talkpolitics | Entries tagged with health

Senator Ted "Sam I Am" "Cancun" "Two Beers" Cruz is up in arms over an evil President Biden regulation that doesn't exist:

Ted Cruz Rails Against a Beer Limit Guideline That Doesn't Exist

Who says Republicans can't do comedy?

By the way, why isn't Ted Cruz drinking a Lone Star beer?

But seriously. I would much rather be forced to be limited to drink 2 beers a week versus kissing Ted Cruz's ass.

Two beers a day would be a sensible guideline. Understanding that most men will double that and still be in good health. Guidelines aren't rules, they're suggestions. A guideline can make you think twice before getting into alcoholism (a physiological dependence where you feel bad if you're not getting your fix.) Just food for thought for all the whining Righties out there (who've also been whining lately that Canada is "imposing" limits). Then again, Righties, well you know...

tcpip

The experience of last year [1, 2, 3] suggested quite strongly in favour of elimination as a strategy for SARS-Cov-2, rather than a suppression strategy. After the experiences of the original and alpha strains of SARS-Cov-2, it should be quite clear by the numbers that "go hard, go fast" is a successful approach. It means restricting movement and interaction between people (the virus doesn't move, people do), putting up strong fences to demarcate an area and block the potential entry of the infected.

The results speak for themselves; from Australian states like Victoria, which remarkably reached elimination from high numbers, Western Australia, and Tasmania, to countries like New Zealand, Taiwan, and China. The strategy of trying to achieve zero cases was a proven success, with the three aforementioned countries having the lowest case numbers per capita in the developed world. As a grim irony to those who recommended that a policy of suppression in fear of the economic damage that an elimination strategy would cause, the numbers do not lie; those countries and regions that adopted an elimination strategy were able to recover quickly and more completely and there suffered less economic damage than those which did not [4].
( Read more... )

tcpip

Today, July 6 2021, AEST, the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic reached four million confirmed dead, with almost one-hundred and eight-five million aggregate cases. We can recall that from the initial outbreak in January 2020, the first million deaths weren't reached until September 11 that year, the second million on January 7th of 2021, and the third million on April 7. What will it be by the end of the year? Five, six million? As calculations come in, we will probably discover the fourth million mark was actually passed a few weeks ago. The Economist on May 15 pointed out that confirmed deaths, defined by specific evaluations by medical practitioners are almost certainly an underestimate, with their modelling suggesting a 95% probability that the real fatality value was between 7m and 13m excess deaths, and this is when the confirmed figure was 3.3 million.

Months ago I sardonically remarked that perhaps the death figures would have to reach four million before some politicians took this issue seriously. Today of course is that day, that is mixed the bitterness of my gallows optimism. It is an inescapable reality that variations in infections and deaths are a matter of public health policy decisions. For those of you who do not engage in politics now is a timely reminder that (as Plato remarked (The Republic 347(c), in paraphrase) that not only do the wicked and incompetent seek political office, if you are not there to prevent them, then you will be ruled by them.
Therefore, engagement in politics is a necessary discomfort for those who sincerely hold fast to the high-sounding principles of truth and justice. For those who are disempowered, you are reminded; you will always have the torch of truth and the sword of justice, and no amount of wealth or power can take them away.

( Read more... )

But those numbers, at least for Europe, will change. There are already indications (e.g., Zimbabwe) that sub-Saharan Africa will be hit soon. The Europeans were hit hard initially with their cosmopolitan mixing and their dense population. But they have good health care, they have engaged in strong movement restrictions, and they have the money to pay for vaccinations. They also have a relatively low level of corruption and reasonably competent governments, something which Australia could certainly learn from following the Federal governments rejection of forty million doses of the highly effective Pfizer vaccine doses in July 2020. We can be sure, of course, that this has nothing to do with the fact that the head of the government affairs team at AstraZeneca just so happens to be the same person who held a number of senior roles during the Howard government. It would be unsurprising to discover that similar events occur in other countries that are more prone to much worse rates of infection and fatality. As should be abundantly clear, public health is not just the direct provision of medicines, but also public health policy which means holding politicians to account, because their decisions determine who lives and who dies.

nairiporter

June 5 marked 40 years since the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published the first report of what would come to be known as HIV/AIDS. In the past 20 years, infections and deaths have fallen dramatically, thanks to awareness and new treatments. But in those early days of the epidemic, fear, discrimination and a lack of understanding of the virus made containing it and defeating it all the more difficult.

