California no longer under lockdown - people freak out

Agema

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Again, based on common sense, how could those 1% studies be accurate when I can double the US infection count (which there's no way it's not at least double) and get an IFR of under 1% in a wealthy country with a higher than average elderly population?
I've already explained this. Go back and read it again.

Technically insufficient as defined by the paper, which is a UK study. Vitamin d is no longer just viewed as important for bone health and avoiding rickets, which is what the UK's recommendations are based off. We need more vitamin d than we've thought. The fact that the UK recommendation is a 400 IU supplement daily shows how behind the times they are. What you need to not get rickets and what your immune system needs are 2 different values.
There is no convincing evidence that loading up with Vit D above existing guidelines improves immune system function.

Now, that out of the way... the UK recommendations are in line with virtually every major Western health body. The NIH, for instance, recommends 15 micrograms a day: that's total. Bearing in mind a chunk comes through diet, there is absolutely no need at all for more than 10 micrograms supplement (with the exception of people with certain conditions). .

I couldn't give a monkey's what that paper decides to define as "insufficiency". If you really understand what happens when these levels are estimated, you'd realise they are very vague, and usually conservative, measures. What actually defines the 50 nmol/L is that a long time ago they had a conference and thought that was a pretty good sort of ballpark concentration for a person to have. It was in no way an argument that 40 nmol/L, or 30, or even 20 was not adequate for a normal human being, never mind considering individual variation. That's why actual "deficiency" is the much lower figure that needs to be watched out for where there is substantial evidence there may be problems.

Also you need to bear in mind that Vit D is actually relatively toxic for a nutrient. If you consider how scarce Vit D is in normal diet, then obviously we are not designed to consume large quantities of it. Although full on toxicity is rare, even at non-toxic but high levels it can cause increased calcium metabolism with risk of illness, kidney stones, and is associated with greater mortality. So when they are recommending about 10-25 microgram supplementation a day, they do so because it will almost certainly ensure good levels of Vit D with minimal risk of adverse effects from overconsumption.

The current Vit D shit is almost certainly another one of those transient fads that run through the nutrition world occasionally because someone read a paper and grotesquely overhyped it, just like years ago people thought it was a great idea to stuff themselves full of huge quantities Vit C to no significant benefit whatsoever. And they all said things like "Linus Pauling does it and he's got a Nobel Prize" too, but it was still overhyped bullshit.
 

Silvanus

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They wouldn't say "in theory" if it didn't align with their understanding of how vaccines/immunity work. Based on that knowledge, it should work and they hope that.
That's the article writer's choice of word; it's not a direct quote. It's not the researcher's word.

It's not hope, it's probability. Most viruses (that are all from different "families" of virus) mostly share XYZ to a degree so this virus probably shares that too. We know why the flu is an anomaly and we know covid does not share what makes the flu an anomaly so it probably won't be like the flu. It's basic logic you apply to all kinds of different things, it doesn't mean it's guaranteed or anything, just likely.
Conversely, "hope" actually was the word used by the researcher.

Do you think it's responsible to base public policy on this possibility, when it's based not on actual research on coronaviruses, but just on the assumption that it shares characteristics with other largely-unrelated viruses? Characteristics which aren't universally shared between viruses, that not all of them have?

We didn't do those type of studies before on previous viruses, this very well can be par for the course. We didn't do constant genome mapping of say measles. All these same covid stories very likely could've been stories for measles too if we did all this same stuff back then and had a 24/7 news cycle that needed to inundate us with constant pointless information. I'm not basing public policy on this, you don't need to base it on predictions because you'll have the real-time data of number of infections and the trends (up or down) like we do right now. I predict infections will be very low in the summer like last summer (even more so since more have been infected + vaccinated) and then those numbers won't go back up in the fall because we'll have enough infected and vaccinated by that point for herd immunity. You don't have to base any policy on that, we'll have the real-time data to know whether that prediction is true or not. What to base policy is stuff like say kids not spreading covid so schools can be open or people not transmitting outside (science says so) so stupid governors don't close outdoor dining at restaurants.
You complained that we were inferring absolutism from your statements before. This is why. "Kids not spreading covid", "people not transmitting outside". These are absolutist statements. They have no caveats; they're simplistic and reductionist. Risk is lower in these circumstances but it's not nonexistent.

But a lower risk is still a higher level of risk than normal. If you think that risk is worth it to reopen schools or outside dining, say so, but don't pretend that it has zero danger associated with it, and don't be surprised if other people don't see it as a price worth paying to rush kids back into school or open restaurants.

Again, based on common sense, how could those 1% studies be accurate when I can double the US infection count (which there's no way it's not at least double) and get an IFR of under 1% in a wealthy country with a higher than average elderly population?
Probably because it's not "common sense" to just do whatever you want to the number in order to get the outcome you want.
 
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Phoenixmgs

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I've already explained this. Go back and read it again.



There is no convincing evidence that loading up with Vit D above existing guidelines improves immune system function.

Now, that out of the way... the UK recommendations are in line with virtually every major Western health body. The NIH, for instance, recommends 15 micrograms a day: that's total. Bearing in mind a chunk comes through diet, there is absolutely no need at all for more than 10 micrograms supplement (with the exception of people with certain conditions). .

I couldn't give a monkey's what that paper decides to define as "insufficiency". If you really understand what happens when these levels are estimated, you'd realise they are very vague, and usually conservative, measures. What actually defines the 50 nmol/L is that a long time ago they had a conference and thought that was a pretty good sort of ballpark concentration for a person to have. It was in no way an argument that 40 nmol/L, or 30, or even 20 was not adequate for a normal human being, never mind considering individual variation. That's why actual "deficiency" is the much lower figure that needs to be watched out for where there is substantial evidence there may be problems.

