Category: Coronaplague

Science says to avoid monkeypox by going to the bathhouse every night

by philg

A tweet from the Righteous:

According to the Scientists at Science, anyone who is not a Covidian is stupid and, worse, a denier of Science.

My response:

If Peter Hotez doesn’t want to get Covid, why won’t he stay home? That’s the one proven technique for avoiding a respiratory virus. He’s voluntarily entering packed rooms and holding indoor book signings (photo below), then telling others that he knows the secret for avoiding an aerosol contagion?

I included a photo from one of Professor Dr. Hotez, MD, PhD’s tweets:

He spends all day every day in crowded indoor environments talking about how stupid the average American is for not taking Covid-avoidance more seriously. If we translate this Scientific knowledge to another disease we find that anyone serious about avoiding Monkeypox should spend all night every night in a bathhouse.

What did the giant-sized brains of Science have to say about Professor Dr. Hotez, MD, PhD’s book?

… the fierce backlash against sensible public health measures … by uninformed citizens and bad actors on social media… Hotez calls for the US federal government to address anti-science aggression… a proposal for a new entity akin to the Southern Poverty Law Center that would both monitor hateful threats to scientists and offer legal advice and resources.

“Right-wing idealogues” are identified as prime targets who should be hit by those who are pro-Science and “Hotez’s warning about the broader implications of Covid denial must be heeded.”

Let’s check out the Defender of Science’s Twitter feed to see which crowded rooms he’s in.

In a crowded room where nobody wears a mask…

In Manhattan, which is in no way associated with crowding and filth:

Unmasked in a bookstore with a fellow Covidian:

In a Washington, D.C. bookstore with a Floridian and a Covidian:

Getting ready to gather in a crowd of 50,000 for a book festival (in a state where the New York Times informs us that books are banned):

Cuddling indoors with a Climate Doomer/Covid Doomer in Filthadelphia:

Inside a massive convention center stuffed with potentially infected humans:

(The infectious disease experts decided to hold a mass gathering instead of a Zoom-based conference?)

Flashback to three years ago on this blog: What to do when a family member is an anti-masker?

Update: Professor Dr. Hotez, MD, PhD is not afraid of death, but he is afraid of comments from other Twitter users:

Full post, including comments

Science says that young people sick with COVID-19 should go home to their parents and grandparents

by philg

Courtesy of Jay Bhattacharya, the University of Michigan’s policy for dealing with the discovery of an unclean SARS-CoV-2-infected 18-year-old in a dorm shared with healthy 18-year-olds:

Let’s consider Pat Studymuch, a U-M freshman. He/she/ze/they lives in a single room amidst other 18-year-olds whose risk of hospitalization or death from COVID-19 is minimal. Where should he/she/ze/they go?

Science says “Go back to the parents and elderly grandparents” (in the “permanent residence”). But if removing an infected 18-year-old from a group of 18-year-olds and pushing him/her/zir/them into a community of older people is good, wouldn’t it be even better for contagious students to be sent to quarantine in nursing homes?

Full post, including comments

Seal off criminal-rich neighborhoods to tackle the public health emergency of gun violence?

by philg

CBS yesterday:

New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham on Friday issued an emergency public health order that suspends the open and permitted concealed carry of firearms in Albuquerque for 30 days in the midst of a spate of gun violence.

Gun enthusiasts are saying that this is unconstitutional, but that’s irrelevant if there’s an emergency. KOAT:

“I can invoke additional powers,” Lujan Grisham said. “No constitutional right, in my view, including my oath, is intended to be absolute.”

It’s only for 30 days and it is intended to address what the governor has characterized as an “emergency”, so it is unclear why anyone could make a good faith objection to this order. The governor herself summarizes the situation succinctly (nytimes):

“I have emergency powers,” she said. “Gun violence is an epidemic. Therefore, it’s an emergency.”

Let’s look at some history and consider what might be a more effective approach to ending the gun violence emergency…

Prior to 2020, Americans believed that the U.S. Constitution guaranteed each of us the right to leave his/her/zir/their home to assemble, e.g., at work or school. However, it turned out that the Constitution did not prevent lockdowns of young healthy Americans on the grounds that there was a statistical chance that the lockdown could save the life of an old person somewhere.