At the beginning of the epidemic, HIV/AIDS was articulated as a disease of “homosexuals” and “drug users”, and so the meanings, representations, and political agendas at the time guided the understanding. We currently have more awareness and sensitivity, but HIV still involves complex physical, emotional, social, and legal concerns, making it different from other health conditions.

The changes in understanding, acceptance and fairness in general have not been as dramatic as the advances in our HIV treatment and care. Stigma and discrimination, fueled by hate, ignorance, and intolerance, persist and remain, framing the well-being of people living with HIV and resulting in inadequate and substandard care that often leads to inappropriate interventions, alienation, and mistrust.

The fight is still on.

fridi

I heard this one recently. Only 6% of people who died of covid didn't have some other comorbidity.

Wow! So if I don't have diabetes Covid won't really hurt me?! Awesome!

Except that "comorbidities" in that statement includes actual EFFECTS of covid, like pneumonia and respiratory failure.

ONLY 6% WITHOUT COMORBIDITIES? THE TRUTH ABOUT COVID DEATHS

People talk about how there is misinformation, about how confusing covid is, how first you hear this, then you hear that...but you don't. Unless you're getting your covid facts from click-bait media (which is just about all of them, honestly). If you just follow the recommendations and information from the CDC, the messaging is pretty clear and consistent, and it only changes as the data itself changes, which is, you know.... science.

People lament the inability to get accurate information anywhere, but then they go right back to Google and start lapping up whatever click-bait "news" Google is shoveling (for ad revenues) today. It's like complaining you don't like bleeding and then slicing your own arm open.

airiefairie

The WHO chairman, Thedros Ghebreyseus, himself an Ethiopian, has been advocating for the active development of Covid vaccines since the beginning of the pandemic. And though there are already several being circulated in large quantities as of now, he is still disappointed. And he may have a good reason. The world is nowhere near a fair distribution of the vaccines, let alone their free availability on the market.

Millions of doses have already been used in the developed countries. In the meantime, in Guinea, in Western Africa, a total of 25 vaccines have been administered. Not 25 million. Not 25 thousand. A total of twenty-five. Ghebreyseus does not mince words. He believes this is a total moral fallout for the world. And the price of this failure is the lives of thousands of people in the world's poorest countries.

( Read more... )

tcpip

The desperate decision of the Morrison government in Australia to panic and secure an additional 10 million doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech coronavirus vaccine is not just a case of "too little, too late", but also one of policy failure through continuing indifference. To give a summary of the current state of play, Australia is the only continent (apart from Antarctica) that has not implemented SARS-COV-2 vaccinations, leaving it far behind most advanced economies in distribution. It has, however, secured agreements for the production and supply of four different vaccines. Border workers, quarantine workers, some healthcare workers, and those who live and work in residential and aged care will receive priority Pfizer/BioNTech vaccines. The majority of Australians will receive the University of Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine instead.

The difference between the two is in their relative efficacy, their ability to reach a Herd Immunity Threshold (HIT), and price. To put simply, Pfizer/BioNTech vaccines is the most effective (c95%) but also the most expensive, with US prices at $20 per dose. Oxford/AstraZeneca is estimated at 70% effectiveness, with US prices at $4 per dose. A significant cost issue of the former is a requirement that it is stored at temperatures between -80 and -60 °C until five days before vaccination when it can be stored at 2 to 8 °C. The University of Oxford/AstraZeneca has normal cold storage requirements. Part of the cost is that AstraZeneca's has a commitment to COVAX, a global initiative that aims to distribute low-cost vaccines to low- and middle-income countries.

