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27 minutes ago, DB said:

I don't believe that there is a vast international conspiracy to prevent cheap treatments - after all, some of the treatments mentioned here are in use in other locations than the US. It's tempting to believe that vested interests in the two higher priced vaccines may be briefing against other treatments that may lessen the need for their vaccines (see also the "AZ vaccine will cause blood clots that will kill you" thing when the comparative risk is still low compared to catching the disease, or even of being on the pill if you're a younger woman).

I am more concerned about the general lack of interest in trialling cheap medical solutions because there is no incentive to pay for trials for existing drugs, because they cannot be sold at a high enough price for it to be worth doing.

One of the things that interested me in a recent video was the trialling of the introduction of a formal mechanism into the NHS to allow for some trials to be tested via modifications to NHS standard protocols (not just for this pandemic, but more generally), so that it is easier to fold trials into "business as usual" activities. Annoyingly, I can't recall the youtube video that mentioned it, but it was probably from the ZOE vlogs from Professor Tim Spector, but might have been another John Campbell item.

I don't think it has much to do with cheap treatments, although the revolving door between federal agencies and 6-7 figure jobs in industry can't be ignored.  I know from talking to people in those agencies that the official line very early on was that vaccines were the key and would be approved using less exhaustive means and any treatments would have to pass through non-pandemic levels of scrutiny.  I suspect a large part of the issue is that in the west the medical establishment is very anti-experience and evidence based medicine.  Peer reviewed clinical controlled trials are basically all that is of interest.  I suspect that much of this is because when you get into any of the Western CDC/NiH equivalents almost every decision maker of any importance is from academia, industry or has lived their whole life in government service.  Very few experienced clinicians are represented there and I can speak from personal observation and say they look down on physicians in hospitals as barely being competent technicians and have little use for their opinions.  In that environment they have little interest in hearing from the people actually trying things on patients.

Here's a choice piece of irony; you know who has the most acidic comments on all of those assinine hospital tic-tock videos?  The people at the various federal agencies.  It very much reinforced their view that these were the dumb jocks of the medical world and barely above a medcial assistant in use.  

 

The part that I am struggling with is why when many of the South American countries started using the Covid treatment protocols the US and Europe prohibited themselves from using and saw immediate and stunning drops in hospitalizations and deaths it didn't make it through.  I'm not a conspiracy theorist and I understand pyschological sunk cost theory but I keep coming back to shadowy cabals simply because as dumb as that sounds it is the most plausible theory absent a belief that the agencies are populated with people too stupid to read a scientific paper.  I've worked with them for 30 years and they demonstrably can and do successfully read those papers.  My fall back is that the media blackout (conspiracy again?  I dunno) actually had its greatest effects on the people in those very agencies.  If we're ever to have a public health service worth a damn when a deadlier pandemic comes out we'd best untangle this knot quickly and thoroughly.  I suspect that we won't and future survivors of Covid 2 will look back upon this era with the same incredulity that we look back on WW1 and how it set the stage for WW2 and why didn't anyone stop that train when it was so obvious?

 

Put shorter, we did a tremendous amount of stupid shit the past year and the elites have no interest in exposing themselves to reproach so we will learn  nothing and fix nothing.

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OK, this is wild;

https://www.ub.edu/web/ub/en/menu_eines/noticies/2020/06/042.html

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Researchers detected the presence of the virus that caused the disease in samples of waste water in Barcelona, collected in March 12, 2019. These results, sent to a high impact journal and published in the archive medRxiv, suggest the infection was present before knowing about any case of COVID-19 in any part of the world.

 

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1 hour ago, cbo said:

So basically, the US would need to import doctors from abroad, as everyone in the US is accusing their political opponents of putting their partisan beliefs before professional competences.

We have been importing huge numbers of doctors well prior to COVID-19. Along with nurses, medical assistants, dentists, etc.

 

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4 minutes ago, nitflegal said:

I don't think it has much to do with cheap treatments, although the revolving door between federal agencies and 6-7 figure jobs in industry can't be ignored.  I know from talking to people in those agencies that the official line very early on was that vaccines were the key and would be approved using less exhaustive means and any treatments would have to pass through non-pandemic levels of scrutiny.  I suspect a large part of the issue is that in the west the medical establishment is very anti-experience and evidence based medicine.  Peer reviewed clinical controlled trials are basically all that is of interest.  I suspect that much of this is because when you get into any of the Western CDC/NiH equivalents almost every decision maker of any importance is from academia, industry or has lived their whole life in government service.  Very few experienced clinicians are represented there and I can speak from personal observation and say they look down on physicians in hospitals as barely being competent technicians and have little use for their opinions.  In that environment they have little interest in hearing from the people actually trying things on patients.

