I'm away from my computer and replying from phone all weekend, so linking sources isn't coming soon. You can on your own Google asymptomatic transmission rates, COVID mortality rates among vaccinated, and COVID infection rates, and do the math.
Our Covid Response
- Thread starter gorfias
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I literally parrot what other professionals have said like Paul Offit, Vinay Prasad, Jay Bhattacharya, Monica Gandhi, Marty Makary, etc. I never said there wasn't a positive relationship between covid serology and long-term symptoms.
I did not say people without acute respiratory infections get long covid. I said exactly what the study I posted said.
Again, by the definition of long covid used in the study, covid and long covid aren't related. We've been over this like 20 times now.
Again, Paul Offit was wrong with predictions like everyone else has been. But when has he actually been wrong with explaining the science. He fucking knows how vaccines work and the covid vaccine is no different. Even before the vaccine was out, in this article co-written by Paul Offit, it states that antibody titers don't really matter, yet we're almost in 2023 and antibody titers are still be used as some metric for whether boosters (and vaccines for kids) are recommended when it should be CLINICAL OUTCOMES. I wonder why the 2 top FDA officials resigned because of covid boosters... (because the Biden administration wasn't following science). And if those people retired during Trump's administration because of that administration not following science, the left would still be incessantly b!tching about it but because it happened under Biden, nobody fucking talks about that ignoring of science that caused harm to many people and still causes harm today (because there's still places that require EVERYONE to be up to date on boosters).
The very first part of the article you linked to about Prasad is literally wrong and Prasad is right with his masking argument (that is merely there's no proof of masks working, not that masks don't work but you need to prove it) but you have claimed that he's a nut. Why should I read past the 1st part when that lady already showed her logical skills are rather poor on her opening argument?
The whole testing thing is stupid because the tests don't help at all. The rapid tests really only show a positive result when you already have symptoms so you already know you're sick, and you shouldn't be going out to things if you're sick regardless if it's covid or not. The whole ideal situation of being with someone that tested positive for covid and you then getting tested (before symptoms) to see if you got it so you know not to infect others never came to fruition.
You can add a big fat generally to my post above. Also, I don't think they've ever shown that asymptomatic spread actually happens to people that stay asymptomatic the whole time. This summer I went to Gen Con and shared a hotel room with 5 people 2 days after being exposed to someone with covid and I myself got the mildest of a symptom for like half a day and no one that I roomed with got sick (I, of course, asked if anyone cared about the situation before going and everyone was fine with it).
Official ONS British data showed in March 2022 that covid was less deadly to all age groups than the flu. The flu and RSV are probably more dangerous this year because of the immunity gap and the fact people don't get flu shots (this is the one year to actually get a flu shot for like everyone since we've missed the flu the last 2 years). Kids are filling up hospitals with RSV, not covid.
You said it's "nothing to do with it", and now you're backtracking by claiming that you acknowledged the clear relationship between the two all along.
And you parrot a small number of researchers who have high media profiles, and who happen to align with what you said. If researchers don't fit into those two categories, they don't get a look-in.
You insinuated they were just as likely. Which is categorically false.
We'll have to keep going over it until you realise what rubbish you're coming out with. You yourself have finally conceded that positive covid serology and long-term symptoms have a positive relationship. That means they're "related". Positive relationship = related.
Well, no; plenty of researchers and scientists accurately warned of the elevated risk of covid to the US. Offit was not just in line with everyone else when he said it would all be over in a few months; he was an outlier. And then he acknowledged he was wrong.
Because she didn't "show her logical skills are poor". Her argument is perfectly cogent, and you're merely disregarding it because it doesn't chime with your own utterly discredited, unscientific view.
Completely against all scientific consensus.
There's probably the same relationship with long-term symptoms as the flu and other infections so you'll find a positive relationship when one infection is the dominant infection, thus adjustments!!!!
You've yet to discredit any of the stuff they've said. It's pretty funny that at least 2 of them are hardcore progressives, one even has a permanent Bernie Sanders sticker on their car. They follow science and science isn't political.
