Coronavirus COVID-19

[SeattleGriz]

I’m still struggling to understand this “much more deadly” Delta variant. In almost NO cases, in ANY state, does the death curve even remotely resemble the curves from Jan-April. Cases up 10x, deaths up 2x. I mean, it’s almost like the first two waves took out the vulnerable already, and now it’s gonna act more like the flu.

I can't explain it any other way than your observation, because I think you are correct. As most new viruses, it is doing the usual of infecting more, but killing less as it progresses to becoming endemic.

In regards to all the hype, it's usually only found in preprint studies, which haven't even been peer reviewed. Not sure if you care to remember, but I ran down the whole variant claim months ago when the UK was going through their first wave. The best I could find was an article that gave the variant it's 60% more infectious was from that British modeling team that butchered their projected COVID death data.

The variant model was a 30 yr old guy who admitted he was having problems determining if it was actually the virus or simply people loosening restrictions...but Boris Johnson threw out the 60% anyway with his speech.

Then, I followed the study back to the Fred Hutchinson here in Seattle and read where they looked at how tightly the virus bound to the ACE2 receptor to determine if that made it easier to get into the cell. Well, that study said the variant was already bound pretty tightly and that they didn't see it being brought into the cell any better. So, no real world experiments to prove 60% but, they still stuck with 60%.

You simply cannot find true information unless you've got the time to research everything, which I don't.

[SeattleGriz]

I’m still struggling to understand this “much more deadly” Delta variant. In almost NO cases, in ANY state, does the death curve even remotely resemble the curves from Jan-April. Cases up 10x, deaths up 2x. I mean, it’s almost like the first two waves took out the vulnerable already, and now it’s gonna act more like the flu.

How do cases vs deaths look for the unvaccinated? Because of vaccinations, I'm not sure you can compare overall numbers from now to overall numbers from then.

How many have had it and recovered? Without those numbers, any guess is going to be just that.

[UNI88]

How do cases vs deaths look for the unvaccinated? Because of vaccinations, I'm not sure you can compare overall numbers from now to overall numbers from then.

How many have had it and recovered? Without those numbers, any guess is going to be just that.

Good question.

We're too busy fighting about it at the extremes (it's just the flu vs. it's the end of the world) to actually discuss it rationally and develop a reasonable approach.

[JohnStOnge]

I’m still struggling to understand this “much more deadly” Delta variant. In almost NO cases, in ANY state, does the death curve even remotely resemble the curves from Jan-April. Cases up 10x, deaths up 2x. I mean, it’s almost like the first two waves took out the vulnerable already, and now it’s gonna act more like the flu.

I can't explain it any other way than your observation, because I think you are correct. As most new viruses, it is doing the usual of infecting more, but killing less as it progresses to becoming endemic.

i think I typed this before but a very plausible primary reason for what you are seeing is vaccination. The elderly population is most susceptible. When we had no vaccines, a bunch of unprotected old people were dying. now we have vaccines and the overwhelming majority of the elderly are vaccinated. According to the page at https://usafacts.org/visualizations/cov ... er-states/, for example, 75% of those 75 and older are fully vaccinated and 84% have received at least one shot. Among those 65 through 74, 77% are fully vaccinated and 87% have received at least one shot.

Additionally, the elderly are not the only ones vaccinated. When one compares what's going on now with what went on during the really high death rate days one is comparing a situation in which most of the most vulnerable population in terms of age is vaccinated and about half of the population overall is fully vaccinated. One should fully expect a sharply lower death rate under those circumstances.

I also previously posted an article by highly qualified people saying that that thing about viruses necessarily evolving so that they infect more but kill less is not true. It was an outlook from the 19th Century that has been replaced with a more complex outlook. Here is the article again:

https://theconversation.com/will-corona ... dly-153817

Here is another discussion of the matter:

https://apnews.com/article/fact-checking-011488089270

As the spread of coronavirus variants raise new public health questions, social media users are sharing misinformation about how viruses mutate.

A post on Facebook reads, “In the history of virology, there has never, EVER, been a viral mutation that resulted in a virus that was MORE lethal. As viruses mutate, they become more contagious/transmissible and LESS lethal.”

But in fact, there have been cases of viruses that mutated to become more deadly.

