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11th January 2021, 01:31 PM | #361 |
Penultimate Amazing
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Denmark's Vaccinationskalender.
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/dann "Stupidity renders itself invisible by assuming very large proportions. Completely unreasonable claims are irrefutable. Ni-en-leh pointed out that a philosopher might get into trouble by claiming that two times two makes five, but he does not risk much by claiming that two times two makes shoe polish." B. Brecht "The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is required for their real happiness. The demand to give up the illusion about its condition is the demand to give up a condition which needs illusions." K. Marx |
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11th January 2021, 01:48 PM | #362 |
Penultimate Amazing
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"Inevitably crossing borders". And I just mean that in the context that Rolfe appears to be talking about: A few countries planning policy in the absence of worldwide coordination or even a lot of countries striving for "elimination". The "elimination" that has been achieved several times by some countries is temporary and local. It doesn't allow us to assume a world where the virus doesn't exist. Total eradication of a disease has only been achieved once and we don't even know if it's possible never mind practical for Covid.
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11th January 2021, 02:08 PM | #363 |
Penultimate Amazing
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I've included a link from Gavi below which is one of many I can find saying we can not depend on eradication being possible. I can not find a single medical link that says we should plan on or strive for eradication or that it's even possible. And that includes looking at sources from "Independent SAGE" that Rolfe suggested.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GAVI |
11th January 2021, 03:25 PM | #364 |
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Just tired of people who don't understand the difference between local elimination and worldwide eradication, of between endemic disease and "no community spread".
Fatalism and lack of serious resolve to beat this thing has caused hundreds of thousands of deaths so far, at least two serious mutations, and seems set to deprive numerous countries of a zero-covid future. |
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11th January 2021, 03:38 PM | #365 |
Penultimate Amazing
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11th January 2021, 04:00 PM | #366 |
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You're so intent on sounding off in your own wee bubble of what you think I said that you pay no attention to what I did say.
Global eradication of this one is going to be a long process, however like global eradication of the other viruses in the eradication sights this is done one country at a time. When I was three years old there was a polio outbreak in the village where I lived. A boy in my class at primary school was crippled by it. Britain has been polio-free for many decades now. The virus has not yet been eradicated world-wide, but only three countries are still harbouring it. The way you lot are carrying on it's as if you want to say, well it's unrealistic to eradicate polio worldwide so we'll just settle for it remaining endemic and crippling Scottish schoolchildren into the future. Nothing else we can do really, we'll have to live with it. Eliminating a virus means stopping community transmission and implementing border controls as a barrier to new infections being introduced. That's what all countries that have the ability to do that should be aiming for. Scotland (for one) showed that the former can be achieved even without a vaccine. With a vaccine it will be very much easier to do this, even with the more infectious strain. Vaccines also allow travel restrictions to be less onerous, with only vaccine refuseniks having to be quarantined. This is the future that is possible, and it's not even all that difficult. Stop community transmission in your own patch, set up travel regulations, and maintain surveillance, testing, contact tracing and isolation protocols to stamp out any virus that does get past these controls. None of these so-called experts seem to understand this. They seem content to accept continuing community transmission of the virus so long as the numbers getting sick and dying aren't large enough to be in the headlines every day. If they settle for that, it will be a betrayal of immense proportions. That's why I criticise them. |
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11th January 2021, 04:21 PM | #367 |
The Grammar Tyrant
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While it seems to me you're ignoring voices of reason, science and facts that disagree with you.
We now have a superb animal reserve in mustelids, both farmed and wild. Denmark may have killed their farmed mink, but Sweden and USA haven't, to name just a couple. There may well be other reservoirs. Cats & dogs get it, for starters. The idea that the disease can be eradicated worldwide is a pipe dream that won't come true. You're promoting a fallacy. |
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11th January 2021, 04:32 PM | #368 |
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I don't think anyone in this thread has said anything like that. You are explicitly presenting a false dichotomy. You are saying, quite explicitly IMO, that we can't put a plan in place for elimination while simultaneously preparing for control if the elimination fails. That's nonsense.
