don’t think that many of them would be too much affected by politics.
    .
    And there are people who mistrust the government. They would be more likely to trust the vaccine if Fauci et al. had not proved to be untrustworthy. And they would be more likely to trust the vaccine if the Dems had not chosen to politicize it. But the Dems and the media started to politicize the vaccine well before the election, so they would have done so whther or not the vaccine came out earlier or if Trump won.
    .
    If the vaccine were being distributed under a Trump administration, there would likely be somewhat less distrust among Trump voters and somewhat more among blacks and Latinos.

  650. This is weird. I was looking for info on the RSV epidemic stressing children’s hospitals in the south and came across this: https://www.texastribune.org/2021/08/12/texas-rsv-covid-19-childrens-hospitals/
    .
    The weird thing is the graph just below the heading “Hospital beds in use in Texas”. Over the past year, beds occupied have slowly risen from just under 80% to nearly 90%. I suppose that is people getting deferred care. Beds occupied by covid patients have varied between a few percent and about 20%, consistent with the three waves in Texas. But the number of covid patients seems to have no impact on the total number of beds occupied. Huh.
    .
    Can anybody here explain that?

  651. MikeN

    There are people, mostly younger, who are making a rational attempt to assess risk vs benefit. I don’t think that many of them would be too much affected by politics.

    I’m not so sure. I think younger peoples attempts to assess risk/ benefit is affected by politics and would have been. Especially in the current situation, politics are unavoidable.

    And there are people who mistrust the government. They would be more likely to trust the vaccine if Fauci et al. had not proved to be untrustworthy.

    Also not sure. I don’t sense Fauci is the big issue.
    .
    In the end, I think you can speculate on this hypothetical. But there are a lot of moving parts.
    .
    If we’d had it earlier, we might have fewer variants. We might already be getting boosters. We now know they would have been the same vaccines. Testing checks if they are safe and effective, but does not transform them into safe and effective. So we now know earlier release would have been a benefit.
    .
    I suspect, overall, vaccinations rates would be higher if the vaccine had been released earlier because we’d have more time to get the vax in arms. We’d probably have more vax in the developing world.

    We would have had fewer deaths. But or less resistance in the US? Dunno.

  653. SteveF, I wasn’t asking about Biden vs Trump. Just that the death rate was much higher in May 2020, and less was known about the risk profile.

  654. It’s a very non-homogenous group. There are mainly two political groups opposed to mandates, the libertarian group who are going to object to this on a comprehensible ideological basis, and outside of this is the Republican anti-vax crowd who are objecting to it based on who is in office at the moment. Less comprehensible, but I don’t really know how large this crowd really is and the media tries to paint everyone with this brush. Then there are certain minorities who are anti-vax who get treated with kid gloves due to the current political environment. A free pass. Inside these groups though are a confusing mess of justifications when queried individually.
    .
    It’s a mistake to think this is a US phenomenon, there are plenty of anti-vaxxers in Europe and elsewhere.
    .
    The time for mandates was 3 months ago. By the time any of these (private/public) mandates become effective enough to make noticeable change in immunity delta will likely have done its work.
    .
    It is not a stretch to take notice that the very same people who are screaming for mandates are the same group who want to control individual behavior on a host of topics from climate change, social media censorship, to what people are allowed to eat and drink. The objection to mandates are partially also a pushback against this authoritarian group who want to inject their multifaceted correct-think upon society. A lot of people would prefer to catch covid then be ruled by this group, although that specific calculus isn’t very rational.

  656. Asking minorities to get ID to vote: racist.
    Asking minorities to show papers to go shopping: not racist.
    Unequal outcome: systemic racism
    Creating unequal outcome: not systemic racism.
    Lollapalooza: Endorsed by Chicago mayor.
    Tributes to murdered police officer (other non-establishment endorsed events): tut tut. covid restrictions.
    .
    I keep wondering when we will hit peak hypocrisy, and what it will look like when we do.

  657. Russell Klier (Comment #204662): “profitability. https://hospitalmedicaldirector.com/what-is-the-ideal-hospital-occupancy-rate/”
    .
    Maybe. But that article has to do with staffing levels and efficient scheduling with respect to time of day and day of week.
    .
    The graph I linked to involves a time scale of weeks or months. It is much more disturbing if hospital admissions on that time scale are controlled to serve the interests of hospital administrators rather than patients (or even doctors). Possible, but disturbing.

