Mega-Thread: Coronavirus Pandemic

[Rasulis]

Yo, Gene Simmons is done with this bullshit. Who's gonna fuck with the KISS army? Because I sure ain't, even if they're more likely to be retirees at this point.

I can't recall a single KISS' song. However, I like his sentiment.

13% of children between 5 & 11 in San Francisco have received their first shot. Most age groups in San Francisco have over 90% vaccination rate. With the exception of the 75+ (89%), 25-34 (78%) and 18-24 (85%).

On a sad note.

2 CHP officers, 3 others injured after crash on Golden Gate Bridge during anti-vax march

They were actual accidents. Just typical bad Bay Area traffic jam made worse by the protest.

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Around 150,000 children between 5 -11 in California have received their first dose. So about 4.2%.

CDPH has not reported data yet for nine rural counties — Alpine, Calaveras, Colusa, Lassen, Modoc, Plumas, Sierra, Trinity and Tuolumne. Those nine combine for about 12,500 children, less than half a percent of the state's newly eligible group. So they can do whatever.

As with vaccination rates for those 12 and older, Bay Area counties led the way: Marin has the highest rate at 13.4%, San Francisco 13%, Santa Clara at 12.8%, and Mono at 12.5%.

Yolo County ranked fifth at 11.8%. Placer County ranked ninth at 6%, almost two percentage points above the California average. Sacramento County came slightly below average at 4%, placing it 18th. El Dorado County only 2.5%.

The early rates are even lower in Yuba and Sutter counties. CDPH data show only 0.8% of newly eligible children in Yuba County and 0.7% in Sutter County received a dose.

Several other rural and Central Valley counties — Kings, Tehama, Glenn, San Joaquin, Merced, Lake and Stanislaus — have also had fewer than 1% get a first dose.

It is what it is.

[bladeXcrasher]

Friend in #FuckFL kids got their first shots today. Police had to be there to hold back the anti-vaxxers.

[Rasulis]

S.F.’s jails leading California in COVID prevention. How are they doing it?

Santa Clara County’s jail system is seeing the largest surge in COVID-19 cases since January. And it is far from alone. From Alameda and Tulare counties in the north to Santa Barbara and Orange counties in the south, many jails across California have reported extreme COVID outbreaks since the start of the pandemic.

A notable exception, however, would appear to be San Francisco. On any given day since March 2020, less than 2% of its jail population has had an active case of COVID-19, and there have been no active cases since Oct. 25.

The San Francisco Sheriff’s Office and city Department of Public Health’s effort to maintain an incredibly low infection rate is commendable. Unfortunately, policymakers and the public are in the dark about how they have achieved such success — because the city is not sharing the data necessary to make that assessment. That needs to change.

Data transparency from county jails and state and federal prisons is not only a public right but key to preventing future outbreaks in all correctional facilities and the communities they are located in.

The lack of COVID data tracking and reporting in jails and prisons is an issue across the country. The COVID Behind Bars Project at UCLA reported in its June 2021 scorecard that of the 53 state and federal carceral agencies they assessed for transparency and quality of data reporting, more than 80% received an “F.” Data transparency from the local county jail systems is even worse. Researchers from the University of Texas at Austin found that “the vast majority of states are completely failing to track and publish information on the impact of COVID in jails statewide.”

In most states, including California, county jails are operated and funded locally, typically under the control of an independently elected sheriff. These jails have a great deal of autonomy. As the University of Texas at Austin report noted, “only about half the states regulate jails with required minimum jail standards.” When it comes to tracking and reporting COVID data, without a state mandate requiring it, the decision to track and what to track is at the discretion of each individual sheriff.

According to the most recently updated figures from the Board of State and Community Corrections, there are nearly 60,000 people incarcerated in local jails on any given day across California. That number, and the specific individuals it refers to, fluctuates. That’s because unlike state or federal prisons, a large percentage of county jail populations are in detention awaiting trial, making them far more transitory places. As the University of Texas report further explains, “many people cycle through these facilities after spending only a matter of hours or days behind bars, and this high level of churn means that it is especially difficult to prevent viruses from entering the jails or from affecting the communities where they are located.” Given this, the Santa Clara County outbreak as well as the announcement last week of rising COVID cases in Sacramento County is not surprising.