Also you need to bear in mind that Vit D is actually relatively toxic for a nutrient. If you consider how scarce Vit D is in normal diet, then obviously we are not designed to consume large quantities of it. Although full on toxicity is rare, even at non-toxic but high levels it can cause increased calcium metabolism with risk of illness, kidney stones, and is associated with greater mortality. So when they are recommending about 10-25 microgram supplementation a day, they do so because it will almost certainly ensure good levels of Vit D with minimal risk of adverse effects from overconsumption.

The current Vit D shit is almost certainly another one of those transient fads that run through the nutrition world occasionally because someone read a paper and grotesquely overhyped it, just like years ago people thought it was a great idea to stuff themselves full of huge quantities Vit C to no significant benefit whatsoever. And they all said things like "Linus Pauling does it and he's got a Nobel Prize" too, but it was still overhyped bullshit.
I don't even know what point you're trying to make with IFRs. You say I'm not right (I think), then say the IFR is probably 0.5% (IIRC). You said I need to look at just the US and not the entire world, and I did.

There is plenty of evidence concerning vitamin d, I guess you didn't watch that video I posted. A study on kids in Japan showed less flu with kids that took supplements. A situation in France at a nursing home where they just normally give the residents 80,000 IUs of vitamin d every 3 months showed that the residents that got covid and got their vitamin d within the last month did much better than those who got their vitamin d over a month back. Stuff like that keeps happening, it's kinda hard to say it's some miraculous coincidence.

It's rather recent that scientists have even starting looking into it with regards to the immune system. All of the standards of vitamin d levels are based off bone health, they have nothing to do with trying to determine how much the ideal level is for your immune system.

There's really no downside to taking vitamin d. The only thing is calcium, which I said is why you take it with vitamin k in my last post. A lot of vitamin d supplements come with vitamin k as well for a reason like this one. Fauci takes 6,000 IUs a day. Vitamin d isn't really a major part of your diet ever, unless you mainly eat fish (Japan). Normally people mainly get it from the sun, not their diets. You're get more IUs from the sun if you spend a lot of time outside than you will from supplements and people aren't getting vitamin d poisoning from being in the sun too long.

That's the article writer's choice of word; it's not a direct quote. It's not the researcher's word.



Conversely, "hope" actually was the word used by the researcher.

Do you think it's responsible to base public policy on this possibility, when it's based not on actual research on coronaviruses, but just on the assumption that it shares characteristics with other largely-unrelated viruses? Characteristics which aren't universally shared between viruses, that not all of them have?



You complained that we were inferring absolutism from your statements before. This is why. "Kids not spreading covid", "people not transmitting outside". These are absolutist statements. They have no caveats; they're simplistic and reductionist. Risk is lower in these circumstances but it's not nonexistent.

But a lower risk is still a higher level of risk than normal. If you think that risk is worth it to reopen schools or outside dining, say so, but don't pretend that it has zero danger associated with it, and don't be surprised if other people don't see it as a price worth paying to rush kids back into school or open restaurants.



Probably because it's not "common sense" to just do whatever you want to the number in order to get the outcome you want.
I said it was a bit hard to infer exactly without hearing the direct conversation or conversations.

He was saying hope in regards to stopping any kind of infection (from mild to severe). The quote wasn't about his thoughts about whether severe covid would be still stopped.

How many times do I have to say this? THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS NO RISK. Sure you can transmit it outside but it's super rare, there was a study that traced back over 7,000 infections and only one was traced to an outdoor encounter (almost the same thing for surface contacts too). If you're concerned with that extremely tiny bit of risk, then you must've never left the house even before covid. Young kids don't spread the virus and it's very rare that they do. Kids under 5 don't even have the ACE2 receptors that covid uses to get into the cells. When I say Star Wars sucks, you don't assume I'm proclaiming it as objective fact, right? It's obviously an invisible IMO at the end. When someone says the sun rises and sets everyday, it doesn't mean that for 100% the population that happens everyday, but probably for 99.9% of the population it does. There's exceptions to everything, it doesn't mean you have to put a "but" after every fucking thing you say.

You have more chance of dying on the drive to dine outdoors than getting covid and dying from covid from outdoor dining. So yes, it's pretty fucking stupid to close outdoor dining just on that fact alone not even mentioning the fact that it forces more indoor gatherings because there's less public meeting places.

Just doubling the number of infections in the US is literally far less than any data analysis of how many actual infections there's been. Not even that but how can you possibly believe US testing has found MORE THAN HALF OF ALL INFECTIONS? There's not a single study/data analysis even coming close to saying the US has detected more than half of all infections. Not literally anyone in the medical field has said as such. I really don't understand why anyone is arguing this point.
 
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Agema

You have no authority here, Jackie Weaver
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I don't even know what point you're trying to make with IFRs. You say I'm not right (I think), then say the IFR is probably 0.5% (IIRC). You said I need to look at just the US and not the entire world, and I did.
So then if you infect 1000 people over the age of 80 with covid-19, only 5 of them will die? Righto.

There is plenty of evidence concerning vitamin d, I guess you didn't watch that video I posted.
You're damn right I'm not watching social media videos just taking someone's word for it, when I have the skills and expertise to look things up in more detail myself.

A study on kids in Japan showed less flu with kids that took supplements. A situation in France at a nursing home where they just normally give the residents 80,000 IUs of vitamin d every 3 months showed that the residents that got covid and got their vitamin d within the last month did much better than those who got their vitamin d over a month back. Stuff like that keeps happening, it's kinda hard to say it's some miraculous coincidence.
Right, and remember when you spent months claiming hydroxychloroquine was important for treating covid-19 on the basis of some studies, but you weren't paying proper attention to all the ones that said otherwise? Are these vitamin D studies good studies? What's the context? What about studies that didn't have such promising results?