  658. DaveJR (Comment #204666): “I keep wondering when we will hit peak hypocrisy, and what it will look like when we do.”
    .
    Indeed. The Fall of Cuomo is a good sign, albeit a weak one.
    .
    Gavin Newsom getting turfed would be another good sign. But the California legislature is working hard to ensure maximum fraud in the recall election.

  660. Mike M. ” It is much more disturbing if hospital admissions on that time scale are controlled to serve the interests of hospital administrators rather than patients (or even doctors).” Hospitals are businesses, big businesses. They are overseen by Boards of Directors, and run by bureaucrats and bean counters. I would be shocked if anything but profitability was their highest priority. [except for some small religious hospitals] The hospitals I have interacted with professionally have acted like every other business I ever interacted with…. and it’s not only the hospital finances they worry about. Many of their staff physicians run multi-million dollar private practices [these are the ones I had the most contact with]. The hospital decisions are influenced by these doctors acting as a cabal looking out for their own financial interests.

  661. Russell Klier (Comment #204670): “Hospitals are businesses, big businesses. They are overseen by Boards of Directors, and run by bureaucrats and bean counters.”
    .
    That is true. But most are non-profits.
    .
    Russell Klier: “I would be shocked if anything but profitability was their highest priority.”
    .
    It it true that many non-profits conduct themselves in a way that is indistinguishable from for-profits. What you say is probably true at the administrative level. But when it directly impacts patient care, we should expect push back from doctors and nurses. That should produce at least *some* dependence of occupancy on need. Absence of such dependence suggests that the health care professionals have been *entirely* neutered and that patient care has become nothing more than an after thought. That is disturbing.

  662. If you want a hospital system that has to carry excess capacity for extreme events such as a pandemic, somebody has to pay for it. Otherwise market forces will optimize for the median or slightly above. I’m not saying it’s not a good idea to carry some excess capacity, but this is a choice by society where we already pay a heavy burden for medical care.

  663. The bottom line of a US hospital is based on providing healthcare. Generally speaking, this encourages “over provision”. A national healthcare system is generally based on saving money. It therefore encourages “under provision”. Both systems have their pros and cons, but I suspect US citizens who expect to receive current US healthcare provision under a national healthcare system would end up terribly disappointed.

  664. Tom,
    I’ve always told my husband I support a level of agricultural subsidizes because it’s something where we want the norm to be oversupply. Under supply of food is not a good thing.
    .
    I suspect we sometimes get carried away with the subsidize. (Ok. Know.) Thats the way of subsidize. But there are industries you don’t want to have on the bleeding edge of “efficient supply”.
    .
    We probably should (and I suspect do) over pay for medical services, and do maintain a slight over supply. The difficulty is some services aren’t fungible. We really couldn’t pull everyone out of offices with light business due to deferred colonoscopies and fill in for ER and critical care nurses.
    .
    In contrast: corn is corn. Soy is soy. If there is a potato famine, I can eat extra rise. If I can’t get apples, I can eat bananas.
    .

  665. DaveJR,
    “I keep wondering when we will hit peak hypocrisy”
    .
    Channeling DeWitt: hypocrisy, like entropy, always increases in the universe. Especially among ‘progressives’. And most of all among ‘progressive elites’.
    .
    Taking control of Congress away from Democrats would make a modest short-term reduction in hypocrisy.

  667. Russell,
    Arnold knows body building…. but apparently not much else. Certainly nothing about masks. I do like the vulgar Yiddish reference to ‘penis’ …. even if it seems a bit tone deaf for someone born in a place where his parent’s generation murdered most of the resident Jewish population.
    .
    He will be ignored. And that seems about right.

  668. Freedom isn’t something you only have when it’s convenient for somebody else to allow you to have it.

  671. From SteveF’s link:

    Fourth, with hopes of a measles-like herd immunity dashed, the Zero Covid countries of Asia and Australasia now find themselves in a very dark place. They need to accept that Covid has to reach an equilibrium or they will be stuck with permanent isolation and recurrent lockdowns.