Here's a choice piece of irony; you know who has the most acidic comments on all of those assinine hospital tic-tock videos?  The people at the various federal agencies.  It very much reinforced their view that these were the dumb jocks of the medical world and barely above a medcial assistant in use.  

 

The part that I am struggling with is why when many of the South American countries started using the Covid treatment protocols the US and Europe prohibited themselves from using and saw immediate and stunning drops in hospitalizations and deaths it didn't make it through. 

Fauci & Co. are making things look like this was a global Tuskegee Experiment.

 

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Hadn't spotted this before, Ralph Baric has thrown in with the doubters;

https://science.sciencemag.org/content/372/6543/694.1/tab-pdf

Personally I doubt we'll ever get anything close to a definitive answer. Maybe the sequencer elves can demonstrate some sort of hybrid DNA/RNA, but where, when, and why it happened? I believe those who could definitively answer are all dead.

 

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1 hour ago, sunday said:

I wrote "policymakers and administrators" meaning to exclude "true doctors"* in contact with patients.

Now I expect a "I stand corrected" from you.

* Or rank-and-file physicians in the words of niftlegal

And I expect you to pull the broomstick out of your ass.... 

 

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1 minute ago, sunday said:

Well, another lying asshole to the ignored list.

And another girls blouse on my ignore list. 

Though I find adult males acting like kindergarden girls rather amusing - assuming of course you are an adult. 

 

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I see two guys hitting each other round the face with haddock, whilst performing a merry little jig.

Still, they were nominally grown-ups, but at least they were doing it for comedic purposes.

I can't see why any of this has to descend to personal attacks - there's plenty of assholes in power who are supposed to be steering this ship without us taking things out on each other.

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1 hour ago, nitflegal said:

The part that I am struggling with is why when many of the South American countries started using the Covid treatment protocols the US and Europe prohibited themselves from using and saw immediate and stunning drops in hospitalizations and deaths it didn't make it through. 

But something is wrong there now, as South America is currently overwhelmed by the pandemic, Peru has all the ICU beds occupied for example.

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When in a discussion between two parts one of the parts finds the other part is not able to use reason and logic, there is no point in continuing the discussion.

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In internet arguments, you're never playing to the person you're arguing with, it's always to the audience, and anyone that you care to persuade is never going to be impressed by hyperbole, debating tricks, anger or insult.

Consider, for example, Jordan Peterson vs Cathy Newman.

And bear in mind that I'm aiming for a broader audience than just the two of you, we could all (including me) indulge in a bit of stepping back and taking a breather when things are getting heated.

Anyway, I don't want to be a net nanny so you're free to behave how you want without further comment from me.

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1 hour ago, RETAC21 said:

But something is wrong there now, as South America is currently overwhelmed by the pandemic, Peru has all the ICU beds occupied for example.

It depends on the country.  Mexico is the current poster child for using the Ivermectin and steroids plan and while the cases have exploded, the death rate by comparison is actually fairly low in comparison, having only 100K deaths with more than .  https://www.statista.com/statistics/1107063/mexico-covid-19-cases-deaths/  Peru and several other countries are having their health care system break down, Brazil being the worst by far.  It is difficult to tease the information out but on a scan it appears that the ones currently getting crucified are those who have either and their system break down or supply chain issues.  Additionally, it appears that one of the big factors is that Covid in South America has finally made the feared jump from the cities to the rural areas and they just aren't equipped to handle this at all.  

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25 minutes ago, nitflegal said:

It depends on the country.  Mexico is the current poster child for using the Ivermectin and steroids plan and while the cases have exploded, the death rate by comparison is actually fairly low in comparison, having only 100K deaths with more than .  https://www.statista.com/statistics/1107063/mexico-covid-19-cases-deaths/  Peru and several other countries are having their health care system break down, Brazil being the worst by far.  It is difficult to tease the information out but on a scan it appears that the ones currently getting crucified are those who have either and their system break down or supply chain issues.  Additionally, it appears that one of the big factors is that Covid in South America has finally made the feared jump from the cities to the rural areas and they just aren't equipped to handle this at all.  

