California no longer under lockdown - people freak out

Silvanus

Elite Member
Legacy
Jan 15, 2013
11,029
5,796
118
Country
United Kingdom
I believe they are all the mRNA vaccines, I don't feel like looking them all up but IIRC even the Russian one is the same tech. Dr. Paul Offit said you could likely be able to mix and match the vaccines for 1st and 2nd doses for example if you can't get the 2nd dose of the original one you got while a different vaccine is available at the time.

I wrote a whole paragraph about how you don't need to base public policy off the assumptions for this. We have basically real-time data for infections, hospitalizations, and whatnot. There's no reason to make policy based of someone's prediction whether it's mine or Dr. Fauci's because we'll know when infections start dropping greatly. Now, the stupid shit in California is stupid policy based on no science, which is what the thread is about, they're trying to recall Newsom now.
We have real-time data, sure; but when reopening from lockdown, governments have to rely on modelling future scenarios and predictive science.

Look at the last two lockdowns in the UK. We locked down; infections fell way down; we reopened; infections grew again, beyond the point they were at originally. You cannot just yo-yo in and out of lockdown, reacting to the current infection level, because the current infection level is going to be artificially low as a direct result of lockdown.

You need scientists and researchers to model a roadmap out of lockdown that doesn't involve letting it spike and overwhelm the health service. And every model that has been produced has been very cautious.

I trust where the majority of the data points. If 8 of 10 studies show "this", then "this" is probably correct vs "that". It doesn't matter what's more hopeful or not to me. You seem to be always looking at the worst or just taking in the awfully worded headline that isn't nearly that awful when you read the whole thing like that story I linked to in my lost post.
And you seem to be always looking at the best, or taking the most optimistic model. It seems to me that when so many lives are at stake, it makes perfect sense to prepare and plan for the worst-case scenario.

And you're going to say probably the least deadly (in IFR) pandemic in history as having a "fucking high" IFR? If I'm less likely to die from "it" than something that I do everyday that I and just everyone else in the world deems as acceptable risk, I'm not going to call the risk from "it" fucking high.
The least deadly pandemic. The point being that pandemics are exceptionally rare and exceptionally deadly events as a basic requirement.

And if you're talking about driving again, we've already debunked that nonsense comparison.
 

Agema

You have no authority here, Jackie Weaver
Legacy
Mar 3, 2009
8,598
5,962
118
MedCram has accredited medical courses.
MedCram is basically a spin-off company where some entrepreneurially-inclined med school professors have repurposed bits of university teaching as paid-for web content. These guys do the same job that I do. Therefore if they are an expert authority, so am I.

But none of the recommended vitamin d levels are based on what you're immune system needs.
Says who, with what data?

All the studies are putting vitamin d you get from the sun way way higher than recommended levels.
All the studies you think exist don't.

You're getting way more than 400 IUs of it a day if you're in the sun, which was my point. And 1,000 IUs in 5 minutes equals out to 6,000 IUs in 30 minutes. The fact that we spend way way more time inside than we ever have means we're getting less vitamin d than ever before. Plus, more darker skinned races are living farther north than they ever have before, and have been very disproportionately hit by covid.
If you mean should you get a surplus of Vit D from enough exposure on a sunny, Summer day, yes you should. There is no reliable data for how much, but surely into the thousands of IUs. 10-20,000 IUs sounds distinctly dubious outside dedicated exposure like sunbathing.

50 nmol/L serum vitamin D (25OHD) is 20 micrograms per litre plasma, which means about 50 micrograms total in the blood for an average adult. About a third of the body's 25OHD is in the plasma, so that's about 150 micrograms 25OHD total in the body for that blood plasma concentration. Obviously, individual variation, etc. The half life of 25OHD is recokoned at ~15-25 days. Crunch the numbers, 10-15 micrograms (400-600IU) per day is plenty; the steady state should be well over 50 nmol/L plasma. Obviously, individual variation, etc.

This is without even considering the much larger store of another form of vit D, cholecalciferol, largely in body fat. That has a half life of about 80 days. The function of it is almost certainly that excess 25OHD is coverted to and stored as cholecalciferol in times of plenty, and that store is released when sunlight is low in Winter and vitamin D is much less available. Consequently, someone who gets out enough in the warmer months is unlikely to need supplements even throughout Winter, just relying on diet.

Bottom line, government recommendations are fine except for a minority of people with specific vulnerabilities to vit D deficiency.
 

Phoenixmgs

The Muse of Fate
Legacy
Apr 3, 2020
8,927
784
118
w/ M'Kraan Crystal
Gender
Male
We have real-time data, sure; but when reopening from lockdown, governments have to rely on modelling future scenarios and predictive science.

Look at the last two lockdowns in the UK. We locked down; infections fell way down; we reopened; infections grew again, beyond the point they were at originally. You cannot just yo-yo in and out of lockdown, reacting to the current infection level, because the current infection level is going to be artificially low as a direct result of lockdown.

You need scientists and researchers to model a roadmap out of lockdown that doesn't involve letting it spike and overwhelm the health service. And every model that has been produced has been very cautious.



And you seem to be always looking at the best, or taking the most optimistic model. It seems to me that when so many lives are at stake, it makes perfect sense to prepare and plan for the worst-case scenario.



