Jeez, I had the same reaction as MangoMan. This is not a safe situation that Smith is describing. Smith, your highest priority should be to get into regular counseling, 2-3x/week at least. If Canada is anything like the US, and I suspect it is, counseling is on a cash basis and that can be difficult...

My daughter is a third grade teacher, and I asked her if her class this year was either intellectually or socially worse than previous years. Not surprisingly the answer was yes to both. This entire generation of children has been irreparably damaged. Yes, that's the stuff of nightmares. The econom...

Oh and barrett, regarding community mask wearing: The data are becoming pretty clear: there is probably a small benefit but not much. It's small enough that a small study can't detect it (eg the Danish study), whereas a large study (Bangladesh) showed a 10% reduction in COVID cases. This is consist...

Oh and barrett, regarding community mask wearing: The data are becoming pretty clear: there is probably a small benefit but not much. It's small enough that a small study can't detect it (eg the Danish study), whereas a large study (Bangladesh) showed a 10% reduction in COVID cases. This is consiste...

But if you are going to compare Covid outcomes in Florida & Hawaii, you also should know that Florida has lost 2,770 people per million due to Covid-related illness while Hawaii is currently at 658 per million. I really wish people would stop making comparisons like this. Scientifically this is...

Both of your suggestions, WiseOne, do involve giving people the vaccine in order to find out whether or not it's safe. OK let me spell it out for the logistically challenged. Once the emergency approvals for the vaccines were issued and the push to vaccinate the entire US population began, the long...

Dr. Ruben on the FDA panel: "We're never gonna learn about how safe the vaccine is until we start giving it. That's the way it goes." Seems legit. Was that intended to be sarcastic? Here are some other ideas on how to find out if the vaccine is safe: 1. Do the standard clinical trials. Th...

Well you do have to factor in population. Let's put it at 8 million for NYC, and 2 million for Austin. NYCs daily hospital admissions were over 1700 at their peak in April 2020, which is over 200 admissions per million residents. Our second wave got close to hospital capacity, but never to crisis le...

The pattern is that COVID hits a new area, mows through it like wildfire for about 6-8 weeks, and then settles in as yet another endemic seasonal illness. NYC was one of the first places in the US to get hit, so our pandemic period finished up in May of 2020. Healthwise, nothing of note has happene...

Fake news from Foxnews...... The study, published last Tuesday in World Psychology, found that those with a substance use disorder (SUD) — a dependence on marijuana, alcohol, cocaine, opioids and tobacco — were more likely to contract the coronavirus after receiving both of their vaccination shots....

I guess Scott Adams has basically the same opinion as I do: I think I am supposed to be one of the Lefties on here but I agree. Here in CT, Governor Lamont had his executive powers extended another four plus months. This in spite of the fact that statewide more than 77% of all CT residents have had...

Xan I understand your reasoning here, however I'm not sure why it only applies to the conservative viewpoints on the forum. There are people on the liberal side who have not been banned, and yet have the same negative effect. Any thought of doing something about that? I can't think of anybody who h...

Xan I understand your reasoning here, however I'm not sure why it only applies to the conservative viewpoints on the forum.

There are people on the liberal side who have not been banned, and yet have the same negative effect. Any thought of doing something about that?

The full article if anyone cares to read it: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10654-021-00808-7 I suspect that the positive association between vaccination levels and COVID cases has to do with the definition of a case and the amount of testing going on. There are several reasons why high-...

Somebody (Bangladesh) actually did a controlled study recently. They concluded that surgical face masks caused a statistically significant (but not particularly huge) decrease in spread. Zero for cloth face masks. 11%, if you scroll back a few posts. For surgical masks only. My guess is that this w...

The real question should be how many months/years of life lost there are due to COVID. It doesn't help to point the finger at COVID when the main result is to change what's written on the death certificate, but not the date. I saw one study early in the pandemic that looked into that very question. ...

Thanks for resurrecting that dualstow! I was thinking about that....I've done quite an about face on the COVID vaccine, on the face of it. I don't know if COVID and measles can be compared. Measles vaccine gives you lifetime immunity because the virus doesn't mutate the way coronaviruses do - and th...

I'm surprised at the FDA vote, but there was a good rationale for it: the Pfizer vaccine is still very effective at preventing severe disease, which is the real reason for the vaccine. The risks of the booster were deemed simply not worth it to prevent mild illness. I was quite heartened by the vote...

That might be a fair assessment, Maddy. The trends shown are probably legit, but yes, I'd agree that scientists (though perhaps not journalists) should know better than to take the absolute numbers as gospel. We should avoid that here on the forum, so we can hold ourselves to higher standards than t...

See article in the other thread about how you go about counting hospitalized COVID cases. Yes, I assume the number 44 per million represents the number of hospitalized children who tested positive for COVID during admission - and therefore includes both genuine COVID cases, and asymptomatic COVID i...

See article in the other thread about how you go about counting hospitalized COVID cases. Yes, I assume the number 44 per million represents the number of hospitalized children who tested positive for COVID during admission - and therefore includes both genuine COVID cases, and asymptomatic COVID in...

Thank you for posting that article, Flying! I can't believe it, someone in the journalism field suddenly decided to practice journalism. Wow. It's not like we here on the forum haven't been talking about the difference between positive tests and COVID cases for months. Congrats to us for being that ...

If they do get infected (which is a matter of time) they're at much greater risk than they are from the vaccine. Just a reminder that you have to be very careful about not only the numerator but also the denominator when you cite numbers to support a given position. There is a logical flaw in the q...

I don't think this pandemic is ever actually going to end. Viruses mutate. That's what they do. New strains will proliferate faster than new iPhone versions every year. And of course, the ones that actually propagate are the hardy ones that resist the effects of inoculation. I think we're likely lo...

I second the idea that Mark posted: subject ban decisions to a forum vote. Not a numerical poll, but have the moderator propose a ban, then members will provide reasons for keeping vs banning the person. Then let the moderator decide. Exceptions made for obviously/seriously bad behavior and/or obvio...