    So maybe Trump, DeSantis, and Abbot weren’t so bad after all. There’s also a note about infection acquired immunity and mucosal antibodies. I read it as saying that infection acquired immunity is significantly better over the long term than vaccination only. Absent a new vaccine targeting Δ, it looks like nearly everyone will eventually become infected.

  672. DeWitt,
    Australia is working to vaccinate their vulnerable population as quickly as possible; probably they understand that eventually the country will have to return to a more normal status…. including living with the virus. It is a little hard to get exact numbers, but what I have seen suggests they will have nearly all over 45 vaccinated within a couple of months, so the death rate should remain low when they open.
    .
    Florida now has 86% of the over 65 population fully vaccinated, and over 70% of the 55 to 64 population. I expect delta will burn through the unvaccinated population in Florida pretty quickly. The rate of death per confirmed case looks to be a third of what it was in the January peak.

  673. SteveF,
    The argument for moving back to normal is even simpler. It’s this:
    .
    Unless things are really, really, really truly bubonic plague scale- bad, we have to go back to normal sometime. And things aren’t really, really, really truly bubonic plague scale- bad.
    .
    Heck even when the world had bubonic plague scale- bad commerce, framing education and so on did get resumed. It had to.
    .
    I had a conversation with a dancer about masks yesterday. She’s seem me practice with am-am partner wearing a mask, but now I was not. So I explained am-am partner Dad wanted to wear one for reasons not entirely related to Covid. (In fact, he wears it even more outdoors to screen a little pollen, and avoid sneezes directly on him. He knows I’m vaccinated and so is he.)
    .
    Anyway: So she’ll see me wear it with him. Then she won’t.
    .
    I also explained his asthma and feeling the mask might help colds. She said she also had asthma and colds, but doubted the mask helped much indoors. But she had heard they might screen some pollen. But she agreed that if he thought it might help him, well, all-rightie. She decided to go for sometimes wearing masks and sometimes not.
    .
    But mostly, she was glad to understand how to interpret my mask wearing. She knew from overhearing that Dan and I are at least somewhat “science” oriented (and so is she.) She thought we might have some deeper knowledge (we don’t). And she wanted to hear our thinking. It seems mine wasn’t drastically different from hers.
    .
    Mask wearing conversations don’t need to be quite so contentious. But sadly, they have been and often are.

  674. SteveF

    I expect delta will burn through the unvaccinated population in Florida pretty quickly. The rate of death per confirmed case looks to be a third of what it was in the January peak.

    Yes. And if MikeM’s theory about mucosal immunity is correct, we’ll also have the unvaccinated be quietly infected and add mucosal immunity to their vaccine provided humeral immunity.
    .
    I’d like a booster to further increase humeral immunity. I’ll want it for variants when I can get it. But I’m pretty satisfied with my level of risk. I danced last night just as I have ever Friday for a while now.
    .
    It’s hard to discuss these choices in public right now because many people want “collective” decisions and they want their collective decision. (That goes on both the anti-X end and the pro-X end where X could be vax, mask, distancing, passport or what have ou.)

  675. Lucia,
    “Unless things are really, really, really truly bubonic plague scale- bad, we have to go back to normal sometime.”
    .
    I guess the political disagreement is in large part over what constitutes “really, really, truly” bad. Some people point to 300 covid deaths nationwide among kids under 12 and declare that level of risk is completely unacceptable….. so don’t want return to normal schooling. While tragic, that level of risk is very small compared to all the other things that kill kids. But apparently some people imagine covid is somehow different, and its risk can be eliminated. Of course it can’t be.
    .
    I have taken thousands of airplane flights over the past 30 years, and every once in a while I encounter someone who is absolutely terrified (white-knuckles-and-shaking terrified) to be on the plane, especially during takeoff and landing. It is not rational, of course. Which is much like the fear of covid deaths happening in the under 30 set, where the true risk is minimal and much smaller than other risks. It is also not rational, but that is not going to change. What has unfortunately changed is that irrational fear now dictates much of public policy about covid. Some day things *ought* to return to normal, but that day is delayed each time the MSM and health bureaucrats falsely hype the dangers of covid 19. The danger from covid is real and significant for older people, and they would be wise to get vaccinated. But kids? That is just false; they are not at significant risk. The lies need to stop.