I never insinuated perfectly healthy people got long covid from nothing.
Being wrong about a prediction (which literally everyone was at some point) is not being wrong with the actual science. The official US numbers were way off too in the beginning. Just about every single model put forth concerning how much cases and deaths was way way off. When the UK decided to lockdown one of the times, the model was literally already proven wrong and they still voted to lockdown, so very dumb. You gonna admit to any of the horribly wrong shit Fauci said that was "scientific consensus"?
Prasad has said there's no good (real world and randomized) data saying masks work, thus you can't say masks work. There's no logical argument to disprove Prasad's statement. The only thing to do is run an actual cluster randomized trial to prove masks work. Who cares if Prasad didn't use quite the perfect wording to explain some study? The point regardless is that the study failed at proving masks work because the result was not statistically significant.
Where in the world has massive scale covid testing caused covid cases to drop in any meaningful manner? Yet there's scientific consensus that testing works? Just stop with the bullshit. If you get a rapid test pre-symptoms, you aren't gonna get a positive test result most likely. And if you do the better PCR test, it takes time to get back to you (when you probably have symptoms already) so what's the point? I guess the CDC is squarely against the "scientific consensus" because they don't recommend that people without symptoms get tested.
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This is a sentence entirely built on assumption, then. "Probably the same", and then followed by an assumption about what the adjustments actually were, even though the paper didn't provide any such information.
There are several direct examples in the article I quoted. For one thing, he incorrectly interprets the results of the Bangladesh study he attempted to criticise.
You insinuated that people are just as likely to experience the long-term symptoms whether they had covid or no infection at all, which is categorically false.
It literally is, because epidemiology is a science.
I'm sorry that your favourite media-personality-slash-researcher made a mistake, but that's what happened; it would go a lot easier if you just acknowledged it rather than parading an endless line of excuses for why it doesn't count.
WE DON'T KNOW THE FREQUENCY OF LONG-TERM SYMPTOMS IN ANYTHING REGARDLESS FLU, COVID, RSV, HEAD COLD, ETC. THUS, WHY I USED "PROBABLY". THERE'S NO REASON TO SURMISE THAT COVID CAUSES IT ANY MORE FREQUENTLY AND WE HAVE STUDIES SHOWING IT'S PROBABLY EVEN LESS FREQUENTLY THAN MOST OTHER INFECTIONS.
He did not interpret the results wrong. She was using the actual numbers from the study and those showed cloth masks did a bit of something. Whereas Prasad is using the fact that those results have a P value that is too high to be statistically significant to be of any value, which they aren't of any value. The study showed no REAL proof of cloth masks doing anything. The people that claim masks work need to prove that claim, which they haven't.
Never insinuated that.
Sure it's a science but you're still doing a bunch of guess work- to predict cases/deaths, which is why literally every prediction was wrong. All the stuff you keep harping on as being the "scientific consensus" has no proof to it. There's no proof of masking working, there's no proof anti-body titers means anything, no proof vaccines prevent transmission. In fact we have proof that anti-body titers mean nothing from the Pfizer and Moderna vaccine data as the Moderna vaccine produced more antibodies but had the same clinical outcomes as Pfizer.
We have studies showing the rate of incidence, charted against infections of different kinds. You yourself posted one.
He took results showing that superior quality masks provided better protection, but that all masks provide some protection, and extrapolated that masks don't do squat. His conclusion is completely unsupported by the numbers, and the sole reason you're parroting his line is that it chimes with what you personally want to be true.
You did. You've now backed away from it after it became clearly indefensible-- but true to form, you're unwilling to acknowledge a mistake.
Building models and scientific forecasting is a little more than "guesswork". The medical science community had been warning about the increasing likelihood of a pandemic for years before Covid. And when covid struck, plenty of researchers were warning that it could have a severe impact globally, as a multi-year pandemic before becoming endemic. They were right. Paul Offit opined that it would all blow over in short order, which was against the consensus, and he was wrong-- and he admitted it. The models and consensus was right.