That the societies with lockdowns had as-high or higher overall excess death rates compared to lockdown-free and mask-free Sweden isn’t relevant to this post. Even if no lives were saved, the idea was that lives might be saved and therefore the Constitution could be set aside. #BecauseEmergency

The majority of Americans, among the world’s meekest and most compliant humans, seem to be happy to have traded what had been their rights for the promise of safety. (Dutch friend at the time: “All of the rights that Americans fought and died in multiple wars to defend, they gave up in one governor’s press conference.”) Here’s part of a recent comment on Twitter, in response to a freedom-lover who complained about lockdowns, forced vaccinations, mask orders, etc. and asserted that they were unconstitutional:

Coercion is not the same as force and weakens your argument when you conflate the two. A majority of society agreed protect public health, that’s democracy.

Nobody was forced to get vaccinated. It is just that a person could have a job or be in a public place only if he/she/ze/they accepted the experimental injection. The lockdowns were okay because they were a product of democratic processes. My response:

Democracy undiluted by the Constitution sounds good. Freedom from crime is an important element of public health. What if a majority of Americans voted to seal the borders of any neighborhood in which the residents had committed more than a certain number of violent crimes? See below for how it could work in practice. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/District_13

Our democratically elected federal and state governments took away various freedoms based on statistical hopes and using an “emergency” as a justification. Do we have what we need to justify locking down neighborhoods from which we can expect criminal activity? From CNN:

Dr. Anthony Fauci, President Joe Biden’s chief medical adviser, acknowledged Sunday that gun violence in the US is a public health emergency.

What would it look like in Detroit, Michigan, rated #1 in “Total Crime Index”? Referring to the map below, the neighborhoods in the darkest color (?!?) would be walled off as a reasonable public health measure. Residents could leave their houses only during certain daylight hours and only for purposes deemed essential, such as buying marijuana. (See this March 23, 2020 article: “Michigan marijuana shops may remain open during the COVID-19 coronavirus stay-at-home order issued Monday by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer”) There would be checkpoints at a few points in the wall where people could be screened for guns and drugs on the way in or out (in those situations where the governor was permitting residents to go in or out).

Is there any flaw in the above reasoning? Separately, if you haven’t seen District B13, I recommend it!

Related (loosely):

Full post, including comments

Sam Bankman-Fried continues to make people rich

by philg

Having previously enriched the campaign treasuries of Democrat politicians nationwide, the great Effective Altruist Sam Bankman-Fried continues to enrich at least some Americans, according to “A $700 Million Bonanza for the Winners of Crypto’s Collapse: Lawyers” (New York Times):

Lawyers, accountants, consultants, cryptocurrency analysts and other professionals have racked up more than $700 million in fees since last year from the bankruptcies of five major crypto firms, including the digital currency exchange FTX, according to a New York Times analysis of court records. That sum is likely to grow significantly as the cases unfold over the coming months.

What is the NYT’s evil twin, the New York Post, writing about? “Migrant arrested 6 times for 14 crimes in first two months in NYC”:

A man who arrived in New York City two months ago from Venezuela has randomly attacked at least three strangers and two cops, and gotten arrested – and released – six times on 14 different charges, police and sources said.

Daniel Hernandez Martinez, 29, arrived on June 27 and allegedly committed his first crime the following day.

On Aug. 21, he violently attacked a woman in Midtown, cops said. He “grabbed a stranger by the hair, dragged her across the floor and kicked her,” and smashed her phone on West 45th Street around 1 a.m., court documents show.

What else has been interesting in recent news? “Maryland elementary school brings back MASKS for kids as it forces third-graders to don N-95s again after spate of pupils testing positive for COVID-19” (Daily Mail):

In a letter sent to parents on Tuesday, Rosemary Hills Elementary School principal Rebecca Irwin Kennedy said she made the move after ‘three or more individuals’ caught the virus in the last ten days.

She demanded students don thick N95 masks to ‘keep our school environment as safe as possible’, despite a recent study finding the mask may expose users to dangerous levels of toxic chemicals.

And while even embattled medical guru Dr Anthony Fauci admits there is a lack of evidence the masks stop the spread of Covid, Kennedy told parents the N95s will only become optional after 10 days.

