The Coronavirus Thread

[JimC]

Someone should make a cartoon, of some sick-looking and angry worms inside a gut. One is saying "Fucking hell, you kept telling us that Trump supporters would be the juiciest hosts ever!"

[L'Emmerdeur]

Another fellow that apparently didn't use enough ivermectin in time.

- Ken Klippenstein · Aug 27, 2021

[JimC]

But he died worm free!

[Brian Peacock]

So, is Australia's Zero-Covid policy up in smoke now?

[Tero]

Ivermectin study to start any day now. It's delayed cause we hate Trump:
https://www.rawstory.com/amp/rand-paul- ... ssion=true

The hatred for Trump deranged these people so much, that they're unwilling to objectively study it," Paul said. "So someone like me that's in the middle on it, I can't tell you because they will not study ivermectin.

[Hermit]

So, is Australia's Zero-Covid policy up in smoke now?

The national government never had a policy in regard to the current pandemic. The state governments are meant to handle the problem, and their approach varies. At one end of the spectrum Victoria's Premier, aware of the scandalous shortage of vaccines, is intent to fight it with lockdowns, testing and contact tracing. At the other the Premier of New South Wales has been intent to do as little as possible in terms of lockdowns, lest private enterprise be inconvenienced.

[rainbow]

Ivermectin study to start any day now. It's delayed cause we hate Trump:
https://www.rawstory.com/amp/rand-paul- ... ssion=true

The hatred for Trump deranged these people so much, that they're unwilling to objectively study it," Paul said. "So someone like me that's in the middle on it, I can't tell you because they will not study ivermectin.

One could take nearly everything, anything or nothing and it would have an effect on Covid, or not, or make it worse, depending on the dosage, the means of administration, and when it is taken during the course of an infection.

[Seabass]

https://theweek.com/coronavirus/1004182 ... negligence

Give me horse paste or give me death?

Nine months after several highly effective coronavirus vaccines started to become available in America, and three to five months after they became available in pharmacies across the country, the pandemic is now as bad as it's ever been in many states. In Louisiana, Mississippi, Arkansas, Kentucky, and South Carolina, daily hospitalizations and deaths are at or near the March 2020 peak, while in Florida the previous records have been far surpassed.

At the same time, conservative elites are doing their level best to spread the virus as much as possible, even as COVID-19 is killing conservatives by the thousands. It's willful, malign negligence on a mind-boggling scale.

I can barely keep up with the number of minor conservative figures who have died of COVID after refusing to take the vaccine. The radio host Phil Valentine is dead after having mocked the vaccine, and so is Newsmax host Dick Farell. The same is true of Texas Republican official Scott Apley. South Carolina party official Pressley Stutts continued to post anti-vaccine conspiracy theories from his COVID ICU bed until he died. And among the voting base, it's total carnage.

Yet Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is still in a ferocious dispute with his state's school districts about mask mandates, as his state's pediatric ICU beds are swamped. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott recently issued an (almost certainly unconstitutional) order banning any institution receiving public funds from requiring vaccines. South Dakota recently held the Sturgis motorcycle rally again with the furious support of Gov. Kristi Noem — despite the fact that the state is trailing in vaccination and last year the rally created a pandemic charnel house. Unsurprisingly, cases there are once again shooting through the roof.

The story that might have fully broken my brain for good is the recent plague of conservatives poisoning themselves with veterinary deworming paste. The idea is to get a drug called ivermectin, which has been promoted as yet another coronavirus miracle cure by various fringe quacks. Perhaps the most prominent is the former biology professor Bret Weinstein, who has been publishing anti-vaccine propaganda on a podcast and YouTube in the classic passive-aggressive "just asking questions" fashion.

