I got a flu shot yesterday. It wasn't like other years. Like having to sign a paper saying things like, If I have a reaction, it's not their fault, or if I die it's not their fault. It seemed it was more in line for a corid 19 shot. After seeing too many movies of government mis-deeds, I don't think I'll trust an early shot for covid.
I'm not an anti-vaxxer but i'm not going to get a vaccine for covid for awhile, I'm for safe vaccines with proper clinical trials backed by science not political agenda. If the first vaccine fails the anti-vaxxer's are going to have a field day and we'll all be less safe without proper vaccines.
I have a degree in microbiology and have a strong science background as from that as well. I am as far as you get from an antivaxxer. That said, here are my 2 cents on the vaccine, when it is approved.....
1. Its being rushed too fast and multiple companies are showing similar strange side effects, including spinal cord damage. It won't be safe and I'd personally take my chances with getting covid over taking the vaccine.
2. Well down the road, there will be a vaccine that is safe to take, but won't be close to the miracle cure people are hoping for. If it offers any protection over 50%, consider it a huge success. Also, it won't last forever and very well could only protect for a few months.
3. For that vaccine to eradicate covid, it has to be extremely successful in short term protection(unlikely, and long term protection is a pipe dream) and 60-80% of the population will have to administered the vaccine in a very short period to gain herd immunity. Thats not going to happen.
4. While it might help after the safety issues are conquered, covid will almost certainly never go away. What will most likely happen is that it continues to mutate and become less deadly, ending up being one of our common seasonal flu that we have all gotten used to. Its actually in the best evolutionary interest of the virus to not kill its host. This way, it spreads more and continues to exist longer. Most viruses that kill a large percentage of their hosts die out quickly, while others that just make people sick last a lot longer.
My son is a participant in one trial and the results have been quite promising. The side effect trials are completed, the trials on mice showed efficacy, and now he is in a phase 3 trial.
The trials are looking for more people of color to participate but probably due to our country's horrible history of experimenting of dis-empowered people of color, it is not happening. Sadly, it would make any future vaccine more robust for more people.
If there is distrust in the US government, I cannot stress enough: look at Europe. Although we want a vaccine as well, we will not push a defective wonder cure. Just check news sources that aren't American.
The buzz here is: maybe a vaccine in the beginning of 2021, but we will still have to go through winter 20/21 without one.
Homeschooling in Times of Covid-19 by Karen White Porter is free on Kindle tonight till 12 pm Pacific Time.
It details how a parent can homeschool in their State if they are not pleased with the teaching through zoom or electronic system set up. Also there are great tips for parents on developing interests, setting goals, creating routines, and building progress through consistency, boundaries, and encouragement.
Where I live, the majority of outdoor tables for restaurants are measured incorrectly - from the center of the table to the center of the next one, rather than the proper way, which would be to measure from the back of a pulled out chair to the back of a pulled our chair at the next table. So the 6 foot rule we have results in diners actually only being about 2 feet apart, at best.
If I were a business owner who did not care about my patrons' health I would try to squeeze more people in.
Do you think they are doing to retain extra seating?
That advice comes weeks after a controversial shift in the CDC’s testing recommendations saying that people without symptoms “do not necessarily need a test.”
It sounds like this may turn out like the 'members of the public do not need to wear the mask' advice that CDC and Fauci gave at the beginning: they did so to protect stockpiles for the healthcare professionals who needed them the most, although they changed approach once there were enough supplies.
Could it be that there aren't enough tests to go around with the current capacity?
At this point there are enough tests to test high risk asymptomatic people. Trump has stated he wants to slow down testing to save his "good numbers." That scares the hell out of me because if he manipulates supply, which he likely is already doing, he will cause that situation to happen.
What I think the CDC message is at the moment, though, is Trump not wanting to have asymptomatic cases increasing his numbers so they are accurate. He wants unbelievable low numbers so that he can con the idiots that he is doing a great job. I don't think he is smart enough to manipulate the supply quick enough to get results before the election and we all know he doesn't [care] about his appearances after the election if he wins.
200,000 and counting now.
?
May their memories be an eternal blessing. May they be at peace and know they are loved.
I was dreaming a strange dream last night. I think the last part of the dream was about Coronavirus in the US. In the dream I am walking with some other people to a very large house, maybe a sort of expensive looking house, but I don't remember the outside very well, just the interior, which has super large windows and glass doors and feels expansive with tall ceilings. I notice right away that the glass door to the back yard is ajar and that at least one of the windows is broken. The large windows do not reveal the outside at all, it is almost like it is too dim outside to see--like it is dusk. I go to the door which is ajar, and I push it open to see a surreal backyard. It is almost like a theater backdrop which is made up of fake looking mounds or hillocks arranged so that many of them seem to be lined up and going upward in a slope. Behind each mound is a zombie and they are perfectly still until we see them and then they go into motion with most of them going after the people who I was with because they are closer them. I easily escape by running back the way we came in. I look back one last time at the people I was with and one of them who I did not really recognize from my waking life morphs into one of my neighbors. This last part feels scary to me because it seems to drag my present reality into the dream. I wake up and feel shock at seeing the zombies again. The zombies were a frequent manifestation of my dreams a few weeks before the 2017-2018 flu season which was particularly bad for the US with around 60,000 deaths. I haven't dreamed about them since…I think it is my spirit guides way of telling me that things are about to get seriously more intense in the pandemic which we were all anticipating anyway, right?