( Read more... )

kiaa

...The Don is seriously threatening people's health and lives with his recklessness.

https://news.sky.com/story/trump-pays-surprise-visit-to-supporters-outside-hospital-12090431

First you say you've "learned a lot" about the Coronavirus while in hospital, and the next minute you order your staff to sit in a car with you and drive you around town so your fans can see how healthy you are, and applaud. Sick. Literally, sick.

Also, his doctor says he is doing well and could possibly be discharged in a day - and yet they are giving him dexamethasone which is associated with improved outcomes in very sick patients but with poorer outcomes when given too early. He was given monoclonal antibodies which is only approved for emergency compassionate use (not standard care) and remdesivir which is not approved for treatment of Covid19. It indicates that his doctors are treating him aggressively but why do so when he is supposed to be "doing well"?

Who is actually making the final decision, is it Dr Conley (his training is in emergency medicine) or the real experts in the team, or, is it Trump? Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.

airiefairie

NYC mayor Bill DeBlasio is worried about the spread of a mysterious inflammation among children. There are suspicions that it is related to Covid-19, which is said to affect children much less than adults.

40+ new cases of this new sindrom have been reported in New York City. The inflammation goes as a violent reaction of the immune system, resulting in heavy damages on a number of vital organs.

NY governor Cuomo corroborates this data, reporting of at least 90 cases in NY state. He reports that at least 5 children have probably died in direct result of this new disease, one of them just 5 years old. All had pre-existing conditions.

The symptoms resemble those of the Kawasaki disease, an artery inflammation that goes with high fever, and often skin inflammation. The worst symptom is an infectious toxic shock.

Some of the afflicted children have been tested for Covid-19, 47% turned out infected, and 81% had antibodies. Similar results have come from the UK, France, Italy, Spain, Switzerland, Germany, and other European countries.

( Read more... )

tcpip

The COVID-19 pandemic has now reached over three million confirmed cases, with almost two hundred and twenty thousand deaths. For the United States, which has shown a not-unexpected failure of policy, there are now more American deaths than the Vietnam war, keeping in mind that the United States had fewer than sixty cases and zero deaths as late as February 28. Whilst some countries - such as Australia, New Zealand, and even China - have had a high degree of success in significantly "flattening the curve" of new cases, the sickness opens up new fronts - now we see the numbers climb in Russia, Brazil, Turkey.

The pandemic still represents an existential risk for much of the world, and of course, that comes with a particular and special priority. But there is also a secondary battle that is being fought; and that is not just to save lives, but also to save livelihoods, with around half the world's workers at risk. That reified abstract noun, the economy, is also subject to critical care attention. As the best form of protection has been the graduated levels of social isolation, to restricted movements, to partial lockdowns, economies have come under enormous strain. Let us consider a report from the respected Grattan Institute in Australia:

( Read more... )

luzribeiro

Clearly, Donnie is not the only cheerleader in the West Wing...

Kushner calls US coronavirus response a 'success story' as cases hit 1 million

Has there ever been a more tone-deaf person? Remember, he is the one who encouraged his father-in-law to ignore the virus as just a media/Democratic hoax cooked up to make him look bad.

He is the one that stood there and justified the federal government grabbing shipments of PPE because "we need it for us". He is the one in charge of deciding what states get, and refuses to tell anyone the criteria.

So he is in effect praising himself as much as he is his father-in-law. This whole goddamned family is fuckin clueless.

There are many in this administration that will go down in infamy, Kushner, Mnuchin, Barr, etc etc. And of course the grandaddy of them all the big orange. Kushner is perhaps the one that epitomizes slime the most. Liars all.

fridi

Watch on YouTube

"The disinfectant, where it knocks it out in a minute, and is there a way we can do something like that by injection inside, or almost a cleaning. It gets in the lungs"

Hey, I suggest Trump try this first. Maybe a 90% bleach solution or something. Directly to the lungs. Oh, and powerful UV light too.

I have no doubt some of his supporters will try the remedies he's touting. Natural selection will do the rest of the job. You know, the one they don't believe in.

If heat kills the virus, I wonder if they could treat patients by boiling them in water until the infection dies?