“That claim as a whole is just nonsense,” said Troy Day, a professor of mathematics and biology at Queen’s University in Canada, who has studied the ways infectious diseases, including coronavirus, can evolve.

[JohnStOnge]

Thinking again about how hard it apparently is to get people to understand that the primary purpose of mask wearing is source control. The primary benefit is that an infected person wearing a mask will reduce the risk that the infection will be passed to someone else.

In that regard, I shake my head listening to demagogues like DeSantis talking about how if a parent wants their kid to wear a mask they can just let their kid wear a mask. That completely missed the point. The risk reduction for your kid comes when all the people AROUND them wear masks. It's not when THEY wear a mask. If they go to school wearing a mask and all or half of the other kids aren't wearing masks, they're not getting the risk reduction.

Reminds me of when I read an editorial by a conservative pundit during 2020 saying the study at https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/ ... 36a5-H.pdf shows that masks don't work because there was no significant difference between cases and controls i terms of mask wearing. No. Because that's not the kind of thing you should be looking at the assess the effectiveness of mask wearing.

The same study showed a statistically significant difference between cases and control in terms of how many of them had been to restaurants and/or bars where "None/a few" OTHER people were "following recommendations such as wearing a face covering or mask of any kind or social distancing."

Just always bear in mind that a study comparing infection rates among people who wear masks to rates among people not wearing masks is not asking the right question if the aim is to know whether masks work.

So it’s not important for ME to wear a mask, it’s more important for YOU to wear one.

It's important for everybody to wear one. The consensus has long been that an infected person should wear a mask. I can remember the criticism Fauci got for changing his position on masks. But he always said that infected people should wear them. I can remember watching an interview in which he said there was no reason to wear masks. But when he said that he was talking about wearing a mask to protect the wearer. He the very first thing he said in response to the question is that the reason for wearing a mask is to prevent an infected individual from infecting others.

Once it became clear that people can be infected as well as asymptomatic and spread the disease the CDC recommended that everybody wear masks and Fauci went with that.

And that's the thing. People can be spreading the disease without realizing it. So the intervention is to have everybody wear a mask.

[AZGrizFan]

So it’s not important for ME to wear a mask, it’s more important for YOU to wear one.

It's important for everybody to wear one. The consensus has long been that an infected person should wear a mask. I can remember the criticism Fauci got for changing his position on masks. But he always said that infected people should wear them. I can remember watching an interview in which he said there was no reason to wear masks. But when he said that he was talking about wearing a mask to protect the wearer. He the very first thing he said in response to the question is that the reason for wearing a mask is to prevent an infected individual from infecting others.

Once it became clear that people can be infected as well as asymptomatic and spread the disease the CDC recommended that everybody wear masks and Fauci went with that.

And that's the thing. People can be spreading the disease without realizing it. So the intervention is to have everybody wear a mask.

To Baldy’s point: a mask <> a mask <> a mask. We talk about “masks” like it’s just ONE thing. But 95% of the masks being worn out there are completely ineffective, are supposed to be single use, or are merely a piece of cloth. They’re a panacea. A false sense of security.

[JohnStOnge]

It's important for everybody to wear one. The consensus has long been that an infected person should wear a mask. I can remember the criticism Fauci got for changing his position on masks. But he always said that infected people should wear them. I can remember watching an interview in which he said there was no reason to wear masks. But when he said that he was talking about wearing a mask to protect the wearer. He the very first thing he said in response to the question is that the reason for wearing a mask is to prevent an infected individual from infecting others.

Once it became clear that people can be infected as well as asymptomatic and spread the disease the CDC recommended that everybody wear masks and Fauci went with that.

And that's the thing. People can be spreading the disease without realizing it. So the intervention is to have everybody wear a mask.

To Baldy’s point: a mask <> a mask <> a mask. We talk about “masks” like it’s just ONE thing. But 95% of the masks being worn out there are completely ineffective, are supposed to be single use, or are merely a piece of cloth. They’re a panacea. A false sense of security.

One of the reason's CDC initially did not recommend mask wearing is that they thought it would create a false sense of security so that people would not do what they need to do in terms of things like social distancing. But that was before they knew about asymptomatic infections.

