CharonY

Thanks iNow, I have indeed seen the study. I am a bit skeptical that the viral particles would remain intact under the conditions, certain bacteria and certainly spores would have much higher resilience compared to them. But thank for clearing that up.

I always found that that to be bit of a a convenient excuse. See, folks do not have abhorrent believes, but it is because someone made them so. There are a few issues with that statement. The first is the use of political correctness of a pejorative of the right to criticize the left. In reality, there has always been an Overton window that determined what is palatable. The phrase PC has been weaponized by the right to shut down every criticism (justified or not) that stem from progressive ideas. In all honesty neither side is doing well with fostering dialogue, however it seems to me that the right has created a whole ecosystem to systematically shut them off from discourse, which is now exemplified by the presence of an alternative right-wing reality in which things like, say global warming or COVID-19 simply does not exist and antifa has taken over the government. If you want to follow this route and where the origins are, you won't find those in the opposite camp. There is a large body of research now which discusses this in more detail, but in short, it is not a reactionary or even new phenomenon. It follows a long tradition of right-wing patterns which elements of authoritarianism and xenophobia which are rolled into a zero-sum worldview. The only new thing is really the amplification of signals from all sides via the internet which allowed folks in fringe to create and maintain their own alternative universe. It should also be noted that one of the hallmark of these fringes is the duality of a) being heroes of their narratives but b) at the same time being downtrodden and forced to action by the enemy. The narrative that the left forces them to believe in crazy stuff because they have taken over mainstream media and science, is just another element to it.

I am still waiting for someone jumping out of the closet and tell me it was all just a joke. I even cleaned out said closet to make it easier but still no luck. Really? I find that somewhat surprising. The only things I have seen so far was mostly related to increased mortality due to PM2.5 exposure. Do you have a report at hand by any chance?

Yes indeed, controlled studies have shown little to no effect of supplements on overall outcome. However, overall improvement of well-being by life choices (diet, exercise) environmental health and so on, all have positive properties for many diseases as they can improve our ability to combat and survive infections and associated complications. Unfortunately well-being is also often coupled to income. Also unfortunately folks (and I am guilty of that as well, especially with respect to sleep) folks often neglect overall well-being and focus on drugs as primary measure. I.e. fix things when broken, instead of not breaking it in the first place.

A bit off-topic, but considering the background of the founders I am fairly confident that the constitution was set up with slavery in mind, rather than being a compromise of sorts. At best one could consider it ambiguous, but it clearly benefitted slavery operations in its original form. Unless you mean what the ideal should have been, which is a bit more abstract and decoupled from the realities of what it really was.

Excellent, so I suppose you have dispensed with the notion that somehow there is a cabal restricting ivermectin research, considering that there are sufficiently around to actually try to make a meta-analysis? There was another earlier meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials. And as the author noted, many of the studies had sub-optimal quality https://doi.org/10.1002/14651858.CD015017.pub2, which is not terribly surprising for initial (and often limited) trials. If you look at the paper you linked in detail, you will note that especially for prophylaxis they had 3 trials and highlighted that it only has low-certainty evidence of reduction. Even worse, one of the tree trials used for the evaluation was recently withdrawn (at least temporarily). So as a whole there is not a much to shake that particular conclusion. However, even if we ignore these issues for now, as I mentioned earlier, the data (in part due to the quality of data) suggests at best that a bigger controlled trial is needed to figure out effects rather than jumping the fence and ingesting it because of some positive outcomes. As mentioned before, this is not how drug research works. If every initial study was indicative of effectiveness, we would have cured all sorts of cancer a couple of thousand times by now. The good news is that the TOGETHER trial with 1,500 participants could provide some answers. Unfortunately the outcome is not published yet, but in a virtual symposium I attended one of the PIs has mentioned earlier last month that a couple of drugs where dropped out because they did not show benefits over placebos, including metformin and ivermectin. I am not sure whether that talk is public (though I suspect it somewhere) but I do not have a link saved. My notes only say that relative risk was 0.91 (0.69-1.19)and mortality relative risk is 0.82 (0.44-1.52), so no significant effect over placebo (well and that fluvoxamine showed promise, but for some reasons folks are not demanding its use in droves. I wonder why). I think it was a prophetic documentary. When I was younger I thought the future could be a Neuromancer-esque dystopia. Instead, we have this.