The Emmy's and Covid- 19. Proof on the importance of testing. In this case preventive testing.
I am giving a shout out to E! and NBCUniversal for having very strict testing guidelines before major events, in this case the Emmy's. Giuliana Rancic, Emmy red carpet hos,t announced on Sunday that she had to bow out of presenting E!'s Emmy pre-show due to testing positive for COVID-19. Her co-host Vivica A Fox is also absent due to testing positive as well. Rancic's husband and son also tested positive.
Imagine the spread of the disease at the Emmy's if these tests were not performed ahead of time. We need to be doing this everywhere. Imagine if schools did this once a week? Anyone working with the public. Before boarding a plane flight...This would really lesson the spread.
https://ew.com/awards/emmys/giuliana-rancic-vivica-a-fox-miss-emmy-preshow-covid-19/
@lovendures and all light working friends,
I agree completely that testing is our way forward. Quick test for anyone trying go school, flights, small and large gatherings, etc would help track it better. So many people will not take the vaccine. It seems testing will be the better option to get things moving in a positive direction.
@lovendures you posted about the CDC's testing reversal a few days ago. What happened last week is significant for the public health world.
So early last week, the CDC's website told the entire health care industry and the public not to test for covid if the person was asymptomatic, even if they had come in contact with a covid sufferer. Keep in mind that the CDC directives are the gold standard for doctors. So if you live with someone who just came down with Covid, or attended a party or a class in which some people came down with covid, the CDC instructed your doctor and all the hospitals and clinics that you don't need to be tested.
The NY Times then exposed the CDC, reporting that someone who was not from CDC, but likely from Pence's office or the White House or from HHS had plastered this new spurious directive on CDC's website. The directive was done in non scientific writing, and obvious to health care experts that it was superimposed on the CDC's website and not from the CDC, although it said it was from the CDC.
After The NY Times story was published, the CDC reversed that directive and said that, yes, all asymptomatic people who have come in contact with Covid sufferers (for more than 15 minutes) should get tested. This directive is critical to contact tracing and stopping the spread of the disease.
It is significant, however, that the greatest and largest collection of MD's and PhD health scientists in the world with an $8 billion budget, i.e., the CDC, put out a spurious and dangerous anti-science directive that would lead to thousands of deaths -- just so that Donald Trump could fake people into thinking the virus was abating.
The damage to CDC's reputation from that one incident alone is incalculable.
This is not the first time CDC has shown it's been influenced by financial and political rather than public health interests. But it is the biggest incident of its kind. Their policies around Lymes Disease have been so wrong that a whole industry of lyme literate doctors has sprung up to treat lymes disease. Their vaccination policies have created a movement against vaccinations because people don't trust them.
But this latest influence is so great and affects so many people that it's the kind of incident that will help bring down the whole swamp.
Here we go again with another CDC reversal. I guess the CDC is becoming so compromised that it is no longer worth even checking any more for Covid information. Well, I prefer John Campbell anyway. I But your doctor could be relying on the CDC.
The agency had posted new guidelines suggesting the virus can transmit over a distance larger than six feet and that indoor ventilation is key to protection against its spread. This is a point that many independent experts have also been advancing, and it had appeared that the agency had come around to their point of view. But the guidelines were removed late this morning because “that does not reflect our current state of knowledge,” a top CDC official said. - Washington Post
FOR CRYING OUT LOUD!!!!
Reversal AGAIN?!?!?!
What are the odds that this reversal upon reversal of contradictory information is to deliberately cause more chaos? Well I know it is, but what a battle must be currently fought at the CDC. The evil forces giving anti-maskers ammo to tote the fallacy of mask-wearing and how science "knows nothing". I don't say the word evil here in posts.
I just don't.
But I must today.
We haven't just sunk. The depths to which this nation has flung itself are unfathomable.
(Reminding myself to be calm. Be wise. Be informed. Don't add to the forces pulling us part. Be grounded. Be authentic. If I can't find peace within , how can I expect others to do the same? So I will re-ground myself and keep seeking truth. Peacefully. I can do this. Breathe.)
@lovendures, doncha sometimes find that each time we've finally achieved some semblance of normalcy and peace, something happens that challenges that serenity? I sure do! But in all fairness, let's give ourselves a break -- this has been a steady, 4-year onslaught of chaotic BS. Covid was just icing on the exploding cake. Pretty insane.
Speaking of insane: I just got back from a medical appointment where I was given someone else's test results. Seems that I misunderstood when the radiologist called my name through her mask, and she never checked my wrist band before she told me that my test results were normal. I didn't realize the error until after I arrived home, when I pulled out the written results showing someone else's name. My blood pressure literally went up 40 points. Anyway, I just got off the phone with them and fortunately my results are fine, which they will mail to me. The tech remarked "I've got to remind these doctors that they have to check people's wrist bands."
That's life in the time of Covid ...
2 things to add here : Go to the Guardian US Live feeds
Three days after posting information online about the possible airborne transmission of coronavirus, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has removed the guidance from its website.
You need to read the entire story.
#2 The troll has been found and exposed and is now quitting his job.
@lawrence, thanks. Actually I'm laughing about it now. This is a large, well-known and reputable hospital facility. They've called me back three times! In the most recent call, they told me that they've reported the incident to risk management. Let's just call it what it is -- CYA.