WSJ is perhaps the most pernicious source out there. Under the guise of sober, unruffled analysis, often accompanied by a nauseating condescension, the Journal normalizes everything from Trump's behavior to this dangerous misinformation. It depresses me that "moderates" read this stuff and figure it's reasonable. It's not.
"Those calling for debate tend to be influencers, politicians, and even quarterbacks, who want rhetorical flourishes, gotchas, and spectacle."
The primary reason live debates aren't a part of science is that they don't test the veracity of competing claims, they only test the rhetorical skills of the debaters
Immediately my large comment on how Covid was handled (?) as a disease in the West may not be in line with your write up here - basically the controversies about its origin. In the West, the focus by everyone in the administration in 2020 atleast was this controversy. Not about handling the disease and the spread clinically safely and effectively. Misinformation, particularly when vaccines and new anti virals began to appear, was actually part of the whole mishandling of the pandemic in the West.
The polls reflect the assessments of the most biologically expert branches of the US intelligence community.
You are a member of what’s increasingly called the biodefense-industrial complex. Academics supporting this complex are undermining all other academic research - if I were a university president, I would surgically excise this element from the academy for the sake of my institution’s reputation. Just ask UNC how they’re doing after a decade of Ralph Baric’s dangerous gain of function, and the deal with the devil they made with Fauci to receive so much biodefense funding.
Remember the Barrington (?) declaration in 2020….. no need for masks, no need for shut downs, let people freely move and mingle….. the natural immunity will get established on its own in the population. The spread will slowly stop and retreat into kind of oblivion. And perhaps Sweden was the only country that took to this approach initially. Theoretically correct, but there was a grave flaw in this premise in the context of the Covid virus. Clinical flaw. Miserably missed. This disease was uniquely two phased. The first phase, the viral build up to its maximum ( in the absence any anti viral treatment), the viral phase lasting about ten days. It looked like a normal respiratory viral infection, with one or two uncommon symptoms in some, like losing taste and smell. For great many, the body mechanisms managed it without much harm, with the viral load depleting in the infected individual over the next 3-4 weeks. For equally great many unfortunate ones, the second deadly phase opened, looking like a severe pneumonia but with some unique presentations, but in reality this was a severe auto immune/ allergy condition.
But if one could minimise the viral load build up substantially by appropriate drugs, basically common respiratory infection drugs, the scope for the deadly second phase gets shut. If this were to happen, it happened in many many non western countries, some time starting mid 2021 during the delta wave, the herd immunity would form in the society without much of a sweat. Drugs like Azithromycin, Montelukast, Levocetrizine, Ivermectin, and the like were the key here. And early treatment. It turned out that these drugs were good repurposed anti virals too, particularly in combinations. If the first infected in an household gets this home care treatment, his viral load stays low. Low enough not to infect other members symptomatically. But they do get passive exposure which is enough for the body to create natural immunity mechanisms. No one else in the house gets sick. Multiplied over thousands of households in a community or society, this is herd immunity of a superior nature. No vaccination, no hospitalisation, just a set of known prescribed medicines for a week or ten days. This is precisely that began to happen in later 2021 and in the initial Omicron waves in 2022. There were no lock down, free movements, people could wear masks only voluntarily. All that was needed was to go for some old school prescription medicines like above and take them for a week in home rest. Perhaps it happened in many countries, but I know in India where I am from, community health centres freely distributed to these medicines free. Even for those who could buy, the costs were low. My own, event less positively Covid tested treatment for ten days did not cost me more than $ 25. Not 25 K, which was common in the West and the USA. Because most of them had to make do with acetaminophen and water in the first week, only to get worse in the hospital, where no one knew how to handle that auto immune phase. It was a simple basic clinical judgement quickly and extensively realised in many parts of the lesser world, but ignored in the medically superior West. Sweden, unfortunately, got both ends of the stick in the initial times. In the absence of early medically common sense treatments, the absence of mandates, led to explosive creation of the auto immune phase in the population with disastrous results.
On the whole, the saga of Covid in the West was one of poor clinical judgements. Even after watching how others were subduing this virus with some early common treatments, as early as the second half of 2021, the West didn’t chose to follow those successful protocols. It went for repeat vaccinations and very new anti virals. The rest, as they say, is history.