What is your point? That vaccines are not 100% protective? We know that and have been discussing it in various threads. In Israel most of the severe breakthrough cases are folks with additional health complications, whereas the hospitalized folks without previous issues or younger persons were mostly vaccinated. So yes, additional treatment options would be great and I have mentioned a few that are actually at least moderately effective and being used. So why promote something with much less evidence? What is the thought process behind it? I mean why not promote Vitamin D instead? At least it is cheaper and has other health benefits especially if the population has deficits in that regard. Or how about getting regular sleep and a good diet. I mean those would also lower risk to quite some degree. And if we talk about overall morbidity the net effect is likely higher than ivermectin. I really wonder who is making money with this drug at this point, this obsession cannot be organic. Something to read about it here https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8050401/

Well, I believe judges in Texas are typically elected, so they are in some way a representation of a bat-shit crazy population (though inevitably biased due to gerrymandering). I actually do not know on what basis judges could dismiss lawsuits, even if they wanted to (it being just stupid is probably not enough). As iNow mentioned, the clever bit is that they kind of removed constitutional challenge to the law, which otherwise would probably be the most direct way. And ultimately the idea is probably not even that folks would win these lawsuits. It is more to tangle up healthcare providers with so many lawsuits (of which each has a minimum cost of 10k if lost) that it just does not make sense for them to continue.

This is utter nonsense. If that was the case why did developed countries fund several studies to look into efficacy of ivermectin? The big issue is that the performance was ultimately disappointing. The dewormer comment is also because people are actually buying formulation for deworming cattle for self-medication. In other words, it is not a knee jerk response but a very accurate description of what folks are doing. In your own link you can read why the study is problematic, and it is not because of censorship. It is because we need ideally controlled setups in order to look at efficacy. Yes people are taking it out of desperation but what is the evidence that it actually works? As I mentioned, controlled trials found no effects, some studies were retracted because the data sets were faulty. Employing a new drug should generally be a high bar to pass, at best you are wasting everyone's time, at worst you could make the situation worse. Even taken the small cohort data into account right now the evidence for a beneficial effect of ivermectin is at best moderate and if the ongoing trials see no increase in effectiveness, it is unlikely to see more traction. In other words, the hype around it is not supported by data. Just because many folks are taking it tells us nothing about its effectiveness. Has anyone for example seen that active case numbers in Peru are inversely correlated with use of the drug? If not that is not evidence. Even if it is not dangerous a drug has to perform. Otherwise you can peddle vitamin C, hydroxychloroquine and so on. Especially in the US folks are not taking it because they cannot get the vaccine. They take it because folks peddle it as something instead of vaccine. And that is where the danger is. I can understand desperate folks trying everything, even if it does not work. But in a community where the drug is actually plenty, this is just plain stupid. Moreover, if folks take an ineffective drug and believe that they are protected and therefore engage in risky behaviour, well that is going to drive cases upward. The whole thing is just a stupid endeavour in conspiracies. The ever present desire to be pertaining to some exotic knowledge where only few enlightened folks have access to (but not invest any work in even trying to understand how clinical trials are set up and how to evaluate the evidence). Any lack of evidence is then explained by the evil mainstream (also called science) who is just somehow suppress research groups... somehow (but apparently not before giving them money to research it in the first place). We all know by now that this is just a convenient way to brush away evidence and jus supplant evidence with narratives. It would be funny if it wasn't driving needless deaths and making the life of health care workers a living hell.

