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Dontshootrude

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Everything posted by Dontshootrude

  1. Unfortunately there are plenty of other countries where people are hesitant. A couple of studies: https://www.mdpi.com/2076-393X/9/2/160 https://www.mdpi.com/2076-393X/9/1/42 I largely agree with this, but it becomes an everyone problem when your healthcare system is stretched to its limit and anyone seeking care will have a harder time receiving care for all the other problems normally present. I think a good start would be to communicate quality information and avoid the perception that you are always trying to spin the audience. Too much of the messaging from the public health officials and the media has been overly negative, an attempt to boost ratings/clicks, or contained half truths. As a result a lot of credibility has been lost. There will always be a subset of the population that is not going to get it no matter what, but I do think there is a decent number of people that are genuinely confused and don't know who or what to believe. If we stopped treating people like children, presented higher quality information that would help people understand the risks of the vaccine versus the risks of getting COVID, and have recommendations that are more grounded in science, it might help bump our numbers up. Take the ivermectin debate.....there is no concrete evidence that it is working. We do have really good evidence that monoclonal antibody therapy can reduce the risk of severe disease. It would probably score more credibility points by highlighting this fact and encouraging newly diagnosed people to seek out monoclonal antibody therapy instead of ivermectin. Instead there have been a lot of people in prominent positions making fun of people with the horse dewormer argument, even going so far as to falsely report the number of people being hospitalized with negative side effects. This cannot be helping! And going back to the vaccine, imagine if you are someone who is completely uneducated on this stuff. We have a very polarized echo chamber that is just screaming at each other. One on side you have a politically driven media and public health system that is screaming GET VACCINATED, and then on social media you hear all about these horrible side effects. There has been no widespread informational campaign to explain why the side effects they see on social media are probably not caused by the vaccine, and help understand the true risks of vaccination versus getting COVID. Dr. Derek Lowe gave a great explanation on these false side effects. Unfortunately his blog has been overhauled and the link to the post isn't working. I'll quote the relevant section here: This is incredibly convincing, and yet nothing like this has been explained to the masses in any clear manner. Unfortunately, our society has become so polarized and the echo chambers so loud that our messaging will become less and less effective, but we've done nothing to help it. Bill Maher gave a great rant that captured my feelings well:
  2. She should be stripped of her degree. That is up there for the most aggy thing I've heard in a while.
  3. On any given day I read between 2 and 6 newly released peer reviewed COVID manuscripts in the high impact journals. I really question how many papers Fauci sits down, reads, and digests on a daily basis. I know where I work at lot of the people in middle management and higher are inundated with so many meetings and bureaucratic obligations few of them get more than a summary from staff. I see other other high level scientists publicly stating the same thing, so I know I'm not alone in questioning this. For example, the way Fauci has addressed the question of vaccinated persons spreading the disease and the lack of guidance for those who have recovered from COVID indicates there is a disconnect between him and the actual literature. The data CDC used to make the claim that vaccinated people can spread it just like an unvaccinated person was garbage, and there have been multiple studies demonstrating that it is likely a rare event. There are multiple high quality studies that demonstrate people who have recovered from COVID are well protected, and we've also known for months that in recovered individuals the second shot is likely not providing any substantial benefit. And yet, I have yet to hear any mention that spread from vaccinated individuals is likely a rare event (particularly if you are vaccinated and asymptomatic) in his interviews or in the media, nor have I seen any specific guidance for those that have recovered from infection. We might very well need a third shot. But at 8 months I think the data is very weak to go ahead and give one to healthy people. Given the slow mutating nature of this virus and the preliminary promising data on the development of long term immunity, my bet is that a boost every 5-10 years will be warranted, but it might be even longer. Right now though, the evidence for a third shot is very weak and we need to be focusing on getting people naïve to the infection vaccinated both here and abroad. I am not trying to Fauci bash. He has an impossible job. But given how divisive he has become he is likely doing more harm than good constantly giving interviews, particularly if he is giving direction and opinions without fully grasping the current literature.
  4. Sorry if this has been discussed before, but another mRNA vaccine, CureVac, failed clinical trials. The only significant difference between it and the Pfizer vaccine was Curevac decided to use the naturally occurring base uracil, whereas Pfizer and Moderna decided to use a psuedobase in its place that was less immunogenic. That one change dropped the efficacy from 95% to below 40%. It is hard to believe how lucky we have been.
  5. Full disclosure: I do not fully understand the lipid capsules. Very few people do. I do know they are incredibly complex and require very specific conditions to create and manufacture. I know more about immunology, and I know enough to know our knowledge and understanding of the system are incomplete at best. The mRNA vaccines have been an incredible achievement, and we are extremely fortunate everything came together like they did. If they had been delayed just a few more months our entire health care system would have completely collapsed during the Delta wave. To me, the risk of the known unknowns and unknown unknowns with a 3rd shot are not worth it when efficacy against severe disease remains at 90%+ for the majority of those vaccinated.
  6. I wish it were that simple, but the delivery was one of the biggest challenges that was worked on over the last 20 years. We have the lipid capsules for mRNA and a couple proven adenovirus vectors that seem to work well. You can't just wave a magic wand and come up with a new system.