The least deadly pandemic. The point being that pandemics are exceptionally rare and exceptionally deadly events as a basic requirement.

And if you're talking about driving again, we've already debunked that nonsense comparison.
The modeling isn't very good though. IIRC, the UK locked down for the 2nd time based on a model that said 4,000 deaths a day that was already shown to be wrong when they voted to lockdown. It really doesn't seem like restrictions are doing much anymore because if you look at the US and UK, their infection curves mirror each other and 1 locked down. If you look at different states in the US (right next to each other), their curves mirror each other when one had more restrictions in place. People either got together or didn't during the holidays based on what they wanted to do vs whatever restrictions were in place. I've been saying lockdowns don't work for awhile (after the initial one) because the public isn't going to buy into them every time and you need to find right ways to keep the spread down without the lockdowns (like Japan). I've said this well over ten times now probably.

I'm taking the model that has the most data behind it, that is literally all, I'm not looking for anything but what the majority of data says. You can prepare for worst-case scenario and enact those policies when it's "getting there" if that happens but to make policy based on worst-case scenarios and enact them when there's no sign of it happening is beyond asinine.

Here you go, there's nothing but good news on the whole "ending the pandemic" front. Scientists were HOPING for 60-70% efficacy from the vaccines as they were being developed, we have 95+% efficacy and 100% efficacy for hospitalizations/deaths AGAINST ALL VARIANTS. There is nothing pointing towards this pandemic extending itself. And she goes over how the flu is completely different from covid. And she's a HIV expert and knows how important t-cells are cuz HIV. Also, viruses are more likely to mutate themselves out of existence than to mutate to become something deadlier. And people that got the Spanish Flu 90-years later still had a t-cell response to that strain. And, doing stuff outside is EXTREMELY safe and getting covid from surfaces is extremely unlikely, sanitizing your groceries is just stupid, they are literally like "eat your groceries people!!!".

Yep, you didn't debunk driving unless you're doing it for the very very short-term. I have a 1% chance in my life to die from a car accident. I have less than a 1% chance of dying from covid if I get it (in my life), which isn't a guaranteed to happen (so the odds of dying from covid are less than the IFR because you might not even get it).

MedCram is basically a spin-off company where some entrepreneurially-inclined med school professors have repurposed bits of university teaching as paid-for web content. These guys do the same job that I do. Therefore if they are an expert authority, so am I.
Are you saying MedCram does not have good classes and professors?

Says who, with what data?
Like official government recommendations page...

"This is the daily amount recommended for the general population by government for general health and in particular to protect bone and muscle health."


All the studies you think exist don't.
Show me a single study that shows the vitamin d you get from the sun isn't close to all the articles I linked. I don't know why you have to constantly argue with everything. I linked to 3 articles about how much vitamin d you get from the sun.

If you mean should you get a surplus of Vit D from enough exposure on a sunny, Summer day, yes you should. There is no reliable data for how much, but surely into the thousands of IUs. 10-20,000 IUs sounds distinctly dubious outside dedicated exposure like sunbathing.

50 nmol/L serum vitamin D (25OHD) is 20 micrograms per litre plasma, which means about 50 micrograms total in the blood for an average adult. About a third of the body's 25OHD is in the plasma, so that's about 150 micrograms 25OHD total in the body for that blood plasma concentration. Obviously, individual variation, etc. The half life of 25OHD is recokoned at ~15-25 days. Crunch the numbers, 10-15 micrograms (400-600IU) per day is plenty; the steady state should be well over 50 nmol/L plasma. Obviously, individual variation, etc.

This is without even considering the much larger store of another form of vit D, cholecalciferol, largely in body fat. That has a half life of about 80 days. The function of it is almost certainly that excess 25OHD is coverted to and stored as cholecalciferol in times of plenty, and that store is released when sunlight is low in Winter and vitamin D is much less available. Consequently, someone who gets out enough in the warmer months is unlikely to need supplements even throughout Winter, just relying on diet.

Bottom line, government recommendations are fine except for a minority of people with specific vulnerabilities to vit D deficiency.
No, what I meant is that over our history as a species are bodies are used to getting a lot more vitamin d than we do today. Our vitamin d intake has shifted quite greatly in last so many decades.

Vitamin d isn't converted on a nice perfect ratio of 1:1 for how much you take and how much is converted. There's a lot more that goes into vitamin d conversion than just the amount you intake. For example, magnesium helps vitamin d conversion and taking the supplement with a meal boosts absorption. Here's a study that showed "recommended vitamin D intakes are too small to prevent insufficiency". It's not just a simple take X of vitamin d and get X level in the blood basically.
 

Silvanus

Elite Member
Legacy
Jan 15, 2013
11,029
5,796
118
Country
United Kingdom
The modeling isn't very good though. IIRC, the UK locked down for the 2nd time based on a model that said 4,000 deaths a day that was already shown to be wrong when they voted to lockdown. It really doesn't seem like restrictions are doing much anymore because if you look at the US and UK, their infection curves mirror each other and 1 locked down. If you look at different states in the US (right next to each other), their curves mirror each other when one had more restrictions in place. People either got together or didn't during the holidays based on what they wanted to do vs whatever restrictions were in place. I've been saying lockdowns don't work for awhile (after the initial one) because the public isn't going to buy into them every time and you need to find right ways to keep the spread down without the lockdowns (like Japan). I've said this well over ten times now probably.