While researching your claims I didn't come across any expert "content to accept" community transmission. They're planning for it because it may be the reality we face while working towards elimination or extreme control depending on which country you have in mind. |
11th January 2021, 04:55 PM | #369 |
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Huh - now it seems that gorillas get Covid, too: https://www.stuff.co.nz/world/americ...-san-diego-zoo
Gorilla sanctuaries in the wild have been keeping humans out for this very reason. |
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11th January 2021, 05:53 PM | #370 |
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11th January 2021, 06:11 PM | #371 |
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The point of equilibrium has passed; satire and current events are now indistinguishable. |
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11th January 2021, 06:29 PM | #372 |
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Well, it's no problem if you think that because you're not influencing government policy. I don't see NZ allowing it to become endemic now, and there is absolutely no reason why it should be endemic in any country that has reasonable determination not to let that happen.
I have to admit that I'm intrigued as to why someone living in one of the countries that has eliminated the disease thinks elimination is impossible though. |
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11th January 2021, 07:25 PM | #373 |
Penultimate Amazing
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Rolfe didn't provide a citation for one of these plans when I asked but I looked some up myself. I'll cite one below from the organization, Independent SAGE, that Rolfe mentioned. It's a bit of "elimination light" and they acknowledge that borders are a problem and may only work in nations that are virtually islands. As far as I can tell countries that adopt these practices will still have to expect regular re-infections. And I can't see any practical planning distinction between it being endemic in your own country vs not being endemic to your country but regularly experiencing reintroduction from countries where it is endemic.
https://www.independentsage.org/wp-c...-Way-To-Go.pdf |
12th January 2021, 12:04 AM | #374 |
The Grammar Tyrant
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I'm picking we will have well over 90% vaccine uptake, so it's not much of an issue for us.
You don't think being 2000 km from the nearest land has something to do with it? It's the first time our isolation has come in handy since WWII. We can't afford to quarantine arrivals forever, so it will get back here even if it doesn't escape quarantine prior to vaccine rollout. |
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12th January 2021, 12:13 AM | #375 |
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I would gladly believe you, but isn't it a problem that the animal reservoir doesn't really have to be significant?
The reason pandemics happen is because one person can infect lots of people. If it's hiding in small numbers of animals, every time one of those animals gives it to a human, there's another outbreak. Or, am I wrong? Because I really hope I'm wrong. It seems to me that you could get all the way to "nearly eradicated" by stockpiling a whole bunch of vaccine and a whole bunch of tests, and just testing, testing, testing when it pops up again, but it seems like total eradication just isn't likely when it can hide in animals. |
12th January 2021, 02:30 AM | #376 |
Penultimate Amazing
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I read everything Rolfe writes because she supports her arguments with science and reason.
It is absurd to suggest this virus cannot be eliminated. Australia will certainly achieve this and New Zealand too. Ireland and Scotland are tragic mistakes with controllable borders but frankly driven to crisis by Boris Johnson. |
12th January 2021, 04:35 AM | #377 |
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I admire your optimism. How do you think that could work in Canada, where we have an 8,000 km border (controlled, for the mot part) with a country that's spent the last year fighting the most mundane public health measures to control it?
Things will certainly start improving once Biden is sworn in, but the US has a lot of catching up to do. |
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The social illusion reigns to-day upon all the heaped-up ruins of the past, and to it belongs the future. The masses have never thirsted after truth. They turn aside from evidence that is not to their taste, preferring to deify error, if error seduce them. Gustav Le Bon, The Crowd, 1895 (from the French) |
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12th January 2021, 05:03 AM | #378 |
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Independent SAGE eh?
The great thing about being "independent" is the ability to make pronouncements without any need to consider either the practicallity or the knock on effects of those pronouncements. The other great thing is that the public see the word "independent" and take it to mean "unbiased" |
12th January 2021, 05:51 AM | #379 |
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Well, if you're content to spend the rest of your life taking personal precautious not to be exposed to a virus that somehow can't be eliminated now (although it could be and was eliminated in 2020), each to his own I suppose.
I'm obviously not succeeding in explaining what "elimination" means, so I'll give up for now. |
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"The way we vote will depend, ultimately, on whether we are persuaded to hope or to fear." - Aonghas MacNeacail, June 2012. |
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12th January 2021, 09:37 AM | #380 |
Penultimate Amazing
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Note that once people started using proper language it appears no one believes elimination is impossible, impractical maybe, I'll come back to that. It's eradication that can't be claimed is possible right now and I can't find any expert that suggests it can be.