As Jef Rouner explains at Houston Press, the formula is simple and lucrative: raise fear, uncertainty, and doubt about the vaccines with complicated but false arguments that are hard for a layman to untangle, launder extreme claims by interviewing total lunatics, all while recommending unproven miracle remedies the shadowy Big Pharma conspiracy is supposedly suppressing. Then when you get in trouble for spreading antivaccine lies during a global pandemic, scream that you're being "censored" to get more attention, and watch the subscription numbers jump. Sure enough, Weinstein got on Fox News and other conservative outlets after YouTube demonetized his channel and deleted some videos. He even got a friendly reception from ex-leftist Matt Taibbi, who wrote two articles about ivermectin treating Weinstein as a credible source and a victim of Big Tech censorship.

In terms of science, the story is virtually identical to what happened with hydroxychloroquine — promising initial evidence that has crumbled on further scrutiny. One big study was retracted when it turned out much of the abstract was plagiarized and the data was faked. A meta-analysis examining 14 studies published late last month found highly equivocal results: "Overall, the reliable evidence available does not support the use [of] ivermectin for treatment or prevention of COVID-19 outside of well-designed randomized trials."

To answer Taibbi's duplicitous leading question, there are two reasons why it is a bad idea to trumpet the possibility of unproven miracle cures during a pandemic. First, even the promising initial studies did not show ivermectin to be anywhere close to as protective as the vaccines, which are among the most-studied treatments in the history of medicine. Second, spreading overheated rumors about miracle drugs before the evidence is in will lead credulous people to take it without knowledge of proper dosage or considering toxic interactions. Sure enough, deworming paste is flying off the shelves, some doctor in Arkansas is giving it to prisoners, and calls to poison control centers are skyrocketing across the South. Facebook groups are full of stories of poisoned people suffering severe diarrhea and expelling "rope worms," which turn out to be almost certainly shreds of intestinal lining.

But in terms of politics, the horse paste saga is a perfect window in the conservative mindset that is currently the biggest force fueling the pandemic. The core behavior here is muleheaded, selfish spitefulness, adhered to even at great personal risk. "Freedom" for movement conservatives is entirely one-directional: They get to spray virus fog whenever and wherever they want, and they also get to force you or your kids to not wear a mask.

Because that behavior is so monstrous, there is a large incentive to make up comforting lies about how the pandemic is exaggerated or fake, or the vaccines don't work — much facilitated by the fact that consuming right-wing media for very long tends to turn your brain into horse paste. Some right-wing voices pushing this line actually believe it, as shown by the lamented dead above. But others are just cynical — Abbott recently came down with COVID, but it turns out he had not only been vaccinated but also had already gotten a booster shot, and was getting daily tests, so had a very mild case.

Finally, because the financial engine of the conservative media complex is tricking gullible retired people into buying brain pills and reverse mortgages, conservatives are easy pickings for cynical and/or deluded grifters hawking snake oil remedies when they do contract COVID after coughing into each other's face at the Cheesecake Factory to own the libs.

Yet another wave of completely pointless death seems to be motivating a lot of people to finally get vaccinated — but thus far the procrastinators, not the ideological, hard core antivaxxers. Even when Donald Trump tried to argue for the vaccine at a rally in Alabama recently, he was booed. It seems the pandemic will keep burning out of control until just about every conservative vaccine refusenik has gotten COVID. Another few months ought to do it.

[rainbow]

I just only accept absolute data but apparently you like estimates and assumptions.

How do you define "absolute data"?
...and give us an example.

You can't think of a single example?

[pErvinalia]

So, is Australia's Zero-Covid policy up in smoke now?

NSW's certainly is.

[Hermit]

Why am I not surprised that the racist arsehole also refuses to play venues requiring proof of vaccination?

Someone came up with a great graphic jibe.

[Seabass]

Idiot is going to leave behind four kids. At least he'll die knowing he properly dewormed himself before the end.

'Desperate for miracles,' a pregnant Texas mother fights to save husband dying of COVID-19

Trigger Warning!!!1! :

On July 4, 2020, Caleb helped organize "The Freedom Rally." A flyer for the event called it a peaceful protest by people “sick of the government being in control of our lives.” Signs carried by protesters that day criticized the wearing of masks, business closures, the science behind COVID-19, and liberal media.

