[johnu]

pilowsky, on 2021-June-24, 15:17, said:

Modelling also suggested that all through the 1960s and 70's we were on the brink of nuclear war (5 seconds to midnight).
Information filtered through journalists or politicians needs to be taken with a pinch of salt, mustard, herbs, spices, etc.

Modelling??? What about 1st person accounts. From the US side, there was Cuban missile crisis, and at least one computer glitch or sensor problem where the US thought the Soviets were launching ICBMs. And who knows how many times the Soviets were close to launching a 1st strike against the west.

List of nuclear close calls

[pilowsky]

If you want to watch a real-time evolution of a cluster, here is a link to a dynamic map of cases in Sydney.
We're up to 208 ATM.
http://bit.ly/COVID19NSW

[pilowsky]

In news just to hand: http://bit.ly/SKYchef

Quote

"We cannot just keep shutting cities down" to get through pandemic
27/06/2021
Chef Luke Mangan has called for the NSW government to open fully when it's possible and "learn to live" with COVID-19.

We cannot just keep shutting cities down to get through this, we've got to learn to live with it," he told Sky News Australia.

The city was coming back to full strength again, our businesses were looking great, the government had done a good job.
Look at Victoria, I've got friends with restaurants and hotels in the CBD there who are still really suffering.
They're on the four square metre rule still after being open for the last two or three weeks.
"Our government surely, Gladys Berejiklian, cannot follow that lead of keeping the square metre space and open slowly."

For those of you outside Australia, Skynews=Fox.
Luke Mangan is (allegedly) a cook.
Because nobody in Australia knows much about Tony Fauci, Sky(fox)news has taken to bashing the Australian Broadcasting commission's Health reporter instead.
His name is Dr Norman Swan a Scottish Jewish paediatrician.
Norman Swan's son is Johnathon Swan (Axios) whose face became a meme for "WTF are you talking" about after he interviewed Trump about COVID-19.
Gladys Berejiklian is the NSW Premier.

[pilowsky]

Sign of the times that the main problem with kissing an aide is that it breaches COVID rules.
Would it be OK if both wore masks?

[pescetom]

"Travel
Guidance recommending against travel to amber countries removed
Adults fully vaccinated in the UK will no longer have to quarantine for 10 days after returning from amber list countries".

Nothing said about adults fully vaccinated in amber list countries coming to UK, thus implying that they still have to quarantine for 10 days?
This seems vexatious, given the diffusion of Covid in UK vs many amber list countries.

[pilowsky]

Regarding the issue of thromboembolism.
A preprint of a paper undergoing peer-review states that the risk of bad side-effects from AZ is about the same as Pfizer and much less than getting COVID19.
http://bit.ly/AZasSafeAsPfizer
I note that this paper is not yet peer-reviewed so I'm a little surprised that it was made available.
Still, the information is likely more valuable than the stuff floating around on some Twitter feed.

[y66]

From Don’t Want a Vaccine? Be Prepared to Pay More for Insurance. by Elisabeth Rosenthal and Glenn Kramon at NYT:

Quote

The Affordable Care Act allows insurers to charge smokers up to 50 percent more than what nonsmokers pay for some types of health plans. Four-fifths of states in the U.S. follow that protocol, though most employer-based plans do not do so. In 49 states, people who are caught driving without auto insurance face fines, confiscation of their car, loss of their license and even jail. And reckless drivers pay more for insurance.

The logic behind the policies is that the offenders’ behavior can hurt others and costs society a lot of money. If a person decides not to get vaccinated and contracts a bad case of Covid, they are not only exposing others in their workplace or neighborhoods; the tens or hundreds of thousands spent on their care could mean higher premiums for others as well in their insurance plans next year. What’s more, outbreaks in low-vaccination regions could help breed more vaccine-resistant variants that affect everyone.

Yes, we often cover people whose habits may have contributed to their illness — insurance regularly pays for drug and alcohol rehab and cancer treatment for smokers.

That’s one reason, perhaps, that insurers, too, have so far favored carrots rather than sticks to get people vaccinated. Some private insurers are offering people who get vaccinated a credit toward their medical premiums or gift cards and sweepstakes prizes, according to America’s Health Insurance Plans, an industry organization.

Tough love might be easier if the Food and Drug Administration gives vaccines full approval, rather than the current emergency use authorization. Even so, taxpayer-financed plans like Medicaid and Medicare must treat everyone the same and would encounter a lengthy process to secure federal waivers to experiment with incentives, according to Larry Levitt, the executive vice president of KFF, a nonprofit focusing on health issues. (Kaiser Health News, where Dr. Rosenthal is the editor in chief, is one program under KFF.) These programs cannot charge different rates to different patients in a state.