Just heard in the news that another factor seems to be that they used the Chinese vaccine which is less useful.

Thanks!

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35 minutes ago, DB said:

In internet arguments, you're never playing to the person you're arguing with, it's always to the audience, and anyone that you care to persuade is never going to be impressed by hyperbole, debating tricks, anger or insult.

Consider, for example, Jordan Peterson vs Cathy Newman.

And bear in mind that I'm aiming for a broader audience than just the two of you, we could all (including me) indulge in a bit of stepping back and taking a breather when things are getting heated.

Anyway, I don't want to be a net nanny so you're free to behave how you want without further comment from me.

Fair points, and agree with most of them.

Still a lie, even in form of a strawman, is a lie.

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https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9652287/The-Pentagon-funneled-39million-charity-funded-Wuhan-lab.html
 

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The Pentagon gave $39 million to a charity that funded controversial coronavirus research at a Chinese lab accused of being the source for Covid-19, federal data reveals.

The news comes as the charity's chief, British-born scientist Dr. Peter Daszak, was exposed in an alleged conflict of interest and back-room campaign to discredit lab leak theories.

The charity, EcoHealth Alliance (EHA), has come under intense scrutiny after it emerged that it had been using federal grants to fund research into coronaviruses at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China.

 


 

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But federal grant data assembled by independent researchers shows that the charity has received more than $123 million from the government – from 2017 to 2020 - and that one of its biggest funders is the Department of Defense, funneling almost $39 million to the organization since 2013.

Exactly how much of that money went toward research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology is unknown.

 

 

Quote

 

The majority of the DoD funding came from the DTRA, a military branch with a mission to 'counter and deter weapons of mass destruction and improvised threat networks.'

EHA also received $64.7 million from the US Agency for International Development (USAID), $13 million from Health and Human Services, which includes the National Institutes of Health and Centers for Disease Control, $2.3 million from the Department of Homeland Security, and $2.6 million from the National Science Foundation.

 

 

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In other news...

The UK's first vaccination numbers look to be slowly levelling off and we will eventually run out of willing victims shortly. They've exceeded 76% of the adult population today, and haven't stagnated yet. Second vaccinations are a shade under 52% and increasing strongly.

Pfizer BioNTech has been approved for use for 12-15 year olds with the usual statement that "benefits outweigh the risks". Not sure where the study data comes from for this, but it's probably a mixture of vulnerable groups and testing which has been ongoing in the US for a while now, I believe.

Case numbers are increasing somewhat, probably due to allowing the Indian (PC version: Delta) variant in by giving India four days notice of shutting down incomers. Meanwhile, it's looking very much as if any vaccine has a massive effect on the severity of infections, so mortality is way down and hospitalisations for serious illness also, and showing clear signs of decorrelation with case numbers apparently.

Holidaymakers in Portugal who can't perform sensible risk assessments are whining that the government has moved Portugal from a Green destination (holidays allowed) to Amber (essential travel only allowed) and so they either cut their holidays short or face mandatory quarantine when they get back. the story is that Portugal is Amber because of a "Nepal mutation", not formally identified as a WHO variant (of concern), but apparently a combination of Indian and one of the South African mutations. If these two produce a cumulative effect then one may see the increased transmissibility of the Indian variant with the increased vaccine resistance of the SA variant, but who knows how that might work?

Apparently Boris has proposed a target to vaccinate the whole world by the end of 2022 at the big international taxation meeting held here. I'm not sure that's within our gift - China is probably going to attempt the big goodwill trick of the century by both causing the problem and solving it with Sinovax, benevolently distributed to all their worldly brothers out of the purest kindness in their hearts. (To be fair, they've apparently been licensing production of one of their killed virus vaccines to places that have the potential to make it. including Pakistan where it's been renamed "PakVac"

https://www.livemint.com/news/india/pakistan-produces-chinese-cansinobio-covid-vaccine-brands-it-pakvac-11622820341931.html

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12 hours ago, nitflegal said:

It depends on the country.  Mexico is the current poster child for using the Ivermectin and steroids plan and while the cases have exploded, the death rate by comparison is actually fairly low in comparison, having only 100K deaths with more than .  https://www.statista.com/statistics/1107063/mexico-covid-19-cases-deaths/  Peru and several other countries are having their health care system break down, Brazil being the worst by far.  It is difficult to tease the information out but on a scan it appears that the ones currently getting crucified are those who have either and their system break down or supply chain issues.  Additionally, it appears that one of the big factors is that Covid in South America has finally made the feared jump from the cities to the rural areas and they just aren't equipped to handle this at all.  