This reality makes the success of San Francisco jail all the more impressive. It also makes it all the more critical to understand what it is doing right.

18% of San Francisco children between 5 - 11 have received their first dose. 86% of 18 - 24 are now fully vaccinated. Up from 85% yesterday.

[PhaelixWW]

I can't believe the utter stupidity of some people...

NBC: Covid vaccine holdouts are caving to mandates — then scrambling to 'undo' their shots

In a TikTok video that has garnered hundreds of thousands of views, Dr. Carrie Madej outlined the ingredients for a bath she said will “detox the vaxx” for people who have given into Covid-19 vaccine mandates.

The ingredients in the bath are mostly not harmful, although the supposed benefits attached to them are entirely fictional. Baking soda and epsom salts, she falsely claims, will provide a “radiation detox” to remove radiation Madej falsely believes is activated by the vaccine. Bentonite clay will add a “major pull of poison,” she says, based on a mistaken idea in anti-vaccine communities that toxins can be removed from the body with certain therapies.

Then, she recommends adding in one cup of borax, a cleaning agent that’s been banned as a food additive by the Food and Drug Administration, to “take nanotechnologies out of you.”

In reality, in addition to being potentially harmful as a skin and eye irritant, a borax “detox bath” will not remove the effects of the Covid vaccine from your body.

The video is one of several methods anti-vaccine influencers and communities on social media have in recent weeks suggested to their many followers who have capitulated and received the Covid shot. Anti-vaccine message boards are now littered with users caving to societal pressure or work mandates and receiving a coronavirus vaccination.

“Once you’re injected, the lifesaving vaccination process has already begun. You can’t unring a bell. It’s just not physically possible,” said Angela Rasmussen, a virologist and adjunct professor at the University of Saskatchewan in Canada.

Detox remedies and regimens have been staples of the anti-vaccine movement for years. Long before Covid, anti-vaccine influencers and alternative health entrepreneurs promoted unproven and sometimes dangerous treatments they claimed would rid children of the alleged toxins that lingered after routine childhood immunizations.

Children, many with autism, have been subjected to these disproven cures by way of parents convinced that they are alleviating suffering caused by heavy metal poisoning from vaccines. The often-costly remedies have included restrictive diets, supplements, chelation and hyperbaric chambers, as well as more dangerous home remedies.

With Covid came a new group of believers.

Now, some anti-vaccine groups are recommending that people who have been vaccinated should immediately self-administer cupping therapy (an ancient form of alternative medicine that involves creating suction on the skin) to speed up the “removal of the vax content” including first making small incisions on the injection site with a razor. Other memes give instructions on how to “un-inject” shots using syringes.

Both methods are potentially dangerous and would not remove the vaccine once it is administered, Rasmussen said.

“The transaction process for the mRNA vaccine is fairly quick. Basically, by the time you get out to your car, sorry, the magic has already started,” she said.

The newfound virality of “vaccine detoxes” is also a strategy by anti-vaccine influencers and groups to steel themselves for a reality in which 70 percent of Americans have been fully vaccinated against the coronavirus — even though their dire warnings of mass death and infertility never came to fruition.

“This illustrates how these anti-vaccine communities are shifting and pushing these claims toward vaccinated people,” said Ciaran O’Connor, a disinformation researcher for the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, an anti-extremism nonprofit group based in London.

O’Connor recently released a report, titled “Jabbers’ Remorse,” about the virality of vaccine detoxes, specifically on TikTok, where Madej’s “detox” bath has made the leap to nonfringe parts of the social media platform.

Madej’s video was removed by TikTok last month, but the video’s duets — TikTok’s resharing feature, in which other users add reactions or context with the original video — have received hundreds of thousands of views. One duet lists a recipe of Madej’s bath next to her speech. Others show a TikTok user drawing a bath, or pouring out the ingredients into a container.

Representatives at TikTok did not respond to requests for comment.

“TikTok is being used as designed here, but the way it’s been designed is allowing these misinformed claims to proliferate on the platform,” O’Connor said.

