Coronavirus
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Re: Coronavirus
I'm getting the first shot tomorrow. I cannot wait!
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- "I could totally eat a pig butt, if smoked correctly!"
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Re: Coronavirus
The governor ended the statewide mask mandate today while opening vaccines to everyone. It seems like he could have waited another couple months to allow everyone that wants to an opportunity to get vaccinated, but whatever.
We're trying to figure out when the right time is to end the requirement to wear a mask at work... If you just say 2 weeks after the last person is vaccinated, well, that's impossible to know if not a hippa violation. If you set a date like 5 weeks from now, there will probably be people not vaccinated fully. If you set a date 3 months from now, well, that seems like overkill.
Regardless, I think it's important to set a date so stragglers know there is a deadline of when the masks are coming off so to speak. Not only to encourage them to get vaccinated, but also so there is no surprise a week in advance...
Seems oddly delightful to be having this conversation.
We're trying to figure out when the right time is to end the requirement to wear a mask at work... If you just say 2 weeks after the last person is vaccinated, well, that's impossible to know if not a hippa violation. If you set a date like 5 weeks from now, there will probably be people not vaccinated fully. If you set a date 3 months from now, well, that seems like overkill.
Regardless, I think it's important to set a date so stragglers know there is a deadline of when the masks are coming off so to speak. Not only to encourage them to get vaccinated, but also so there is no surprise a week in advance...
Seems oddly delightful to be having this conversation.
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Re: Coronavirus
I'd like to bring the origins of the virus from the politics thread over to this one. So, let's tread lightly as it's impossible to avoid the political topics completely. There's not much to be done other than perhaps find better therapeutics to treat active infections wrt to Covid. We have vaccines, we have testing, we have a much better understanding of the virus overall than a year ago.
One question that has somewhat disappeared is the origin of the virus, however.
The WHO officially ended their investigation without finding the source. And, it's become a political football with the US intelligence apparently casting doubt on the WHO report due to political pressure and the WHO countering that this is Biden's attempt to look tough on China.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/2/1 ... ember-says
It's been a while, but I fall firmly in line with the US official stance here of find the [expletive] source by all means. And China conversely warning about making it political....whatever that means.US intelligence on the supposed origin of the coronavirus pandemic is not reliable, a member of the special WHO mission to China said on Wednesday, after Washington cast doubt on the transparency of the probe.
The World Health Organization mission ended on Tuesday without finding the source of the virus, but members had to walk a diplomatic tightrope during their stay, with the US urging a “robust” investigation and China warning against politicising the issue.
I quoted the above tweet because after going back and looking at everything, does that not raise red flags? The flu virus has been around for a long ass time. It's evolved naturally and its obvious goal is to infect and live. More infectious = better from the virus' standpoint.
And, we will see a 99% decrease in flu hospitalizations/deaths year over year due to the measures (as inadequate as we may have thought) undergone by the US. So the question becomes, how does a virus suddenly appear that is so well adapted to infect humans on day 1? Say this virus evolved in the wild, a typical bat coronavirus. Why, or how, would it evolve in bats to infect humans? And, why is there no progression of previous infections along the path while it is becoming more infectious somewhere over the years?
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Re: Coronavirus
To somewhat answer the above question, best I can tell, there are two trains of thought. Full disclosure, I could be interpreting this wrong as it's well above my understanding.
The different views I get from Bret Weinstein and Vincent Rancaniello (probably others, these are just the two that I follow) can be boiled down to parsing genetic sequencing and how those changes occur/how likely they are to occur.
The agreement is that the Sars Cov 2 virus has a cleavage site for host cell proteases called furins. Sars Cov 2's furin is particularly excellent at infecting human cells.