No-one is questioning that having decent levels of vitamin D is beneficial. What is incredibly questionable is whether people need to cram high dose supplements. Many people won't get a significant benefit from supplements at all because they are already sufficient, and the majority of the rest will only need small amounts. Government and other major healthcare recommendations are created by scientific experts, based on evidence.

There's really no downside to taking vitamin d. The only thing is calcium, which I said is why you take it with vitamin k in my last post. A lot of vitamin d supplements come with vitamin k as well for a reason like this one.
There is no downside to taking vitamin D in modest quantities: there are clearly documented downsides to consuming very large quantities. I don't think there is any compelling evidence that vitamin K supplements protect from harms due to excessively high vitamin D consumption: it is an untested hypothesis. The reason probably no-one is that bothered testing it, is the underlying notion of why the hell would you be taking 100 microgram supplements of vitamin D daily when you only need 10 micrograms? Consuming high quantities of vitamin K so you can take excessive quantities of vitamin D is a form of insanity. Just don't overdo vitamin D in the first place!
 

Silvanus

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I said it was a bit hard to infer exactly without hearing the direct conversation or conversations.

He was saying hope in regards to stopping any kind of infection (from mild to severe). The quote wasn't about his thoughts about whether severe covid would be still stopped.
It's hard to infer, because you shouldn't be trying to ascribe words to the researchers that they aren't quoted as using. You shouldn't be "inferring" word use in the first place.

The use of "hope" was actually directly in relation to severe disease in high-risk categories: "there’s still some hope that the AstraZeneca vaccine might well perform as well as the Johnson & Johnson vaccine in a different age demographic that are at highest risk of severe disease". That is a direct quote from the researcher. Please, I implore you, just take the researcher at their word, and cease trying to rewrite or infer meanings that aren't there.


How many times do I have to say this? THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS NO RISK.
So long as you keep reverting to posting absolutist statements a few posts later, I'm going to keep pointing it out that they're inaccurate.

I know there's no such thing as no risk; you're the one who seems to keep forgetting it.

You have more chance of dying on the drive to dine outdoors than getting covid and dying from covid from outdoor dining. So yes, it's pretty fucking stupid to close outdoor dining just on that fact alone not even mentioning the fact that it forces more indoor gatherings because there's less public meeting places.
This isn't based on anything.

Just doubling the number of infections in the US is literally far less than any data analysis of how many actual infections there's been. Not even that but how can you possibly believe US testing has found MORE THAN HALF OF ALL INFECTIONS? There's not a single study/data analysis even coming close to saying the US has detected more than half of all infections. Not literally anyone in the medical field has said as such. I really don't understand why anyone is arguing this point.
Possibly because epidemiologists actually have offered more robust estimations for full infection rates (not just basing it on multiplying by whatever they want), and they haven't come to the conclusions you have, that it's all overblown and we can all go back outside.
 

Phoenixmgs

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So then if you infect 1000 people over the age of 80 with covid-19, only 5 of them will die? Righto.
I'm not trying to single out specific groups. If I did that and wanted to make covid look like nothing, I'd use 0-19, which is 0.003% IFR according to the CDC. I only ever attempted posting the average IFR to remove either extreme.

You're damn right I'm not watching social media videos just taking someone's word for it, when I have the skills and expertise to look things up in more detail myself.
It wasn't a social media video, it was a medical lecture with links to every single study.

Right, and remember when you spent months claiming hydroxychloroquine was important for treating covid-19 on the basis of some studies, but you weren't paying proper attention to all the ones that said otherwise? Are these vitamin D studies good studies? What's the context? What about studies that didn't have such promising results?

No-one is questioning that having decent levels of vitamin D is beneficial. What is incredibly questionable is whether people need to cram high dose supplements. Many people won't get a significant benefit from supplements at all because they are already sufficient, and the majority of the rest will only need small amounts. Government and other major healthcare recommendations are created by scientific experts, based on evidence.
HCQ does work to some degree. You can say something helps without it being some miracle cure. What early treatment HCQ study says it doesn't work or is unsafe? It's standard care in many places. There's only a small handful of actual vitamin d RCTs (last one from Spain is ~1,000 patients with low p values). There's only 3 studies that point to vitamin d not doing much and all have p values that aren't statistically significant. There will be more RCTs out of Spain coming.

Again, those recommendations are behind the times, they only have to do with bone health. And most aren't sufficient even by those standards. We really don't have much knowledge on how the immune system works. You act like we know this stuff and experts already have known everything and set accurate recommendations for this stuff. It's literally been this century where this stuff has come to light.

There is no downside to taking vitamin D in modest quantities: there are clearly documented downsides to consuming very large quantities. I don't think there is any compelling evidence that vitamin K supplements protect from harms due to excessively high vitamin D consumption: it is an untested hypothesis. The reason probably no-one is that bothered testing it, is the underlying notion of why the hell would you be taking 100 microgram supplements of vitamin D daily when you only need 10 micrograms? Consuming high quantities of vitamin K so you can take excessive quantities of vitamin D is a form of insanity. Just don't overdo vitamin D in the first place!

What do you mean by modest? Taking 5,000 to 6,000 IUs of vitamin d is recommended, that's the directions on the supplement bottles. Dr. Fauci takes 6,000 IUs a day. Anything under 10,000 IUs is more than safe.
 

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It's hard to infer, because you shouldn't be trying to ascribe words to the researchers that they aren't quoted as using. You shouldn't be "inferring" word use in the first place.

