Random Rant Thread

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Occasional reminder: When it comes to Covid-19, "severe illness" means VERY severe. Your layman definition of "severe" is most likely off. And conversely, "no severe illness" doesn't mean that everyone just stays home, drinks some apple juice, takes some painkiller, and recovers in four days to tell their colleagues how nasty the headache was. It's often about five times as horrible as that.

Anyway, the unvaccinated in particular are in for one hell of a winter.

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So, I know, Omicron, high immune escape, etc., but vaxx up anyway. And especially if you are an AstraZeneca/J&J-er, dully boost up. It will save you. The neutralization process is the flashiest part of the immune system for sure, but the real bosses show up after the foot soldiers are defeated by the formidable viruses. They are certainly lazy asses who show up a bit late, but are pretty good. Trust them, they will save you.

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Again, "no evidence."

Last year I ranted about the danger of it, caused by the *layman* usage of that expression.

There are many things during this pandemic that have been proven right despite the experts saying "no evidence," such as the asymptomatic infection and efficacy of masks to name a few. And those people weren't necessarily wrong. In most cases there was no *conclusive scientific evidence* at the time, so they simply described the situation.

Do we have to *always* interpret that expression in that way? Would that solve the problem? Unfortunately No. Newspapers use that expression in the *other* way as well, as in "There is no evidence that there are Bigfoots in New Jersey," which tacitly means: "Come on, it's bullshit, folks."

Those journalists never make it clear which is the case.

So that confused the hell out of us. It's just a bad phrase that no one should use particularly when it comes to Covid-19.

I mean, Omicron may indeed not be less severe, but don't do that. Stop being lazy. "No evidence" is a lazy phrase. It's not only confusing, but also highly corrosive to everyone's confidence in journalism and experts.

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Viruses emerge all the time, hop between species all the time. We develop immunity to many of them, mostly through infection at the early stage of our life. And when particular pathogens were way too destructive, threatening our survival even, we developed vaccines. In the big ecosystem narrative from the biological genesis, that's also *natural* immunity. That's how we humans evolved, and needless to say we are part of nature.

What that means is that the unvaccinated are simply one step behind the rest of humanity in the evolutionary scale. There is no other way to put it, really. Some choose to be biologically inferior to the others. That's one hell of a choice, but of course, as they say, it's a free country.

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That familiar near-vertical rise.

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So, the latest Matrix decided to make its transgender "woke" theme a tiny bit more explicit than the previous movies, and those red-pill alt-right internet tough guys seem absolutely pissed, lol.

Those people missed the entire point of Fight Club too. Allegories and satire are their kryptonite, I take it.

The Matrix and Fight Club are two of the best American movies from the 1990s. Imagine yourself clinging to a quasi-ethos that is based entirely on misinterpreting them. There is a word for that kind of people, and I'm sure you know what it is.

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We are still not sure how severe the Omicron wave will be. But the severity will certainly vary between countries/regions/states/etc., and I'm pretty sure that the US will lose much, much, much more lives per capita than Britain because of Omicron no matter what. That was the case with Delta (still ongoing), and the same will happen.

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The animated version of Omicron's London Covid Fair:

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This is the type of embarrassment that would make me think at least momentarily of suicide, but that's why I'm not the CEO of any corporation. These people just go "Oh well!" and simply move on as if nothing happened.

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Of course, high percentage of AstraZeneca + early vaccinations (8+ months since vaccination) = very bad outcome with Delta + Omicron at least in terms of infections. Those are certainly extraordinary numbers from the UK, but the country is uniquely in a bad place immunity-wise, and much of it is basically bad luck.

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Omicron, with its ability to evade the pre-existing (waning) immunity, creates a sort of the level field for a large portion of the population in terms of infections. I suspect the transmission pattern will be very similar to the early days of Covid-19, which means Omicron will spread primarily through super-spreading events like medium-large indoor gatherings, initiated by one or a few infected individuals in each case.

But needless to say, it will spread so fast and there are so many Delta variants out there concurrently that they won't be able to track those events properly at all.

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I Canceled My Birthday Party Because of Omicron
Here’s how I thought through the decision.

www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2021/12/i-canceled-my-birthday-party-because-omicron/621041/

I also know the state of those hospitals. Over the past two years, especially while I was reporting a new article last month, hundreds of nurses, doctors, and other health-care workers have told me that they, and the system they work in, are utterly broken. Some have quit jobs or careers that they thought they would keep for life. Others spoke of a system in the midst of collapse, in which the dwindling workforce can no longer provide a normal level of care for its growing pool of patients—not just COVID patients, but all patients. Several said that they’re struggling to hold on to empathy for people who are putting themselves at risk. Many cried on the phone during our interview. Many just sounded hollow.

I feel haunted by their words when I make decisions about the pandemic. When I stare out my window, the world looks normal, but I know through my reporting that it is not. This has already changed the way I behave, and not just to avoid getting COVID. I’ve been trying to drive more carefully, in the knowledge that if I got into an accident, I wouldn’t get the same care that I would have two years ago. I feel that the medical system in this country is at a tipping point—a fragile vase balanced so precariously on an edge that even a fly could knock it over.

I feel the same. There are two kinds of people in this world: One is those who have seen what has been going on in the hospitals, in the Covid wards; And the other is those who don't. I belong in the former category.

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"Test scores only measure test-taking ability."

Yeah, the infamous "test-taking ability," the ability to understand the subject enough to correctly answer the questions conceived by experts in the field. Why should anyone bother to measure such a thing, indeed!

It's sheer fucking madness, man. Those hard-liberal activists.

Look, I'm for affirmative action in general. I am woke in general too. I do believe that sometimes you have to break some eggs to make an omelette, to achieve something big and important. But this woke anti-test thing isn't that; It's burning down an entire house to try to make an omelette with that fire. And in most likelihood it won't even make the damn fucking omelette.

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This blew my mind like nothing else. The most interesting and haunting thing that I've seen in months.

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I almost have contempt for this kind of very liberal things at this point.

Why is this? What's the purpose? What's the point? Anyone who sees this and smiles has already been quadruple, quintuple vaccinated.

On the other hand, to the unvaccinated demographic, this is at best stupid or "gay," and at worst condescending, with the median tending toward the latter.

I mean, I know. They mean well. And an overwhelming majority of those unvaccinated people won't get vaccinated no matter what. Practically it would be a waste of time to even try to speak to them on this matter. No harm done, and maybe there are 14 people in America who change their mind and get boosted after watching this. Maybe they don't even mean to talk to the unvaccinated type, and don't care if this kind of things offend them and thus harden their stance.

But I'm just frustrated. The US response to the pandemic has been such an unmitigated collective disaster. I simply don't understand the mentality of the White House staffers who go, "Hey, what about having Pentatonix perform a cappella with dumb lyrics?"

How come they are not embarrassed? I see no sense of shame or urgency.

I mean, there aren't enough PCR tests in the US for this winter. Demand is overwhelming the supply and stocks. That's exactly what happened last winter as well, and it seems that it will be even worse this winter. I know that is that, and this is just Pentatonix, but I'm just fucking frustrated is all.