I'm taking the model that has the most data behind it, that is literally all, I'm not looking for anything but what the majority of data says. You can prepare for worst-case scenario and enact those policies when it's "getting there" if that happens but to make policy based on worst-case scenarios and enact them when there's no sign of it happening is beyond asinine.
EDIT: I had a whole post written out & posted, but I don't think there's much point honestly. Edited it out.

Suffice it to say: you are not providing a "model". You are providing a position predicated on several tremendously hopeful assumptions, at complete odds with the vast scientific and medical consensus.
 
Last edited:

Agema

You have no authority here, Jackie Weaver
Legacy
Mar 3, 2009
8,598
5,962
118
Are you saying MedCram does not have good classes and professors?
No, I'm saying that I can't see why they are any particular authorities on the topic.

They are no more authorities than I am, as I am also a "professor" (as Americans would put it; it's not my institutional title) at a medical school. Thus you are inconsistent to treat them as an authority and not me. And secondly, you are asking me to defer to someone who I cannot see has any obvious superiority to my own skills and expertise. So why should I defer to them?

Like official government recommendations page...

"This is the daily amount recommended for the general population by government for general health and in particular to protect bone and muscle health."
There is no adequate evidence that the immune system benefits from higher Vit D than is already advised for bone and muscles. I certainly don't object to anyone being on the safe side, though.

Show me a single study that shows the vitamin d you get from the sun isn't close to all the articles I linked. I don't know why you have to constantly argue with everything. I linked to 3 articles about how much vitamin d you get from the sun.
You mostly linked to some websites, which proves nothing at all.

These estimates rely on very few studies of actual measurement, using UV lamps. The rest is extrapolation from these, and reveals a lot of complications.

You're using extremely optimistic estimates to come to a figure of 1000 IU in 5 minutes - like, top estimates for a lily-white redhead wearing nothing but a bathing suit at the optimal time and place for UV exposure. Apart from the optimistic nature of the estimate, practical reality also intrudes. The simplest way to think about it is that what causes Vit D production also causes sunburn. If we assume a fairly normal Summer dress (trousers/shorts, t-shirt), getting even a few thousand IUs is enough to cause sunburn. This obviously is also the point people tend to limit their sun exposure, use sunscreen, etc. So we theoretically can get 10-20,000 a day, but we don't - outside, as said, activities like sunbathing, and putting ourselves at significantly higher risk of skin cancer.

No, what I meant is that over our history as a species are bodies are used to getting a lot more vitamin d than we do today. Our vitamin d intake has shifted quite greatly in last so many decades.
Yes - for the better. Rickets is far rarer than it was in the early 20th century.

Vitamin d isn't converted on a nice perfect ratio of 1:1 for how much you take and how much is converted. There's a lot more that goes into vitamin d conversion than just the amount you intake. For example, magnesium helps vitamin d conversion and taking the supplement with a meal boosts absorption. Here's a study that showed "recommended vitamin D intakes are too small to prevent insufficiency". It's not just a simple take X of vitamin d and get X level in the blood basically.
Science is about reading a lot of studies, and drawing a conclusion from a broad understanding of the body of literature. It's not about having a pre-existing opinion from a lay website, cherry picking a handful of studies in agreement that you don't really understand and declaring that your borrowed opinion is therefore right.
 

Phoenixmgs

The Muse of Fate
Legacy
Apr 3, 2020
8,927
784
118
w/ M'Kraan Crystal
Gender
Male
EDIT: I had a whole post written out & posted, but I don't think there's much point honestly. Edited it out.

Suffice it to say: you are not providing a "model". You are providing a position predicated on several tremendously hopeful assumptions, at complete odds with the vast scientific and medical consensus.
Again, I never claimed I was providing a model. I never claimed you need to make policy based on even Fauci's prediction of next fall/winter for herd immunity. We've had a year now, if the government doesn't have solid policy in place for what to do when infections are low/medium/high, then what have they been doing?

Again, my position is not based on tremendously hopeful assumptions, it's based on what all the experts are saying is (very) LIKELY to happen, even Fauci said next fall/winter for herd immunity. I don't know where you have any expert saying the pandemic isn't in the endgame now. Sure, the news has dumbass stories about variants and whatnot, that doesn't mean that has anything to do with what is likely or scientific consensus. The top vaccine expert is saying as much about the variants and about not even needing to get the same vaccine for your 2nd dose because the vaccines are that similar to each other. I really don't know what you want to feel like it's going well, all the experts are saying that (find your own doctors you like or Fauci or check out my links, whatever). Maybe you should stop watching the news and listen directly to the doctors because the messages are completely different. The news makes every little thing sound like the end of the world when it's not even remotely close to being true; like reinfections or the efficacy against the new variants (when they are 100% efficacious against severe infection) or some kid got covid and died and they don't mention the kid already had tons of medical issues (or it's down at the very bottom of the article). Everything is worded and said in a way to make it as scary as possible. It's why I haven't watched the news in forever because they talk to you like a 3rd grader and they act like 2 inches of snow is a snowstorm when it's just some snow (in Chicago mind you), it's a joke.
 

Silvanus

Elite Member
Legacy
Jan 15, 2013
11,029
5,796
118
Country
United Kingdom
Again, I never claimed I was providing a model.
But you claimed you were taking a model. That you had one in mind;

I'm taking the model that has the most data behind it [....]
That's what I'm referring to. But there is no model; only personal deductions and speculations.