Always somewhere "Far Away" and it will never impact us. Obviously all diseases come from "exotic" places where it is not as clean as "here". I occurred to me that I did not comment on the posted study per se, but as it is reported it has some flaws/issues. An overall issue is that it is not a placebo controlled study, it is more set up like a retrospective one. While it is not an issue for a small experimental study, it is important to note that the outcome is not in any way comparable to a controlled trial. A bigger issue that it does not report how they created the study cohort. It seems that folks just decided to take the drug. That has the issue of self selection. I.e. folks taking the drug may also take additional measures to protect themselves. I also cannot see the study group composition (i.e. whether it is built similarly to the control group). So it is not clear to me if both cohorts had equivalent baseline risks. The fact that they found a higher risk for women, indicates some gender bias in the data set- large analyses indicate a similar prevalence for both genders, though severity seemed more common in men. At best that type of data would indicate that the drug might be suitable for a clinical trial. But, as mentioned, it actually has been and the results were disappointing. This study does nothing to change that outlook.

This is what most of the conspiracy bullshitters are stating. The reality is that it is only an issue because for some reasons certain folks run off to dose themselves with horse dewormer rather than using a vaccine that has gone through trials and has been shown to be safe and effective with currently a sample size going in the billion of dosages. Hardly any other medication has that much data available. With regard to treatment, to date even approved medication like remdesivir have only shown moderate effectiveness in actual controlled trials. Likewise, there were some promising results in early (pre-trial) experiments for ivermectin, but the biggest controlled trial (part of the together trial) did not found a positive effect as outlined in an symposium by the PI of the trial (fluvoxamine seemed more promising, though). Trials for treatment options are still ongoing, though so far no magic bullet has been found. The mentioned remdesivir, as well as monoclonal antibodies, high titer convalescent plasma, dexmethasone are currently being used and have generally shown some improvement, though certainly not in all patients. However especially steroids like dexmethasone were likely effective in preventing death in critically ill patients. But obviously that is only useful (as it suppresses inflammation) after things go bad already. Fundamentally, there is nothing even approaching the effectiveness of vaccines in preventing harmful effects, so it is just madness that folks with access to it prefer to use something that does not show benefits in controlled trials. I wonder what could motivate to use these drugs vs another, well researched one. Well, not really wonder, more like despair. In cases where vaccines are not available the solution should not be peddling ineffective measure. Rather we really need to get our act together and get vaccines to everyone on the planet.

Here is a (I think) a good article which echoes many of the frustrations on that matter. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/01/opinion/covid-pandemic-global-economy-politics.html As a side point, it has also shown how much many European Health agencies often look toward the US CDC for guidance before getting into gear.

In the US, apparently there is a new tactic in place to restrict or even abolish abortions. In a way it is a clever way to skirt litigation and basically banning abortion by threatening folks performing it, rather than banning the procedure itself. https://www.vox.com/2021/8/31/22650303/supreme-court-abortion-texas-sb8-jackson-roe-wade-greg-abbott

A very good paper regarding long-term COVID symptoms in larger cohort: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)32656-8/fulltext

I think you are conflating mask use in a controlled manner (e.g. hospital, labs) where folks are trained and follow protocol for mas use. Unfortunately that is not the case with the broader population and it has been shown how masks of different materials have different levels of theoretical protection. That being said wearing any mask is better than not wearing. To look at the effectiveness of masks to prevent infected persons to infect others is based on simple maths. In a situation where an unmasked person is present the room can fill up with infectious particles, if even one badly masked or unmasked person comes in (or takes their mask off) there is a high risk of infection. If conversely the infected wears a mask (source control as described in the link you provided) the risk for the badly or unmasked person drops. In a controlled situation you can ensure that everyone wears PPE properly. In a public space situation, you generally cannot control that and it really just takes a few minutes in any space to identify a few who do not wear masks properly (if at all, given lifting of masking mandates).