Well, I don't think there's anyone left surprised at this point. This is a man who - seven to eight weeks into a major viral pandemic and who is presumably being briefed every day on this stuff - claimed coronavirus was "brilliant" and a "genius" germ that "has gotten so brilliant that the antibiotic can’t keep up with it".

johnny9fingers

www.snopes.com/news/2020/04/21/vietnam-has-reported-no-coronavirus-deaths-how/

For the TL;DR chaps, basically by being incredibly fascist about things combined with testing and compulsory quarantine and some total lockdowns of villages and towns they've kept the numbers ridiculously low.

So it appears that states which opt for a totalitarian response combined with mandatory testing (the Vietnamese testing kits cost $25 each) can limit the infection rate and death toll.

And it seems that this virus has an odd pattern in any given nation. It targets liberal capitalist democracies with entrenched freedoms more than totalitarian nations, as well as targeting BAME folk within these liberal capitalist democracies more than other folk too.

The freer a nation is, the worse its death toll will be. Mind you, Australia and New Zealand have pretty good figures too, and they are liberal capitalist democracies - just they got their responses sorted in time. Unlike the UK and US, and poor old Italy; which never stood a chance being the canary in the mine, so to speak.

It is becoming apparent that there is a correlation between lower mortality rates, and swift and severely sensible responses; and a smidgeon of totalitarianism and the odd draconian measure also seems to help.

edelsont

Our Presumpident Trump went off his meds again today. As the New York Times put it, he "on Friday began openly fomenting right-wing protests of social distancing restrictions in [three] states where groups of his conservative supporters have been violating stay-at-home orders." Yes, these people have been gathering in numbers to protest being told not to gather in numbers. And he is urging them on, which may lead to them gathering in larger numbers.

Do you see a possibility of unintended consequences here?

The larger the groups, the greater the likelihood that some who attend are already infected with the coronavirus. Thus, the greater the likelihood that they will infect some of their fellow attenders.

The latter victims, in turn, infect others with whom they subsequently come into contact. It seems likely that the "right wing" will be overrepresented within this next wave of virus carriers, as well.

So right-wingers contract the virus, and die of it, at a higher rate than do the rest of the population.

If this happens at a significant enough scale, it could affect the outcome of November's elections.

I would welcome this hypothetical outcome -- fewer right-wing votes -- but I don't want it to happen this way. I just can't be happy at the prospect of substantial numbers of unnecessary deaths, even if they are caused, in large measure, by the rank stupidity of the victims themselves.

Mood: gobsmacked
Location: at home
Music: "Don't stand so close to me"

tcpip

Sometimes you can just let the facts speak for themselves.

"We alerted the world on January the 5th. Systems around the world, including the U.S., began to activate their incident management systems on January the 6th."
Dr. Mike Ryan, executive director of the WHO's Health Emergencies Programme
https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/04/15/835179442/we-alerted-the-world-to-coronavirus-on-jan-5-who-says-in-response-to-u-s

"We have it under control. It's going to be just fine."
Donald Trump, Jan 22
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/01/22/trump-on-coronavirus-from-china-we-have-it-totally-under-control.html

"We think we have it very well under control."
Donald Trump, Jan 20
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/01/30/trump-close-cooperation-china-coronavirus-109701

"China is very professionally run in the sense that they have everything under control....we just sent some of our best people over there, World Health Organization and a lot of them are composed of our people. They're fantastic."
Donald Trump, February 10
https://twitter.com/KFILE/status/1250449102976045059

On February 15, the United States had 12 confirmed cases of COVID-19. 0.02% of the world's total.

"We have it very much under control in this country"
Donald Trump, February 23
https://factba.se/transcript/donald-trump-press-gaggle-marine-one-departure-february-23-2020

"The Coronavirus is very much under control in the USA. We are in contact with everyone and all relevant countries. CDC & World Health have been working hard and very smart."
Donald Trump, February 24
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1232058127740174339

"And everything is under control. I mean, they’re very, very cool. They’ve done it, and they’ve done it well. Everything is really under control."
Donald Trump, February 29
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-2020-conservative-political-action-conference-national-harbor-md/

"No, I'm not concerned at all. No, we’ve done a great job with it."
Donald Trump. March 7
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2020/03/08/trump-response-coronavirus-washington-dc/4994189002/

On March 15, the United States had 3,484 confirmed cases of COVID-19, 2% of the world's total.

