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Total Members Voted: 11

Voting closed: February 15, 2022, 10:51:36 AM

[FlyingVProd]

Battle Mountain, Nevada, would be perfect for the hippies, and for the flower children, as would Carson City, and there is a college in Elko, Nevada. There is also Lovelock, Nevada, and there is Paradise Valley, Nevada, etc. There are 60,000 homeless people in Los Angeles alone and many would love to live like hippies in communes in Nevada. Plus there are the refugees from Afghanistan and from Venezuela, etc.

Nevada is perfect for the hippies and for the flower children. And Nevada has natural hot springs.

And Nevada can help to feed San Francisco.

We can bring in all of the best architects from Greece, and from Spain, etc. And there can be swimming pools and tennis courts, etc.

Salute,

Tony V.

[josh]

This was posted yesterday.

I share it to prompt thought and thoughtful responses.

If all you have to say is "lol" or "fearmongering" or BS like that, save us the time of even skimming past it, please. Yes, some of the writing is too political or repetitive. The content is still important.

  OMICRON HAS PEAKED ... NOW WHAT?

Omicron seems to have leveled off in the US and in the early major population centers (NYC, Boston, DC) new cases have clearly peaked and are declining.
----------
So what do the next 6 months look like? It's not clear, but there are a couple of possibilities to be aware of...
We might have another quiet Springtime like last year, or we might immediately move into another major follow-on wave.
----------
But things might not continue to decline.
South Africa peaked at about 6 weeks, but much of Europe is still rising after 8-10 weeks with no end in sight.
And the biggest concern is the variant BA.2 and its potential to immediately drive a second wave. This is occurring right now in Europe with only the UK not yet seeing a BA.2 wave.
EVERY country where BA.2 has emerged has seen it rapidly over-take and replace Omicron and continue to drive the current wave weeks after the original Omicron had peaked (see graphs below).
Even South Africa is still at 12-times their pre-Omicron levels with BA.2 now representing almost 20% of cases and growing.
And BA.2 is now in the US, having been identified in sequencing surveillance for the first time this week in Houston.
But let's look at the possible scenarios for the immediate future...
----------
1. THE PANDEMIC IS OVER! (0% chance)
HA HA HA HA HA HA...NO!
But expect the usual cast of credentialed charlatans and clowns to once again, for the 100th time, declare that the pandemic is over... or that it's now "just an endemic" (as a code word for "just the sniffles that almost no one ever gets any more"), or that we've now ONCE AGAIN reached "herd immunity" (using tortured new re-definitions of the term).

