D&D Coronavirus thread

Just curious, are they still keeping stats of the people who’s been hospitalized, how many of those are not vaccinated? Maybe over 90%?

 

Why Only 28 Percent of Young Black New Yorkers Are Vaccinated
As the Delta variant courses through New York City, many young Black New Yorkers remain distrustful of the vaccine.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/12/...e-black-young-new-yorkers.html?smid=url-share

excerpt:

All three situations reflect a trend that has become a major concern to public health experts: Young Black New Yorkers are especially reluctant to get vaccinated, even as the Delta variant is rapidly spreading among their ranks. City data shows that only 28 percent of Black New Yorkers ages 18 to 44 years are fully vaccinated, compared with 48 percent of Latino residents and 52 percent of white residents in that age group.

This vaccination gap is emerging as the latest stark racial disparity in an epidemic full of them. Epidemiologists say they expect this third wave will hit Black New Yorkers especially hard.

“This is a major public health failure,” said Dr. Dustin Duncan, an epidemiologist and Columbia University professor.

In interviews, dozens of Black New Yorkers across the city — an aspiring dancer in Brownsville, a young mother of five in Far Rockaway, a teacher in Canarsie, a Black Lives Matter activist in the Bronx, and many others — gave a long list of reasons for not getting vaccinated, many rooted in a fear that during these uncertain times they could not trust the government with their health.
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more at the link

 

Well.......... this doesn't help...... but there is more to it obviously.

 

But did they vote for Trump?? Apparently that's what's important here, according to some.

 

Author who writes for conservative think tanks cherry-picks a few observational studies to poke holes at and then spends considerable time on RCTs that don't even address the main issue of how masks affect SARS-CoV-2 spread. He cites one RCT study that attempts to address that question:

The only RCT to test mask-wearing’s specific effectiveness against Covid-19 was a 2020 study by Bundgaard, et al. in Denmark. This large (4,862 participants) RCT divided people between a mask-wearing group (providing “high-quality” three-layer surgical masks) and a control group. It took place at a time (spring 2020) when Denmark was encouraging social distancing but not mask use, and 93 percent of those in the mask group wore the masks at least “predominately as recommended.” The study found that 1.8 percent of those in the mask group and 2.1 percent of those in the control group became infected with Covid-19 within a month, with this 0.3-point difference not being statistically significant.​

So, what should one conclude from this?

https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/one-more-time-masks-work/

What is lacking is randomized controlled trials, mostly because of the practical and ethical hurdles of randomizing people to not wearing a mask, especially given the current state of the evidence and the fact that a deadly pandemic is still raging. There was one RTC of mask wearing, however – the DANMASK trial. The strength of this study is that it was randomized, people were instructed with good pandemic hygiene with one group advised to wear and mask and the other not. This was an intention to treat model. The results were statistically negative.

But there are significant limitations to this trial that caution against broad interpretation. The study was only powered to see a 50% reduction in infection. The rate in the community was already very low. Compliance with mask wearing in that group was <50%. Infections were self-reported. The dropout rate was high – 16%.

At most what this study shows is that simply recommending mask wearing in the community where the rate of infection is low will not produce a dramatic difference in infection rates – but even that conclusion is affected by the limitations of the study. This is certainly not strong enough evidence to counter the epidemiological evidence, which is more extensive and more compelling.​

So, contrary to what the author of the City Journal piece is suggesting, an RCT-based study does not automatically provide more informative results than other types of studies.

Summary of that epidemiological evidence from above link:

Epidemiological studies provide perhaps the best evidence for the efficacy of masks, or more specifically, mask policies. One study comparing mask-wearing policies in different states in the US found that after states initiated mask-wearing policies, the spread of the virus decreased. Another study found that the risk of a spreading event was far greater in “mask-off” social settings than “mask-on” settings. Comparing countries with different mask-wearing policies also finds a good correlation with reduced spread.

So masks reduce the spread of droplets and to some extent virus itself, they show a dose-response curve with mask quality, and epidemiological studies show a strong correlation between mask-wearing and reduced spread of COVID. This is more than sufficient evidence to justify mask-wearing policies, and to educate the public about what kinds of masks work and how to properly use them.
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Fact-checking Dr. Stock’s COVID-19 claims at Indiana school board meeting

https://www.verifythis.com/article/...ting/536-30174807-d09a-4781-a136-f267b2fd5262

 

This is totally ridiculous.

 

So maybe the thing that moves the needle is incentives and disincentives.

How about no coverage for covid medical care if you didn’t get vaccinated (unless you are ineligible or have other legitimate medical reason).

Or if the hospital is crowded and you didn’t get a vaccine, you can wait outside until after others are treated first.

Or how about you get stuck with remote learning if you don’t want your kids to mask at school.

I’m tired of this group project.

I’m tired of the responsible being burdened by the problems caused by the selfish. If they don’t want to listen to reason and act based on self interest, then the answer is to change the damn equation on self interest.

 

That site checked some things that he didn't say. For example, it checked whether or not the FDA approved the treatment he spoke of. But he never said the FDA approved that treatment - just that it worked for his ~15 patients.

 

Functional medicine doctor focused on "alternate treatments". This explains a lot.

 

****ing tired of it too.

 

Man Louisiana is getting hammered

 

"Ivermectin is not an anti-viral (a drug for treating viruses)," per FDA
Ivermectin works -Dr. Stock

Perhaps they decided to go with the government entity that approves our meds instead of believing a single individual statement that was not under oath?
There is a dude who professed that ingesting bleach works and then people suffered for it. So I'd personally take the FDA argument against an individual statement in an effort to protect people from suffering. It's likely safer that way.

 

I'm not saying I agree with him. I'm just saying that the thing they checked was not the thing he said. I suspect it would be impossible to actually check what he said, because I doubt there are records of it.

 

It remains a very complex issue with sometimes circular seeming results.

Seems simple to claim the answer is to focus help on historically discriminated minorities and the poor, but it takes a lot of on the ground experience and investment to build a knowledge base and working culture of success.

Getting involvement of national black leaders and billionaires who can message and open communication with the government is a quick proposal, but the real issue is that Blacks and other groups were never under initial consideration when forming practices dealing with response and execution. For example, were there a large enough cohort of blacks in the initial trials to signal a concern over blood clotting among blacks during vaccine tests?

All those little things add up.