I never claimed you need to make policy based on even Fauci's prediction of next fall/winter for herd immunity. We've had a year now, if the government doesn't have solid policy in place for what to do when infections are low/medium/high, then what have they been doing?
For most of last year? The US government was busy involved in deflecting criticism and preparing for the election. Trump had very little interest in preparedness.

Again, my position is not based on tremendously hopeful assumptions, it's based on what all the experts are saying is (very) LIKELY to happen, even Fauci said next fall/winter for herd immunity. I don't know where you have any expert saying the pandemic isn't in the endgame now. Sure, the news has dumbass stories about variants and whatnot, that doesn't mean that has anything to do with what is likely or scientific consensus. The top vaccine expert is saying as much about the variants and about not even needing to get the same vaccine for your 2nd dose because the vaccines are that similar to each other. I really don't know what you want to feel like it's going well, all the experts are saying that (find your own doctors you like or Fauci or check out my links, whatever). Maybe you should stop watching the news and listen directly to the doctors because the messages are completely different. The news makes every little thing sound like the end of the world when it's not even remotely close to being true; like reinfections or the efficacy against the new variants (when they are 100% efficacious against severe infection) or some kid got covid and died and they don't mention the kid already had tons of medical issues (or it's down at the very bottom of the article). Everything is worded and said in a way to make it as scary as possible. It's why I haven't watched the news in forever because they talk to you like a 3rd grader and they act like 2 inches of snow is a snowstorm when it's just some snow (in Chicago mind you), it's a joke.
No, it's based on endless optimism. You are not reflecting scientific consensus, and you shouldn't be under any illusion that you are. Medical practitioners and scientists are uniformly urging caution. They are most assuredly not arguing that since "most" viruses don't mutate that much, we can assume this one doesn't mutate much. They are most assuredly not arguing that the vaccines will all definitely work against all variants so we might as well just open up again.

Scientists and medical practitioners are urging caution. Almost without notable exception. You are not on the same page as them.
 

Phoenixmgs

The Muse of Fate
Legacy
Apr 3, 2020
8,927
784
118
w/ M'Kraan Crystal
Gender
Male
No, I'm saying that I can't see why they are any particular authorities on the topic.

They are no more authorities than I am, as I am also a "professor" (as Americans would put it; it's not my institutional title) at a medical school. Thus you are inconsistent to treat them as an authority and not me. And secondly, you are asking me to defer to someone who I cannot see has any obvious superiority to my own skills and expertise. So why should I defer to them?
I think they mainly have doctors giving lectures so it's just not a person that's just a professor that only teaches. They're a legit source of information and you were making them out to be some random dude on the internet basically. The one video I watched of theirs was the vitamin d video done by Dr. Roger Seheult going over all the information available at the time.

There is no adequate evidence that the immune system benefits from higher Vit D than is already advised for bone and muscles. I certainly don't object to anyone being on the safe side, though.
Yeah there is, there's studies that show vitamin d helps with respiratory viruses. Is it some miracle cure? No, but it helps.
 

Phoenixmgs

The Muse of Fate
Legacy
Apr 3, 2020
8,927
784
118
w/ M'Kraan Crystal
Gender
Male
You mostly linked to some websites, which proves nothing at all.

These estimates rely on very few studies of actual measurement, using UV lamps. The rest is extrapolation from these, and reveals a lot of complications.

You're using extremely optimistic estimates to come to a figure of 1000 IU in 5 minutes - like, top estimates for a lily-white redhead wearing nothing but a bathing suit at the optimal time and place for UV exposure. Apart from the optimistic nature of the estimate, practical reality also intrudes. The simplest way to think about it is that what causes Vit D production also causes sunburn. If we assume a fairly normal Summer dress (trousers/shorts, t-shirt), getting even a few thousand IUs is enough to cause sunburn. This obviously is also the point people tend to limit their sun exposure, use sunscreen, etc. So we theoretically can get 10-20,000 a day, but we don't - outside, as said, activities like sunbathing, and putting ourselves at significantly higher risk of skin cancer.
I'm going off of what is the information we have on the subject. I don't care if you get 100 IUs or 1,000 IUs in 5 minutes, I just want to know the information and that's the first so many links that came up searching for about it. I don't see how I'm looking at the optimistic estimates, those are all the estimates I found, feel free to post better studies. The one paper I linked had different values for different kinds of skin. I one I linked to that said 1,000 IUs in 5 minutes was just having head, arms, legs exposed so normal wear for outdoors. None of these studies are saying you need to be getting sunburn to get those values, I'm pretty damn white and I don't get sunburn unless I'm swimming somewhere. That's the only time I put on sunscreen.
 

Phoenixmgs

The Muse of Fate
Legacy
Apr 3, 2020
8,927
784
118
w/ M'Kraan Crystal
Gender
Male
Yes - for the better. Rickets is far rarer than it was in the early 20th century.
Because foods are fortified with vitamin d now when they weren't before. Rickets did have a bad history in the northern US and England from the little I looked up about its history, which makes sense that northern places would have it far more frequent than southern places. For the vast majority of our history as a species, we spent way more time outside than we do now. From the wikipedia about rickets in the evolutionary considerations section it says:

"Environment mismatch: Ultimately, vitamin D deficiency arises from a mismatch between a population's previous evolutionary environment and the individual's current environment. This risk of mismatch increases with advances in transportation methods and increases in urban population size at high latitudes."