It depends on which time frame and implementation we look at. Theoretically vaccines also are likely to provide transient protection and only reduce spread but do not prevent it entirely. The point is that added habitual measures (e.g. masking even if you only suspect you might have been exposed) and especially use at onsets of case increases (as models with influenza suggest in the past) help to mitigate spike heights (though with Delta, it is unlikely to curb entirely). For the most part surges can only entirely be prevented by behavioral measures, but those are difficult to keep up for indefinite times. What we are talking about are really just layers of protection that can chip away at the infection rates.

That is a big topic and it all depends on which slaves are and time frame you are looking at. However, chattle slavery was, as the name implies, certainly not a voluntary emigration process (there are folks that try to frame it that way, but that is basically insane). Edit to add: I think the Spanish had some theoretical protections for the indigenous in place, including banishing their enslavement sometime in the 16th or so century. But instead they had "coerced labour" which basically was mandatory unpaid labor with dubious benefits like converting them to Christianity. I suspect that what you have in mind is the trans-Atlantic slave trade which roughly happened between ~ 16th and 19th century. Considering the huge time span the details of the trade have changed quite a bit as has the volume throughout the periods. Also, the how slaves were viewed. increasingly as commodity has changed somewhat over the centuries. Partially because initially slavery was not something associated with a specific population (but rather with bouts of misfortune, such as losing a conflict) and often routes of freedom were built into the system to some degree. That at some point vanished for the victims of the trans-Atlantic trade. One other thing to keep in mind is that Africa as a whole was not just an assembly of primitive tribe, as it is often present in the European imagination. Rather there were different kingdoms and empires present who had their own history of conflict. I.e. African history is not just one of white conquest, though especially in the years of colonization the influence of Europeans at some point became a dominant shaping force. Some of earliest reports involve maritime raiding, where a Portuguese Captain (Gonçalvez) kidnapped Berbers, and negotiated their freedom in exchanged for slaves. Around the same time, the church basically sanctioned slavery of "pagans". While the Portuguese conducted raids in West Africa, it was replaced mostly (I think) by a trade network involving African nobility. The slaves were baptized and transported to Portugal but were later also sold to Spain for their colonies There is a huge amount of literature in this area and my knowledge is basically non-existent. However, I think the first step is to acknowledge that the history of slavery is complex (as is basically everything) and that there are no simple narratives that would do the subject justice. One would need to dissect what is happening in a given time frame. As a kind of overarching narrative one could haphazardly argue that what initial started as "normal" European customs with regard to slavery (which tapered out by the mid 16th century) grew over time to a quite different system, driven by the demands of the new colonies and the profitability of the trade. But again, the details are quite complex and I am not sure whether they can be properly answered in a short post format (perhaps an expert could).

I found that this is a general issue throughout the pandemic. Media and the broader population tend not to check definitions (it is down to individual journalists and I have quite mixed experiences) and often if we explain it, it sometimes to get cut to the juiciest soundbites. Sometimes they do interview medical experts who explain things in more depth, but those bits rarely reach a broad audience it seems. But serious illness almost always translates to hospitalization, whereas symptomatic can range from cough to debilitating joint pain (but no need for hospitalization). The are qualifiers such as "mild" to "severe" symptoms but I admit, it can be confusing and certain points such as the difference between infections and illness can be easily lost. To me, a big question still is long-term effects. There is a recent study in the Lance, which is quite interesting in that regard https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(21)01755-4/fulltext However, they focused on hospitalized cases and other studies which were using more indirect methods (e.g. insurance claims) still found that a sizeable proportion of non-hospitalized COVID-19 patients who appear to suffer from long-term negative effects. What I mean is that instead of thinking binary about the situation (e.g. hospitalization , death etc.) we need at some point start shifting toward understanding overall health burden. I.e. how much quality of life do we risk when getting infected even with vaccination, for example. That being said, considering the state of the world priority still must be vaccination.