The use of "hope" was actually directly in relation to severe disease in high-risk categories: "there’s still some hope that the AstraZeneca vaccine might well perform as well as the Johnson & Johnson vaccine in a different age demographic that are at highest risk of severe disease". That is a direct quote from the researcher. Please, I implore you, just take the researcher at their word, and cease trying to rewrite or infer meanings that aren't there.
I am taking them at their word. Their word is that they hope it performs as well as the J&J vaccine in the elderly age range. That has nothing to do with the doctor's thoughts on whether it'll stop severe infections or not, the doctor just hopes it's as efficacious (any kind of infection) in that age group that are at the highest risk of severe disease, it has nothing to do with how likely they think severe disease would be.

So long as you keep reverting to posting absolutist statements a few posts later, I'm going to keep pointing it out that they're inaccurate.

I know there's no such thing as no risk; you're the one who seems to keep forgetting it.
I keep posting "there's no such thing as no risk" over and over again, how can I forget? I'm not going to worry about something that's has almost no chance of happening. What I want to know is if something has a high enough chance of happening that I should be concerned about it. That is what I mean by saying "it doesn't transmit outside" means it's so low no one should be concerned about it. That's what I've always meant and always will mean.

This isn't based on anything.
Pretty much don't stand body-to-body or sit on top of each other and you're fine outdoors.

Possibly because epidemiologists actually have offered more robust estimations for full infection rates (not just basing it on multiplying by whatever they want), and they haven't come to the conclusions you have, that it's all overblown and we can all go back outside.
It's not a conclusion it's a simple math exercise because my basic doubling of cases is far below any single estimation by anyone.

Dr. Paul Offit says the total infections is off by at least a factor of 3 (36:14).

The whole video is great information from basically the expert of experts when it comes to vaccines and the variants. I've never asked anyone to take my word on anything, take the word of this upmost expert about it.

"I think there's every reason to believe that things are just gonna get better and better."

"You just want this vaccine to keep you out of the hospital, keep you out of the ICU, and keep you out of the morgue."
 

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I am taking them at their word. Their word is that they hope it performs as well as the J&J vaccine in the elderly age range. That has nothing to do with the doctor's thoughts on whether it'll stop severe infections or not, the doctor just hopes it's as efficacious (any kind of infection) in that age group that are at the highest risk of severe disease, it has nothing to do with how likely they think severe disease would be.
The difference between "efficacious against severe infection in the higher age group" and "efficacious against infection in the higher age group, who are susceptible to severe infection" is... not really a huge difference, and isn't what we were discussing.

I was talking about you ascribing the term "in theory" to the researcher, and then additionally ascribing more meaning to the use of that phrase, taking it to mean they believe it will work. When the term wasn't even used by the researcher. That was my complaint about not "taking them at their word".


I keep posting "there's no such thing as no risk" over and over again, how can I forget?
...And then, two posts later, reverting to posting absolutist statements about things not being a risk. Just stop doing that, and we'll be golden!


Pretty much don't stand body-to-body or sit on top of each other and you're fine outdoors.
This article is about how outdoor transmission accounts for a very small proportion of overall transmissions. The researcher believes that this is partly due to air circulation, and partly because people tend to be distanced from one another when they're outdoors.

The article says nothing about dining specifically, but of course when people dine out at restaurants they tend to be sat fairly close to one another, and/or directly facing one another. The risk will of course be lower than indoor dining, because of the air circulation effect. But it'll be higher than just milling about outdoors.

It's not a conclusion it's a simple math exercise because my basic doubling of cases is far below any single estimation by anyone.

Dr. Paul Offit says the total infections is off by at least a factor of 3 (36:14).
OK, please note that I'm not doubting the rate of infection is significantly higher than the number of people who have tested positive. That's not in dispute.

What I am arguing is that you cannot just multiply one number, and make no equivalent adjustments to the other numbers (such as total fatalities), and take that as authoritative. The studies they've done on IFR have not just taken the total number of positive tests to get to 1%+. They're based on expert estimations of the true infection rate being higher. And they're still finding 1%-or-so IFR.
 

Agema

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What do you mean by modest? Taking 5,000 to 6,000 IUs of vitamin d is recommended, that's the directions on the supplement bottles.
Yes, I wonder why vitamin manufacturers who make profits from selling their vitamins recommend you take huge quantities of vitamins. No chance of a conflict of interest there.

Dr. Fauci takes 6,000 IUs a day. Anything under 10,000 IUs is more than safe.
The point of science is to move away from individual anecdotes and biases into objective measurement. Dr. Fauci may have a specific issue with vitamin D absorption or metabolism - particularly given his age. Nor should he necessarily be assumed an authority, or immune from personal foibles.

And there is undoubtedly tolerance for higher doses than normally recommended. The obvious question is: why bother?

It's well known that (normally) most vit D comes from metabolism from sunlight. However, studies have shown even people with active, outdoors lifestyles in sunny places don't tend to have blood concentrations of vit D much higher than the commonly ascribed sufficiency threshold, and some in fact below. And yet some people seem determined to take quantities eye-wateringly in excess of what nature ever intended. Taking stupid amounts of any vitamin is not recognised to have any benefit whatsoever. What the vitamin and alternative healthcare industries are invested in is persuading you to consume obscene quantities of vitamins, far beyond what actually need or will benefit from, because they make money from it.

And yes, alternative healthcare because the vitamin industry is intimately linked into all sorts of crank alternative medicine and health fashions that don't do people a lick of good. It's not just extracting money from people with ill-founded health fears, it's also stupid faddism from bored middle class people with more money than sense, and - at worst - merges into a malevolent anti-conventional medicine and anti-science agenda. There are whole websites and magazines, often spun-off or supported by the nutritional supplement industry, full of stooges and non-experts egging each other on with rumour, pseudoscience and misleadingly selective science. It's not really any different from Paltrow's Goop saying you can solve your problems with cupping or sticking jade eggs up your nether orifices.