There's a list of charlatans who, about every 6 weeks, declare some version of "the pandemic has now ended", often in elaborate opinion pieces in the Wall Street Journal.
These include the likes of:
 Dr. Monica Gandhi (who has literally NEVER been right even once... about ANYTHING)
 Dr. Marty Makary (the gall bladder doctor who can't quit declaring the pandemic over every few weeks)
 Dr. Jay Bhattacharya (who's been declaring that no is getting infected AND we've reached herd immunity since March 2020)
 Dr. John Ioannidis (the less said the better)
 Actual clown shows like Dr. ZDogg and his Boy Wonder side-kick Dr. Vinay ("it's now just the sniffles") Prasad
But certainly the most egregious has to be:
 Dr. Sunetra Gupta, co-author of the genocidal "Great Barrington Declaration", who just declared in a major opinion piece that the best way to protect the elderly and the immunocompromised is by maintaining:
"herd immunity through constant reinfection"! (her words directly)
"Herd immunity through constant reinfection" is a VERY tortured retconning of the term "herd immunity" comparable to the use of "Arbeit Macht Frei" over the entrance to Auschwitz.
----------
2. A QUIET SPRINGTIME (40% chance)
By mid-March there will likely have been ~150M Omicron infections in the US.
Assuming that results in some level of short-duration immunity against immediate reinfection from Omicron or Delta (which remains a major open question), then we should see 3-4 months of very low prevalence comparable to Spring 2021.
This would likely be between mid-March but ending by early July... at which point we should expect the next major wave... possibly from the BA.2 variant (see below) or more likely the emergence of an entirely new variant.
And of course, expect the low prevalence levels to bring out the clowns once again declaring that it's all over...
----------
3. A NEW WAVE IMMEDIATELY EMERGES (60% chance)
We might see a new major wave begin almost immediately...even before the current Omicron wave completes.
There are now 20+ countries experiencing some version of exactly this "2nd wave" scenario (see graph below)
Several countries are seeing cases continue to rise, but with a re-emergence of Delta starting to replace Omicron.
More ominously, several other countries are seeing the BA.2 sub-variant of Omicron rapidly replacing the original Omicron variant... and continuing to drive up case rates!
And in other countries BOTH Delta and BA.2 are starting to push out Omicron and continuing to drive up infection rates.
----------
With SarsCoV2, immune response is strongly correlated to severity of illness. Many people who get more minor versions of the disease are left with little or no immune protection.
With Delta, ~30% of unvaccinated people with "at home" Covid (sufficiently "minor" to not require hospitalization) had NO detectable antibodies 2 weeks after recovery!
It's not clear whether infection from Omicron confers any:
- immunity against immediate re-infection with Omicron if exposed
- any immunity against the BA.2 sub-variant of Omicron
- much immunity against Delta
There are increasing reports from many countries of very quick re-infections within 2-4 weeks of recovering from an Omicron infection.
----------
Many countries have yet to see a peak in the current wave... some after 2+ months of daily cases rates continuing to go up.
A new Delta wave is emerging in:
* Germany
* Spain
* Russia
* Mexico
* Peru
* Ecuador
* Uganda
----------
A new BA.2 wave is emerging in:
* Denmark 46%
* Sweden 20%
* Norway 16%
* Belgium 6%
* India 46%
* Singapore 34%
* Philippines 93%
* Botswana 13%
* South Africa 18%
* Hong Kong 26%
* Jordan 75%
In one month alone, BA.2 went from 5% to 50% of cases in Denmark! (see graph below)
----------
And in two countries, BOTH Delta and BA.2 are now replacing the original Omicron variant:
* Ski Lanka
* Cambodia
----------
CONCLUSION
And this BA.2 variant is a MAJOR genetic shift from the original Omicron with 32 mutations in common with the original Omicron variant but with 28 (!) unique mutations!

That's MORE than the differences between any of the Alpha, Beta, Gamma, and Delta variants! BA.2 is a MAJOR new variant!
--------
BA.2 is the thing to now be watching. And, once again, Denmark is the bellwether to keep an eye on.
It was the first to see BA.2 begin to spread and it's now the dominant variant in the country. And a full MONTH after Denmark was expected to peak, their infection rates are still sharply increasing with no end in sight.
Similar patterns are being seen all over Europe, in South America, and in places in both Asia and Africa. So BA.2 seems to be a global phenomenon that, once introduced, rapidly pushes out the original Omicron variant and continues to drive infections.
We now have the most transmissible virus in all of human history loose and it's finding ways to become even MORE transmissible via the BA.2 variant.

A virus this transmissible will NOT go away on its own...[/size]

United States


South Africa


7 European countries plus Peru


Denmark below


Denmark showing the decline of Delta and the crossing of two Omicron versions:

 
Source:
https://www.facebook.com/100000279580555/posts/5191300264222575/

[/quote]
 

[facilitatorn]

What do BA1 and BA2 refer to?

[FlyingVProd]

The hippies in Battle Mountain can sell bacon and eggs to San Francisco, they can raise chickens for eggs and they can raise pigs, etc. For the homeless people in Los Angeles it would be way better to be a hippie raising chickens in Nevada instead of dying on a sidewalk in Los Angeles. They can go be hippies and they can raise chickens and they can raise pigs, etc.

Salute,

Tony V.

[josh]

What do BA1 and BA2 refer to?

BA-1 is the original Omicron variant.