There are varying degrees of effectiveness. But any mask is going to reduce risk of transmission. Even if you use a single use mask 100 times, it is always going to restrict airflow coming from you. The number of viral particles projecting out into the environment will be reduced to some extent and the airstream carrying them away from you will be interrupted.

[BDKJMU]

So it’s not important for ME to wear a mask, it’s more important for YOU to wear one.

It's important for everybody to wear one. The consensus has long been that an infected person should wear a mask. I can remember the criticism Fauci got for changing his position on masks. But he always said that infected people should wear them. I can remember watching an interview in which he said there was no reason to wear masks. But when he said that he was talking about wearing a mask to protect the wearer. He the very first thing he said in response to the question is that the reason for wearing a mask is to prevent an infected individual from infecting others.

Once it became clear that people can be infected as well as asymptomatic and spread the disease the CDC recommended that everybody wear masks and Fauci went with that.

And that's the thing. People can be spreading the disease without realizing it. So the intervention is to have everybody wear a mask.

Wrong, the consensus hasn’t been that.

Show us a single large scale, real world, non hospital study that shows cloth masks are more effective than no masks at stopping the spread of viruses

[JohnStOnge]

On the lethality of the variant: There is an interesting study at https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101 ... 21260050v2. It's not peer reviewed yet. But the results are still striking and it'll be interesting to see if other efforts like this are out there and/or continue.

They used a logistic regression approach to evaluate the risks of hospitalization, ICU, and death associated with variants of concern (VOC) as compared to risks associated with variants that were not variants of concern. They lumped Alpha, Beta, and Gamma variants together as being VOCs with "with the N501Y mutation" and looked at the Delta variant on its own. They controlled for "age, sex, time, comorbidities, and pregnancy status." So they took the nature of the infected person into account. Here is a quote:

Results Compared to non-VOC SARS-CoV-2 strains, the adjusted elevation in risk associated with N501Y-positive variants was 59% (49-69%) for hospitalization; 105% (82-134%) for ICU admission; and 61% (40-87%) for death. Increases with Delta variant were more pronounced: 120% (93-153%) for hospitalization; 287% (198-399%) for ICU admission; and 137% (50-230%) for death.

Underline added for emphasis.

So they're saying that, when characteristics of infected persons are taken into account, the Delta variant is seen as MORE deadly than the original variant or set of variants that were causing all the deaths earlier.

[JohnStOnge]

Here's another one: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm ... id=3861566.

Also not yet peer reviewed so we'll see what happens with that. But, again, the investigators controlled for patient characteristics (age and gender). A quote:

There were 838 VOC infections in Singapore in the study period. After adjusting for age and gender, B.1.617.2 infection was associated with higher odds of oxygen requirement, ICU admission, or death.

B.1.617.2 is Delta.

I meant to write in an earlier post that another factor in death rates changing over time is health care professionals getting better at managing the condition. I don't think that's nearly as big a factor as vaccination is. But I think it's a factor.

Anyway, at the very least, I think a reasonable person should not assume that the Delta variant is less deadly. It is quite possibly MORE deadly and we're just seeing lower death rates for other reasons such as those stated earlier.

My own position is that we don't know. I will admit that I lean to thinking that Delta is actually deadlier but we're seeing lower death rates due to vaccination (particularly the high vaccination rate among seniors) and improvements in managing the disease. But I don't think that's anywhere near certain. We'll see what happens as people continue to look at the question.

[AZGrizFan]

To Baldy’s point: a mask <> a mask <> a mask. We talk about “masks” like it’s just ONE thing. But 95% of the masks being worn out there are completely ineffective, are supposed to be single use, or are merely a piece of cloth. They’re a panacea. A false sense of security.

One of the reason's CDC initially did not recommend mask wearing is that they thought it would create a false sense of security so that people would not do what they need to do in terms of things like social distancing. But that was before they knew about asymptomatic infections.

There are varying degrees of effectiveness. But any mask is going to reduce risk of transmission. Even if you use a single use mask 100 times, it is always going to restrict airflow coming from you. The number of viral particles projecting out into the environment will be reduced to some extent and the airstream carrying them away from you will be interrupted.

And if it restricts airflow coming FROM you, how does it not restrict airflow going TO you?