WSJ is perhaps the most pernicious source out there. Under the guise of sober, unruffled analysis, often accompanied by a nauseating condescension, the Journal normalizes everything from Trump's behavior to this dangerous misinformation. It depresses me that "moderates" read this stuff and figure it's reasonable. It's not.
I had endless examples to choose from.
"Those calling for debate tend to be influencers, politicians, and even quarterbacks, who want rhetorical flourishes, gotchas, and spectacle."
The primary reason live debates aren't a part of science is that they don't test the veracity of competing claims, they only test the rhetorical skills of the debaters
Precisely. And the proclivities of the audience.
Immediately my large comment on how Covid was handled (?) as a disease in the West may not be in line with your write up here - basically the controversies about its origin. In the West, the focus by everyone in the administration in 2020 atleast was this controversy. Not about handling the disease and the spread clinically safely and effectively. Misinformation, particularly when vaccines and new anti virals began to appear, was actually part of the whole mishandling of the pandemic in the West.
The polls reflect the assessments of the most biologically expert branches of the US intelligence community.
You are a member of what’s increasingly called the biodefense-industrial complex. Academics supporting this complex are undermining all other academic research - if I were a university president, I would surgically excise this element from the academy for the sake of my institution’s reputation. Just ask UNC how they’re doing after a decade of Ralph Baric’s dangerous gain of function, and the deal with the devil they made with Fauci to receive so much biodefense funding.
Remember the Barrington (?) declaration in 2020….. no need for masks, no need for shut downs, let people freely move and mingle….. the natural immunity will get established on its own in the population. The spread will slowly stop and retreat into kind of oblivion. And perhaps Sweden was the only country that took to this approach initially. Theoretically correct, but there was a grave flaw in this premise in the context of the Covid virus. Clinical flaw. Miserably missed. This disease was uniquely two phased. The first phase, the viral build up to its maximum ( in the absence any anti viral treatment), the viral phase lasting about ten days. It looked like a normal respiratory viral infection, with one or two uncommon symptoms in some, like losing taste and smell. For great many, the body mechanisms managed it without much harm, with the viral load depleting in the infected individual over the next 3-4 weeks. For equally great many unfortunate ones, the second deadly phase opened, looking like a severe pneumonia but with some unique presentations, but in reality this was a severe auto immune/ allergy condition.
But if one could minimise the viral load build up substantially by appropriate drugs, basically common respiratory infection drugs, the scope for the deadly second phase gets shut. If this were to happen, it happened in many many non western countries, some time starting mid 2021 during the delta wave, the herd immunity would form in the society without much of a sweat. Drugs like Azithromycin, Montelukast, Levocetrizine, Ivermectin, and the like were the key here. And early treatment. It turned out that these drugs were good repurposed anti virals too, particularly in combinations. If the first infected in an household gets this home care treatment, his viral load stays low. Low enough not to infect other members symptomatically. But they do get passive exposure which is enough for the body to create natural immunity mechanisms. No one else in the house gets sick. Multiplied over thousands of households in a community or society, this is herd immunity of a superior nature. No vaccination, no hospitalisation, just a set of known prescribed medicines for a week or ten days. This is precisely that began to happen in later 2021 and in the initial Omicron waves in 2022. There were no lock down, free movements, people could wear masks only voluntarily. All that was needed was to go for some old school prescription medicines like above and take them for a week in home rest. Perhaps it happened in many countries, but I know in India where I am from, community health centres freely distributed to these medicines free. Even for those who could buy, the costs were low. My own, event less positively Covid tested treatment for ten days did not cost me more than $ 25. Not 25 K, which was common in the West and the USA. Because most of them had to make do with acetaminophen and water in the first week, only to get worse in the hospital, where no one knew how to handle that auto immune phase. It was a simple basic clinical judgement quickly and extensively realised in many parts of the lesser world, but ignored in the medically superior West. Sweden, unfortunately, got both ends of the stick in the initial times. In the absence of early medically common sense treatments, the absence of mandates, led to explosive creation of the auto immune phase in the population with disastrous results.
On the whole, the saga of Covid in the West was one of poor clinical judgements. Even after watching how others were subduing this virus with some early common treatments, as early as the second half of 2021, the West didn’t chose to follow those successful protocols. It went for repeat vaccinations and very new anti virals. The rest, as they say, is history.