Like I said, we've been through this sort of craze before many times, such as with vitamin C. The government recommendations are fine, and vastly more scientifically-based than what you read from the scientific illiterates trying to get you to part with your dollars and their cult of adherents.
 
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Phoenixmgs

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The difference between "efficacious against severe infection in the higher age group" and "efficacious against infection in the higher age group, who are susceptible to severe infection" is... not really a huge difference, and isn't what we were discussing.

I was talking about you ascribing the term "in theory" to the researcher, and then additionally ascribing more meaning to the use of that phrase, taking it to mean they believe it will work. When the term wasn't even used by the researcher. That was my complaint about not "taking them at their word".
I was not ascribing the term "in theory" to the one doctor because that was near the beginning of the article (before said doctor's quotes) and just referenced "scientists" and not anyone specific.

But that is what has always been my concern, that the vaccine will work against severe infection. That's the key, even Paul Offit said that. It's not that big of a deal if doesn't stop infections completely as long as you ain't going to the hospital. I said a few post ago that if we had a drug that stopped all hospitalizations (not literally ALL but 99.9% since you get mad at absolutist statements that aren't meant to be such), there would be no restrictions whatsoever right now and we would be back to normal. Who cares if people get infected for a day or two with a cough or something? That's on par with the common cold then.

...And then, two posts later, reverting to posting absolutist statements about things not being a risk. Just stop doing that, and we'll be golden!
Again, I've explained many times that they aren't ever meant to be absolutist statements and I don't think the vast majority of people would view them as such.

This article is about how outdoor transmission accounts for a very small proportion of overall transmissions. The researcher believes that this is partly due to air circulation, and partly because people tend to be distanced from one another when they're outdoors.

The article says nothing about dining specifically, but of course when people dine out at restaurants they tend to be sat fairly close to one another, and/or directly facing one another. The risk will of course be lower than indoor dining, because of the air circulation effect. But it'll be higher than just milling about outdoors.
People sit closer indoors, next to each other on say couches at a friends or riding the train to work. Sitting at a table outside to eat with people is not sitting nearly as close, plus you have natural air flow dispersing the virus almost instantly. Inside sitting at the same "table" distances is completely different due to air not getting disperse at anywhere near the same rate as outside. There was that one restaurant incident (I don't feel like finding it) where half the restaurant got infected due to air flow from the air conditioning while the other half didn't get infected. Outside, you don't have a constant stream of virus accumulating from an infected person constantly taking that same air flow to other tables. Also, none of the protests were linked to any spreading either.

OK, please note that I'm not doubting the rate of infection is significantly higher than the number of people who have tested positive. That's not in dispute.

What I am arguing is that you cannot just multiply one number, and make no equivalent adjustments to the other numbers (such as total fatalities), and take that as authoritative. The studies they've done on IFR have not just taken the total number of positive tests to get to 1%+. They're based on expert estimations of the true infection rate being higher. And they're still finding 1%-or-so IFR.
You really have to cherry pick to find analysis of IFRs above 1%. I just searched for (covid "infection fatality rate") and limited it to results in the past month for newer articles and the 1st result is this German estimate putting the IFR at 0.83% there and they have an elderly population that's a 1/3 bigger than the US, thus very likely their IFR would be higher than ours. And even taking the conservative estimate "by a factor of 3" of real infections in the US, we would need to have over 800,000 deaths for the IFR to be 1%.
 

Phoenixmgs

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Yes, I wonder why vitamin manufacturers who make profits from selling their vitamins recommend you take huge quantities of vitamins. No chance of a conflict of interest there.



The point of science is to move away from individual anecdotes and biases into objective measurement. Dr. Fauci may have a specific issue with vitamin D absorption or metabolism - particularly given his age. Nor should he necessarily be assumed an authority, or immune from personal foibles.

And there is undoubtedly tolerance for higher doses than normally recommended. The obvious question is: why bother?

It's well known that (normally) most vit D comes from metabolism from sunlight. However, studies have shown even people with active, outdoors lifestyles in sunny places don't tend to have blood concentrations of vit D much higher than the commonly ascribed sufficiency threshold, and some in fact below. And yet some people seem determined to take quantities eye-wateringly in excess of what nature ever intended. Taking stupid amounts of any vitamin is not recognised to have any benefit whatsoever. What the vitamin and alternative healthcare industries are invested in is persuading you to consume obscene quantities of vitamins, far beyond what actually need or will benefit from, because they make money from it.

And yes, alternative healthcare because the vitamin industry is intimately linked into all sorts of crank alternative medicine and health fashions that don't do people a lick of good. It's not just extracting money from people with ill-founded health fears, it's also stupid faddism from bored middle class people with more money than sense, and - at worst - merges into a malevolent anti-conventional medicine and anti-science agenda. There are whole websites and magazines, often spun-off or supported by the nutritional supplement industry, full of stooges and non-experts egging each other on with rumour, pseudoscience and misleadingly selective science. It's not really any different from Paltrow's Goop saying you can solve your problems with cupping or sticking jade eggs up your nether orifices.