Note that you are citing Island nations and those are where elimination is most practical. But note that even the organization Rolfe cited does not appear to be claiming that elimination is possible/practical or even the first goal. They are currently calling for well controlled, a bit short of elimination. |
12th January 2021, 09:50 AM | #381 |
Penultimate Amazing
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Well, if you want some help in making yourself clearer, I'd suggest a few things (I'd really like to understand you). One is go back and clarify the places where you said something like "can and should be eradicated". Someone is still questioning you about that just a few posts up. Also, every time I read the details of the "elimination" you are proposing it sounds more like an eradication to me. Your description doesn't match up with the experts you named. And, finally, cite some source rather than making people look them up for you.
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13th January 2021, 01:19 AM | #382 |
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Is Covid theoretically eradicatable? Yes, assuming vaccination stops infection outright. Can we achieve it? No, too many idiots against vaccination.
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13th January 2021, 04:12 AM | #383 |
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There's concern regarding the potential for new variants, as we are seeing with those arising from UK, South Africa and Brazil, to escape existing immunity and the current vaccines. There was a WHO meeting yesterday to discuss it. Elimination might not be possible and there would be a need for new vaccines to cover the new variants.
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13th January 2021, 05:20 AM | #384 |
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Of course further developments may well make things more difficult, and indeed the new more transmissible variant has already done that. Nothing is guaranteed. But the way many of these talking heads in the media are framing it, we're not even going to try. That is criminal. In particular because the emergence of nasty new variants happens when the virus is running endemic, not when it's suppressed to the point of elimination.
The new variant didn't appear in New Zealand. Funny, that. |
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13th January 2021, 07:46 AM | #385 |
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That sounds reasonable. Hope for the best, prepare for the worst, seems a reasonable thing to do. What Rolfe is protesting, as it appears to me, is how many experts seem to calling for strategy that does not aim at that "best" at all. In that I agree with her, while also agreeing that it makes sense to prepare for the "worst" as well, especially given that that "worst" is likely to be what will end up happening, given how this thing has played out so far.
Quote:
Thanks for explicitly raising the point of that "jargon". I looked those two terms up, and that makes it easier to follow discussions, both here and elsewhere. (I didn't know those were technical terms, and tended to read them as synonyms, both referring to complete eradication of the virus, which is obviously misleading.) Two quick links (this, and this) for others who, like me, may not have been aware of the difference. Too many idiots against vaccination, too many idiots against social distancing, too many idiots against masks. Far too many idiots, unfortunately! Agreed. ("Criminal" as in figure-of-speech "criminal", not literally! ) They're right to express their opinions, and nor are those opinions necessarily incorrect, in as much as they cover a very likely eventuality. But these "talking heads" do influence public opinion, especially uninformed public opinion, so that what they say might turn out to be a self-fulfilling prophecy. To that extent, I agree, those that know enough to know better, should also know better than to focus only the worst. (Which is, obviously, not to say that one mustn't prepare for that "worst". One must, obviously.) ------------ No-one seems to talking any more -- either generally or over here, far as I can see -- of cures, medicines. Vaccines are great and all, and that we've got them finally is terrific, but what would really help us out of this mess is if we also got a cure as well. Despite so much of research, so much money spent, so much effort, nothing on that front yet. Right? |
13th January 2021, 08:04 AM | #386 |
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The BBC site just posted a good summary of where we are on treatments.