I just don't see that Latin America as a region is getting any different results in deaths per capita than the US and Europe. Per Worldometer, even excepting that Peru is currently making the top of that list, Colombia, Argentina and Mexico may be below the US and UK at mid-1,700 vs. mid-1,800 numbers per million of population, but are still ahead of Spain, France and Portugal which are around 1,700.

Chile is lower at about 1,550, but Panama, Paraguay, Uruguay, Bolivia and Ecuador are in a range of 1,100-1,500 which also includes Sweden, Switzerland, Greece and Austria. Germany and the Netherlands are just below that, then smaller Carribean nations intermingled with places like Serbia, Israel and Canada in the three-digit range. If anything, the list shows that countries which got hit early and hard before successful treatments were found like Italy and Belgium tend to group higher with those which bungled the response like Brazil.

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9 hours ago, BansheeOne said:

I just don't see that Latin America as a region is getting any different results in deaths per capita than the US and Europe. Per Worldometer, even excepting that Peru is currently making the top of that list, Colombia, Argentina and Mexico may be below the US and UK at mid-1,700 vs. mid-1,800 numbers per million of population, but are still ahead of Spain, France and Portugal which are around 1,700.

Chile is lower at about 1,550, but Panama, Paraguay, Uruguay, Bolivia and Ecuador are in a range of 1,100-1,500 which also includes Sweden, Switzerland, Greece and Austria. Germany and the Netherlands are just below that, then smaller Carribean nations intermingled with places like Serbia, Israel and Canada in the three-digit range. If anything, the list shows that countries which got hit early and hard before successful treatments were found like Italy and Belgium tend to group higher with those which bungled the response like Brazil.

You've got to dig a bit.  If you go to pubmed and search covid 19 therapies by Mexico and so forth you can start pulling data but it's not easy to dig out. The big tell is comparing fatality rates last fall versus this spring compared to infection rates.  Then you have the fun of going down to the local data since there were an awful lot of almost certain primary Covid deaths that weren't recorded as such throughout central and south America last year.

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33 minutes ago, nitflegal said:

You've got to dig a bit.  If you go to pubmed and search covid 19 therapies by Mexico and so forth you can start pulling data but it's not easy to dig out. The big tell is comparing fatality rates last fall versus this spring compared to infection rates.  Then you have the fun of going down to the local data since there were an awful lot of almost certain primary Covid deaths that weren't recorded as such throughout central and south America last year.

What was the deal with subsaharan Africa's low numbers? (minus South Africa)

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15 minutes ago, Stargrunt6 said:

What was the deal with subsaharan Africa's low numbers? (minus South Africa)

I confess I haven't dug into it enough to have an informed opinion.  The pro-Ivermectin camp has pointed out that much of that area routinely takes Ivermectin as an anti-parasitic routinely and it sounds plausible but I can't say I've looked at the primary data.

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An observation-

I attended the Middle Atlantic Air Museum WWII Weekend today. Located at Reading Airport, Pennsylvania, USA (50+ miles north of Philadelphia).

When I went to board the shuttle bus from a remote parking area I was greeted by a large sign stating that if I was riding the bus to the WWII event I was required to wear a mask. Since the latest protocol in PA is no mask is required for those vaccinated I had left mine in the car, not thinking of the bus ride. I thought I’d have to go back to the car and get one.

Then I realized the bus was half-full and the only mask in sight was on the bus driver.

When we arrived at the entrance there were numerous signs stating masks and 3 foot social distancing was required. A quick glance around revealed no masks in sight.

This event is attended by thousands (10,000 easy), and if I had counted the mask wearers on my fingers I don’t believe I would have used both hands.

I believe the requirement was in place as there is no way to verify vaccination, since no one can be required to produce a vaccination card so a policy of treating everyone as un-vaccinated was mandated.

Totally ignored by 99% of the attendees; a major statement by the average person, in my opinion. 

See small example attached.

F4A201D4-2A0F-410D-B4AA-4373148EEE67.jpeg

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