Covid-19 News

    Biology is not deterministic.

    In the UK they will test a vaccine by deliberately infecting people with COVID-19. I thought this was never allowed. It is called "a human challenge trial." See:


    https://www.nytimes.com/live/2…tely-exposed-to-the-virus


    Covid-19 Live Updates: Volunteers in London to Be Infected With Coronavirus in Vaccine Study


    Researchers in London are planning the world’s first effort to study how people immunized with different vaccines respond to exposure to the virus.

    Quote from Navid

    There are no scientists who says we need to force a vaccine on anyone. The scientists at GB Declaration are from Stanford, Oxford and Harvard and they make good points based on actual science. They talk about protecting the elderly and letting the young people move forward. They have data on their side.


    I haven't seen a scientist of repute advocating for forcing people to take a vaccine. No forced medical intervention is needed, we have treatments.

    No-one advocates forcing people to take vaccines, because we live in a free world where there is no deep state and people realise if you push people too much it will create resistance.


    But every scientist (maybe except for 0.1% anti-vax crazies) thinks that high population uptake of vaccines will be an essential part of how we get out of this pandemic. not the only part, but a very important one.


    The people suggesting shielding are doing something obvious but unrealistic - how can you shield older people living in the community from this when even old people in carefully shielded care homes still catch it? That is why they are an ideological minority and most people don';t think it will work. Any respiratory disease with 40% asymptomatic transmitters is tough to stop. Living with it for years means everyone catches it. Getting enough herd immunity quickly amongst the young is difficult without forcible COVID infection. Only real round the bend (or is it round the turn?) anti-vax crazies would view that as preferable to forcible vaccination.




    THH

    Quote from THHuxleynew

    Only real round the bend (or is it round the turn?) anti-vax crazies would view that as preferable to forcible vaccination.

    I think your mind just got a major blow. You sound like a vaxing terrorist, that would like to needle all meat ahead of his eyes.


    Did you e.g. read the study about flu vaccination and vaccinated veterans getting 30% more classic corona??


    Do you really believe that somebody with an active brain will take the first ready vaccine??


    This is not about anti vaxing its either you are an idiot that lost his independent mind or you are a follower of pharma propaganda!

    Quote from THHuxleynew

    What policy? I had not noticed one...

    Well protect the vulnerable but keep the society open, no lock down, he also thinks that the evidences for masks is weak and that there is no strong scientific evidence for it. Social distancing is enough. Pretty much what we have in Sweden now. You may not agree with this guy but it is a great discussion.


    We have some surge of cases in a local regions with a very high fraction of young people (A university area) and recommendations there is to work from home, avoid public transport and avoid contact with people you are not living with e.g. the recommendations we had last spring. The number of deaths have not risen but the number icu cases went within half a week to 20% of max for that region. Which means that the spreading is quite dramatic. We expected these kind of bursts of infections. There is also a slight slow general increase of icu cases as well in the whole country. Experts where telling us that this virus would not be affected by which season it is, don't look like that now.

    Quote from stefan

    Well protect the vulnerable but keep the society open, no lock down, he also thinks that the evidences for masks is weak and that there is no strong scientific evidence for it. Social distancing is enough. Pretty much what we have in Sweden now. You may not agree with this guy but it is a great discussion.

    I agree, but the US is not implementing that. Think how much money and effort it would take to protect the elderly in the US where many of them do not even have medical care. I''m sure it could be done but it would be a major effort over several months with central government doing stuff. US central govt is doing nothing. You also need to consider how to protect 65 year old men, or 40 year old men with medical conditions, who need to go out to work to support family, etc...


    But the evidence for marks seems to be quite strong now.


    https://www.iza.org/publicatio…c-control-method-approach


    I can't understand why that should be a political issue at all. This guy is out of line with most scientists on that. Whereas whether you do a "lock up oldies" strategy or a keep rates down strategy is essentially a political decision. But whichever way, mask is a separate issue. If this guy is weird on masks I would not trust his arguments, even though I am sympathetic to making a lock up oldies argument. Just, you have to be realistic and accept the costs (which BTW are much lower in Sweden with a very good state welfare system).

    A little anecdote. My friend's daughter is a working Mum and has 3 children under 5. One of her kids developed a temperature and a cough, and on the advice of her GP she booked a test for herself and all the kids. She got booked into a local drive-through test centre, and under the rules had to swab the strapped-in kids herself from the driving seat as she was not allowed out of the car to do it. Difficult but she managed it. The next day she got her test results, but none for her children. When she called to enquire they told her that results for tests could only be sent to an email a/c or mobile phone belonging to the tested person. Since her babies have neither email accounts or mobiles, she still doesn't know the results.

    Using the common cold virus as a naturally occurring vaccine to prevent COVID-19

    https://www.aging-us.com/article/104166/text


    Hopefully will be pursued in countries where the tentacles of political power do not reach.