Science is about reading a lot of studies, and drawing a conclusion from a broad understanding of the body of literature. It's not about having a pre-existing opinion from a lay website, cherry picking a handful of studies in agreement that you don't really understand and declaring that your borrowed opinion is therefore right.
The Medcram video I'm referring to talks about over 25 different papers/studies on vitamin d. I'm pretty sure that classifies as "drawing a conclusion from a broad understanding of the body of literature". I don't care if vitamin d works or not, I don't have any bias in trying to confirm some pre-exsiting opinion, I just want to know whatever the data is pointing to and nothing else. And data is pointing there with a pretty big oversized arrow right now.
 

Agema

You have no authority here, Jackie Weaver
Legacy
Mar 3, 2009
8,598
5,962
118
I think they mainly have doctors giving lectures so it's just not a person that's just a professor that only teaches. They're a legit source of information and you were making them out to be some random dude on the internet basically. The one video I watched of theirs was the vitamin d video done by Dr. Roger Seheult going over all the information available at the time.
Speaking as someone with a doctorate whose colleagues are mostly people with doctorates, I can assure you that a doctorate per se is no guarantee of particularly expert knowledge. One of my colleagues has a sideline as a go-to "expert" for local media. He doesn't know that much about half the stuff he's interviewed on, he just gets asked if he can talk about something and reads it up beforehand. Of course, arguably, a large part of a doctorate is the ability to rapidly understand, assimilate and apply knowledge, so there can be a baseline level of trust that a doctor in the relevant field can sift through and come up with a reasonable answer. But there is still a huge gap between a doctor who has quickly pored through some papers, and one that has two decades experience on the topic. Plus, of course, nothing also stops people with doctorates skewing the data through their biases and irrationalities in various ways.

Yeah there is, there's studies that show vitamin d helps with respiratory viruses. Is it some miracle cure? No, but it helps.
Yes. But as a whole these studies do not identify that people need more vitamin D to be beneficial for acute respiratory distress syndrome than they do to be beneficial for bone and muscle health.

Because foods are fortified with vitamin d now when they weren't before. Rickets did have a bad history in the northern US and England from the little I looked up about its history, which makes sense that northern places would have it far more frequent than southern places. For the vast majority of our history as a species, we spent way more time outside than we do now. From the wikipedia about rickets in the evolutionary considerations section it says:
Fortification varies heavily by country: for instance outside breakfast cereal and margarine, no foods are likely to be fortified with Vit D in the UK. Yet Vit D levels don't differ so much. I would actually suggest a bigger deal for rickets prevention is simply a vast reduction in food scarcity. Meat consumption has massively increased for instance, and meat is a substantial source of vitamin D.

The Medcram video I'm referring to talks about over 25 different papers/studies on vitamin d. I'm pretty sure that classifies as "drawing a conclusion from a broad understanding of the body of literature". I don't care if vitamin d works or not, I don't have any bias in trying to confirm some pre-exsiting opinion, I just want to know whatever the data is pointing to and nothing else. And data is pointing there with a pretty big oversized arrow right now.
See above. How expert really is an "expert"?

The data is I think very strongly in favour that you really should make sure you have enough Vit D. I take vitamin supplements. I just think stuffing a massive load of vitamins down your throat for no particular reason is bad science and fooling yourself.
 

Thaluikhain

Elite Member
Legacy
Jan 16, 2010
18,585
3,539
118
Speaking as someone with a doctorate whose colleagues are mostly people with doctorates, I can assure you that a doctorate per se is no guarantee of particularly expert knowledge.
So, just because you have a doctorate we should believe you when you say we shouldn't believe people just because they have doctorates?

...

Kidding! I know that's not what you meant.
 

Agema

You have no authority here, Jackie Weaver
Legacy
Mar 3, 2009
8,598
5,962
118
So, just because you have a doctorate we should believe you when you say we shouldn't believe people just because they have doctorates?
Becoming an expert should be a humbling experience, because it is only through expertise a person can really understand quite how little they know.
 

Phoenixmgs

The Muse of Fate
Legacy
Apr 3, 2020
8,927
784
118
w/ M'Kraan Crystal
Gender
Male
But you claimed you were taking a model. That you had one in mind;



That's what I'm referring to. But there is no model; only personal deductions and speculations.
There are really no models that are accurate to where you can make policy and implement them based on said estimates (you can't be like we're doing this in March, then that in May, etc.). The UK model was way off. I've heard talk that the US is going to spike in March from the new strain, but I'm calling bullshit on that already.

For most of last year? The US government was busy involved in deflecting criticism and preparing for the election. Trump had very little interest in preparedness.
I'm just saying what should be done, not that it's done.

No, it's based on endless optimism. You are not reflecting scientific consensus, and you shouldn't be under any illusion that you are. Medical practitioners and scientists are uniformly urging caution. They are most assuredly not arguing that since "most" viruses don't mutate that much, we can assume this one doesn't mutate much. They are most assuredly not arguing that the vaccines will all definitely work against all variants so we might as well just open up again.

