General > General Technical Chat

Dilbert loses newspapers, publishers, distributor, and possibly its website

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Kim Christensen:

--- Quote from: Zero999 on March 12, 2023, 09:09:11 pm ---There were plenty of people who had already been tested and known to to have previously had the infection, yet were still vaccinated before those who hadn't, simply because they were a bit older.


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--- Quote ---There has been no randomised, placebo-controlled trial into whether vaccines provide any benefit in those who have natural immunity. None whatsoever.
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Not sure how you would slip an antivaxxer a "placebo" but here you go:
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2119497

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Of course an anti-vaxer wouldn't enrol in a vaccine trial, so I don't see how that comment is relevant. There would have been plenty of people who would have enrolled in such a trial. I believe I probably had it in March 2020 and if an antibody test proved it, would have precipitated in a vaccine trial, given the chance.

Even taking it at face value proves the Canadian policy of giving everyone two doses is retarded, as there was no difference between one vs two doses. Those wasted doses could have been used for those who needed them.

But, that study still doesn't prove a positive risk-vs-benefit.

It's not a double-blind, randomised, placebo-controlled trial. More importantly, it just looks at re-infection, rather than severe disease and death and doesn't even deal with adverse events. So what if the

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Ok. I give up.
Maybe you can tell me this: "How do I unsubscribe to this thread? I'm too dumb to figure it out myself."

james_s:

--- Quote from: Bud on March 12, 2023, 09:50:45 pm ---Everything else aside, i never understood the apeal of Dilbert cartoons. They always seemed to me stating the obvious and often being silly and borderline stupid. Kind of same as Mr Bin, never found him funny, just plain idiotic. Wish the author the best though, as he did/does have his audience.

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Well as I think has been mentioned before, humor is very subjective. Personally I think Dilbert is funny, it's not the most hilarious thing I've ever seen and it's not always great, but I laugh whenever I see one that relates to a situation I've been part of or observed during my career. I'm not going to fault you for not finding it funny, there's lots of humor out there that some people think is hilarious that I either don't get or don't find to be funny. My sense of humor has changed somewhat as I've aged too, some movies I thought were absolutely hilarious when I was a teenager have not held up well. Others I didn't get at all at the time are funny now.

james_s:

--- Quote from: Kim Christensen on March 12, 2023, 10:07:46 pm ---Maybe you can tell me this: "How do I unsubscribe to this thread? I'm too dumb to figure it out myself."

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On the list of threads, click the checkbox next to this thread to select it, then click the Ignore Threads button on the top-right.

Zero999:

--- Quote from: Kim Christensen on March 12, 2023, 08:29:21 pm ---
--- Quote from: Zero999 on March 12, 2023, 07:41:58 pm ---
--- Quote from: Kim Christensen on March 11, 2023, 08:10:38 pm ---
--- Quote ---The mandates never made any sense because the vaccine doesn't induce sterilising immunity and it's certainty doesn't reduce the spread enough to have a significant effect on the number of cases.
The idea everyone needed to have it is not based on any scientific evidence. There is no evidence to suggest it provides any additional protection against severe disease and death, after someone has already been exposed to the virus. Someone who's already had the virus, then recovered would be perfectly rational in refusing the vaccine, because there's no evidence of any benefit. They FDA might as well have just told everyone, who caught it, to take ivermectin. It has the same level of evidence to support it as vaccinating those with natural immunity.

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"Sterilising immunity" is almost impossible to prove because you have to demonstrate that an infection never occurred. All you can observe are symptoms. Some vaccines are more effective than others.
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But we know the vaccine doesn't induce sterilising immunity, because those who've had it clearly continue to get infected. It was pretty obvious fairly early on, it wasn't going to stop the pandemic. When Alpha hit, we knew it was mutating to become more infectious, then Delta had sufficient immune escape to ensure it would slowly spread, even if everyone were vaccinated overnight and Omicron just spread like wildfire.

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I only mentioned "sterilising immunity" because the person I was replying to brought it up. During the pandemic there were many antivaxxers claiming they weren't actually antivaxxers because they had been the recipients of other vaccines. When it became clear that the covid vax didn't provide sterilizing immunity, the antivaxxers felt vindicated while trying to claim that it was useless.
But that's the thing about "sterilizing immunity", while it is easy to prove that a vaccine doesn't provide sterilizing immunity, it is much more difficult to prove when it does. Many other vaccines do not provide sterilizing immunity but are still useful to administer.

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I apologise for overlooking this.