[...]

In addition to the rally, Caleb organized "The San Angelo Freedom Defenders," a group "to educate and empower citizens to make informed choices concerning local, statewide, and national policy and to encourage them to actively participate in their duty to secure God-given and constitutionally protected rights," as stated on the group's Facebook page.

Using both the Freedom Defender's page and his own social media presence, Caleb criticized the government's handling of the pandemic and guidelines advocated by health experts.

"Show me the science that masks work," Caleb wrote on the City of San Angelo's official Facebook in December 2020. "Show me the evidence that school closures work. Show me the evidence that lock-downs work."

In 2020, Caleb appeared in video interviews with local media outlets denouncing mask policies and school closures at San Angelo ISD. As late as April 2021, he penned a letter demanding the school district rescind all its COVID-19 protocols, claiming that science didn't support their need.

At one point during the pandemic, the Freedom Defenders collected a list of local businesses in the San Angelo area who were asking residents to wear masks as a prerequisite for entry, information its members could use to avoid shopping at those locations.

The page belonging to the Freedom Defenders appeared to be deactivated from Facebook shortly after Caleb was hospitalized for COVID-19.

On July 26, Jessica said her husband began experiencing symptoms of the coronavirus: shortness of breath, high fever, and a dry cough. Those symptoms became worse the following day.

"Every time he would start to cough, it would turn into a coughing attack, and then that would cause him to completely go out of breath," Jessica said.

At first, Caleb refused to get tested for COVID-19, or go to the hospital.

"He was so hard-headed," Jessica said. "He didn't want to see a doctor, because he didn't want to be part of the statistics with COVID tests."

Caleb instead began taking tablets of ivermectin (an anti-parasitic medicine the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has since urged people not to take for COVID-19), high doses of Vitamin C, zinc aspirin, and an inhaler. By July 30, however, Caleb was taken by a relative to the emergency room at Shannon Medical Center.

[...]

"He couldn't breathe on his own," Jessica said. "The first week he was able to be on oxygen. By the morning of (Aug. 8), he had to be ventilated."

https://www.gosanangelo.com/story/news/ ... 196516002/

Well, this guy didn't make it:

Caleb Wallace, anti-mask organizer and co-founder of the San Angelo Freedom Defenders, dies of COVID-19

“My health has nothing to do with you. As harsh as that sounds, but our constitutional, fundamental rights protect that. Nothing else. I’m sorry if that comes off as blunt and that I don’t care. I do care. I care more about freedom than I do for your personal health.” —Caleb Wallace

[Seabass]

This shit is 100% on the anti-vaxx/maskers:

Houston veteran dies of treatable illness after waiting hours for ICU bed

[macdoc]

Progress one death at a time was never so relevant...

[Seabass]

Another one rides the bus.

Outspoken anti-vax radio host Marc Bernier died after three-week battle with COVID-19: report

Yet another prominent conservative media voice has succumbed to coronavirus after arguing against public health measures like masks and vaccines.

WNDB radio announced on Saturday night that anti-vax radio host Marc Bernier had passed away.

After Bernier was hospitalized three weeks ago, WNDB-AM/FM operations director Mark McKinney said he didn't know for sure if the host was unvaccinated.

"If you've listened to his show," McKinney said, "you've heard him talk about how anti-vaccine he is on the air."

In his last tweet, he said pro-vaccine outreach was like the Nazis after a post urging vaccination by Florida Agricultural Commissioner Nikki Fried, a Democrat.

Should say, "Now the US Government is acting like Nazi's. Get the shot!" https://t.co/8WLpXVxGRm
— Marc Bernier (@Marc Bernier) 1627645029.0

https://www.rawstory.com/anti-vaxxer-ma ... -deceased/