Scientists and medical practitioners are urging caution. Almost without notable exception. You are not on the same page as them.
It's not based on endless optimism, it's based on what all the experts are saying. Sure, every doctor is going to err on the side of caution, which is fine. Them being cautious doesn't mean they don't think the pandemic is in the endgame or what is likely to happen. They don't need to "guess" how much covid can mutate, we know how likely it is to mutate already (it was in the video I posted with comparison to the flu). There's always randomness that can happen there so of course every doctor wants less total infections to lower the chances of that randomness of a mutation (that escapes natural/vaccine resistance) from happening so, you know, caution. Just because they are cautious doesn't mean they think it's likely to happen. You're confusing 2 different concepts. I look both ways while driving through every intersection just to catch anyone that is possibly running the red light, that doesn't mean I think it's likely that that will happen (though it did save an accident once).

Again, the very top vaccine guy says everything is literally going better than he could have hoped. Fauci said fall/winter for end of the pandemic. What experts are literally saying they think that it is LIKELY the pandemic will go on for years?

Fauci went on to explain that a return to normality also depends on your definition of the word. "If normality means exactly the way things were before we had this happen to us, I mean, I can't predict that," he said, referring to the mask-free life we knew before April 2020. "I mean, obviously, I think we're going to have a significant degree of normality … as we get into the fall and the winter," he said, adding that "by the end of the year, I agree with the president completely that we will be approaching a degree of normality." Fauci was referring to President Joe Biden's prediction at a CNN town hall on Feb. 16 that by Christmas, he believes "there'll be significantly fewer people having to be socially distanced [or] having to wear a mask."

Fauci clarified that this doesn't mean we'll see life as we knew it exactly by Dec. 2021. "It may or may not be precisely the way it was in November of 2019, but it'll be much, much better than what we're doing right now," he said.
 

Phoenixmgs

The Muse of Fate
Legacy
Apr 3, 2020
8,927
784
118
w/ M'Kraan Crystal
Gender
Male
Yes. But as a whole these studies do not identify that people need more vitamin D to be beneficial for acute respiratory distress syndrome than they do to be beneficial for bone and muscle health.
We have very few studies on that. I did find this one where they gave infants 2 different doses of vitamin d and the higher vitamin d group did better against the flu.

Fortification varies heavily by country: for instance outside breakfast cereal and margarine, no foods are likely to be fortified with Vit D in the UK. Yet Vit D levels don't differ so much. I would actually suggest a bigger deal for rickets prevention is simply a vast reduction in food scarcity. Meat consumption has massively increased for instance, and meat is a substantial source of vitamin D.
I just know that when I was a kid in school we got milk everyday as a way to get vitamin d. I'm guessing it doesn't take much to prevent rickets.

Speaking as someone with a doctorate whose colleagues are mostly people with doctorates, I can assure you that a doctorate per se is no guarantee of particularly expert knowledge. One of my colleagues has a sideline as a go-to "expert" for local media. He doesn't know that much about half the stuff he's interviewed on, he just gets asked if he can talk about something and reads it up beforehand. Of course, arguably, a large part of a doctorate is the ability to rapidly understand, assimilate and apply knowledge, so there can be a baseline level of trust that a doctor in the relevant field can sift through and come up with a reasonable answer. But there is still a huge gap between a doctor who has quickly pored through some papers, and one that has two decades experience on the topic. Plus, of course, nothing also stops people with doctorates skewing the data through their biases and irrationalities in various ways.

See above. How expert really is an "expert"?

The data is I think very strongly in favour that you really should make sure you have enough Vit D. I take vitamin supplements. I just think stuffing a massive load of vitamins down your throat for no particular reason is bad science and fooling yourself.
You don't have to be a foremost expert in the subject to read and understand studies in different areas like you said. Plus the doctor that did the lecture is a doctor in pulmonary, which vitamin d affects so it's possible he is rather "fluent" in vitamin d. There's very few things that are so complicated that you need a top-notch expert to tell. For example, knowing and understanding how well the vaccines are performing isn't too hard to comprehend whereas making said vaccine is much much harder. I linked the top vaccine expert to Silvanus but I guess he's not expert enough.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick is definitely saying 400 IUs is not enough for most people. If that was enough, you wouldn't have a majority of the UK population being vitamin d deficient or insufficient. Whatever it takes to get people sufficient in vitamin d should be the recommended dosage. Like I said, our bodies are used to far more vitamin d than we are getting today.

"Supplementation with vitamin D3 is a good way to ensure you get adequate vitamin D. 1,000 IU of vitamin D per day, in most people, will raise serum levels by about 5 ng/ml. A good vegetarian source of vitamin D3 is lichen. Some foods have been fortified with vitamin D, including milk (100 IU per 8 ounces) and orange juice (100 IU per 8 ounces), but if we’re trying to fix inadequacy, these numbers are really a drop in the bucket. They’re not very much at all. Furthermore, dairy products are a sub-optimal choice for fortification for the approximately 50 million Americans who are lactose intolerant. If, like me, you are someone who decides to supplement, the upper tolerable intake level set by the Institute of Medicine is 4,000 IU. One study showed that people that were considered to be vitamin D deficient were able to raise their serum levels to sufficient levels after supplementing with 4,000 IU of vitamin D3 per day."
 