  676. “So maybe Trump, DeSantis, and Abbot weren’t so bad after all.”
    .
    The UK also embraced a rush to herd immunity at the beginning, but this is really hindsight bias. Nobody knew what the future held so I’m willing to give some slack to everyone. It’s going to take a while for everyone to make it through their 7 stages of covid grief, but I’d wager within a month or two acceptance of an endemic covid future will have sunk in, and also the reality that all the divisive acrimony would never have changed the outcome.
    .
    There are plenty of lives to be saved with vaccines still, that should be the focus. It will be interesting to see how they will break this news to the public. The screeching “vaccines and masks to stop the pandemic” messaging needs to change. It’s pretty clear that quite a few actual experts saw this outcome many months ago. It’s time to man up and live with covid.

  677. Tom Scharf,
    “The screeching “vaccines and masks to stop the pandemic” messaging needs to change.”
    .
    It ought to change, but I doubt it will. What I think more likely is that low reported deaths in the coming months will make ever more people ignore the screeching. I read an article yesterday on a progressive website, where the author admitted we would have to accept covid as an endemic illness and live with it….. but then immediately returned to demanding masks everywhere, mandated vaccinations to be allowed access to stores, restaurants, and employment, and continued social distancing…. especially in schools. I think the author is crazy, but the screeching won’t stop.

  678. The polemic screechers won’t stop, that’s what they do. Not that I would ever want the China model of journalism, but one advantage it has is that this socially corrosive type of click bait doesn’t exist. The brain’s desire to reinforce the “my tribe is holy and the other tribe is evil” narrative is pretty powerful. We shouldn’t have to feed that weakness at the rate we do though.

  679. If a variant of the Wuhan virus evolves that can evade the current vaccines, we could be in big trouble. Vaccines against future strains might not work for people vaccinated against the earlier strains.

    https://theconversation.com/immune-interference-why-even-updated-vaccines-could-struggle-to-keep-up-with-emerging-coronavirus-strains-156465
    .
    Also: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28479213/

    In the case of vaccines, if we only immunize to a single strain or epitope, and if that strain/epitope changes over time, then the immune system is unable to mount an accurate secondary response.

    It seems to me that as long as the targeted segment of the spike is sufficiently conserved, there should be no problem and no need for a new vaccine. But if the spike changes, then the new vaccine *might* be ineffective for those already vaccinated.
    .
    Vaccinating everyone, not just the most vulnerable, might prove to be catastrophic hubris.

  682. SteveF (Comment #204685)
    I read the article you recommended “Why it’s time to move on from Covid The Delta variant may have dashed hopes of herd immunity, but we can still live with the virus.” and I agree with your comment “A calm and reasoned analysis from the University of East Anglia” The problem I have with the DNAs [Do Nothing Approaches] is that they only pay lip service to people at high risk. I guess my risk is two orders of magnitude greater than most other people. There is no path to living our lives normally.

  683. Seems there is a lambda variant, coming from South America.
    I’ve seen reports vaccines do not do much against it.

  685. Russell,

    The problem I have with the DNAs [Do Nothing Approaches] is that they only pay lip service to people at high risk. I guess my risk is two orders of magnitude greater than most other people. There is no path to living our lives normally.

    Believe me, I empathize with you. I understand what you’re saying. What would you have of us here at the Blackboard? Steve and Mike and Lucia and so on could agree with you, or disagree with you, or ignore you – so on, yet it seems to me that your situation would not be changed. I’m not the sharpest tool in this shed by a long shot, so help me out and explain what is it you want of us, and why – how it will help you. Who knows? If it’s feasible and actually accomplishes anything maybe people will consider it.

  686. MikeM

    If a variant of the Wuhan virus evolves that can evade the current vaccines,

    If a variant that can evade natural immunity. . .

    RNA viruses, like coronaviruses, are known for their ability to mutate.

    Yep. That’s why they could evade any sort of immunity whether vax or natural.

