To Vaccinate or Not---The Rat Flu Odyssey Continues

[KQ]

It's bullshit but it's not. How do you quantify disinformation/misinformation? Some posts are easy, sure, but some aren't. And some you may say are and someone else might say are not. It's not a simple objective what does 2+2 equal question. So yeah, even with all their number crunching, it is an unknowable number. Which is not the same as saying that FB has no idea what it's doing or has no role here, I am not defending Zuck at all.

I reported a post yesterday that was one of those thinnly veiled misinformation ones. As I posted I wondered if the people who review would see what it was implying. Someone posted in reply to a call for donating blood that they "had recieve an email from the American Red Cross seeking non-vaccinated people to give blood" which they would not have done since it makes no difference - the vaccine does not circulate in the blood.

This is a new thing by anti-vaxxers - if you get a transfusion with vaxxed blood it will change your DNA. The person didn't say that but the implication was that there is something wrong with vaxxed blood and that was what I was reporting.

[skaredshtles]

I reported a post yesterday that was one of those thinnly veiled misinformation ones. As I posted I wondered if the people who review would see what it was implying. Someone posted in reply to a call for donating blood that they "had recieve an email from the American Red Cross seeking non-vaccinated people to give blood" which they would not have done since it makes no difference - the vaccine does not circulate in the blood.

This is a new thing by anti-vaxxers - if you get a transfusion with vaxxed blood it will change your DNA. The person didn't say that but the implication was that there is something wrong with vaxxed blood and that was what I was reporting.

I think the answer for people that demand "non-vaxed blood" if they *need* a transfusion:

[old_newguy]

KQ - Caught a little piece in public radio about your public health officer there in WW. Doesn’t want to take a position on vaccines, masks, etc.

I guess he is getting a nice paycheck since he couldn’t make it as a gynecologist/ obstetrician.

[jono]

That guy is weird. What's the point of being "trusted" if you're never going to say anything anyway? His rep around town? If this is him, that's already in trouble:

[old_newguy]

Oregon states that they are rationing care, delaying procedures for people with cardiac issues, cancer, etc. because unvaccinated COVID patients are flooding hospitals. 200 COVID patients sitting in ERs waiting for a bed.



Ordering a FEMA mobile hospital to increase capacity.

I guess this is living with it.

[Toadman]

Co-worker on his second week of the COVID. Had a fever of 102 for several days. Major chest congestion. Still dealing with a severe cough. Got it from his daughter. He just told me a HS friend of his died of COVID down in Dallas yesterday. I guess these will be the constant stories of the unvaxxed and unmasked. Some will survive, some will die.

[::: :::]

Oregon states that they are rationing care, delaying procedures for people with cardiac issues, cancer, etc. because unvaccinated COVID patients are flooding hospitals. 200 COVID patients sitting in ERs waiting for a bed.



Ordering a FEMA mobile hospital to increase capacity.

I guess this is living with it.

& the rapidly filling Willamette valley city hospitals are hosting the east & south county cases, where the recent hot map puts the per capita high density zones

[skaredshtles]

That guy is weird. What's the point of being "trusted" if you're never going to say anything anyway? His rep around town? If this is him, that's already in trouble:

Is that him running away?

[old_newguy]

& the rapidly filling Willamette valley city hospitals are hosting the east & south county cases, where the recent hot map puts the per capita high density zones

Yeah, I don’t know how they do it, but it sounds like there is quite a bit of patient shuffling going on in the state to meet the demand.

It really would make sense to shut down bars, restaurants, etc since now it is impacting everyone else’s ability to get care.

It seems like they are getting us warmed up for it.

[skaredshtles]

<snip>
It really would make sense to shut down bars, restaurants, etc since now it is impacting everyone else’s ability to get care.

It seems like they are getting us warmed up for it.

No way! Florida knows how to do it!

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/fl...ve-11629398047

[The AD]

With all that money, I would've thought he had a better battery.

Attachment 382941

This is great. I've always thought Zuckerberg looked like he's made of wax. Him and Jeff Bezos both look like they could be either cyborgs or aliens. At least Bill Gates looks like a human being.

[KQ]

KQ - Caught a little piece in public radio about your public health officer there in WW. Doesn’t want to take a position on vaccines, masks, etc.

I guess he is getting a nice paycheck since he couldn’t make it as a gynecologist/ obstetrician.

That guy is weird. What's the point of being "trusted" if you're never going to say anything anyway? His rep around town? If this is him, that's already in trouble:

Huh... well I guess I've missed his community video posts on SM. We have regular posts by different people in different positions of our city/county government and they are always "do your part, wear a mask and social distance" and our County Health which ran the mass vax site where I volunteered was very proactive in encouraging getting the jab. County Health still has regular posts re: pop-up clinics and on-site mobile vax at community events so I don't get this at all.