I posted a study showing that non-covid infections had people worse off X amount of months later than covid but those are just non-covid infections and not broken down into flu, RSV, head cold, etc. And those results could be tainted by the immunity gap as it's been awhile since many have been exposed to those so those long-term symptom rates could be higher than normal. We've never really done studies on this stuff, which is why we have like a small handful of experts on ME/CFS. We really don't know much about this stuff and to claim covid is some massive danger for long-term symptoms is not backed by anything.
The crux of his argument against the CDC about them claiming any mask is better than no mask is obviously the fact there's no proof cloth masks are better than no mask. There's not a single good (real-world randomized) study that says cloth masks work. He's not saying masks don't do squat, he's saying to PROVE IT and do the cluster randomized trials (he's been saying to do them for like 2 years now and the NIH/CDC won't do them). Also, there's a funny thing about normal human behavior invalidating known protective measures and why you need proof of things working in the wild. For example, we all know that N95s work better than surgical masks. However, when you actually force health care workers to wear N95s, they don't actually do anything for covid transmissions because humans are human and covid is covid.
Quote where I said that.
You sure that was what the models and consensus said?
March 31, 2020
The top government scientists battling the coronavirus estimated on Tuesday that the deadly pathogen could kill 100,000 to 240,000 Americans
Coronavirus May Kill 100,000 to 240,000 in U.S. Despite Actions, Officials Say (Published 2020)
Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the nation’s leading infectious disease expert, and Dr. Deborah L. Birx, who is coordinating the response, called it “our real number” but pledged to try to reduce it.
It is a lot of guesswork when the models aren't very accurate. It's hard to guess how many cases and deaths there will be when you didn't know the actual number of infections at the time. IIRC the seroprevalence study that Jay Bhattacharya was apart of in Santa Clara county was the 1st such study done (April 2020) to get an idea of how many people actually had gotten infected with covid. Without that number, it's kinda hard to figure out how fast it spreads and actually get an accurate IFR.
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China estimates COVID surge is infecting 37 million people a day - Bloomberg News
Nearly 37 million people in China may have been infected with COVID-19 on a single day this week, Bloomberg News reported on Friday, citing estimates from the government's top health authority.
www.reuters.com
According to China's National Health Authority, an estimated 37 million people in China were infected in a single day, and 248 million were infected in the first 20 days of December.
There is a low rate of vaccination in China. Under the previous "zero covid" strategy, buildings, towns or even cities would be locked down if small rates of infection were detected. This appears to have been successful in keeping transmission low, so vaccination was not regarded as a high priority.
Those restrictions were relaxed recently-- but without a preceding vaccination drive. Hence the eye-watering numbers from the National Health Authority.
Why show kindness towards others when you can feel smug that Christ loves you and only you?
Christmas is the time for Hope and Optimism.
China was also doing a China first approach and only let citizens use a locally created vaccine which has not been proved effectiveChina estimates COVID surge is infecting 37 million people a day - Bloomberg News
Nearly 37 million people in China may have been infected with COVID-19 on a single day this week, Bloomberg News reported on Friday, citing estimates from the government's top health authority.
According to China's National Health Authority, an estimated 37 million people in China were infected in a single day, and 248 million were infected in the first 20 days of December.
There is a low rate of vaccination in China. Under the previous "zero covid" strategy, buildings, towns or even cities would be locked down if small rates of infection were detected. This appears to have been successful in keeping transmission low, so vaccination was not regarded as a high priority.
Those restrictions were relaxed recently-- but without a preceding vaccination drive. Hence the eye-watering numbers from the National Health Authority.
That being said, Australia opened up on December 11 last year. 11 million reported cases since then which is almost half the population so it goes through the population very quick
China for a while was actually handling covid pretty well, at least compared to America but for some reason this year they just dropped the ball. They went from too harsh lockdowns to basically giving up. There should have been a better medium.China estimates COVID surge is infecting 37 million people a day - Bloomberg News
Nearly 37 million people in China may have been infected with COVID-19 on a single day this week, Bloomberg News reported on Friday, citing estimates from the government's top health authority.