Madej did not respond to repeated requests for comment. She is an osteopathic internal medicine doctor who has propagated a variety of debunked theories about the Covid vaccines and posted to Twitter about a variety of other conspiracy theories, including QAnon. She describes herself as “practicing the truth in Jesus through medicine.”

It is unclear what Madej means by “nanotechnologies,” but on a podcast called “Reawaken America” she falsely claimed there is a “liquified computing system” inside coronavirus vaccines. She has also claimed the vaccines are a “gateway to transhumanism.” Her theories have been broadly fact-checked as false, including earning a “Pants on Fire” rating from Politifact.

While Rasmussen is worried about users experimenting with chemical baths, she said she believes it’s a sign that vaccine mandates are largely working, and anti-vaccine influencers are adapting to a new reality.

“I think it is actually a good sign that these ‘how to undo your vaccine’ videos are taking off,” she said. “It suggests that a lot of those people who previously were saying ‘vaccines are terrible and I will never do it’ are, actually, doing it.”

Without the borax, Rasmussen said the bath is not a harmful idea after receiving the vaccine, but it won’t do anything for the nonexistent “radiation” or “nanotechnologies.”

“Take the bath and kick back and relax with a glass of wine, knowing that I’m safe from a potentially lethal viral infection,” she said.

Still, not all anti-vaccine communities are giving in, even with the false promise of a detox. In anti-vaccine Facebook groups like “Educate Before You Vaccinate,” comments still largely and incorrectly tell users that the vaccine is an irreversible path to government tracking, infertility or death.

Some provided hope with false cures. One user, who told the group her boyfriend “HAD to get a covid shot” and wondered how to “detox his body” was told to follow Madej’s borax bath instructions. Another user told her to look into drinking “Miracle Mineral Solution,” which is bleach and can be fatal if ingested.

[Edge-]

I can't believe the utter stupidity of some people...

NBC: Covid vaccine holdouts are caving to mandates — then scrambling to 'undo' their shots

Man, if it was just a salt bath I'd be pushing this stupid bullshit hard.

But holy shit man, how fuckin deranged and deeply retarded are these people? Like, I genuinely worry for society writ-large that, in this internet age where information is only a few keystrokes away, there is a disturbingly large segment of the population that's willfully and intentionally this breathtakingly retarded.

[Poopymonster]

I can't believe the utter stupidity of some people...

NBC: Covid vaccine holdouts are caving to mandates — then scrambling to 'undo' their shots

This I can get behind. Completely. If they want to take steps that, depending on the snake oil salesperson, are potential skin irritants up to fatal shit, bully for them. Beacuse: A: They're vaxxed, no bullshit will unvax them. Major step forward in stopping the spread.
B: Their stupidity will only affect/hurt themselves. Or those who share their stupid beliefs.

Either way, their "cures" all fail like 3 void crabs in an orange fat suit trying to drink water and they are STILL vaccinated or they could die from a case of advanced stupid.
I think this is called a win/win situation.

[Combatbutler]

Man, if it was just a salt bath I'd be pushing this stupid bullshit hard.

But holy shit man, how fuckin deranged and deeply retarded are these people? Like, I genuinely worry for society writ-large that, in this internet age where information is only a few keystrokes away, there is a disturbingly large segment of the population that's willfully and intentionally this breathtakingly retarded.

People have always been this way, this crisis merely made it more obvious.

[Santti]

I can't believe the utter stupidity of some people...

NBC: Covid vaccine holdouts are caving to mandates — then scrambling to 'undo' their shots

Truly, there is no limit to stupidity. Holy shit...

[Elegiac]

I can't believe the utter stupidity of some people...

NBC: Covid vaccine holdouts are caving to mandates — then scrambling to 'undo' their shots

The lengths to which people will go to avoid admitting they got conned. Rofl.

[Milchshake]

I can't believe the utter stupidity of some people...

NBC: Covid vaccine holdouts are caving to mandates — then scrambling to 'undo' their shots

Dont under value that stupidity. It earned them a featured mention from NBC. A chance to air their white grievance on national news. This big moment in their lives might snowball into a tryout with Green Bay.