KFF polling shows such incentives are of limited value, anyway. Many holdouts say they will be vaccinated only if required to do so by their employers.

But what if the financial cost of not getting vaccinated were just too high? If patients thought about the price they might need to pay for their own care, maybe they would reconsider remaining unprotected.

[kenberg]

y66, on 2021-August-03, 12:44, said:

From Don't Want a Vaccine? Be Prepared to Pay More for Insurance. by Elisabeth Rosenthal and Glenn Kramon at NYT:

I suppose the issue could be phrased as "Is being a moron a pre-existing condition?". If so then maybe they have to be protected from rate increses.

[pilowsky]

kenberg, on 2021-August-03, 14:35, said:

I suppose the issue could be phrased as "Is being a moron a pre-existing condition?". If so then maybe they have to be protected from rate increses.

This is an interesting question that could be phrased a little differently!
As people develop, they tend to become more cautious.
An adolescent might drive an aging Hillman Minx at over 100mph just for the pleasure of overtaking a sporty looking Valiant Charger.
Risks are evaluated differently when you are younger.

The question is, what role does the acquisition of knowledge and judgement play in modulating risk-taking behaviour?
Some people never acquire, synthesise and use information in a way that reasonably modulates their behaviour.

Problems arise when the inappropriate behaviour of a person affects others.
Suppose someone believes that voices in their head are telling them to kill people that don't believe in aliens.
This belief - true or not - is dangerous to both the individual and any alien-deniers near them.

How about a person that doesn't believe in motorcycle helmets?
The danger to others is that if they require extensive medical treatment for any brain injury that could have been prevented then there is an opportunity cost to the rest of us.
Their failure to protect themselves may result in a scarce resource (neurosurgical care) being taken away from you or me if we have a brain tumour.
It isn't enough to say, "oh well, if they want to risk harm, that's fine so long as they pay the cost" because they don't; we all do.

That's why some measures need to be mandated.

• Seat-belts
• Masks during a pandemic
• Vaccination if the spread of the disease is likely to kill others
• Full disclosure in a game of Bridge
• etc.

This brings us to the problem of how to characterise people that are responsible for governing and mandating but lack the ability or knowledge to do so.
Despite what some believe people don't "just get it". They have to learn it.

Quote

"I like this stuff. I really get it," Trump boasted to reporters during a tour of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, where he met with actual doctors and scientists who are feverishly scrambling to contain and combat the deadly illness. Citing a "great, super-genius uncle" who taught at MIT, Trump professed that it must run in the family genes.
"People are really surprised I understand this stuff," he said. "Every one of these doctors said, 'How do you know so much about this?' Maybe I have a natural ability."

[Gilithin]

pilowsky, on 2021-August-03, 18:11, said:

An adolescent might drive an aging Hillman Minx at over 100mph just for the pleasure of overtaking a sporty looking Valiant Charger.
Risks are evaluated differently when you are younger.

Being young certainly is a pre-existing condition as far as auto-insurers are concerned.

[johnu]

Poll: Vaccinated adults are more concerned about delta variant of COVID -19 than the unvaccinated

Quote

Vaccinated adults are nearly twice as likely to worry that new variants like delta will worsen the pandemic nationally and locally, according to the latest tracking poll from the Kaiser Family Foundation.

Also, four out of 10 vaccinated adults worry they personally will get sick compared to 27% of unvaccinated adults.

Quote

But 14% of adults say they will “definitely not” get vaccinated, a share that hasn’t significantly changed since December.

Three-fourths of unvaccinated adults say they are “not worried” about getting seriously sick. A narrow majority say the vaccine is a bigger health risk than the coronavirus itself.

I nominate all the anti-maskers and anti-vaxxers who die from Covid because they refused to get vaccinated or wear masks to receive a 2021 Darwin Award.

[pilowsky]

The number of people vaccinated in Australia is pathetically small:

Quote

More than 18.2 per cent of Australians aged 16 years and over are fully vaccinated, including more than 25.2 per cent of over 50-year-olds and more than 40.5 per cent of Australians over 70 years of age.

Overall, about 33%.
The failure is mainly due to the political failure of our government.
In a fit of typical uselessness, Prime Minister ScottyFromMarketingMorrison (as he is called politely) declared that we don't have to worry because "it isn't a race".
Meanwhile, the press is pumping out paroxysms of disinformation about the danger of AZ so that nobody wants to take it because there's a chance they will get a blood clot and die.