  7. I'm not sure the delivery systems used by Pfizer and Moderna differ all that much. There are very few people in the world that really understand that lipid capsule technology and I would imagine they have reached similar conclusions. This is speculation on my part so maybe you have more knowledge than I do? And I wouldn't bank on them being easily modifiable. The current construction seems to be doing a good job stimulating the immune system which negates the need for an adjuvant to the vaccine, but that is exactly what has me concerned that we could see a cumulative effect that would reduce the effectiveness of the vaccines with every shot. Adjuvants in traditional vaccines are not carrying the actual target, so they can stimulate the immune system without the worry of reduced efficacy. These are so new we have no data to know definitively either way, which is why I caution people to not rush out and get them when the risk of what you are vaccinating for is incredibly low. Without more data it just isn't worth it.
  8. The vaccine mixing studies will be important for you too. Data out of the UK suggests that combining the Astrazeneca vaccine with the Pfizer vaccine results in a better immune response compared to sticking with the same vaccine. You might be better served getting a J&J shot if you got an mRNA vaccine initially. It will be interesting to see what the vaccine recommendations and schedule looks like once we have all that data.
  9. You are in the category where the risk/reward ratio begins to make sense. Talk to your doctor to confirm.
  10. Reading the last couple pages of this thread, I can't help but jump in here. I'm a molecular biologist. I'm happy to verify with the mods, just PM me so I don't dox myself. I have not read most of this thread, so I apologize if what I'm about to say is redundant. Unless you are significantly immunocompromised, frail, living in a long term care facility, or specifically told to by your health care professional, I would encourage everyone to hold off getting a third shot for several reasons. 1. Efficacy against severe disease/hospitalization/death is still holding up well. The Israeli data that a lot of the panic is based on is a statistical anomaly, discussed in detail here. The vast majority of breakthrough cases in healthy people are very mild. The severe cases are concentrated among those that are extremely frail and with a significant number of comorbidities. 2. We have no high power studies examining the safety of a third shot. I'm at a loss why this would be publicly announced before we had clear data that this is a safe choice. 3. We have no idea if giving subsequent shots will reduce the efficacy of the delivery system. We know this is happening with the adenovirus vector vaccines (J&J and Astrazeneca).The mRNA is encapsulated in a lipid shell. It is possible that the immune system will begin to recognize this as foreign, mount a response against it, and develop memory. This could result in every mRNA vaccine you receive going forward will become less and less effective. This could have really significant consequences, because not only will mRNA vaccines likely continue to be the first vaccines available in future pandemics/health crises, but these also have huge potential to be very effective tools against cancer. To me, it seems like a pretty poor tradeoff to get a third shot to prevent a cold in exchange for potentially limiting your options to respond to significant health issues down the road. There are several ongoing studies that are examining the efficacy and safety of mixing and matching vaccines. I'm middle aged and don't have any known health issues, so I've made up my mind to not get another mRNA shot or a J&J shot for COVID as long as something crazy doesn't happen like efficacy against severe disease plummeting. The studies I'm waiting for revolve around Novavax. This is a subunit vaccine (injects the spike protein directly) much like the flu shot, and it will mitigate the risks I outlined in point 3. As long as the safety/efficacy data of using Novavax after vaccination with an mRNA vaccine looks good I will be willing to roll up my sleeve again. And for those that haven't, I strongly suggest you read the article in my prior post. The immune system is a highly complex and dynamic thing. Antibodies alone do not tell the complete story of protection, so don't freak out if you don't have enough antibodies to pay off the Loch Ness monster. Just food for thought. I'm happy to answer questions.
  11. Great article on immunity and the necessity of a third shot: https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2021/09/waning-immunity-not-crisis-right-now/619965/
  12. Been vaccinated since February 9th. I've been to several Crawfish boils without fear.
  13. I've done 4 cooks so far, about 7-8 hours of burn time and I'm still on the same tank.
  14. That's an interesting thought. I froze an aliquot from passage 2. I'll have to sequence it along with a sample a few months from now and see how they compare.
  15. Here's my next foray in pizza experimentation. I obtained starters from Naples, Ishia Island and Finland. Supposedly using a high quality starter will take the dough to the next level. It will take me a week to get them fully activated then it will be game on.
  16. Lock thread. Unless you can count your teeth on one hand Gatlinburg/Pigeon Forge is a shit hole. Asheville is awesome and Pisgah national forest is amazing. Concentrate your efforts there.
  17. I've been tempted to get the cast iron sizzler plate but as of yet no. I'd be interested in hearing people's experiences using it for applications other than pizza.
  18. Me too, but I'm skeptical of that website. It screams a scam site that takes your credit card info and never ships any product.
  19. $6k? I can think of better ways to spend $6k but if you want to print out a bunch of cardboard globes I guess this product is for you. Go for it and report back.
  20. It's been a while since I've posted here and I remember that for whatever reason imgur hates Texas football. Reuploading the pics.
  21. I thought about an Ooni pro but the reviews I read are that the pizza cooks so fast and the fires burn so clean and hot that you can't taste the difference between propane and wood. I couldn't justify the extra cost compared to the Koda 16.
  22. I just got my koda 16 and I love it as well. Have you settled on a dough? For dough I'm replicating Varasano's instructions with an Italian yeast starter and it's coming out great. If you haven't read his blog it is a great resource for homemade pizza, especially if you have a high temp oven like an Ooni. http://www.varasanos.com/PizzaRecipe.htm#Tier 1 The turning peel is a great tool by the way. Highly recommend.
  23. You can also buy adjustable gas plugs that allow you to use modern ammo. https://www.midwayusa.com/product/1004719245?pid=412046
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