[JohnStOnge]

It's important for everybody to wear one. The consensus has long been that an infected person should wear a mask. I can remember the criticism Fauci got for changing his position on masks. But he always said that infected people should wear them. I can remember watching an interview in which he said there was no reason to wear masks. But when he said that he was talking about wearing a mask to protect the wearer. He the very first thing he said in response to the question is that the reason for wearing a mask is to prevent an infected individual from infecting others.

Once it became clear that people can be infected as well as asymptomatic and spread the disease the CDC recommended that everybody wear masks and Fauci went with that.

And that's the thing. People can be spreading the disease without realizing it. So the intervention is to have everybody wear a mask.

Wrong, the consensus hasn’t been that.

Show us a single large scale, real world, non hospital study that shows cloth masks are more effective than no masks at stopping the spread of viruses

I don't know about studies specific to cloth masks. That would be very difficult to do because people wear various types of masks. However, here isa study on masks in general (and I think it's reasonable to assume a lot of the masks involved were cloth masks):

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamane ... le/2781283

Here is a KU news release with some comments by the lead author:

https://news.ku.edu/2021/06/28/study-hu ... k-mandates

“Our research found that masks reduced cases, hospitalizations and deaths in counties that adopted them by around 60% across the board.”

And remember, this is looking at mask mandates. A mask mandate doesn't mean everybody will wear masks. It just increases the proportion to some extent.

Look, this area of inquiry suffers from the same problem as a number of areas of inquiry pertaining to public health do. It's impossible to conduct a controlled experiment. You'd have to do something like find 60 communities where every body would agree to either always wear a cloth mask when out or to never wear a cloth mask when out. You'd have to randomly assign 30 to the "always wear cloth masks" treatment group and 30 to the "never wear cloth masks" group. Then EVERYONE would have to actually do what they're assigned to do. Not going to happen.

But at this point we have plenty of observational studies that should convince any reasonable person that there is a benefit to getting a large proportion of the community to wear masks.

[JohnStOnge]

It's important for everybody to wear one. The consensus has long been that an infected person should wear a mask. I can remember the criticism Fauci got for changing his position on masks. But he always said that infected people should wear them. I can remember watching an interview in which he said there was no reason to wear masks. But when he said that he was talking about wearing a mask to protect the wearer. He the very first thing he said in response to the question is that the reason for wearing a mask is to prevent an infected individual from infecting others.

Once it became clear that people can be infected as well as asymptomatic and spread the disease the CDC recommended that everybody wear masks and Fauci went with that.

And that's the thing. People can be spreading the disease without realizing it. So the intervention is to have everybody wear a mask.

Wrong, the consensus hasn’t been that.

Separate post to say that what I'm talking about is that there has LONG been a consensus that someone who has a respiratory infection who has to be around other people should wear a mask in order to protect other people. That's not just COVID.

My wife went to California back in the fall of 2019 before COVID was a thing. She got sick during the trip with flu like symptoms. When she went to a medical facility there the first thing they did was give her a mask to wear. Turns out they diagnosed her with bronchitis and not the flu. But they gave her that mask to wear while she was sitting in the waiting room in case she had the flu. It's not a new thing.

You have a disease like that, you wear a mask to protect other people.

[Gil Dobie]

Wrong, the consensus hasn’t been that.

Separate post to say that what I'm talking about is that there has LONG been a consensus that someone who has a respiratory infection who has to be around other people should wear a mask in order to protect other people. That's not just COVID.

My wife went to California back in the fall of 2019 before COVID was a thing. She got sick during the trip with flu like symptoms. When she went to a medical facility there the first thing they did was give her a mask to wear. Turns out they diagnosed her with bronchitis and not the flu. But they gave her that mask to wear while she was sitting in the waiting room in case she had the flu. It's not a new thing.

You have a disease like that, you wear a mask to protect other people.

She may have had Covid.

My clinic has request people wear mask if you have reparatory symptoms for at least the last 5 years.

[Gil Dobie]

One of the reason's CDC initially did not recommend mask wearing is that they thought it would create a false sense of security so that people would not do what they need to do in terms of things like social distancing. But that was before they knew about asymptomatic infections.

There are varying degrees of effectiveness. But any mask is going to reduce risk of transmission. Even if you use a single use mask 100 times, it is always going to restrict airflow coming from you. The number of viral particles projecting out into the environment will be reduced to some extent and the airstream carrying them away from you will be interrupted.