BA-2 is a new variant specifically of Omicron.

(Sorry I was slow responding - that had a ton of things to fix, including bullets!)

[facilitatorn]

That was fucking cheerful, Josh. Idiots will get plenty of chances to self-rapture even if chance has kept them off the boat so far.

[kidcarter8]

Appreciate the cut and paste work, Josh

Doctor Gandhi, eh?

[kidcarter8]

And now....Ukraine.

Biden sending troops?

Good on ya, Joe.

[REDSTATEWARD]

Soldiers don't do well in that infamous Ukraine mud, so Vlad better hurry.

What is really horrible is that NATO sanctions could actually increase global warming from utility emissions. 

LOL!
Yeah. Make war, not peace.
Save the Planet!

[Holly Martins]

What do BA1 and BA2 refer to?

BA-1 is the original Omicron variant.

BA-2 is a new variant specifically of Omicron.

(Sorry I was slow responding - that had a ton of things to fix, including bullets!)

Josh, that was the kind of data-rich post that's too rare on the web.  I have friends in public health, who of course track this stuff because they try to be prepared for new waves.  BA2 raises the question of how names are assigned, being a variant of a variant.  So, with that many new protein mutations, should it really be considered a new variant and get its own greek letter? 

I hope the at home antigen tests can keep improving, given how immediate results are often extremely helpful.  I have had a nasty flu since Friday, which matched the symptoms of omicron, so I took a rapid antigen test and got a negative.  But now am hearing that it's less sensitive to omicron, so false negatives are higher, so I need to take it again.   In UK, they recommend you do the second one with swabbing your throat instead of your nares, because omicron seems to concentrate there more.  I want to get this right because the spouse has an important meeting this week and does not want to be a spreader.  And there is a pregnant woman in the group that's meeting. (The PCR test does me no good, because results here take 3-5 days, and the meeting is in two days)

[Holly Martins]

Soldiers don't do well in that infamous Ukraine mud, so Vlad better hurry.

What is really horrible is that NATO sanctions could actually increase global warming from utility emissions. 

LOL!
Yeah. Make war, not peace.
Save the Planet!

If you read the whole post, you realize I am not advocating war.  Just pointed out, as others have, that European dependence on Russian NG is a real problem if they're going to implement strong sanctions. 

[kidcarter8]

What do BA1 and BA2 refer to?

BA-1 is the original Omicron variant.

BA-2 is a new variant specifically of Omicron.

(Sorry I was slow responding - that had a ton of things to fix, including bullets!)

Josh, that was the kind of data-rich post that's too rare on the web.  I have friends in public health, who of course track this stuff because they try to be prepared for new waves.  BA2 raises the question of how names are assigned, being a variant of a variant.  So, with that many new protein mutations, should it really be considered a new variant and get its own greek letter? 

I hope the at home antigen tests can keep improving, given how immediate results are often extremely helpful.  I have had a nasty flu since Friday, which matched the symptoms of omicron, so I took a rapid antigen test and got a negative.  But now am hearing that it's less sensitive to omicron, so false negatives are higher, so I need to take it again.   In UK, they recommend you do the second one with swabbing your throat instead of your nares, because omicron seems to concentrate there more.  I want to get this right because the spouse has an important meeting this week and does not want to be a spreader.  And there is a pregnant woman in the group that's meeting. (The PCR test does me no good, because results here take 3-5 days, and the meeting is in two days)

Should post/worry less  about tests and more about therapeutics.

[facilitatorn]

Jab up, mask up, and do not kill off so many of your friends and neighbors.

Then you can worry all you like about tests, therapeutics, climate change, and brutally stupid right wing authoritarianism.

[josh]

"

[LarryBnDC]

Soldiers don't do well in that infamous Ukraine mud, so Vlad better hurry.

What is really horrible is that NATO sanctions could actually increase global warming from utility emissions. 

LOL!
Yeah. Make war, not peace.
Save the Planet!

Fap fap fappity fap!