Like I said, we've been through this sort of craze before many times, such as with vitamin C. The government recommendations are fine, and vastly more scientifically-based than what you read from the scientific illiterates trying to get you to part with your dollars and their cult of adherents.
And the profits from the vaccines or remdesivir are so much higher than some vitamin selling company it ain't even funny. And vitamin d has way more data support than remdesivir. How is the supplement industry suckering all these people and making huge bank when these supplements cost cents/day compared to say Starbucks gets you for like $5 a pop everyday? Hell, bottled water probably makes more bank, I bought a SmartWater a couple weeks back that was almost $3 and this was at a hospital cafeteria (not some up-charge convenience store or gas station).

How are you gonna say that in the last less than a century as humans are spending way way more time out of the sun than in all our past that we are getting similar vitamin d levels than our bodies are used to? Our current normal vitamin d has to be quite a bit lower than our normal for our us in the past. The 1st result I got for how much vitamin d you get from the sun put it at 10,000 - 20,000 IUs in 30 minutes of mid-day sun. So 5,000 IUs isn't anything drastic.
 

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I was not ascribing the term "in theory" to the one doctor because that was near the beginning of the article (before said doctor's quotes) and just referenced "scientists" and not anyone specific.

But that is what has always been my concern, that the vaccine will work against severe infection. That's the key, even Paul Offit said that. It's not that big of a deal if doesn't stop infections completely as long as you ain't going to the hospital. I said a few post ago that if we had a drug that stopped all hospitalizations (not literally ALL but 99.9% since you get mad at absolutist statements that aren't meant to be such), there would be no restrictions whatsoever right now and we would be back to normal. Who cares if people get infected for a day or two with a cough or something? That's on par with the common cold then.
Yes, I know all this. But what we have to go on for this is the "hope", based on a study of a different vaccine. Not conclusive stuff by any means. The researcher is clearly speaking veeeery cautiously.

People sit closer indoors, next to each other on say couches at a friends or riding the train to work. Sitting at a table outside to eat with people is not sitting nearly as close, plus you have natural air flow dispersing the virus almost instantly. Inside sitting at the same "table" distances is completely different due to air not getting disperse at anywhere near the same rate as outside. There was that one restaurant incident (I don't feel like finding it) where half the restaurant got infected due to air flow from the air conditioning while the other half didn't get infected. Outside, you don't have a constant stream of virus accumulating from an infected person constantly taking that same air flow to other tables. Also, none of the protests were linked to any spreading either.
I don't know if your particular experience of dining is hugely different to mine, but people commonly pretty close at restaurants: either directly facing eachother, or next to eachother, easily within a foot or so. That's the norm, unless you specifically implement social-distancing precautions.

The researchers have stated that airflow is only one part of the reason transmission outside is low. Another element to it is natural social distancing, in a way that doesn't really apply if people are very close to eachother or sitting facing one another.

You really have to cherry pick to find analysis of IFRs above 1%. I just searched for (covid "infection fatality rate") and limited it to results in the past month for newer articles and the 1st result is this German estimate putting the IFR at 0.83% there and they have an elderly population that's a 1/3 bigger than the US, thus very likely their IFR would be higher than ours. And even taking the conservative estimate "by a factor of 3" of real infections in the US, we would need to have over 800,000 deaths for the IFR to be 1%.
They're not hard to find.

But this is kind of beside the point. 0.83% is still fucking high. The point is that just coming up with your own estimations for numbers is not how this is done.
 

Agema

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And the profits from the vaccines or remdesivir are so much higher than some vitamin selling company it ain't even funny.
Let's take this: https://marsvenus.com/reversed-parkinsons-disease-symptoms/

We remember "Dr." John Grey, author of massive multi-million seller "Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus"?

Firstly, he complains about people being given a drug called carbidopa. He's inaccurate: carbidopa is - alone - not a useful drug in Parkinson's Disease. The drug that's actually doing the work is L-DOPA (levodopa); carbidopa is given with L-DOPA to reduce the required dose to stop L-DOPA being metabolised before it reaches the brain (this also reduces L-DOPA side effects around the rest of the body outside the brain). He then goes on to suggest people take extracts from the plant Mucuna pruriens. Why? Because it's got L-DOPA in. So the long and short of it is that he's asking people to take large doses of L-DOPA from a plant instead of a chemical factory justified with a load of scientific bullshit. He's changed that website since I last looked: he was using this argument to sell his own nutrient pack (including Mucuna pruriens extract). Now he's directing people to a crank doctor who is apparently proposing insane intravenous "neurotransmitter restoration" treatments. Fucking hell.

And this is incredibly commonplace. Sure, it's not Vioxx, but it is unscrupulous, unhelpful and potentially even dangerous. This is the weird-arse, pseudoscientific world of the wellness industry. You spout some sciencey sounding bullshit, or pick some actual scientific data and misrepresent it as gospel truth, and persuade people to fork over their cash. It's not that I want to excuse Big Pharma their sins, but I think the idea these guys aren't such big multinationals doesn't make their sheer scumbaggery any less reprehensible. They are snake oil salesmen. Charlatans. Tricking people into parting with their money with lies. At least Big Pharma have to spend massive money, have rigorous trials to demonstrate effectiveness, and create new things. And the Wellness world does get much, much worse. Let's never forget Matthias Rath, who ran rampant in South Africa for years encouraging people to give up proven effectiveness antivirals in favour of his useless vitamin mix. Anti-vaxxers. All that shit, it's all part of the same toxic wellspring.

And vitamin d has way more data support than remdesivir.
Vitamin D might be useful for covid for someone deficient in vitamin D. But if someone with Vit D sufficiency ends up hospitalised, they might be better on remdesivir.

How is the supplement industry suckering all these people and making huge bank when these supplements cost cents/day compared to say Starbucks gets you for like $5 a pop everyday? Hell, bottled water probably makes more bank, I bought a SmartWater a couple weeks back that was almost $3 and this was at a hospital cafeteria (not some up-charge convenience store or gas station).
As per the above, a scam is a scam is a scam. If you're paying $2 for bottled water you could get out of a tap for free, that just makes you a mug. If you're paying $$$ for vitamins when a supplement a fraction of the dose and cost would do, that just makes you a mug, too. And someone's making money off it.