And if it restricts airflow coming FROM you, how does it not restrict airflow going TO you?

Air flow coming out of you is comprised of larger droplets filled with the virus, that a mask can stop, air coming in, is more likely to contain smaller particles that are not part of a larger droplet. It's more likely to stop more from an exhale than from an inhale, but not 100% either way. Hence, the additional recommendations.

[AZGrizFan]

Wrong, the consensus hasn’t been that.

Separate post to say that what I'm talking about is that there has LONG been a consensus that someone who has a respiratory infection who has to be around other people should wear a mask in order to protect other people. That's not just COVID.

My wife went to California back in the fall of 2019 before COVID was a thing. She got sick during the trip with flu like symptoms. When she went to a medical facility there the first thing they did was give her a mask to wear. Turns out they diagnosed her with bronchitis and not the flu. But they gave her that mask to wear while she was sitting in the waiting room in case she had the flu. It's not a new thing.

You have a disease like that, you wear a mask to protect other people.

Yeah, there were a LOT of “bronchitis” cases in the fall of 2019 that were most likely misdiagnosed COVID cases. That shit was here LONG before February of 2020.

[JohnStOnge]

Separate post to say that what I'm talking about is that there has LONG been a consensus that someone who has a respiratory infection who has to be around other people should wear a mask in order to protect other people. That's not just COVID.

My wife went to California back in the fall of 2019 before COVID was a thing. She got sick during the trip with flu like symptoms. When she went to a medical facility there the first thing they did was give her a mask to wear. Turns out they diagnosed her with bronchitis and not the flu. But they gave her that mask to wear while she was sitting in the waiting room in case she had the flu. It's not a new thing.

You have a disease like that, you wear a mask to protect other people.

Yeah, there were a LOT of “bronchitis” cases in the fall of 2019 that were most likely misdiagnosed COVID cases. That shit was here LONG before February of 2020.

I've wondered about that. My wife went to California in November 2019. Started feeling really awful while she was there. She got tested for influenza and it was negative. I also had a bout of something jn December 2019 that I perceived as different. It was persistent. Couldn't shake it. One thing I really remember is that there was a constant tinnitus. Constant fatigue. It felt different than anything I'd ever had before. I went in and got tested for influenza and it was negative. The doctor put me on antibiotics in case I had a bacterial infection. It did get better but who knows if that was coincidence. Whatever it was it kept me feeling bad for about a month. I know it wasn't influenza but I never got a positive diagnosis with respect to what it WAS. And the scenario was consistent with my wife picking something up in California and transmitting it to me when she got home.

At the same time, if I'm objective, I doubt it was COVID-19. As far as I can tell, Scientists think the first possible case was in Mid November in Hubei province in China. Seems pretty unlikely that it's have been in California in November or Louisiana in December. Possible I guess with the way worldwide travel is.

[JohnStOnge]

And if it restricts airflow coming FROM you, how does it not restrict airflow going TO you?

Air flow coming out of you is comprised of larger droplets filled with the virus, that a mask can stop, air coming in, is more likely to contain smaller particles that are not part of a larger droplet. It's more likely to stop more from an exhale than from an inhale, but not 100% either way. Hence, the additional recommendations.

My outlook is that, when you breath in with something like a surgical mask on, a pretty good bit of air gets sucked in around the edges. If there are aerosols in the air around you they will flow in with that. I think that if you are infected and breathing out some aerosols will escape but they are not going to be projected outward as they would be if you were breathing outward unimpeded. That's just me thinking though.

We've all seen the videos showing how masks change the situation. Here is one:



Here is another with commentary but it takes some time to watch it:



To me the people who think universal mask wearing would not reduce the risk of transmitting ANY respiratory viral disease substantially are just being willfully ignorant. To me it's really obvious.

[AZGrizFan]

Yeah, there were a LOT of “bronchitis” cases in the fall of 2019 that were most likely misdiagnosed COVID cases. That shit was here LONG before February of 2020.