This is my old school district, as it happens, Montgomery County Public Schools. It’s interesting that there is no explanation of how SARS-CoV-2 will be stopped if the students remove their masks “while eating or drinking”. The letter from the principal doesn’t mention any changes to lunch procedures. So the kids all sit in the classroom together wearing masks and then they all sit together at lunch not wearing masks?

What the Maryland principal did, of course, would be illegal under Florida law. Not contrary to a governor’s order, but illegal under a statute passed by the legislature. Third graders in Florida could tell the fearful Fauci-denying adults where to put their N95 masks.

Readers: What’s caught your eye in recent news?

Full post, including comments

Indoor, Outdoor, and Bearded Maskers in the Boston Area

by philg

Photos from August 21, 2023, Allston, Massachusetts (adjacent to Boston University):

My favorite, of course, is the surgical mask over full beard as a means of blocking out an aerosol virus. However, the most confusing are the outdoor maskers. The risk of being in a crowded city is so high that they need a mask when outdoors… yet they won’t move away from the crowded city. I guess the masked supermarket shoppers are also tough to explain. Why don’t they stay safe at home and let the Latinx essential delivery workers incur the risk of gathering groceries? (See The social justice of coronashutdowns)

I visited a friend in Brookline who warned his elderly mother to stay away from me because I was insufficiently cautious about the possibility of a SARS-CoV-2 infection (I had arrived from an oceanfront estate in Maine with about 3,000 square feet of space per person). A few minutes later, he decided that it would be too onerous to cook pasta at home, safe from COVID-19, on the high-end induction cooktop. So we then all went out to a cramped neighborhood Italian restaurant in which the elderly mom was within breathing distance of about 30 local humans (presumably not Covid heretics, however).

Both the mom, a Manhattan resident, and the grandkids spontaneously offered the opinion that Florida schools were terrible, partly due to the fact that reading was banned in Florida. Said grandkids had been removed from the Brookline, Maskachusetts public schools (one of the highest-rated districts in the state) due to being bored and the school system not having any gifted program. So they were paying private school tuition ($55,000+/year per student) on top of state income tax (banned by the FL constitution), state estate tax (also banned by the FL constitution, unless it can be credited toward federal), and property tax at a similar rate to what a typical FL county charges. I pointed out that Florida state law required every public school district to offer gifted education beginning in 2nd grade and that, if necessary, there was also the Big Hammer in which Florida high school kids can take online or in-person courses for free at any state-run college or university (and taxpayers have to buy them the textbooks as well!). Finally, the larger counties run magnet schools for those who are artistically or academically inclined (one of Miami’s is the #4-ranked public high school in the U.S.).

Related:

Full post, including comments

Among the Covidians in Burlington, Vermont

by philg

Some photos from a recent trip to downtown Burlington, Vermont…

The front door of a state government building:

Inside a bookstore, a follower of CNN:

COVID-19 is dangerous enough that one should wear a mask, but not so dangerous that one should shop for books on Amazon?

We are informed that marijuana can cure almost any illness, yet below is a marijuana shopper who feels the need to protect him/her/zir/theirself via a mask (Fauci-approved cloth version). If he/she/ze/they is about to inhale healing cannabis, why does he/she/ze/they need to worry about a minor bug such as SARS-CoV-2? Note also the trans-enhanced rainbow flag on the front door.

Speaking of rainbow flags, nearly every merchant had one, but only some featured Black Lives Matters or Trans People Belong signs.

Note the tattoos behind the Sign of Justice:

The University of Vermont featured both indoor and outdoor maskers of the young/healthy/slender variety, but unfortunately I was too slow to get good photos. Even more upsetting: the “intentional intersectional space” was closed.

Shout-out to Heritage Aviation at KBTV for the usual awesome service. Also to U.S. Customs at Burlington for hassle-free clearance inbound from the Land of Blackface and Political Unity.

Full post, including comments

Harvard requires the 2020 COVID vaccines; how well do they work in 2023?

by philg

On August 7, 2023, I was checking some Harvard University academic calendar dates and found the following page:

COVID-19: To keep Harvard healthy, if you will have an “on-campus presence,” you must comply with Harvard University’s COVID-19 immunization policy. You are required to submit documentation within 10 days of registering for any course with any on-campus presence. You risk being dropped from your on-campus courses, even after classes begin, if you do not upload your documentation in an expedited manner or if your status is non-compliant. Visit the Immunization Requirements page for details.