Coronavirus cure: What progress are we making on treatments? |
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13th January 2021, 08:08 AM | #387 |
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I'm not arguing against preparing for the worst, obviously. But as you say, the rhetoric we're getting at the moment is all about the worst, with no suggestion that it's possible to avert that. To say, this is what we're going to do to try to eliminate [community transmission of] the virus from our country, and this is a big prize and it would mean a lot more normal a life for everyone [q.v. New Zealand, and many places last summer], however we can't ignore the possibility that this effort may fail and we could end up with endemic disease, isn't unreasonable at all. To use the horrible prospect of endemic disease to encourage people to comply with measures designed to eliminate the virus, absolutely. But to suggest to people that it's all a waste of time and they might as well not bother because endemic disease is the inevitable endpoint, is both incorrect and deeply wrong. It will become a reason for politicians not to institute measures that have an excellent chance of eliminating the virus, and then we're screwed. If that is their actual opinion then they have no business being in the job they're in, never mind influencing public and political opinion. |
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"The way we vote will depend, ultimately, on whether we are persuaded to hope or to fear." - Aonghas MacNeacail, June 2012. |
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13th January 2021, 11:03 AM | #388 |
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13th January 2021, 11:49 AM | #389 |
Penultimate Amazing
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No. No. No. You are the person with the extremely dangerous rhetoric. You called Horby and Fauci and everyone who shares their views deluded lying idiots dooming us all who need to be shot for their views. Everyone is going to understand that rhetoric and you've just undercut two of the most prominent experts in the world who are saying tons of things that need to be listened to in two of the countries most resistant to listening to the experts. Thanks. Obviously what the world needs now is people undercutting the experts when they use an esoteric word imprecisely one time. And why are you doing this? You claim it's because they (most public health experts) are actually striving to merely loosely control versus eliminate the disease. That is a total strawman you've constructed based on one sentence from a guy who wasn't talking about what we should strive for. It is completely easy to find these same experts talking about elimination:
Quote:
See? That's what you find if you go looking honestly for what these experts want to happen. And it's not hard to find. You are misrepresenting the vast majority of public health experts because you favor one of the most aggressive plans to achieve elimination. |
13th January 2021, 11:57 AM | #390 |
Penultimate Amazing
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Looks like I can't edit out the double spacing today.
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13th January 2021, 12:13 PM | #391 |
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13th January 2021, 12:26 PM | #392 |
Illuminator
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On a more time critical view the USA has distributed vaccines to the states and most have had a really slow utilization. In some cases vaccines are even being tossed if they aren't used soon enough.
Meanwhile, where I live there is still an active effort to get people to get flu shots. Free. And the incidence of flu, due to existing NPIs, is essentially zero. Each of the people giving shots could be giving Coivid-19 shots instead. We can get back to flu shots in the fall. Right now it's a complete mismanagement of resources. |
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13th January 2021, 02:03 PM | #393 |
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We got this year's flu shots the first day they were available. On Monday of this week, my spouse and I became eligible for the Covid-19 vaccination, but on the first day of registration we hit a notice that all slots in our area are completely filled though the end of the month. We're on a waiting list. On Monday night I fell ill, so we drove to a location far from home--about 70 miles--to the only drive-through Covid testing site that said we could sign up for a test. Just now I got an email. Both negative. But that was a long car ride for someone feeling miserable and running a 101-degree fever.
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13th January 2021, 03:44 PM | #394 |
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15th January 2021, 03:53 AM | #395 |
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15th January 2021, 04:02 AM | #396 |
Penultimate Amazing
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15th January 2021, 11:31 AM | #397 |
Penultimate Amazing
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The problem is the availability of the vaccine itself, not the staff to deliver it. There doesn't seem to be any shortage of doctors, PAs, nurses, pharmacists, pharmacy techs, EMTs etc. certified to give shots. The idea of people getting their regular flu shots was to avoid overloading the medical infrastructure with flu patients at the same time covid patients were spiking. The fact that flu shots are still available doesn't interfere with anything else. |
15th January 2021, 12:00 PM | #398 |
Illuminator
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Nope. States have been getting deliveries of vaccine but the pipeline between the state having them and getting them into people is broken. Well under half of the vaccines that have been distributed to the states have been used.
https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#vaccinations California has recently authorized training of dentist personnel to give vaccine shots. I'd think it easier to switch the ones giving flu shots. They have only used 900k of the 3M vaccine doses they have as of 3 days ago. |
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15th January 2021, 12:07 PM | #399 |
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My county is starting to do people over 85 on Monday. Looks like it may take a while to get to those of us in our early 70's.
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15th January 2021, 12:07 PM | #400 |
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Yeah, that was the idea. The reality is that flu has been and is at the lowest levels ever recorded Worldwide. It didn't have as high an R as Covid-19 in part because flu is endemic. So Covid-19 NPIs have effectively shut down flu with it's lower R. Further, flu shots aren't all that effective. Currently, the impact of 1M Covid-19 shots v 1M flu shots on ICU usage is probably 100 to 1 or more. Flu will be back towards the end of the year and shots recommended.
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