Rancienello concludes
Should be noted, virologists are not claiming the RmYN02 virus is not believed to be a precursor to Sars-Cov-2, it's just an example of a similar furin being found in nature. Its also not said (possibly known) if the furin helps infect other bats
It's tough to find a direct quote, most of Weinstein's thoughts are podcasts and videos, but his conclusion is a lot different. I'll sum it up as best as possible. Yes, it's possible to find similar furins in nature. But, the odds of one forming on a Sars Cov virus are incredibly low, likely requires an animal to simultaneously be infected by two different viruses (the sars cov one along with one with an enhanced furin) and a mutation to occur, and then that particular virus which we haven't seen in nature would need to infect an animal in Wuhan that would transmit it to humans (or be killed, transported, sold, and eaten which China says is not the source). It's much more likely that virus would first be detected where the mutations occur (ie, not Wuhan) Therefore it's more likely it was a gain of function type research on a coronavirus in the Wuhan Institute of Virology that leaked. Here's a link to his twitter feed or something. https://twitter.com/bretweinstein/statu ... 00?lang=en and a 2 hour long podcast with him and a Russian scientist. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5SRrsr-Iug Knock yourself out.
I don't really have an opinion because I don't understand what a furin is. But, interesting how two people both with a strong background in the matter can look at something and come to different conclusions.
The different views I get from Bret Weinstein and Vincent Rancaniello (probably others, these are just the two that I follow) can be boiled down to parsing genetic sequencing and how those changes occur/how likely they are to occur.
The agreement is that the Sars Cov 2 virus has a cleavage site for host cell proteases called furins. Sars Cov 2's furin is particularly excellent at infecting human cells.
Rancienello concludes
https://www.virology.ws/2020/05/14/sars ... revisited/An interesting question is the origin of the furin cleavage site it SARS-CoV-2. Its closest relative, the bat isolate RaTG13, does not have this site. Nor do any of the other bat SARS-like CoVs or the pangolin CoVs that have been isolated. However recently a newly isolated bat SARS-like CoV, RmYN02, was shown to contain a poly basic amino acid insertion in the spike glycoprotein. This observation supports the hypothesis that the furin cleavage site in SARS-CoV-2 arose by recombination among bat viruses in nature.
Should be noted, virologists are not claiming the RmYN02 virus is not believed to be a precursor to Sars-Cov-2, it's just an example of a similar furin being found in nature. Its also not said (possibly known) if the furin helps infect other bats
It's tough to find a direct quote, most of Weinstein's thoughts are podcasts and videos, but his conclusion is a lot different. I'll sum it up as best as possible. Yes, it's possible to find similar furins in nature. But, the odds of one forming on a Sars Cov virus are incredibly low, likely requires an animal to simultaneously be infected by two different viruses (the sars cov one along with one with an enhanced furin) and a mutation to occur, and then that particular virus which we haven't seen in nature would need to infect an animal in Wuhan that would transmit it to humans (or be killed, transported, sold, and eaten which China says is not the source). It's much more likely that virus would first be detected where the mutations occur (ie, not Wuhan) Therefore it's more likely it was a gain of function type research on a coronavirus in the Wuhan Institute of Virology that leaked. Here's a link to his twitter feed or something. https://twitter.com/bretweinstein/statu ... 00?lang=en and a 2 hour long podcast with him and a Russian scientist. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5SRrsr-Iug Knock yourself out.
I don't really have an opinion because I don't understand what a furin is. But, interesting how two people both with a strong background in the matter can look at something and come to different conclusions.
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Re: Coronavirus
Kind of concerning watching what's happening in Michigan right now. They're pushing the 7 day rolling average high for new daily cases set back in the winter (~7500/day then vs 6700/day now). Michigan ranks 42nd in cases per capita with only 7.8% being infected meaning there is likely more naive people in Michigan than most states. Still...
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Re: Coronavirus
covid will never go away bc the GOP has politicized it so much
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Re: Coronavirus
Another update for those of you who have been concerned, btw I appreciate that. My pneumonia has cleared up but scans are showing some pretty severe scarring in my lungs. I have just finished a round of steroids and today is my first day with out them and I feel like garbage. Achy, headache, coughing, etc. Yesterday I had an awful day for brain fog, but today I seem to be thinking much more clearly. I have another doctor appointment Friday. I'm probably going on blood pressure medicine then because since covid it's been up quite a bit.
I started planting corn yesterday and I was completely beat by about 2pm. I kept going until about 6 and just had to stop. I actually took a half hour nap in my car before going home. Still exhausted today, so much so that I'm not planting.
I started planting corn yesterday and I was completely beat by about 2pm. I kept going until about 6 and just had to stop. I actually took a half hour nap in my car before going home. Still exhausted today, so much so that I'm not planting.