    Dr. Vladimir Zelenko leads a White House petition asking Dr. Fauci and 3 others be

    charged and brought to justice for “Crimes Against Humanity / Mass Murder”

    https://techstartups.com/2020/…mes-humanity-mass-murder/

    Colleges and universities are bleeding students in the US, I believe. I teach lower-division math at a California University and they are losing half-a-dozen or so students a week out of the dorms. They are returning home and not signing up for next semester. It turns out that college isn't as attractive if there is no social life. No activities, no parties, masks, social distancing, does not contribute to the college experience that students want. There are a lot of lab-based science classes which are filled; and they meet in person. But classes that don't need a lab, or don't need to meet in person, are all online, like the math classes I am teaching. This is not just my school, but other schools too. Students want the experience of college classes and social life, and online courses aren't doing that. Not only will unemployment be high in US over the next year, but students won't be in school either.

    Another example of criminal censorship


    https://covidinfos.net/covid19…a-tribune-interdite/2368/


    "Dans cette tribune, plus de 200 scientifiques, universitaires et professionnels de santé critiquent la dérive de la politique sanitaire du gouvernement français. Ils estiment qu’elle conduit à des interprétations erronées des données statistiques et à des mesures disproportionnées. Et demandent que l’on évalue nos connaissances réelles pour définir démocratiquement une stratégie sanitaire."

    Quote from rubycarat

    Not only will unemployment be high in US over the next year, but students won't be in school either.

    Maybe not a year. Six to 8 months if a vaccine can be deployed quickly. Once it starts to give the population herd immunity, the threat will recede even before everyone is inoculated.


    My daughter works at George Washington U. She reports the same kinds of problems, with students dropping out and the university in trouble.

    Quote from Lou Pagnucco

    Dr. Vladimir Zelenko leads a White House petition asking Dr. Fauci and 3 others be

    charged and brought to justice for “Crimes Against Humanity / Mass Murder”

    I assume Dr. Zelenka does not believe Fauci made an honest mistake. He does not think that Fauci misjudged the evidence and accidentally committed mass murder. Furthermore, the vast majority of experts agree with Fauci, so it would make no sense to hold him and 3 others responsible for this policy.


    It seems to me that Zelenko must be thinking: "Fauci secretly agrees with me. He knows that what he is saying is wrong. He is deliberately committing mass murder."


    This is a dangerous attitude. If it becomes widespread it will damage academic freedom. Researchers who make honest mistakes will be attacked and fired. That is what happened to cold fusion researchers. Opponents not only said "Fleischmann and Pons are mistaken." They said: "Fleischmann and Pons know darn well they are wrong. They must be doing this for money, or because they are criminals and lunatics." In science people must be allowed to make mistakes, or progress will come to a halt.


    This is also dangerous because it is predicated on the notion that you can read people's minds, and they have secret ulterior motives, not the ones they publicly claim they have. Once you decide that you know people's minds better than they do, or that everyone always lies, anything could be true and yet nothing is true. Welcome to the twenty-first century! I am old-fashioned. When Fauci says, "I believe X and Y for thus and such reasons" I take his statement at face value. I assume he does actually believe what he says, for the reasons he claims. Since most experts agree with him that seems very likely. Why search for hidden motives and conspiracies when you have libraries full of textbooks and research journals saying the same thing Fauci says? Isn't that proof enough he means it?


    Some supporters of cold fusion make the same mistake in the other direction. For example, I have noted that Bill Nye "the Science Guy" has often denigrated cold fusion, claiming that it was a mistake. He thought it was a positional error, with the thermometer in the wrong place. For example, on Fox News he said, “it's just guys using thermometers wrong.” I wrote to him a few times saying this is incorrect, for two reasons:


    1. Many researchers confirmed the excess heat using external temperature sensors in flow and Seebeck calorimeters.

    2. Fleischmann and Pons themselves used an array of five temperature sensors, and they confirmed that the fluid was well mixed. They described this in several of their papers.


    I referenced my paper (which mentions him by name), “Review of the calorimetry of Fleischmann and Pons,” https://www.lenr-canr.org/acrobat/RothwellJreviewofth.pdf. I pointed out that cold fusion has been replicated many times and I suggested that Nye review the experimental literature


    He, or probably his staff, ignored these messages. I expect he may once again make this claim. It is tempting for me to think he did this deliberately. I could fall down this rabbit hole with Dr. Zelenko and the other conspiracy theorists. I will not do this because when I hear hooves I assume they are horses and not zebras. I suppose Nye continues to make these claims for a reason such as:

    • He never got the message from me.
    • He got the message but he ignored it, because he is busy.
    • He doesn't want to hear this because fanatics often contact him about perpetual motion machines and other impossibilities, and he assumes I am just another fanatic.
    • He glanced at the literature in a desultory matter but did not understand it and did not bother to read it carefully. This is what the 2004 DoE reviewers did. They were professional scientists yet they did not understand, as you see in their comments. See: https://www.lenr-canr.org/acrobat/RothwellJresponsest.pdf

    Here is what I do not think:

    • Nye knows darn well that cold fusion is real. He is part of a worldwide conspiracy to deny that and spread lies in the mass media.

    I think the UK volunteers taking the new vaccine to find out if it works against SARS-2 virus are extremely brave individuals (some are doing is purely for the £4000 cash grant to them). However, was this ever tried against the HIV? Wasn't a vaccine developed at one time, but found later to be completely useless, in that symptoms improved for a while, than returned with a vengeance? I just hope I am wrong and this COVID disease can be knocked out completely by the vaccine.:)