Excuse me, I'm running late to my audition with CNN. I'm going to explain to them how how buying 20 gallons of Pumpkin Spice Lattes a week is very normal for an American family.

[Rasulis]

This I can get behind. Completely. If they want to take steps that, depending on the snake oil salesperson, are potential skin irritants up to fatal shit, bully for them. Beacuse: A: They're vaxxed, no bullshit will unvax them. Major step forward in stopping the spread.
B: Their stupidity will only affect/hurt themselves. Or those who share their stupid beliefs.

Either way, their "cures" all fail like 3 void crabs in an orange fat suit trying to drink water and they are STILL vaccinated or they could die from a case of advanced stupid.
I think this is called a win/win situation.

The weird part is that Berkeley, which I swear has more new age and holistic healing practitioners per capita than any other places in the US, has close to 100% vaccination rate. All those alternative healing methods do not appear to conflict with getting vaccinated.

[Poopymonster]

The weird part is that Berkeley, which I swear has more new age and holistic healing practitioners per capita than any other places in the US, has close to 100% vaccination rate. All those alternative healing methods do not appear to conflict with getting vaccinated.

Probably due to shipping. How many crystals and ointments are stuck in port do you think? The powdered chupacabra penis used to align your chakras is stuck at the southern border. The stopping of traffic along the northern border was horribly disrupting the Freeze Dried Maple Infused Yeti Feces market.

Desperate times called for desperate measures. So they got the vaccine.

[JohnBrown1917]

new record for the netherlands: 16k new cases... and steady climb in hospital visits.

I truly love our bible belt.

[Rasulis]

Probably due to shipping. How many crystals and ointments are stuck in port do you think? The powdered chupacabra penis used to align your chakras is stuck at the southern border. The stopping of traffic along the northern border was horribly disrupting the Freeze Dried Maple Infused Yeti Feces market.

Desperate times called for desperate measures. So they got the vaccine.

That cracked me up.

Updated number for San Francisco from CDC. 7-day case rate per 100 went up from 55.81 to 63.64 (34.86% increase). New hospital admission last 7 days went down from 18 to 15 (-48.28%). Rate of new hospital admission last 7 days went down from 0.82 to 0.69.

Here is a testament to the efficacy of the vaccines.

Berkeley Dept. of Public Health pans Cal football program's 'major COVID outbreak'

Here's the distilled situation: Cal's football program is highly vaccinated (almost 100%), but was the source of a major COVID-19 outbreak. Once the outbreak was discovered, Berkeley's Department of Public Health, in tandem with the university, instituted safety precautions that are recommended by Cal-OSHA. They began testing more frequently, which revealed even more positive tests, some of which may or may not have otherwise been discovered.

It's a testament to the efficacy of the vaccines that members of Cal's football program have thus far avoided serious illness, and in some cases, perhaps didn't even know they were ill until they received a twice-weekly test. But this is nevertheless a major COVID-19 outbreak — one that, if left unaddressed, could easily harm unvaccinated or immunocompromised individuals.

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To quote Dr. Peter Chin-Hong, an infectious disease expert at UCSF, “For vaccinated people, COVID will become more of an annoying cold than something to be fearful of.” The problem is what do we do with the unvaccinated?

[Edge-]

https://thehill.com/policy/technolog...misinformation

“The updated figures today are 17,619,” he said. “That is 225 times the number of deaths in just a 10-month period versus an annual figure for the flu vaccine. These vaccine injuries are real.”

Johnson was citing numbers from the self-reporting database the Vaccine Adverse Effects Reporting System (VAERS). The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warns that reports in the system, which can easily be gamed by activists hoping to prove a point, “do not necessarily mean that a vaccine caused a health problem.”

“Once again Big Tech is censoring the truth," Johnson said in a statement. "Why won’t they let the vaccine injured tell their stories and medical experts give a second opinion? Why can’t we discuss the harmful effects of mandates? Apparently, the Biden administration and federal health agencies must not be questioned. How many more lives will be needlessly destroyed?"

A lawmaker and member of the Death Cult in the US, spreading blatant misinformation from an obviously unreliable source, gets his YouTube account banned for a week.

Bold is ironic since he's now sorta censored himself on a big tech site.