    Immunological memory, the very thing that offers continued protection against a virus long after vaccination, can sometimes negatively interfere with the development of slightly updated immune responses.

    Perhaps. Memory would also apply to natural immunity.

    You might produce one kind of antibody against the hood, one against the bumper, and one against the hubcaps that prevents the wheels from turning. You have produced three kinds of antibodies that are specific to the car, but only the hubcap antibodies will slow the car down. Your immune system will remember how to produce all three, and doesn’t distinguish between them.

    They are describing a problem that can occur with natural immunity. (Of course it can also happen with vax. But actually, it’s an explanation of why natural immunity might be worse.)
    .
    As far as can tell, the article simply explains current vaccines aren’t perfect. (Of course.) That we know ways they could fail. (Yes.) Researchers are working to improve. (Absolutely.)
    .
    At the same time, it’s clear the think the path forward is more, better vaccines.

  687. Russell

    The problem I have with the DNAs [Do Nothing Approaches] is that they only pay lip service to people at high risk.

    Who advocates “do nothing?” The closests I might see is Sweden. No one in the US advocates “do nothing”. Everyone has been pushing vaccines. That’s hardly nothing!

  688. Most immune responses follow Burnet’s rule in that Ag recruits specific lymphocytes from a large repertoire and induces them to proliferate and differentiate into effector cells. However, the phenomenon of “original antigenic sin” stands out as a paradox to Burnet’s rule of B cell engagement. Humans, upon infection with a novel influenza strain, produce Abs against older viral strains at the expense of responses to novel, protective antigenic determinants. This exacerbates the severity of the current infection.

    I don’t know… Sounds like the new vaccines that only use a portion of the virus are precisely the path to avoiding this whole “original sin” problem.
    .
    It at least sounds like the problem is the old virus had features ABC. The new virus has features ABD. D and C “matter”. But when the body sees ABD it makes the antibodies latch on to AB because (a) it recognizes them and (b) they are there. If the new vaccine contained only “D”, then there would be no problem. If the old vaccine contained only C there would be no problem.
    .
    Go, go, go Spike VAX!!!

  689. lucia,

    Maybe narrowly focusing the vaccine on the spike is brilliant. Maybe it is stupid. Maybe it is neither. You don’t know. I don’t know. The problem is that NOBODY knows. Given our lack of knowledge, it would be prudent to not put all our eggs in one basket.

  690. Russell Klier (Comment #204702): “The problem I have with the DNAs [Do Nothing Approaches] is that they only pay lip service to people at high risk. I guess my risk is two orders of magnitude greater than most other people. There is no path to living our lives normally.”
    .
    I wonder which is more common: People who think the earth is flat or people who advocate a do nothing approach?
    .
    There is a path to living life normally. It is to decide to live your life normally while taking whatever precautions that you decide are consistent with that. If you are unwilling to do that, there is probably nothing anyone else can do about it.

  691. MikeM

    Maybe narrowly focusing the vaccine on the spike is brilliant. Maybe it is stupid. Maybe it is neither. You don’t know. I don’t know.

    I agree we don’t know. But reading the discussion of that problem you unearthed, it would appear to fix it. They’ve described the problem as
    .
    Virus α has feature ABC. Body made antibodies to Α Β and C.
    Only “C” antibody matters.
    .
    Virus β has features ABD. Only D matters.
    But body sees AB and makes antibuties to A nd B because they are familiar. Body does not make antibodies to D because it’s busy making them to familiar A and B.
    .
    But with the “spike” approach the idea is to
    * figure out “what matters” in the first place. (That is C.) Body them makes antibody to “C”.
    * When virus starts making “D” figure that out.
    * New vac contains “D”. It does not contain other “familiar” but irrelevant stuff. Body is distracted by A and B. It makes antibody to D.
    .
    I get there might be other flaws. But at least with regard to this hypothetical parade of horribles in viral evolution this seems like “just the right thing”.
    .
    It’s fine to say “we don’t know”. Of course not. But you brought this hypothetical up. It happens to seem like one that would precisely be addressed by using parts of a virus (e.g. spike) instead of the whole thing.

  692. MikeM

    Given our lack of knowledge, it would be prudent to not put all our eggs in one basket.