Agema

You have no authority here, Jackie Weaver
Legacy
Mar 3, 2009
8,598
5,962
118
We have very few studies on that. I did find this one where they gave infants 2 different doses of vitamin d and the higher vitamin d group did better against the flu.
There are plenty, although often for a range of different respiratory diseases.

You don't have to be a foremost expert in the subject to read and understand studies in different areas like you said. Plus the doctor that did the lecture is a doctor in pulmonary, which vitamin d affects so it's possible he is rather "fluent" in vitamin d.
Mmm... dubious. I'm sure he's aware of the importance of good vitamin D levels. But you might be very surprised how little medical doctors know about how bits of the body work, because they don't need to and don't use it. Anatomy, normally very good. Physiology, fairly good, biochemistry etc., meh. Do a biomedical degree they'll probably spend an hour teaching the Krebs Cycle and electron transport chain. A medical student needs about 15 minutes on it.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick
Who?

is definitely saying 400 IUs is not enough for most people. If that was enough, you wouldn't have a majority of the UK population being vitamin d deficient or insufficient. Whatever it takes to get people sufficient in vitamin d should be the recommended dosage. Like I said, our bodies are used to far more vitamin d than we are getting today.
Again - you need to be precise. The recommendations are 400 IU supplements: vitamin pills additional to diet and sunlight. Most people in the UK aren't taking supplements.

"Supplementation with vitamin D3 is a good way to ensure you get adequate vitamin D. 1,000 IU of vitamin D per day, in most people, will raise serum levels by about 5 ng/ml.
Chop a zero off that thousand, getting much closer.
 

Silvanus

Elite Member
Legacy
Jan 15, 2013
11,029
5,796
118
Country
United Kingdom
There are really no models that are accurate to where you can make policy and implement them based on said estimates (you can't be like we're doing this in March, then that in May, etc.). The UK model was way off. I've heard talk that the US is going to spike in March from the new strain, but I'm calling bullshit on that already.
You absolutely can do that. The plans may need to be changed as new data emerges, but plans need to be drawn up in advance if public policy is to be formed at all. And that involves modelling the impact of contagion/immunity/behaviour. Literally every country on the planet is doing so (with varying levels of success).

It's not based on endless optimism, it's based on what all the experts are saying. Sure, every doctor is going to err on the side of caution, which is fine. Them being cautious doesn't mean they don't think the pandemic is in the endgame or what is likely to happen. They don't need to "guess" how much covid can mutate, we know how likely it is to mutate already (it was in the video I posted with comparison to the flu). There's always randomness that can happen there so of course every doctor wants less total infections to lower the chances of that randomness of a mutation (that escapes natural/vaccine resistance) from happening so, you know, caution. Just because they are cautious doesn't mean they think it's likely to happen. You're confusing 2 different concepts. I look both ways while driving through every intersection just to catch anyone that is possibly running the red light, that doesn't mean I think it's likely that that will happen (though it did save an accident once).
You are not accurately representing what these people are saying. You've presented several scientific experts (not all of them in relevant fields, but I digress...) who've variously said that things are getting better or that vaccines are likely to work against variants.

Almost all of these statements have been steeped in caution, speaking speculatively by their own admission. So what? Nobody is disputing that things are getting better; that's not what we're discussing. You have taken these statements and extrapolated vastly different conclusions: that lockdowns don't work; that we can just reopen schools without risk; that we needn't even worry about the different strains at all because we can just assume the virus works like measles.

Where the scientists offer cautious optimism, you exaggerate into certainty.

I linked the top vaccine expert to Silvanus but I guess he's not expert enough.
There is no single "top vaccine expert", and you extrapolated a conclusion that was not in the research.
 

Phoenixmgs

The Muse of Fate
Legacy
Apr 3, 2020
8,927
784
118
w/ M'Kraan Crystal
Gender
Male
There are plenty, although often for a range of different respiratory diseases.
I couldn't find really any where they tested 2 different doses of vitamin d, usually there's a control group that gets no supplementation so you can't see if a higher dose does more or not.

Mmm... dubious. I'm sure he's aware of the importance of good vitamin D levels. But you might be very surprised how little medical doctors know about how bits of the body work, because they don't need to and don't use it. Anatomy, normally very good. Physiology, fairly good, biochemistry etc., meh. Do a biomedical degree they'll probably spend an hour teaching the Krebs Cycle and electron transport chain. A medical student needs about 15 minutes on it.
I'm just saying he could know quite a bit about vitamin d. If not, he kinda does now because he read 25+ studies just for that one video alone. I agree that most doctors really don't know too much. They mainly know how to diagnose something and basically use what's said to work without really caring or understanding why it does work. Doctors for the most part do very little "troubleshooting" themselves.

Vitamin d expert.

Again - you need to be precise. The recommendations are 400 IU supplements: vitamin pills additional to diet and sunlight. Most people in the UK aren't taking supplements.
I'm just saying 400IUs isn't enough per day, I don't know what the proper amount is, I'm not the one to be figuring that out, I just know that 400 is not enough, especially in winter.

Chop a zero off that thousand, getting much closer.
That's not what the expert says. Plus, I got the video of that doctor that takes 2,000 IUs a day being insufficient on his blood test. Also, Dr. Fauci takes 6,000 IUs a day.
 