Following the link:

Harvard University requires 2 FDA- or WHO- authorized COVID-19 vaccinations, OR 1 bivalent dose for all eligible students.

You must submit proof of vaccination (or medical or religious exemption documentation) to University Health Services if you will have any on-campus presence.

You are required to submit documentation within 10 days of registering for any course with any on-campus presence. You risk being dropped from your on-campus courses, even after classes begin, if you do not upload your documentation in an expedited manner or if your status is noncompliant.

Also, for good measure…

Flu: one immunization after July 1, 2023

(The flu vaccine isn’t available to those 13-64 years of age in the UK, but the public health experts at Harvard require it for healthy college-age humans.)

A few questions… the J&J one-shot COVID-19 vaccination was FDA-authorized (though never “approved”). Why does Harvard then demand 2 shots? Let’s assume for the sake of argument that college-age students benefit from COVID-19 shots. Is there any evidence that the 2020 COVID-19 shots provide any benefit with respect to the currently circulating variants of SARS-CoV-2?

Related:

If any of the above is memory-holed:

Full post, including comments

How did the crippled-by-Long-Covid Swedes beat the American soccer world champions?

by philg

We are informed by the New York Times and CNN that Long COVID is (a) crippling, and (b) almost inevitable for those who reject Faucism. Sweden is renowned for letting SARS-CoV-2 rip through its younger-than-70 population while the elderly hid (excess mortality data by country). The Swedish women’s soccer team doesn’t contain anyone over age 73 and, therefore, must necessarily be riddled with Long COVID. How do we explain “Knocked out. Sweden bounces top-ranked U.S. out of the Women’s World Cup in penalties” (state-sponsored NPR) then?

It can’t be that the world champions are also Covid-plagued. From summer 2020, “Megan Rapinoe one of three internationals to withdraw from NWSL Challenge Cup” (BBC):

Forward Christen Press and midfielder Tobin Heath will not play because of “uncertainty” caused by the virus.

“Megan let us know that she has decided not to play,” said Bill Predmore, chief executive of Rapinoe’s team OL Reign.

“Like all NWSL players, she was given the option to participate … but we understand and respect her decision.”

The tournament, being played in empty stadiums, starts on Saturday in Utah and will last for one month.

Star players also cowered in their bunkers in the fall and winter of 2020… “NWSL star Megan Rapinoe says she won’t play in fall series” (CBC):

Two-time World Cup winner and OL Reign midfielder Megan Rapinoe is opting out of the National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) fall series starting next month, the Washington-based franchise said in a statement.

No reason was given for her decision but Rapinoe, 35, also skipped the NWSL Challenge Cup tournament in June, which was played in empty stadiums due to the COVID-19 outbreak.

Rapinoe sang the praises of lockdown in the Journal of Popular Studies:

Megan Rapinoe on Quarantine Life with New Fiancé Sue Bird: ‘It’s Been Such a Gift’

“Because we’re athletes, we’re constantly on the go and we never get to spend this much time with people that you love,” Megan Rapinoe tells PEOPLE in this week’s issue

So… the soccer players who were out and about in 2020, exposed every day to dangerous levels of SARS-CoV-2, beat the soccer players who wisely cowered in place and thus were protected from Long Covid and the even-more-dangerous Medium Covid. How can this fact be squared with Faucism?

Loosely related… an open-to-all-genders single-city team of 14-year-olds beat the world champions prior to coronapanic (CBS):

Also… “Djokovic Heads Hard-Court Leaderboard” (from the gender-neutral ATP Tour, 6 days ago):

Novak Djokovic has dominated the ATP Tour’s hard courts throughout his career, and the past 52 weeks are no exception for the 36-year-old.

Across a run that includes titles at the 2022 Nitto ATP Finals and the 2023 Australian Open, the Serbian has posted a tour-leading 91.9 per cent win rate (34-3) on the surface during that span. He also won hard-court titles in Tel Aviv and Astana last year as well as at the Adelaide 1 event to start the current season.

How is it possible for someone who was infected with SARS-CoV-2 without a previous vaccination to be the world’s best hard-court tennis player?

