To add to the what the article is saying RE:safety, the vaccine only stays in one's body for a few days to a week. Then it's gone. Also Moderna made a previous mRNA vaccine for Avian flu that was safe-- no long term side effects.https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/nejmoa2022483?fbclid=I....
If you are alluding to the rumor of it modifying human DNA by quoting "modification of mRNA building blocks"-- this is a modification of a piece of the viral mRNA. It DOES NOT modify human DNA or RNA.
The Moderna Vaccine can be kept at refrigerator temperatures. The author addresses safety in that he explains why the vaccine was able to be produced more quickly while still going through the same level of safety testing.
It literally says "All joking aside" following that comment. I don't know how much clearer I could have made that. I also advocate wearing masks, distancing, protecting the vulnerable, and not opening schools. I don't know how you can possibly be construing me as advocating for any of the extreme things you are talking about.
My data comes from worldometer.info which pulls directly from the states and hospital reporting and not from the CDC or HHS. So I think it is reliable.
I agree with your first two points whole heartedly. But I think we got into a r-v-l place where the public has lost all trust BY paternalism. Trust means giving people the truth. And my theory doesn't hinge on people behaving responsibly at all. If people are irresponsible- this ends sooner with more death. The theory is the same either way- the timeline and number of deaths just change a bit.
The case of the person that got reinfected is grossly exaggerated. Don't you think if this was really occurring frequently there wouldn't be only one or two reported incidences of this world-wide? Asymptomatic carriers do definitively infect others. Just because you personally are not sure of things, doesn't mean that they are not known. And this "do nothing" approach you are advocating for- which is what happens if you wait until everything is fully and definitively proven- has resulted in the disastrous results the US has had so far. Also please explain "suggesting cataclysmic shoot-from-the-hip solutions"- I don't think anything I suggested comes close to that. I said that we shouldn't reopen colleges in places with rising cases. That doesn't seem cataclysmic to me.
Call me an optimist but I think the public can handle the nuance of cases have dropped but still don't throw a crazy party until they are 100% gone or everyone is vaccinated. Also levels are 20-30% now but will continue to rise throughout the fall because there still are new cases and transmission even if RT<1.
Behavior is a variable that can and should be included in a herd immunity model. The percent immunity needed to achieve Herd immunity will change with behavior. That doesn't negate that it's happening. Louisiana and Florida are pretty much open and seeing a drop in cases. Bars aren't open indoors- but I think we can live with that for a little while?
In the absence of peer reviewed data, which takes at the very least 3 months, rendering it obsolete for a pandemic, the Tech is much better than say the NYT or the Atlantic. It largely does not misconstrue or report bad science. Here is a link to a talk by the scientist quoted in the Tech at UCSF's medical grand rounds. It starts at minute 38. It supports with more detailed evidence what I have been saying and in the timeframe we need it, a talk in front of a knowledgeable audience from respected scientists is about as good as we have. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ew2MEF4XX8w.
Ok I'm going to put this at the top since I believe it sheds further light on many of the points. This is a talk at UCSF's medical grand rounds (the weekly science talks given to all doctors at UCSF). At 38 minutes, one of the scientists cited by the MIT tech explains his findings in support of herd immunity. It's not peer reviewed yet because it's brand new- peer review takes a minimum of three months. He shows open table and google maps data in support of people not being much more careful in Florida or AZ. He also explains the interplay between mask wearing etc and RT. Hopefully you will find this to add extra rigor to what I have been saying. It is pretty dry- but that is the nature of this sort of talk. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ew2MEF4XX8w.
Actually, yes this is the point. I think this thread has been very useful feedback for the most part and has made me feel pretty optimistic about the utility of crowd sourced review. The "oof" is more reaction to the framing of that particular feedback, which felt more like a personal insult than constructive critique- it basically said that I wasn't a good enough scientist to be published. And of course the post isn't a publication- it's a blog post- so perhaps different standards in a lot of regards.
Here is the extreme case- an astroid is barreling towards the earth and we don't know if shooting a missile at it will save us. Do we do nothing because asteroid missile research has not yet been peer reviewed? Or do we take our best guess based on the science we do have?
A lot of harm is done when waiting around forever. People don't hear of potential life saving drugs. We don't know what to do in a pandemic. etc. Of course caveats should be explained and risk/reward examined.
The CDC has said we are underestimating infection rates by a factor of 10 based on antibody testing. We have undertested the population and therefore have only captured 10% of the cases.
OK I was in Ocean City NJ at the beach a month ago. This is just not true. I was in the women's bathroom- no masks, 6 inches from other people, no airflow. I'd say about 1/10 wearing masks. People crowded together.
So I think we have ruled out those reasons. I could go into each one of them but that would take a while. That is with the exception of data corruption by politicians-- I am concerned about that and planning to look further into it. "It writes the rules and we barely have managed to decipher some of them"- this I strongly disagree with. The media has portrayed it that way. But from the science community perspective, it hasn't been mysterious at all. It's just that the media and the politicians are translating to the public- and those translations are highly corrupt and motivated by money.
Sure. That is the technical definition. My point is that the rate at which cases will drop is proportional to the percent of the population that is immune. It's not a binary.
I agree that i haven't quantified how careful people are being though. There has to be a way to do this. I know there was some drone plan to see how many masks were being worn in parts of the country. It might be worth getting some numbers for this.
So this is a good point. I was just talking with a colleague about this. Some of the herd immunity models take factors like how mobile people are into account. It seems like masks could be a factor in the models of herd immunity. This might be a semantic argument. If population characteristics such as age are part of herd immunity (which is a moving target depending on population), then mask wearing could be considered a population characteristic and included in the model. This would net "drop" herd immunity levels.
I also took a roadtrip across the northeast a month ago so I saw a lot of how careful people were being. Ocean City, NJ was packed and almost no one was wearing masks. The upper east side was packed in NYC. I got a chicken sandwich at an indoor take out place where the guy serving me had one glove on and gave me the sandwich with the hand without the glove. Central park was full of people not wearing masks. Fireworks and protests all night. The argument that people are taking this seriously is just not true in NY and NJ. I can't imagine Florida is better than that.
They should definitely have anyone abroad strictly quarantine for at least 14 days upon entering the country. Herd immunity would slow it to a crawl but it seems like it could pop back up in odd pockets of previously unexposed people. We also still don't know how long immunity will last- scientists are hopeful that it will last until a vaccine is produced but that's not a guarantee.