According to China's National Health Authority, an estimated 37 million people in China were infected in a single day, and 248 million were infected in the first 20 days of December.
There is a low rate of vaccination in China. Under the previous "zero covid" strategy, buildings, towns or even cities would be locked down if small rates of infection were detected. This appears to have been successful in keeping transmission low, so vaccination was not regarded as a high priority.
Those restrictions were relaxed recently-- but without a preceding vaccination drive. Hence the eye-watering numbers from the National Health Authority.
It doesn't help that the vaccines are not as effective as the Western ones which is only making this worse.
Keep in mind this can still affect the rest of the world as well. Supply shipments are going to be fucked because of this, and there's also the fear of a new variant happening.
In comparison with America, on covid, they did immensely better over most of the last two years. And their current level of restriction isn't particularly laissez-faire compared with most Western countries.
What makes the difference is the speed of transition without doing the prep with vaccination. And the pointless chauvinism with the vaccine itself.
This ridiculous study says that people that are unvaxxed should get counseling for driving and have higher insurance rates. These people are so blinded by their preconceptions their logic is so out of whack. They didn't even acknowledge miles driven. The study has inadvertently proves all the observation vaccine studies are pretty garbage.
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The reason people think masks work is mechanistic bias, @~20:30
You yourself have provided a fantastic data point on this: You proudly said you only got the vaccine because you had to, and wouldn't have done so otherwise-- and you also recently stated that you routinely break the speed limit. You're a prime illustration of what the study was arguing.
Direct quote from that: "I'm not saying masks do nothing, that's not my point".
He explicitly does say ivermectin and remdesivir are useless against covid though... weren't you preaching that one of those was useful? Remind me?
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Then why do you think a majority of drugs never make it to market? They are all tested because there's some mechanism the drug is doing that makes a doctor/researcher hypothesize that it will work in doing X. Yet the vast vast vast majority of the time, the drugs don't work when actually tested. I literally just linked to a study a post or two back about health care workers contracting covid at the same rates regardless if they wore a surgical or n95 mask when we know full well the n95 is far superior, it's that humans are human and covid is covid and thus there's no point in forcing them to wear n95s even though we know for a fact they are better masks.
Uhh... I haven't been in any traffic accidents since I got the vaccine, IT MUST BE WORKING!!!! There's even more fantastical data on how well natural immunity provides protection (it's better than the vaccine per data everywhere in the world and CDC's own data).
We also have no proof masks do work, that's my point, his point, and Prasad's point. If you're gonna tell me to do something, you better have proof of it working.
My argument was that remdesivir actually had a full-on large and randomized trial showing it didn't work. Ivermectin had smaller poorer studies saying it did work. Why was remdesivir being handled out like candy in hospitals (when we knew it didn't work) and any pushing of ivermectin was considered dangerous misinformation (when we didn't know if it worked)? Also, I came across a video of virologists (who had Paul Offit on as a guest) saying the biggest mistake in the pandemic was not giving remdesivir EARLY in covid infections and it apparently works better early (makes sense as antivirals are something to give early). Covid early on and covid when you're sick and in the hospital are 2 different diseases in a sense and different treatments needed, it's why steroids are given late in covid infection and not early. The problem with giving remdesivir early was logistical because there just wasn't enough of it to give to everyone that got covid in the beginning (as you don't know who will get very sick and actually have needed it vs someone that won't even get a symptom) and it's also very expensive as well. Although, you could have done, you know, focused protection (dirty word that would get you shadow banned on Twitter) and gave remdesivir early to the known vulnerable groups but the covid narrative was that it was dangerous to everyone equally and we need one-size-fits-all directives (that don't make any sense).
Your grasp of data analysis is so poor that I'm not quite sure whether you believe this or not. I wouldn't be massively surprised anymore.
But that wasn't Prasad's point. He explicitly said it wasn't. Yet again, you're extrapolating conclusions that the researcher himself hasn't drawn, and then nonetheless proudly citing him as a source.
Of course they did: you wouldn't have seen it otherwise.