How are you gonna say that in the last less than a century as humans are spending way way more time out of the sun than in all our past that we are getting similar vitamin d levels than our bodies are used to? Our current normal vitamin d has to be quite a bit lower than our normal for our us in the past. The 1st result I got for how much vitamin d you get from the sun put it at 10,000 - 20,000 IUs in 30 minutes of mid-day sun. So 5,000 IUs isn't anything drastic.
Oh is my bullshit detector pinging madly.

1) How, precisely, did they come to that figure of how many IUs are produced? Because I don't think that is accurately measurable. I'm willing to bet you that's figure's involved a lot of creativity, not hard data.
2) I really don't think someone working 8h in the sun every day is producing over 100,000 IUs of vitamin D daily and thereby all but guaranteeing risks of vitamin D toxicity.
3) The body has feedback systems in order to help ensure metabolites stay in acceptable ranges. Without even looking it up, I will bet you that increasing vitamin D concentrations in the body will do one or more of several things: suppress vitamin D production in the skin; reduce the effectiveness of enzymes that convert it to its active form; enhance activity of enzymes that inactivate it or break it down. Lower concentrations will do the opposite. That's how it works, how it always works.
 

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Yes, I know all this. But what we have to go on for this is the "hope", based on a study of a different vaccine. Not conclusive stuff by any means. The researcher is clearly speaking veeeery cautiously.
The doctor is talking specifically about total efficacy in that quote. We have 0 people that have needed to go the hospital from the new variants that have gotten vaccinated. Also, from this from a day ago. See how the headline makes it look like horrible news when it's not? Yes, I realize different vaccines but there's not much theoretical reason why one will just not work while the others will.
"UTMB professor and study co-author Pei-Yong Shi said he believes the Pfizer vaccine will likely be protective against the variant."

I don't know if your particular experience of dining is hugely different to mine, but people commonly pretty close at restaurants: either directly facing eachother, or next to eachother, easily within a foot or so. That's the norm, unless you specifically implement social-distancing precautions.

The researchers have stated that airflow is only one part of the reason transmission outside is low. Another element to it is natural social distancing, in a way that doesn't really apply if people are very close to eachother or sitting facing one another.
Table distance isn't close IMO, unless you got a party that's a person or 2 larger than the table fits comfortably that they're squeezing you basically elbow-to-elbow. That normal "table" distance outside is like a mile for a respiratory virus vs indoors at that same distance it's basically next-door neighbor distance in that analogy. Of course, this is assuming real outdoor dining and not fake in-a-bubble/tent outdoor dining.

They're not hard to find.

But this is kind of beside the point. 0.83% is still fucking high. The point is that just coming up with your own estimations for numbers is not how this is done.
I didn't say they were hard to find, I said you have to cherry-pick the high ones. If you just click on say 10 studies/estimates, maybe 1 or 2 of them will say 1%. That's what I'm talking about. High income, high age countries like US, UK, Germany all put their IFRs below 1%.

Again, how is 0.83% high? The Spanish Flu was higher. Ebola his way way way way higher. If you wanna say covid is "fucking high" then what are you gonna call the other 2 I listed? The fact is we got real fucking lucky with this pandemic, it's about as weak as you could hope one of these things to be.
 

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Snippage... All that shit, it's all part of the same toxic wellspring.
I'm just saying there's far more to be gained in Big Pharma. I really don't see vitamin companies on the front lines pushing vitamin d during the pandemic. Is the Channel " MedCram - Medical Lectures Explained CLEARLY" associated with vitamin companies?

Vitamin D might be useful for covid for someone deficient in vitamin D. But if someone with Vit D sufficiency ends up hospitalised, they might be better on remdesivir.
We really don't know the real levels because all the levels are based on bone health, not immune functions. We know vitamin d directly affects cytokine storms and the ACE2 receptors, which are important things with regards to covid. Also, these vitamin d treatments are working on people. It doesn't make sense to be giving remdesivir over vitamin d besides money based on the data we have. And covid is a rather weak virus, it's not like this is cancer or HIV and saying some vitamin the is a rather important treatment.

There are some rather big things you can do without fancy medicine. My uncle was a pharmacist, then worked at a health food store, and he read so so many articles and studies, went to so many lectures (paid by his company). He can tell you exactly how your body breaks down things on a molecular level and where they go off the top of his head. He had a stent put in and saw a cardiac specialist and he told the doctor he could lower his other minor blockages and the doctor said that was impossible and he literally did it.

As per the above, a scam is a scam is a scam. If you're paying $2 for bottled water you could get out of a tap for free, that just makes you a mug. If you're paying $$$ for vitamins when a supplement a fraction of the dose and cost would do, that just makes you a mug, too. And someone's making money off it.
I do get it out of the tap, I bring a 50+oz tea bottle of water to work everyday. I was going to a friends to play board games after work and figured a bottle of SmartWater wouldn't be like freaking $3. The hospital is just far enough away to not be good ol' Chicago tap water and it's not too pleasant tasting so I wasn't gonna refill my bottle there.

Oh is my bullshit detector pinging madly.
Here's 3 pages I found with info about vitamin d from the sun. The Oslo study that says 10,000-20,000 IUs was referenced in another page as well. There's a calculator apparently, in Baltimore in July at noon, you'd get 1,000 IUs in 5 minutes. A lot of how much you get depends on the angle of the sun so you have to be out there at the right time to get such a boost of it so it's not like spending 8 hours in the sun is gonna give you 1,000 IUs every 5 minutes the entire time obviously. It also depends on your skin color, those with darker skin in northern countries have a hard time getting vitamin d. In winter in many places, you ain't really getting any vitamin d from the sun.