Edit/add: okay... so I found and read this piece and have to call BS. All this information is out there and during the prior time of mask mandates all businesses posted signs that said "by order of the Governor and per CDC guidelines masks and social distancing are required." What more do you need? How would a local mandate make any difference? That would just be redundant. If people claim they need to hear it from our local government then they aren't going to do it anyway IMO. All the information the person in this article says she needs is available on community health FB pages as well as state and federal sites she just wants to be spoon fed. Some battles just can't be won no matter what you do. This little town has its anti-people just like every other town and city across the globe.

https://www.npr.org/2021/08/19/10294...covid-hot-spot

[LongShortLong]

Oregon states that they are rationing care, delaying procedures for people with cardiac issues, cancer, etc. because unvaccinated COVID patients are flooding hospitals. 200 COVID patients sitting in ERs waiting for a bed.



Ordering a FEMA mobile hospital to increase capacity.

I guess this is living with it.

Meanwhile in China, 55 daily cases this week, Taiwan has 11, New Zealand has 8.

Australia... most states have 0 or 1 daily cases, but 2 of the 3 largest states look like maybe they are going to live with it.

[KQ]

Meanwhile in China, 55 daily cases this week, Taiwan has 11, New Zealand has 8.

Australia... most states have 0 or 1 daily cases, but 2 of the 3 largest states look like maybe they are going to live with it.

WHO has different number than you show there.

[LongShortLong]

Zuc interviewed on CBS or NBC, can't remember which, but was asked if he knew the number of times misinformation/disinformation was disseminated to the masses via his platform and he said they didn't have that number. Isn't that sort of what they do, crank the numbers on how many clicks shit gets and what people gravitate to? To act like they don't have it or that it's impossible to figure out is bullshit. anyhow, yeah, FB is really doing great stuff for society.

Impossible to figure out. Ask CBS or NBC the same question about their platforms. What is misinformation/disinformation vs confusion/delusion vs free speech vs advertising? E.g. respectable virologists say a third shot is not needed. Arguably, CDC can't decide who should wear a mask. Is reporting CDC press releases disseminating misinformation?

Surely there's a problem with disinformation spreading via social media. Managing the problem is not easy, never has been. Look at China - they manage information tightly, and still have rumor mongers. If you have great ideas how to do this in a free society lets hear it. If you can do it while also running successful social media, I'm sure Zuck has a well paid position for you.

This is one of those issues that sounds easy. Great for outrage journalism, a popular form of disinformation itself.

[LongShortLong]

WHO has different number than you show there.

Which? I used the googles, which is usually JHU. For Australia I used an Australian government site. The point is that some countries have demonstrated living without Covid. The tradeoff being occasional strong regional lockdowns. Sometimes national lockdowns. Overall a less disruptive strategy than here.

[MagnificentUnicorn]

I reported a post yesterday that was one of those thinnly veiled misinformation ones. As I posted I wondered if the people who review would see what it was implying. Someone posted in reply to a call for donating blood that they "had recieve an email from the American Red Cross seeking non-vaccinated people to give blood" which they would not have done since it makes no difference - the vaccine does not circulate in the blood.

This is a new thing by anti-vaxxers - if you get a transfusion with vaxxed blood it will change your DNA. The person didn't say that but the implication was that there is something wrong with vaxxed blood and that was what I was reporting.

I have a coworker who claims they’re not getting the vaccine because they’re on the convalescent Covid plasma registry. The Red Cross and other blood banks are no longer accepting those donations and we’re no longer using that treatment. Then I overhear her tell someone that she’s really not getting vaccinated because it will kill her natural antibodies and change her dna. This is an experienced healthcare worker


Sent from my iPhone using TGR Forums

[skaredshtles]

I have a coworker who claims they’re not getting the vaccine because they’re on the convalescent Covid plasma registry. The Red Cross and other blood banks are no longer accepting those donations and we’re no longer using that treatment. Then I overhear her tell someone that she’s really not getting vaccinated because it will kill her natural antibodies and change her dna. This is an experienced healthcare worker


Sent from my iPhone using TGR Forums

She sounds smart.

[rideit]

This would have been a shot across the bow of the stupids.

But yeah, Hippocratic oath, and all….

https://www.businessinsider.com/texa...-status-2021-8

[bodywhomper]

one of the elder-ish "super hippy" women on my area (true leather and feathers living off the land via foraging and hunting) has covid (along with everybody at the encampment where she usually lives), and she is actively trying to spread it in the name of herd immunity. her sister is a well educated/informed nurse (and a friend), who caught covid working in the ER last fall and is now suffering from long covid. the family has long given-up on the older sister. she's the type that would get killed if the sheriff was called for a wellness check.

[Casey E]

I am now a Sinovac + Sinovac + Pfizer booster guinea pig. 6G is kicking in.

If anyone is interested, this is how the vaccinations are panning out in Chile:


* includes 500k one-dose Cansino

Vaccination of children 3-12 is likely to start "in a few weeks".

Total doses by lab


Sputnik has also been approved (we´re not picky at this end of the world).

The booster campaign took off last week with 800k doses to date (about 50% of the over-70´s). AZ for most, Pfizer for the immunocompromised.