Phoenixmgs

The Muse of Fate
Legacy
Apr 3, 2020
8,927
784
118
w/ M'Kraan Crystal
Gender
Male
You absolutely can do that. The plans may need to be changed as new data emerges, but plans need to be drawn up in advance if public policy is to be formed at all. And that involves modelling the impact of contagion/immunity/behaviour. Literally every country on the planet is doing so (with varying levels of success).
I literally said a couple posts ago that any government should have a plan in place for when covid is low/medium/high and you replied to that saying the US doesn't. You just said what I basically said. There's no model that is accurate enough to go off of and you just gotta enact policy based on the trends we do have. It doesn't take a month+ of time to switch policies so there's really no reason you need a model that tells you what's gonna happen in May anyway.

You are not accurately representing what these people are saying. You've presented several scientific experts (not all of them in relevant fields, but I digress...) who've variously said that things are getting better or that vaccines are likely to work against variants.

Almost all of these statements have been steeped in caution, speaking speculatively by their own admission. So what? Nobody is disputing that things are getting better; that's not what we're discussing. You have taken these statements and extrapolated vastly different conclusions: that lockdowns don't work; that we can just reopen schools without risk; that we needn't even worry about the different strains at all because we can just assume the virus works like measles.

Where the scientists offer cautious optimism, you exaggerate into certainty.
You're not accurately representing what they are saying at all. Being cautious about something possibly happening is not what is LIKELY to happen. What single expert is saying the pandemic isn't in the endgame or that they are actually predicting that it's going to last years? Things are going smoothly, better than they hoped for even. Being cautious about it taking a right turn and it likely to take a right turn are 2 different things. If lockdowns and restrictions are still working, then why does Illinois and Indiana's infection curves mirror each other when stuff in Illinois was way more restricted? The restaurant today was packed at lunch in Indiana. Why does the US and UK infection curves mirror each other? The simplest answer to that is that people have already decided what their threshold for safety is and they don't care anymore about new/different restrictions. I got no proof of that but it makes basic logical sense. What's your explanation for those infection curves then? The experts are saying schools are safe, the one doctor in the last video I posted said schools should've been open since last April in fact. I didn't say you didn't need to worry about it at all (well, there's no reason for the average citizen to worry about it at least, it's not our job to keep eye on that stuff nor can we even do that anyway). We haven't had a single person need hospitalization that's been vaccinated, there's no need to even begin worrying about the different variants (not strains) for the normal person. The vaccines have worked just fine against all the variants so far because we know they have, which isn't anything to do with measles. Chances are they will continue to work fine because if it was normal for viruses (like measles) to get around vaccines, we wouldn't have so many working vaccines that we have today.

I never said certainty and I told you if I ever said something is "safe" it doesn't mean it's 100% safe (you can't have that), which I've said like 10 times now. What I've continually been saying is WHAT IS LIKELY TO HAPPEN.

There is no single "top vaccine expert", and you extrapolated a conclusion that was not in the research.
He's the "top US vaccine expert".


Here ya go, things are going way better than expected:

"If you’d asked 1,000 scientists in the U.S. 11 months ago if it would be possible to reach this point so fast, what might their response have been?

'I think you would’ve not had one scientist that would’ve raised their hand and said that they thought that was possible. Not one,' Dr. Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, told the Review-Journal."
 

Agema

You have no authority here, Jackie Weaver
Legacy
Mar 3, 2009
8,598
5,962
118
Vitamin d expert.
Not according to her publication record, she isn't. She appears to be an expert in the cell biology of neurodegenerative diseases.

I'm just saying 400IUs isn't enough per day, I don't know what the proper amount is, I'm not the one to be figuring that out, I just know that 400 is not enough, especially in winter.
It probably makes for an adequate minimum, for most people; assuming they also get out a bit in warmer months.

The simple idea of Vit D is that it have a "ready" form and a "storage" form, with interconversion between the two. The storage can do a massive heap of storing. The obvious rationale here is that because Vit D is scarce in winter, evolution has expected us to build a load up in stores during summer that will get us through winter. Most people do get by fine without supplements because they get enough sun in the warmer months, and that'll get them through winter.

The implication of deficiency is persistent low production/intake leading to low "storage" - because otherwise the stores would be converted to the ready form. In such a situation, it would probably be advisable to give a "loading dose" of very high Vit D - say, take several thousand IUs a day for a week or two, or even a massive tens of thousands one-off dose - because to take just 400IUs daily would mean a lot of it would be sequestered for storage leaving relatively little for the ready use form, so it would take weeks-months to get the blood plasma concentration up. Take a lot in one big whack, it would fill up the stores very quickly and leave plenty for the ready form.

That's not what the expert says. Plus, I got the video of that doctor that takes 2,000 IUs a day being insufficient on his blood test. Also, Dr. Fauci takes 6,000 IUs a day.
It beggars belief that you think Dr. Rhonda Patrick or the individual, anecdotal examples of Drs. Campbell and Fauci rate as more expert than bodies like the NIH, NHS, US Endocrine Society, Institute of Medicine, Mayo Clinic, Harvard University Medical School, etc. who have whole panels of experts to review the evidence base.

Obviously individual variation does factor in. Drs. Fauci and Campbell are old, age is known to be associated with impaired Vit D metabolism, so they may need more. There's also the question of whether Dr. Campbell's home test was accurate; plenty such tests are not.