Also related, “The social justice of coronashutdowns” (January 2021), in which a friend who lives in a $9.6 million house (pre-Biden money) disagrees with my assertion that “[school] shutdowns are ordered by people who live in mansions (governors) and supported by rich white people who live in 4,000+ square foot suburban houses” and therefore don’t consider “a single parent in a 2BR public housing apartment with three kids” and “what benefit the shutdown is delivering to a 30-year-old single mom and her 10-year-old kids”.

Full post, including comments

A humanist looks at Sweden v. Covid

by philg

For us numbers nerds, here’s an interesting thread from Daniel Hadas, a medieval Latin professor in London who describes himself as a “Catholic humanist”… “Some remarks on Covid and Sweden.”:

… what matters is that life in Sweden during Covid continued largely as normal.

Lockdowns are deeply unnatural. They do not happen without intense social pressure, whether it be through legislation or propaganda. That pressure was absent, or at least muted, in Sweden.
At this point, it is customary to start arguing about statistics. Anti-lockdowners point to Sweden’s low excess mortality. Pro-lockdowners point to the number of Covid deaths, or to unfavourable comparisons with some of Sweden’s neighbours.
But there is no need to look at statistics to draw the essential conclusion about Sweden’s response. Any innumerate peasant can draw it, and indeed it is only those whose sense-making relies on statistics who can think some more potent conclusion lies hidden in them.
The essential conclusion is: 𝘯𝘰𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘳𝘪𝘣𝘭𝘦 𝘩𝘢𝘱𝘱𝘦𝘯𝘦𝘥. Sweden’s health system did not “collapse”, whatever that means. Stockholm does not look like Athens after the plague. Sweden is as Sweden was.

No numbers are needed to prove this.

In other words, numbers nerds like me are useless!

Thus Sweden, like every other jursidiction that did little in response to Covid, gives the lie to all the modellers and panic-mongers who screamed at the public that there was 𝘯𝘰 𝘢𝘭𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘯𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘷𝘦 to shutting down society, that every extreme measure taken was not enough.

Maybe Hadas disdains numbers because he can’t think with numbers? Actually he can!

It is ludicrous to maintain that, via statistics, certainty can be established on the causal link between a country’s anti-Covid measures, and the number of deaths in that country. The system we are trying to analyze is vastly complex: the whole of society, over several years. The potentially confounding variables are therefore countless. The effects being sought are small.

I made the following point back in 2020, but he does it more succinctly and eloquently. The majority of Americans assumed that a society with a lower Covid-tagged death rate was superior to a society with a higher Covid-tagged death rate. But that can be true only with some value judgments.

… behind the policy language of “a country’s response to Covid” lie questions for each individual: Should I lock up my children for 23 hours a day? Should I leave my parents to die alone? Should I not touch another man or woman for months on end? … The answer to these questions is not to be found in numbers.

The Swedish response to Covid was right, because, or in as much as, Swedes answered such questions in the negative. The only true disaster threatening us in the Covid years was answering them in the affirmative.

Maybe more people should study medieval Latin!

And because I’m not a humanist, but a numberist, let’s check the numbers:

and here’s the curve (of excess deaths) for Ireland (picked as a comparison country for Sweden by the NYT):

Full post, including comments

New York Times on protecting the immunocompromised by wearing a mask

by philg

“Should You Still Wear a Mask?” (NYT, April 2022):

Experts weigh in on where, and when, you can safely take one off.

If you have compromised immunity, for example, or live with someone who does, it’s a good idea to continue wearing a mask

“A Positive Covid Milestone” (NYT, today):

“Even for most — not all but most — immunocompromised people, vaccines are actually still quite effective at preventing against serious illness,” [Dr. Ashish Jha, who was until recently President Biden’s top Covid adviser] said. “There has been a lot of bad information out there that somehow if you’re immunocompromised that vaccines don’t work.”

Most immunocompromised people are at little additional risk from Covid — even people with serious conditions, such as multiple sclerosis or a history of many cancers.

Where did the “bad information” that Dr. Jha mentioned come from? Separately, the NYT seems to have discovered that a virus cannot kill the same human twice:

The United States has reached a milestone in the long struggle against Covid: The total number of Americans dying each day — from any cause — is no longer historically abnormal.

The good news is that the mask religion lasts longer than mask Science. Two photos from last week in Ireland (signage that was ignored) and a young slender apparently healthy person wearing a mask outdoors… in front of the Science museum in Salt Lake City (June 2023):

Full post, including comments