 
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Agema

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I'm just saying there's far more to be gained in Big Pharma. I really don't see vitamin companies on the front lines pushing vitamin d during the pandemic. Is the Channel " MedCram - Medical Lectures Explained CLEARLY" associated with vitamin companies?
Who the fuck are "MedCram" and why should I care? Some random guy with a doctorate and a YouTube channel? Spare me.

We really don't know the real levels because all the levels are based on bone health, not immune functions.
There are plenty of publications on Vitamin D and acute respiratory distress syndome.

Here's 3 pages I found with info about vitamin d from the sun. The Oslo study that says 10,000-20,000 IUs was referenced in another page as well.
You see, this is exactly what I mean.

When you follow the paper trail for this 10-20,000 IUs claim, it ends in basically nothing. There is no remotely adequate science underpinning this claim. It is a speculative, back-of-a-beermat comment tucked away in a paper, undefended by any relevant measurements.
 

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The doctor is talking specifically about total efficacy in that quote. We have 0 people that have needed to go the hospital from the new variants that have gotten vaccinated. Also, from this from a day ago. See how the headline makes it look like horrible news when it's not? Yes, I realize different vaccines but there's not much theoretical reason why one will just not work while the others will.
"UTMB professor and study co-author Pei-Yong Shi said he believes the Pfizer vaccine will likely be protective against the variant."
You realise that different vaccines sometimes use entirely different mechanisms to neutralise the virus? Why should we entrust public policy to assumptions like this: that one "likely" works, so the others will probably work too? Does that sound suitably rigorous, suitably cautious to you?

Table distance isn't close IMO, unless you got a party that's a person or 2 larger than the table fits comfortably that they're squeezing you basically elbow-to-elbow. That normal "table" distance outside is like a mile for a respiratory virus vs indoors at that same distance it's basically next-door neighbor distance in that analogy. Of course, this is assuming real outdoor dining and not fake in-a-bubble/tent outdoor dining.
I've been to restaurants quite often pre-lockdown where the person sitting next to you is less than 10cm away, and the person opposite you is about 2 feet away. That's pretty common.

Implement no official, codified restrictions, and that will happen. And if the day isn't windy, maybe there isn't much airflow, maybe someone coughs (you know, as people tend to do)?

I didn't say they were hard to find, I said you have to cherry-pick the high ones. If you just click on say 10 studies/estimates, maybe 1 or 2 of them will say 1%. That's what I'm talking about. High income, high age countries like US, UK, Germany all put their IFRs below 1%.
...Except in some studies they don't, and you just want to trust and hope that the more hopeful ones are correct.

Again, how is 0.83% high? The Spanish Flu was higher. Ebola his way way way way higher. If you wanna say covid is "fucking high" then what are you gonna call the other 2 I listed? The fact is we got real fucking lucky with this pandemic, it's about as weak as you could hope one of these things to be.
So your benchmark for not being high is.... not as high as Spanish Flu and Ebola? Spanish Flu, one of the worst pandemics in human history, which killed 50 million people? Ebola, with an IFR that can approach 90%? That's the bar you're using?!?

"If you want to say getting your arm cut off is 'a serious injury', then what are you going to call decapitation? EH? EHH?? We should all be getting back to work at the spinning-blade factory!"
 

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Who the fuck are "MedCram" and why should I care? Some random guy with a doctorate and a YouTube channel? Spare me.



There are plenty of publications on Vitamin D and acute respiratory distress syndome.



You see, this is exactly what I mean.

When you follow the paper trail for this 10-20,000 IUs claim, it ends in basically nothing. There is no remotely adequate science underpinning this claim. It is a speculative, back-of-a-beermat comment tucked away in a paper, undefended by any relevant measurements.
MedCram has accredited medical courses.

But none of the recommended vitamin d levels are based on what you're immune system needs.

All the studies are putting vitamin d you get from the sun way way higher than recommended levels. 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.
 

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You realise that different vaccines sometimes use entirely different mechanisms to neutralise the virus? Why should we entrust public policy to assumptions like this: that one "likely" works, so the others will probably work too? Does that sound suitably rigorous, suitably cautious to you?
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.

I've been to restaurants quite often pre-lockdown where the person sitting next to you is less than 10cm away, and the person opposite you is about 2 feet away. That's pretty common.

Implement no official, codified restrictions, and that will happen. And if the day isn't windy, maybe there isn't much airflow, maybe someone coughs (you know, as people tend to do)?
I'm mainly just thinking of the standard square table with 4 people on each side, that's not too close if you're outside, definitely more than 10cm. People are only that close when trying to pack a large party together in my experience. Anyway, it doesn't need to be windy for natural airflow/dispersion. Who coughs directly at people even pre-pandemic? Even sneezes aren't anything outside.

...Except in some studies they don't, and you just want to trust and hope that the more hopeful ones are correct.
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.

Also, basic common sense says it's below 1%. For the IFR to be 1%, you would have to assume the US detected the majority of infections, which is basically an impossibility. Not one single expert believes that.
 

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So your benchmark for not being high is.... not as high as Spanish Flu and Ebola? Spanish Flu, one of the worst pandemics in human history, which killed 50 million people? Ebola, with an IFR that can approach 90%? That's the bar you're using?!?

"If you want to say getting your arm cut off is 'a serious injury', then what are you going to call decapitation? EH? EHH?? We should all be getting back to work at the spinning-blade factory!"
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.