Where this puts Chile in this league of selected countries



New cases are <1,000/day, positivity is <1.5%, and ICU beds are about 900. Lots of things are fucked up in Chile, but this is looking like a success story. Border restrictions are still in effect, so far about 100 Delta cases have been detected and all contacts go into "sanitary residence" quarantine (hotels). Most were imports from the USA. Time will tell if Delta takes off here or not.

[rideit]

Can you guys please give your excess doses to Perú? They are currently fuxxored.

[Adolf Allerbush]

Impossible to figure out. Ask CBS or NBC the same question about their platforms. What is misinformation/disinformation vs confusion/delusion vs free speech vs advertising? E.g. respectable virologists say a third shot is not needed. Arguably, CDC can't decide who should wear a mask. Is reporting CDC press releases disseminating misinformation?

Surely there's a problem with disinformation spreading via social media. Managing the problem is not easy, never has been. Look at China - they manage information tightly, and still have rumor mongers. If you have great ideas how to do this in a free society lets hear it. If you can do it while also running successful social media, I'm sure Zuck has a well paid position for you.

This is one of those issues that sounds easy. Great for outrage journalism, a popular form of disinformation itself.

No doubt is a difficult question but one that they must know how to answer, otherwise how can they take down any content? Zuck was up there saying they took down ### content and the question back was "how many users looked at it, spread it around, etc." and he said it was impossible for FB to answer that question? I call bullshit. That is exactly the type of data they sell or use as justification for charging to advertise on their platform.

I would also flip it on you and take your idea the other direction. If what you say is true then they could not take down any content because it would be impossible. We know that's not the case, so acting like they can't analyze how many people saw content they took down is just straight up false.

I wouldn't characterize it as outrage journalism, rather it's merely asking a very straightforward question that demonstrates that FB is not really interested in curtailing disinformation/misinformation, it's all for show in other words so they can act like they're doing something, while not turning off a ton of their users and also allowing crap to continue to spread.

ETA: I would expect CBS, NBC, ABC to know as well. This shouldn't be that difficult for them. A story is found to be false that they put on their platforms, they can't figure out how many people clicked on it via the web? Again, that seems really unlikely.

[LongShortLong]

Look at Table 1 in huckbucket's linked source:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7518649/

Notice how they break the CFR out by age group. Dividing Deaths (n) by Cases (n) gives the 14.1% CFR.

The difference between 1.7% and 14.1% suggests the overall average age for cases is lower than the average population age, or something to that effect.

The "or something to that effect" is a heavily skewed study population. For some reason, in that stage of the pandemic, or at least in that study population, the Italians weren't finding many infections in young people (Table 1). So that study population is severely biased toward old people, hence the higher CFR.

While I'm critiquing that study, it's worth noting their cited study limitations. It's a very simple study with no attempt to compensate for known limitations. A casual reader is easily misinformed (hey Zuck, listening?). Still a useful study, especially early in the pandemic.

1.7% is a better CFR estimate than 14% for most populations. I don't know why the earlier graph comparing diseases used a high CFR number. When I make crude estimates of US CFR, I get numbers around 1.5 or 2, depending on time period. E.g., with the 7 day average at 142k daily cases, I feel confident saying we'll see 2000 deaths per day (7 day average) 4 weeks from now (mid-September).

Get the shot people.

[KQ]

When it comes to the jab you just can't reach some people - prime example:

GOP Leader Who Fought Against Vaccine Dies After Weekslong Battle With Coronavirus
Pressley Stutts, a Republican leader in South Carolina, shared conspiracy theories


Pressley Stutts, a Republican leader in South Carolina who fought COVID-19 vaccination efforts, died on Thursday of the coronavirus after a weekslong battle, including six days spent on a ventilator, The Greenville News reported.

Stutts, a 64-year-old veteran, frequently shared conspiracy theories about the virus, the vaccines and the 2020 election on Facebook, including in posts made from his ICU bed.

Stutts served as an executive committee member of the Greenville County Republican Party and the leader of the Greenville Tea Party. He protested Vice President Kamala Harris when she visited the area in June to promote vaccination and called the effort an “ungodly initiative.”

Stutts also praised a state effort to strip funding from schools that imposed mask mandates or testing requirements, and was angry about $10 gift card incentives for vaccination, writing to his 5,000 followers: “Do not sell your body nor your soul no matter the asking price.”

In July, Stutts shared a Facebook post dismissing the delta variant, which was likely the one that ended his life.

On Aug. 1 ― the day he went into the ICU ― Stutts insisted he had “always contended that COVID was very real” and called it “a deadly bio-weapon perpetrated upon the people of the world by enemies foreign, and perhaps domestic.”

He also posted conspiracy theories about the virus online. Last year, he dismissed masks as an “illusion,” claimed in December that there had been no increase in deaths in 2020, and said, “the American public has been gaslighted by the medical industrial complex.”

A research letter published in April calculated 522,368 excess deaths in 2020, an increase of 22.9% over 2019. Earlier this year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated 545,600 to 660,200 excess deaths from Jan. 26, 2020, through Feb. 27, 2021.