Peter Todd @pete@petertodd.org

@kekcoin @Zachary_BTC IIRC I found an even better write-up months ago. But this matches what I remember: https://freebeacon.com/latest-news/woman-who-ingested-fish-tank-cleaner-was-prolific-donor-to-democratic-causes/

https://freebeacon.com/coronavirus/man-who-died-ingesting-fish-tank-cleaner-remembered-as-intelligent-levelheaded/

tl;dr: spouse with history of potential abuse claims intelligent, level headed, Democrat donating engineer voluntarily ingested fishtank cleaner that doesn't even contain HCQ because he believed Trump. Riiiight...

@Zachary_BTC @kekcoin ...and don't get me started on that ridiculous fishtank story... Media may have very well managed to help cover up a premeditated murder.

@Zachary_BTC @kekcoin The fact is, HCQ has underperformed in actual randomized trials. Though they keep on doing trials on treatment methods that are subtlety different from what people claim it works well at, so maybe there is in fact a niche usage where it has some benefit.

Meanwhile, look at how Remdesivir was hailed as a miracle, when it too doesn't look like it works very well. But at *much* higher cost, and without the decades of safe usage: https://www.forbes.com/sites/jvchamary/2021/01/31/remdesivir-covid-coronavirus/

"What Trump recognized was that there are millions of Americans who do not oppose or even care about abortion or same-sex marriage, much less stem-cell research or any of the other causes that had animated traditional social conservatives. Instead he correctly intuited that the new culture war would be fought over very different (and more nebulous) issues"

https://theweek.com/articles/964006/rise-barstool-conservatives

@orionwl @timp it's interesting how that article is written in a way that assumes you've 100% bought into the ridiculous zero covid strategy. Specifically, in how it's asking for infections to be brought low enough that "test and trace" will keep up.

The sane strategy is to get it over with. That means getting people infected as fast as the healthcare system can handle, with as many of those infections in people who are least likely to be harmed.

@rastinza Look at the UK, Canada, California, etc.

There's certainly places with unusually overloaded hospitals. But its not a phenomenon everywhere. And part of it is probably due to poor treatment: early on we definitely overused ventilators for instance.

@Zachary_BTC @kekcoin What treatment exactly?

@stevenroose @roshii @kekcoin Though that's hard because lockdown causes deaths to increase too. Eg heart disease: people were concerned that covid was causing heart attacks etc. But now it's looking much more likely that the reason for the increase is a combination of people getting care later, and hospitals taking care of people less effectively.

Even something as simple as taking 60 more seconds to respond b/c of safety gear kills more people.

@kekcoin Seriously though, all the stats and other indications are that they're social distancing a lot less than other countries right now. Though the specifics might not matter - eg they have some of the lowest mask usage. But masks don't seem to have much effect. Stuff like average # of people in a household might be far more important.

@kalle Pff, we get so much we don't need to brag.

@kalle I don't mean dark literally. I mean hours and intensity of sunlight. Shortest day of the year in Stockholm is almost half as long as shortest day in Tel Aviv.

The economy is doing so badly one of the payday loans places near me has gone out of business.

No paydays, no loans.

@akhavr PCR tests are based on amplifying and detecting RNA, not proteins, so that shouldn't be an issue.

@rastinza "However the mRNA vaccines can also easily be adapted to new virus variations."

Unfortunately, we don't know that. The mRNA vaccines we have so far present a *much* higher rate of allergic reactions than other vaccines, and the reactions are significantly worse on the second dose. This is likely due to antigens getting created against the RNA carrier, a problem that was expected.

We don't know yet if we can safely give people these vaccines over and over again.

@rastinza "However in most countries lockdown was imposed due to other restrictions, mainly the availability of beds in hospitals."

_Predicted_ availability. Something you see over and over again is that hospitals actually weren't anywhere near as full as expected. Often, less full than usual even.

It's normal for hospitals to be full during flu seasons - heck, it's normal for hospitals to be almost full all the time, because hospitals are very expensive and we don't build much capacity.

Israel's test positivity rate is going up, while their testing rate is going down... Sweden's testing rate is fairly steady, and their positivity rate is going down.

Fact is, Israel's drop in cases/deaths might not even be real. I could certainly see people being in denial about the fact that they've gotten covid after getting vaccinated.

Makes you wonder how many people tested positive after getting vaccinated, and then got another test to confirm that they really were infected.

Israel's covid cases and deaths are just beginning to decline a bit, after vaccinating 54% of the population (30% two weeks ago), and after having been in strict lockdown since _September_. Israeli flu season usually peaks between December and February, and weather right now is perfect for fighting flu.

Meanwhile, Sweden's cases and deaths have been falling since late December, having had hardly any lockdown (or even voluntary measures) the whole time, and Sweden is freezing and dark right now.

@rastinza As to the issue with lockdown, it's not an identical issue. But it is related: lockdown favors virulence as a means to bypass transmission restrictions. The most worrying one being if virulence leads to people being hospitalized, and then spreading it in hospital. That's one of the theories as to why the Spanish Flu was so deadly to young people: wartime field hospitals.

@rastinza I have read the original, which for reference is at: https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.1002198

It's pretty easy to see what the risk is: mRNA vaccines target a very specific part of the virus, making it plausible that evolution would render them less effective. Second, they're an injected vaccine, for a respiratory illnesses, making it plausible that they don't prevent transmission due to a lack of muscocal immunity.