As a single measure, sure. However, especially spread of infection can be improved by additional measures. I.e. vaccination should be the baseline, but we can add layers of additional protection. In a range of regions with Delta dominant and at least decent vaccination rates we do see an increase in cases once restrictions end and often spikes associated with large events. Of course vaccinations are the main tool and especially for prevention severe disease it is excellent. The main question here is whether we also want to keep infections low and what we need to do to achieve that.

One interesting point that has come up in a roundtable discussion that some folks are more willing to take treatments, even experimental ones, rather than getting vaccinated. It does point to the fact that a proportion of the broader public makes a fundamental distinction between chemicals given as part of a treatment (say antibodies) and those given as part of a vaccine, even if the former are known to have adverse reactions. Edit: I should add that some also object to the vaccine because they think they are made with material from aborted fetuses, which is another surprisingly common misconception.

Here is an interesting take from the viewpoint of the Afghan forces https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/25/opinion/afghanistan-taliban-army.html The author (Commander in the Afghan National Army) counters the narrative of the Afghan unwillingness to fight. The author highlights three factors resulting in the collapse: The article is worth a read and provides an interesting perspective.

That is to be expected. As I outlined in OP the vaccines do not fully protect from infection. As such, big unmasked gatherings without social distancing will further the spread of the virus even in a vaccinated population. They are, however, protecting from serious illness, which is the major goal of vaccines. A big issue is that for some folks this distinction is lost and sometimes poorly communicated. Immediately lifting restrictions once a certain vaccination threshold has been reached is, in my opinion, premature, as we do not have all the data in yet for proper risk assessment related to health burden in vaccinated folks. Fundamentally we are looking at balancing various risks and they require somewhat different approaches. The most critical one is reducing critical illness and death. For now, the mRNA vaccines seem to be the most effective measure to prevent these events. Challenges are unvaccinated folks who are at higher risk. Additional management is done by a variety of treatment options to reduce severity, though obviously those are less effective than vaccinations. A second challenge is to minimize infections (or conversely, thinking about how much infection we are comfortable with). The reason why we want that is to reduce the rate of new variants but also because even in a largely vaccinated population some folks may still become ill (though again, unvaccinated folks are at a vastly higher risk). This is much harder to achieve at this point, given that vaccinations are much less effective in preventing infections as they are in preventing disease. Here, additional measures, including isolation and masking are needed in addition to vaccines. Then there is the big unknown of long-term COVID-19 symptoms, and how protective vaccines are against them. At one point or another we need to figure out what the overall risks of opening, unmasking etc. are given a particular achievable vaccination rate (and potential availability of new, potential seasonal vaccines). But until then it is IMO a mistake to assume that we can just pretend that the virus is gone. Edit: that is actually also a very local perspective as globally we are still looking at a relatively poor vaccination rate, meaning we do have a large potential reservoir for the virus and the rise of new variants.

As noted before, the vast majority of the trillions went to military/police and related expenses. It was clear that rebuilding seemed a bit of an afterthought if at all. Moreover, as some outlets reported, those few initiatives could fall under infrastructure or other forms of rebuilding were often not properly supervised and often fell prey to corruption. Which further supports the notion that these initiatives were more window dressing compared to the military project, where the big bucks were. Moreover, it appears that the military contracts were also not done with sustainability in mind, where US soldiers, companies and contractors ran most of the show (and consumed the money).

I don't think that this is correct for rice. The water efficiency of a crop can be measured by the crop water productivity (CWP) which is given in kg/m3. A quick search for global CWPs indiate that the CWP is highly site-specific but for countries like USA, China and Philippines rice has a CWPs that are similar (and in some areas higher) than wheat but often lower than corn. I.e. it is at least somewhat comparable to the other main crops. I doubt similar data exist for cattails.

! Moderator Note Does not seem like it is news and seems more conducive to a discussion in the Lobby section.