Yes of course just because it's non sterilising, it doesn't mean it's no good. I didn't mean to suggest that. My point was making a non-sterilising vaccine a condition of work, or to go to public events was the issue. The vaccine is very good at preventing severe disease and death. People get infected, but it's much milder, than it would've been had they not had the disease or vaccine, so it's definitely useful. It's just questionable whether it's beneficial for all.


--- Quote from: nctnico on March 12, 2023, 09:47:16 pm ---
--- Quote from: Zero999 on March 12, 2023, 09:09:11 pm ---
--- Quote from: Kim Christensen on March 12, 2023, 08:29:21 pm ---
--- Quote ---Then why were people who had never been infected and more vulnerable, put before those with natural immunity?
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Because it was very early in the pandemic. There was no widespread easy way to test people for natural immunity. Logistically, it was simply easier to base it on age and overall health status than trying to triage people of unknown status.
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There were plenty of people who had already been tested and known to to have previously had the infection, yet were still vaccinated before those who hadn't, simply because they were a bit older.

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I agree with Kim here: Given the number of people that needed to be vaccinated, you need to streamline the process and base it on simple rules. As older people are more vulnerable, they where called in first.

Also, protection against flu like virusses (Rhino, Influenza, Corona, etc) wears off pretty quickly (*) and these group of virusses mutate a lot as well. So there is an additional benefit of vaccinating people with a vaccine that targets a wider range of mutations compared to the (single) mutation they have already been subjected to.
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I don't know about Canada, but testing became widespread by the time we started vaccinating in the UK.

At the very start, reinfection was comparatively rare. It's only when the virus mutated and started to infect the upper airway, did immunity become more short-lived. This is probably because antibodies linger for longer in the blood, than the mucus membranes and earlier variants caused more systemic infection. The later variants starting with Delta and especially Omicron caused more upper airway infection, which is what made Omicron much less pathogenic, was well as more transmissible. People often attribute the reduction in pathogenicity in the virus not wanting to kill its host, but I suspect it's more to do with the fact infecting the nose and mouth, rather than the lungs causes drastically increased transmissibility, with reduced pathogenicity being a good side-effect. Remember, most fatalities occurred due to the body's inflammatory response, after the virus had already been eliminated.

I find this topic fascinating. I do my best to listen to both sides of the augment and have changed my opinion on many things over the last three years. I focus more on what doctors are saying, rather than politicians. I do admit I pay more attention to those who question the authorities and mainstream media, because I believe there are many more who have been afraid to speak up and others who never question anything. I hope the authorities have learned, but the fact that some have been so slow to change their policy, when new evidence comes to light, doesn't give me much confidence.


--- Quote ---* I don't know how things are at your end, but over here there has been quite a big flu pandemic because people didn't got the flu for a while due to all the Covid restrictions and their immunity declined. That is also why older & vulnerable people get a flu vaccination every year. Having read a bit into it, I strongly doubt there ever will be a vaccine that cures the flu 100%. The best is to get infected a couple of times per year so your immune system remains up to date and well trained.

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We've had huge problems with strep A infection, especially in children over the Christmas and New Year period. Another side effect of the response. Whether the risk-benefit was positive or not, is still an ongoing question.

--- Quote from: james_s on March 12, 2023, 10:04:18 pm ---
--- Quote from: BrianHG on March 12, 2023, 07:40:59 pm ---Thanks to the attached video clips, I was mistaken to say 'Bleach', it was 'Disinfectant'.

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Injecting a person with a "disinfectant" is not an entirely idiotic thing to speculate, at least on the surface if we assume they lack medical expertise. By "disinfectant" I am assuming they mean a substance that kills the virus but somehow doesn't harm the host, not an off the shelf disinfecting cleaner such as Lysol. Now I'm not suggesting this is actually possible, but in the right context is is far from the dumbest thing I've heard a person say, and I still don't think it was a suggestion of something a person should go out and do.

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I think Trump's biggest weakness is not thinking things through before he opens his mouth. It's also a strength because he doesn't hide his true personality, like other politicians do. I sit on the fence as far as Trump is concerned. All politicians are A-holes, but Trump doesn't bother to hide it.

james_s:

--- Quote from: Siwastaja on March 12, 2023, 07:58:18 pm ---I'm fine with double standards, actually, we all are more or less susceptible of letting something "slip" when done by our favorites; but intellectual dishonesty and outright sociopathic lying I hate.

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I think everybody has double standards, everybody has biases, it's perfectly normal. What bothers me is when people with a blatant double standard claim they don't.

As somebody with no particular political affiliation and views that are all over the map from far left to far right depending on the topic, I constantly see groups engaging in exactly the same behavior they accuse groups they are strongly opposed to of doing, "but it's not the same" when they do it, or if you point out that they are also doing it they deflect with an accusation of "whataboutism".  :palm:

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