I've wondered about that. My wife went to California in November 2019. Started feeling really awful while she was there. She got tested for influenza and it was negative. I also had a bout of something jn December 2019 that I perceived as different. It was persistent. Couldn't shake it. One thing I really remember is that there was a constant tinnitus. Constant fatigue. It felt different than anything I'd ever had before. I went in and got tested for influenza and it was negative. The doctor put me on antibiotics in case I had a bacterial infection. It did get better but who knows if that was coincidence. Whatever it was it kept me feeling bad for about a month. I know it wasn't influenza but I never got a positive diagnosis with respect to what it WAS. And the scenario was consistent with my wife picking something up in California and transmitting it to me when she got home.

At the same time, if I'm objective, I doubt it was COVID-19. As far as I can tell, Scientists think the first possible case was in Mid November in Hubei province in China. Seems pretty unlikely that it's have been in California in November or Louisiana in December. Possible I guess with the way worldwide travel is.

I wouldn’t be so sure. I have zero doubt I got it in Dec ‘19 on a cruise out of Galveston. Hit me like nothing I’ve ever experienced before. Literally never got out of bed the last three days of the cruise, couldn’t keep my eyes open, horrendous cough, phlegm, came home and it was diagnosed as “bronchitis”…ironically, the treatement (steroid shot, Z-pac & steroid inhaler) is the EXACT treatment most doctors are giving moderate/mildly severe cases of COVID.

[JohnStOnge]

Been meaning to post this for a couple of days. It's kind of arcane. Rand Paul referenced the study at https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/M20-6817 while suggesting masks don't. What I've been meaning to post is that it's important to understand that the study was designed to detect an "effect" whereby there was an 80% chance of getting 95% confidence that mask worked if mask wearers were 50% less likely to get infected.

The point is that the study was not designed to detect a situation in which masks worked at some lower level. Say, for instance, masks cut the risk of getting infected by 30%. That would be practically significant. Not a cure all but reducing risk by 30% would be significant.

The study was not designed to detect that.

Of course, as noted before, the study was also focused on looking at the PROTECTIVE effectiveness of masks and did not look at the effectiveness of masks from a SOURCE CONTROL standpoint.

I used to be a big fan of Rand Paul. But he has totally gone off the rails. He IS a medical doctor. I think he DOES know that he's being misleading. It's bad.

[SeattleGriz]

I've wondered about that. My wife went to California in November 2019. Started feeling really awful while she was there. She got tested for influenza and it was negative. I also had a bout of something jn December 2019 that I perceived as different. It was persistent. Couldn't shake it. One thing I really remember is that there was a constant tinnitus. Constant fatigue. It felt different than anything I'd ever had before. I went in and got tested for influenza and it was negative. The doctor put me on antibiotics in case I had a bacterial infection. It did get better but who knows if that was coincidence. Whatever it was it kept me feeling bad for about a month. I know it wasn't influenza but I never got a positive diagnosis with respect to what it WAS. And the scenario was consistent with my wife picking something up in California and transmitting it to me when she got home.

At the same time, if I'm objective, I doubt it was COVID-19. As far as I can tell, Scientists think the first possible case was in Mid November in Hubei province in China. Seems pretty unlikely that it's have been in California in November or Louisiana in December. Possible I guess with the way worldwide travel is.

I wouldn’t be so sure. I have zero doubt I got it in Dec ‘19 on a cruise out of Galveston. Hit me like nothing I’ve ever experienced before. Literally never got out of bed the last three days of the cruise, couldn’t keep my eyes open, horrendous cough, phlegm, came home and it was diagnosed as “bronchitis”…ironically, the treatement (steroid shot, Z-pac & steroid inhaler) is the EXACT treatment most doctors are giving moderate/mildly severe cases of COVID.

Nutjob. That witch doctor stuff didn't work.

[Ibanez]

I think this is the best place for this story. This is a bit of a long story but it happened last night and thought I would share.

Last night, MrsCCU, myself and some friends attended a group meeting of Drinking Liberally. My wife and her friend have gone to 1 other event and said it was lowkey but there are 1 or 2 loud members who, " make Bernie look like a Republican." Last night was my first (and last) time attending.

Let's go back a few days - on Tuesday there was a School Board meeting about a group of pro mask people tried to ask why all other safety precautions, not including masks, were removed. They weren't successful and it sounds like it's mainly due to 1 disruptive anti-masker Karen who was coughing on people, yelling at people and screaming at the children present that "their parents are killing them," as well as using time to present her "evidence" that wearing a mask for 5 minute produces dangerous levels of Carbon Monoxide and you'll die.