    No one has suggested putting our eggs in one basket. The pro-vaccine plan is certainly not putting our eggs in one basket. The closest to “putting eggs in one basket” I’ve read is the anti vaccine camp who want to block vaccines!

  693. So … you know the rule to not touch someone after they experience a serious injury in a car / bike accident? An amendment might be to move them if they are laying on very hot pavement.
    .
    My sister in law was riding in a group of bikers (bicycles) and someone went down in front of her. She went down and was knocked unconscious. Broken wrist, knocked some teeth out etc. Pretty bad, but by far the worst has been 3rd degree burns on her legs, butt, and back from being left on scorching hot pavement. Been in severe pain for weeks now and faces an arduous recovery.
    .
    Just an FYI.

  695. Russell,
    ” I guess my risk is two orders of magnitude greater than most other people. There is no path to living our lives normally.”
    .
    Are you talking about yourself and your wife (“our lives”), or are to talking about people in general?
    .
    I am 70, vaccinated, and in relatively good health, save for the hamstring I pulled this morning (that hurts like Hell). I want to live my life normally. And I have a path to do that: just do normal things, and accept the possibility I will be exposed to the virus, and so run a low risk of serious illness. I am not going bar hopping, which would increase my risk, but I wouldn’t have done that even absent covid 19. I have already traveled on business, both domestically and internationally, half a dozen times since March of last year, and I will continue to travel as needed.
    .
    If you believe you have much higher risk than me, then you should do what you think is consistent with that risk. But please don’t try to force your choices on me.

  696. Tom Scharf,

    I gave up on bikes 5 years ago after an arduous 5 day bike journey from Vienna to Budapest…. it seemed we always had a strong head wind and every morning was freezing (October). We had no crashes, but had a few close calls involving trucks and cars. There are just not enough safe bike routes to do that sort of thing. Besides, my quadriceps hurt for a month afterward.

  697. MikeN,
    Sweden is doing fine. Their cumulative death rate is higher than the States and many other countries, but they appear to have reached solid herd immunity. They have low cases and near zero deaths. Their vaccination rate among elderly people is pretty high. They are blocking all travel from countries outside the EU with higher rates of illness, specifically including the USA.

  698. I did a 10 day New Zealand bike trip, big trucks zipping by you at 70 mph without a shoulder takes some getting used to, ha ha.

  699. Tom Scharf,

    You’re not supposed to move someone with potentially serious injuries, particularly if the spine may be involved unless leaving them in place puts them in greater danger. But you’re still supposed to check pulse, breathing and bleeding, which involves touching. I would think that someone would notice that they can’t keep bare skin in contact with the pavement because it’s too hot when checking the victim. If it’s too painful, it means extended contact will damage tissue.

  700. lucia,

    I don’t see that the car part analogy actually applies to viruses. It sounds like major hand waving to me, or what we used to call a snow job. But I haven’t read the article. Fauci is an expert at snow jobs, btw.

  701. Does anyone have an explanation as to why the daily deaths in Florida seems to have peaked well before the daily case rate peaked?

  702. DeWitt Payne (Comment #204727): “I don’t see that the car part analogy actually applies to viruses. It sounds like major hand waving to me”.
    .
    I think it is just a scientist trying to hard to make an explanation understandable and undermining it in the process.

  703. DeWitt Payne (Comment #204728): “Does anyone have an explanation as to why the daily deaths in Florida seems to have peaked well before the daily case rate peaked?”
    .
    The Financial Times page does not show that.

  704. DeWitt, I don’t know about Florida data, but if you have two sources, say alpha and delta, with alpha having a much larger value in cases and deaths, and then alpha peaks while delta is still rising, the deaths will appear to peak before the cases because of the time lag between cases and deaths.

  705. DHS issues new terror alert, not based on any actual threats or plots, but on the fact that people are pissed off with government authoritarianism…

  706. DaveJR,
    The DHS alert is just the Biden administration trying to keep Republicans from being elected in 2022: “See, to stay safe from those crazy Republicans, you have to keep us in power”. It isn’t going to work. The only credible threats to liberty are the Democrats in Congress, the Biden administration, and the Democrat’s propaganda arm…. AKA the MSM.

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