"I felt it was a pandemic long before it was called a pandemic."
Donald Trump, March 17
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-vice-president-pence-members-coronavirus-task-force-press-briefing-4/

"Today I’m instructing my administration to halt funding of the World Health Organization while a review is conducted to assess the World Health Organization’s role in severely mismanaging and covering up the spread of the coronavirus"
Donald Trump, April 14
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-press-briefing/

On April 15, the United States had 641,762 confirmed cases of COVID-19, 31% of the world's total.

nairiporter

There is a time when a leader needs to make a decision that will not play well for themselves but is the right thing to do. My assumption is that the captain knew the likely consequences. It's very likely that he had informed the chain of command about the situation on board. He balanced his career against the lives of his crew. Brave decision.

Only time and investigations will tell if it was the right choice. An ‘Acting’ Secretary is unable to exercise any judgement since an ‘acting’ anything is not qualified by Congress and is squarely under the power of this demented regime.

Loyalty of the service personnel is sworn to the Constitution, however every field officer knows that loyalty in reality is to the individual service personnel to his or her immediate officer or NCO.

This may signal the start of service personnel questioning their own loyalty to the Commander in Chief. The Russian Revolution happened when soldiers refused the order to fire on citizens.

Food for thought.

Ps. The way the captain was sent off by his crew, is quite telling. Apparently, it has got some feathers ruffled. Good for them.

fridi

(click on graph to enlarge)

Not exactly on the "historical revisionism" topic, but still very relevant, here are a couple of links to a two-part documentary that investigates the correlation between the 5th century Krakatau volcanic eruption, and the ensuing societal havoc that changed the destiny of entire civilizations worldwide:

Part 1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cKUz5Vjq9-s
Part 2 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0JBdedLx-GI

The second part in particular deals with the consequences of the major eruption in Indonesia, which caused a global climate disruption, crop failure, famine, barbarian invasions, established civilizations collapsing and being substituted with new emerging ones, etc. It even ends up postulating a link between all this turmoil and the emergence of new world religions such as Islam. Highly recommendable.

( More about this, particularly pandemics )

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May 2025

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Summary

luzribeiro - Speaking of Government regulations, or not.
tcpip - From Elimination to Herd Immunity? +5 comments
tcpip - Four Million Dead: The Pandemic Marches On +5 comments
nairiporter - The 40th anniversary of another pandemic +1 comment
fridi - Gotta love Covid myths +1 comment
airiefairie - The vaccine race +3 comments
tcpip - Coronavirus Vaccine Policy in Australia
kiaa - Don't know about karma, but... +9 comments
airiefairie - What about the other diseases? +10 comments
tcpip - Pandemic Economics +3 comments
luzribeiro - So much winning! +1 comment
fridi - Some raw science, courtesy of the Trump University +3 comments
johnny9fingers - Covid19: now here's interesting data... +15 comments
edelsont - Natural selection at work? +4 comments
tcpip - Any Sufficiently Advanced Neglect is Indistinguishable from Malice +4 comments
nairiporter - The case of Capt. Brett Crozier +8 comments
fridi - History-altering natural disasters +4 comments

Talk politics.

A place to discuss politics without egomaniacal mods.

Entries tagged with health

Speaking of Government regulations, or not.

From Elimination to Herd Immunity?

Four Million Dead: The Pandemic Marches On

The 40th anniversary of another pandemic

Gotta love Covid myths

The vaccine race

Coronavirus Vaccine Policy in Australia

Don't know about karma, but...

What about the other diseases?

Pandemic Economics

So much winning!

Some raw science, courtesy of the Trump University

Covid19: now here's interesting data...

Natural selection at work?

Any Sufficiently Advanced Neglect is Indistinguishable from Malice

The case of Capt. Brett Crozier

History-altering natural disasters

Credits & Style Info

Links

May 2025

Summary