After that shit storm of a meeting, a Republican board member reached out to this group to apologize and said he wants to hear their concerns. They invited the man to last nights meeting.

So at the meeting, he gives his background and explains to the group why their concerns aren't being heard. TL/DR - they're disorganized and don't understand how the School Board and School District work. Having said all that, he said he was for masks.

The karens (mostly 2 women) started badgering him about 2 different questions which he tried to explain several times until he finally told them he won't answer any questions while being attacked and their tones were unacceptable. The two questions:
1. What can we do to get rid of the Superintendent (meanwhile this is the guy that for the past decade has taken our school district from the middle of the pack to the #1 district in SC.)
2. Will he appoint or request a special commission to speak with local experts/leaders and mandate masks be worn in school.

The 2nd question was asked 5x, 5 different ways and each time he said he can't promise that. That didn't go over well..at all. It's at this time that I finally spoke up and mentioned that this guy isn't going to promise something that's extremely difficult to deliver on and that he's already stated that he's having background conversations concerning COVID safety and protocols. This is where I got my first "boo". The 2nd was while asking a question, Karen #2 interrupted me, prompting me to say, " I'm speaking, don't interrupt. Don't be rude." This came with a scoff, an eat shit grin and then her looking at her husband who did nothing.

Next up, my buddy Will. He's a bigger asshole than I am. He asked the very simple question, " You, the board, the district, administrators are getting's 1000s of emails and calls but do you guys understand what this group wants?" The board member said no. That pissed off the group, to which prompted both us to say that there is zero organization, zero understanding of how this works and that's part of the problem. After getting a thank you from the board member, we can sense that "Drinking Liberally" doesn't really want outside thinkers. I even suggested that I would act as a lobbyist/liaison for the group and that was shot down.

In the end, I thanked the guy for stepping up and went home. My wife tells me that the facebook group is bitching about my buddy and I b/c we "mainsplained" something that Karen #2 agreed she didn't understand.


Not that I would go back, but i'm quite certain i'm not welcomed back at that bullshit group which is basically dominated by 2 Karens.

I'm just curious how you thought a group called drinking liberally wasn't going to be a goat fuck, and why you bothered in the first place

I didn’t expect it devolve that quickly.


And you should realize by now that I like to hear different opinions.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Ibanez]

https://unherd.com/thepost/the-most-vac ... -all-phds/

So, it's clear that some people are undereducated, and some overeducated.

-93henfan, MBA

I don’t need a chart to tell me that.


Ibanez - BS


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Gil Dobie]

Yeah, there were a LOT of “bronchitis” cases in the fall of 2019 that were most likely misdiagnosed COVID cases. That shit was here LONG before February of 2020.

I've wondered about that. My wife went to California in November 2019. Started feeling really awful while she was there. She got tested for influenza and it was negative. I also had a bout of something jn December 2019 that I perceived as different. It was persistent. Couldn't shake it. One thing I really remember is that there was a constant tinnitus. Constant fatigue. It felt different than anything I'd ever had before. I went in and got tested for influenza and it was negative. The doctor put me on antibiotics in case I had a bacterial infection. It did get better but who knows if that was coincidence. Whatever it was it kept me feeling bad for about a month. I know it wasn't influenza but I never got a positive diagnosis with respect to what it WAS. And the scenario was consistent with my wife picking something up in California and transmitting it to me when she got home.

At the same time, if I'm objective, I doubt it was COVID-19. As far as I can tell, Scientists think the first possible case was in Mid November in Hubei province in China. Seems pretty unlikely that it's have been in California in November or Louisiana in December. Possible I guess with the way worldwide travel is.

My Dr has heard Covid was here in 2019. My wife came back from Cali in November, with a terrible reparatory infection, terrible cough, thought see was going to die a couple times. Saw a different Dr at that time, our normal Dr was not available, and they had no idea what it was. Took several months before the cough went away.

[Ibanez]

So my brother is vaxxed but his wife isn't. His wife and their two children, ages 6 and 4, all have COVID. The 4 year old was on a respirator and initially had a temp of 105. She's off it now. They all feel awful, difficulty breathing, coughing and body aches.

My brother has tested negative 2x in the last week (his next test is tomorrow). So far, he feels fine.