Does the coronavirus merit investment, or personal, concern or consideration?

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Lest you be confused by this new Delta covid variant, it’s just the existing India variant. China’s mouthpiece, the WHO, decided to rename all the variants on Greek letters instead of the traditional virus naming based on place of origin or some scientific numbers. The covid place of origin is something that China would very much like you to stop thinking about every time your read covid in the news.

Under the new scheme, the B.1.1.7 variant first identified in the UK, commonly referred to as the Kent variant, is labelled “alpha”. The B.1.351 variant identified in South Africa is “beta”, the P.1 variant that originated in Brazil is “gamma” and the B.1.617.2 variant first detected in India is “delta”. These Greek letter labels will only be given to “variants of concern” and “variants of interest” as defined by the WHO.

This is clearly because the WHO gets paid a lot more to not be “racist” against the China than they did by the Greeks! Watch out for those Greeks - their viruses are a killer.

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5580

I guess I have a less sanguine view. Without getting into specifics, I believe COVID-19, in some form, is going to be with us and is going to impact our lives far longer that current government happy talk would lead us to believe.

And that’s not a political statement. There was plenty of “government happy talk” as well back when Trump was in the big chair. So I’m not trying to impugn Biden here. I’m just stating my view.

I have wondered for a while how it was that the pandemic 100 years ago “just went away”, whereas we have ongoing COVID-19 sorrows worldwide today. First, be reminded Charles Lindbergh did not cross the Atlantic in an airplane until 1927.

(And no, I was not alive then; but my sister was.) :wink:

Lindbergh flew alone. Many years went by before intercontinental air travel became commonplace for the masses.

Second, the world’s population in 1920 was south of two billion souls. Today that number is close to eight billion of us. But this planet is the same size as always. Talk about social distancing!!

In 1920 (actually a bit prior) the pandemic “just went away”. That is not happening today. Circumstances having by now reached “critical mass”, COVID-19 in one form or another will be with us and among us far into the future. Sadly

ETA

For a much more detailed insight into our prospects, and into what is influencing my thinking, read this John M. Barry virus explainer in the WaPo. They thought this was so important that they are making it available to everyone for free, outside their paywall:

Why COVID-19 is likely to stick around

Barry goes into detail there regarding the variant and invariant portions of viruses, explaining the critical difference between measles vaccine, for example, and our current crop of COVID-19 vaccines.

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Recap and timeline from the Fauci emails on how a number of participants in his rushed confidential zoom conference call in response ended up creating and promoting two of the early articles cited as “proof” the virus wasn’t from a lab.

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“[I] should have softened the phrase ‘smoking gun’ because I don’t believe that it proves the origin of the furin cleavage site but it does sound that way.

Cleavage and smoking gun in the same sentence … easy to see how he was distracted … can Bogie be far b̶e̶h̶i̶n̶d̶ away? :laughing:

“hard to determine but I wouldn’t rule out either origin”

Well, now he’s just become a weatherman. :smile:

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Seems to still be really low numbers.

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Between 270% and 2,750% more than expected. But the vaccine is proven safe, so this should just be ignored.

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posting this here because it is vaccine related, but please post political discussion replies in the linked thread

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Yes, a few 100 in millions. Covid would cause many more in those numbers vaccinated. (And could have even accounted for some or all of those that were observed)

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About 1% of a hospital’s staff are suspended for not getting a covid vaccine, hospital getting sued. I suspect the law is more on the side of the employees given the vaccines are under EUA and not fully FDA approved.

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There are several states considering laws on this, but as of right now, there is no law protecting employees that wish to remain unvaccinated from disciplinary actions by their employers. There might be some case law soon, but I suspect courts will side with certain employers - hospitals being one of them.

See my post in the politics thread (part 2) for a discussion on a much less sympathetic employer doing the same thing.

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5592

What do you think an EUA has to do with magically restricting employers from adding requirements for employment? (At least in an At-Will employment state).

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Anything not necessary for a job’s requirements (which it clearly wasn’t since the jobs have been being done the whole last year+) is subject to scrutiny under the EEOC and similar. If the minority demographic vaccine hesitancy is what the media has been portraying, such a policy would be “raaaaccist” which is far worse than illegal.

Besides, they don’t even have proof that the vaccine is safe under the FDA, just that it seems likely to be better than not under the EUA.

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But job requirements can change at any time. That’s at will employment. It doesn’t matter if it wasn’t a requirement for a similar job 30 years ago or not.

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So the office job starts requiring all employees scale the drainpipe to a second story window in order to get to their desk each morning. No issue? Employees either comply or quit?

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Better yet, start requiring IQ tests, and just wait and see what the demographics are of those who pass… that was the whole point of Griggs - that unrelated requirements not necessary for a specific job’s tasks couldn’t be imposed.

If you’d like to roll that back, I’m sure lots of companies would be happy to give IQ tests instead of paying up for college grads as a half way decent proxy for being kinda smart. It would be better for a lot of employees too, who could get a job without paying a ton for college if they could just show they were smart enough to be worth a shot to hire. But some demographics just don’t do well on tests, so we’re all stuck with this dumbed down college system.

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I was hoping this discussion would take place under my post in the other thread, but here is fine too.

In the real world, you guys are both right. The EEOC so far has said that employers can require vaccinations, but several (red) states are considering laws that prohibit that, which would supercede EEOC interpretation. Then, of course, there will be lawsuits. I think most lower court and appellate courts would rule in favor of employers, but the supreme court would probably strike a balance, permitting some employers (like hospitals and nursing homes) to require it and prohibiting others. But by the time it gets that far and gets ironed out, if you’re living in a blue state, you’ve probably already got your shot so you can keep working. If you’re in a red state working for a leftist employer (like the Commissioner of Revenue that I pointed out in my thread) and you don’t want to get vaxxed, you better hope your state legislature bails you out, and fast.

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“Trust the Science”, the academic journal edition.

Political considerations at the scientific journals publishing academic articles on covid served to promote the natural origin and suppress the possibility of a lab evolved / man made one. They speculate on China’s monetary influence on the finances of the journal publishers, many of whom are somewhat marginal.

This went as far as not just rejecting papers that claimed the lab possibility, but also rejecting or submitting to extensive scrutiny and delays ones that detracted from the broader natural origin narrative, such as those showing covid infected human cells more readily than all the other animals they tested (suggesting a lab origin evolved in human cell culture, rather than a cross species jump) or research suggesting the proposed intermediate hosts (pangolins) were unlikely.

This is similar to the experience of Dr Kory / FLCCC with their ivermectin paper, which was accepted and passed peer review, but then was, in an incredibly rare occurrence, retracted by the journal before publication for political reasons by the journal editors. It was subsequently published elsewhere.

The editors emphasize that the papers at the center of the disagreement [covid / ivermectin] had passed peer review. “The scientific process requires fair, open, and transparent peer review to proceed effectively and efficiently—particularly at this time and for this topic,” the editors write in their statement, which was sent to Frontiers staff and to authors of papers in the special issue yesterday (April 27). “The actions of ‘Frontiers’ in this matter clearly violate well established norms and processes for peer review and publication of scientific works and intellectual contributions.”

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