Don't be a Ron, get your shots and don't spread misinfo.

[Deathknightish]

I think we are starting to see the effects of closing down vs not closing down. In our neighbouring nations Denmark, Norway and nautical neighbour Germany cases are sky-rocketing.

You don't see the same effect here in Sweden. We have about the same numbers of vaccinated as the Netherlands as well, who are also seeing a huge rise in cases.

I think it makes sense. We never closed down in the same way Denmark and Norway did. People didn't isolate as much, so we reached a higher number of natural resistance to the virus, together with vaccines doing their work.

[Fuiking]

I think we are starting to see the effects of closing down vs not closing down. In our neighbouring nations Denmark, Norway and nautical neighbour Germany cases are sky-rocketing.

You don't see the same effect here in Sweden. We have about the same numbers of vaccinated as the Netherlands as well, who are also seeing a huge rise in cases.

I think it makes sense. We never closed down in the same way Denmark and Norway did. People didn't isolate as much, so we reached a higher number of natural resistance to the virus, together with vaccines doing their work.

I think the amount of people crammed on km2 is another reason... It keeps cycling through the population. And then the ''zwabber'' and the weakness of my goverment (they're reacting super late, all the fecking time) doesnt help either.

Inaction and late reactions for the netherlands is another big case.. and the fact they let shit like halloween to happen.

[Forogil]

https://thehill.com/policy/technolog...misinformation

Yes, misusing that information is a problem - but why do the Hill try to make it seem as though CDC is explaining the problem with VAERS as it being gamed by activists as some form of primary issue in the quote below? That seems to try to politicize the CDC.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warns that reports in the system, which can easily be gamed by activists hoping to prove a point, “do not necessarily mean that a vaccine caused a health problem.”

The problems CDC normally report for VAERS is that you only know that people had the problem after the vaccination, so any report could just be random chance, and there is a general under-reporting (which combined mean that CDC need to look closely at reports if they are common "enough" even if unvaccinated persons should have the reaction more often) - it's just that it's hard to do anything better; as CDC wants to find the unexpected adverse reactions.

Basically it's (ironically) that VAERS report when people get adverse effects when vaccinated, but those are not necessarily adverse effects from vaccination. Which looks like the old talking point "death with covid"; except that this time it makes sense in the US.

The closest common problem to "gamed by activists" is that media attention can skew the numbers, but now once that people start talking about gaming the system I wouldn't be surprised if some try to do it, and report their 5G reception.

[Rasulis]

Continuing along the trend that in San Francisco Covid may have become endemic. Some information came from a UCSF doctor panel podcast I listened to during my bike ride this morning.

Case number, or positive Covid test result may be a better term, is going up. Seven day rolling average per day is now 77 (up from 53 seven days ago). Seven day case per 100k is now 63.65 (up 36.5% in the last 7 days). However, new hospital admission for the last seven days went down to 12 (it was 15 yesterday). % change in the last 7 days is -58.62%. Rate of new admission last 7 days is 0.55. Total hospitalized Covid cases in San Francisco as of November 12 is 26. Down from 34 on November 5.

The current 7-day average case rate among all residents is 8.8, 12.5 among the unvaccinated and 8.2 among the fully vaccinated. So unlike other regions the case rates between the unvaccinated and vaccinated in San Francisco is relatively small. However, the difference in hospitalization is stark. San Francisco hospitals have not seen a breakthrough case hospitalization since late September.

One of the doctor on the panel is running a serovalence study. She remarked that the antibody counts of a majority of her test subjects now exceed the upper threshold detection limit of the antivirus test kit that they are currently using for the study. Something that used to be pretty rare, but now is a pretty common occurrence.

21% of San Francisco children between 5 and 11 have received one dose of the vaccine.

Unfortunately, not all California regions are doing as well.

As infections rise, the San Joaquin Valley becomes the land of the eternal COVID surge

A winter COVID surge is coming unless California vaccination rates improve. Here's where we stand

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The way my wife put it, "human sucks."

Snow leopards at Nebraska zoo die of COVID-19

[Fuiking]

Rest in Pieces, the Netherlands. 19k new cases daily now.