[Winstonm]

I am hopeful COVID turns out to be extinction event and natural selection favors the vaccinated.

[awm]

pilowsky, on 2021-August-04, 05:28, said:

Meanwhile, the press is pumping out paroxysms of disinformation about the danger of AZ so that nobody wants to take it because there's a chance they will get a blood clot and die.

Scary! I'm glad that I had Pfizer, which only makes you magnetic.

[Winstonm]

awm, on 2021-August-04, 13:47, said:

Scary! I'm glad that I had Pfizer, which only makes you magnetic.

Covid Clue: Professor X in Wuhan with Magneto.

[johnu]

Texas politician dies of COVID 5 days after posting anti-vaccine meme

Quote

A Texas GOP official who consistently mocked COVID-19 vaccines and masks on social media, died five days after posting a meme on Facebook, questioning the idea of getting inoculated against the virus.

Quote

Known for his extreme conservative beliefs and Christian faith, Apley rallied against most COVID-19 safety policies. In May, Apley posted an invitation to attend a “mask burning” at a Cincinnati bar, adding “I wish I lived in the area!”

Like many far-right conservatives including Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, Apley compared mask mandates to Nazism.

Some people may feel sorry for his family, but how many people have died or spent days or weeks in ICU because they believed what he was saying?

[Winstonm]

johnu, on 2021-August-04, 23:27, said:

[url="https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/texas-politician-dies-of-covid-5-days-after-posting-anti-vaccine-meme/ar-AAMX2NN?li=BBorjTa"]Texas politician dies of COVID 5 days after posting anti-vaccine meme[/


Some people may feel sorry for his family, but how many people have died or spent days or weeks in ICU because they believed what he was saying?

Chalk up another case of natural selection subtracting a dimwit - in a billion years there won’t be any Republicans at all.

[johnu]

Louisiana A.G. Encourages Employees To Undermine COVID Restrictions

Quote

Louisiana has the country’s highest number of COVID-19 cases per capita and one of the lowest vaccination rates right now. And the situation for hospitals and health care workers has never been worse.

State Attorney General Jeff Landry ® is doing his part to keep it that way.

On Monday, as the state’s coronavirus death toll topped 11,000, Landry sent an email to state Department of Justice employees informing them how to avoid complying with school mask mandates for children. He also advised how to circumvent K-12 vaccine requirements, though the state doesn’t have any.

Quote

“I do not consent to forcing a face covering on my child, who is created in the image of God,” the letter requesting a religious exemption states. “Masks lead to anti-social behaviors, interfere with religious commands to share God’s love with others, and interfere with relationships in contravention of the Bible.”

I love it when FAKE christians talk about anti-social behaviors. This is a FAKE christian who is a disgrace to all the non-FAKE christians.

[barmar]

What I don't get is this: What do all the politicians fighting mandates, and the people spreading conspiracy theories, get out of this?

I could understand Trump's behavior when he was in office -- he's a narcissist, and had to make everything about him.

I can even understand a politician not wanting to institute a mandate themselves, because it will alienate some voters who don't like their freedom abridged. And a "one size fits all" approach isn't always appropriate -- rural communities don't have the same needs as urban ones.

But why do they go further and try to block local mandates? Supposedly the local leaders know what's best for their communities.

Does it make them look like strong leaders, battling against an opposition trying to institute draconian restrictions?

[Winstonm]

barmar, on 2021-August-07, 10:45, said:

What I don't get is this: What do all the politicians fighting mandates, and the people spreading conspiracy theories, get out of this?

I could understand Trump's behavior when he was in office -- he's a narcissist, and had to make everything about him.

I can even understand a politician not wanting to institute a mandate themselves, because it will alienate some voters who don't like their freedom abridged. And a "one size fits all" approach isn't always appropriate -- rural communities don't have the same needs as urban ones.

But why do they go further and try to block local mandates? Supposedly the local leaders know what's best for their communities.

Does it make them look like strong leaders, battling against an opposition trying to institute draconian restrictions?

The right is making political plays solely. Right wing politicians understand that they do not have to be for anything - all that is required is to be against. Long term it should not work. But if they get it to work short term then they can rig future outcomes to their favor or even eliminate entirely the idea of fair elections. There is a reason Tucker Carlson is in Hungary with autocrat Orban and it is not to simply piss off the left.

The attempt to overturn democratic self-rule is growing serious because Trump promoted it as his solution.