PANDUMBIC

Anthony Fauci and Rand Paul clash over Wuhan lab, origin of COVID-19

Sen. Rand Paul and Dr. Anthony Fauci clashed once again during a Senate hearing Tuesday on efforts to combat the COVID-19 pandemic, this time sparring over whether the National Institutes of Health funded risky “gain-of-function” research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China.

It is not the first time the two men have gotten into a heated back-and-forth during the course of the pandemic.

“Senator Paul, with all due respect, you are entirely and completely incorrect … the NIH has not ever and does not now fund gain-of-function research in the Wuhan Institute,” Fauci said.


https://www.boston.com/news/coronavirus/2021/05/12/anthony-fauci-rand-paul-clash-wuhan-lab-covid-19-origin-video

https://www.wsj.com/articles/nih-presses-u-s-nonprofit-for-information-on-wuhan-virology-lab-11597829400?mod=searchresults&page=1&pos=1

https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/08/29/907237520/group-whose-nih-grant-for-virus-research-was-revoked-just-got-a-new-grant

https://www.google.com/amp/s/slate.com/human-interest/2021/05/dear-prudence-mask-coronavirus-fear-sex.amp

Trumpenis seemed to imply that Ted Cruz needed to wear a mask when he went to bed with the great beast he was married to. Sounds like a republican thing.

From foia emails. Sound familiar? This was too simple to be called science... it should've been common sense.

"The typical mask you buy in the drug store is not really effective in keeping out virus, which is small enough to pass through material. It might, however, provide some slight benefit in keep out gross droplets if someone coughs or sneezes on you.” Fauci

Here's hoping that a couple of droplets land on your face Pucker Bum.

Republicans "forget" that Trump fired embedded CDC observer in China months before the outbreak

Francis Townsend
Sunday June 06, 2021 · 10:02 AM CDT

Lab leak theory? It’s quite possible. Can’t trust the Chinese government to tell us the truth about anything, least of all the nature of their coronavirus research or any accidents involving it.

But you know who could have been in the best possible position to inform the US about it many months ahead of the pandemic? The China-embedded CDC epidemiologist who was fired by the Trump administration in July, 2019, that’s who. I’m referring to Dr. Linda Quick, the only person on the ground in China for the US working in this capacity at all. And she was never replaced — ever. Her position was eliminated as collateral damage during Trump’s trade war with China.

Do you remember Rand Paul or Tom Cotton or any other Trump water carrier protesting Quick’s firing at the time — or at any other time? I sure as hell don’t.

So Trump, knowing that China couldn’t be trusted on anything, apparently seemed to trust them just enough not to have anyone keep tabs on their virus research. And the GOP seemed to have no problems with this, either.

Maybe it’s time to remind the American public about all this, eh? Especially just before the next campaign cycle.

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2021/6/6/2033874/-Republicans-forget-that-Trump-fired-embedded-CDC-observer-in-China-months-before-the-outbreak?pm_source=story_sidebar&pm_medium=web&pm_campaign=recommended#comment_81094134

***********

As if China would allow foreign oversight... lol. Think for yourself once in a while.

PkrBum wrote:As if China would allow foreign oversight... lol. Think for yourself once in a while.

Is that what your two ex wives told you to do when you pleaded for sex every night?

Wear a mask, wash your hands and...

Joe Rogan's about as credible as Alex Jones.  Drugged-out motherfucker doesn't even believe there was actually a moon landing, so I'm not listening to that shitbag whether he supports my position or not.   Posting stuff from him is as gullible as believing the Epoch Times is a credible source.

Anyway, I see right-wingers are still trying to make it a big thing whether the virus came from a lab or not.

Don't think we can ever know for certain, but I'm not sure why -- other than they love blaming everything on non-white folks -- it really matters so much to them... other than they don't seem to understand very basic things.

Although I'll admit this isn't only right-wingers.  I run into one liberal guy who talks to me sometimes (he knows I hate the same local editorial schmuck in the newspaper that he does, so now he always wants to talk politics with me), and he's a nice enough guy and all, but he dropped a stupid-bomb on me the other day.... which is the same stupid-bomb several right-winger co-workers believe, but I expect it from them because... well, I talked about their intellect last week.

Anyhow, after I heard this silly-ass horseshit -- which still isn't as silly-ass as the average stuff I hear from the FOX-watchers at work -- I had to reshuffle the deck and put this guy in the idiot stack:  he thinks the Chinese are putting some secret chemical in hand sanitizer.  See, he thinks he got COVID a few months ago (which he thinks came from a Chinese lab), and he lost some of his sense of smell and taste... and it's only recently starting to come back, but he tastes the hand sanitizer he uses all the time... which he imagines is made in China.   Although we don't know that -- he just figures it is because dumb people figure everything's made in China.

Anyway, he was asking me if I didn't think the Chinese attacked us with this virus, and I had to patiently clue Mr. Fucking Stupid Dumbass Moronidiot that, no, we weren't "attacked" with it.   Now, I don't know if it came from a lab or not.  Maybe it did.  But if it was a bio-weapon then it's the stupidest bio-weapon ever, 'cuz the kill rate is too small and it has its least effect on people of military age.  When you're unleashing biological warfare (like smallpox blankets, which Republicans don't like schoolkids learning about because white people look bad in that one), you wanna kill off your enemy's military strength, so you don't have to fight 'em.   COVID's a bad disease, but it's least effective in taking out military age folks.  Even as a disruptor, it's of little strategic use because (A) again, the kill-rate's not high enough, and (B) ya can't keep it from infecting your own people.  You don't unleash a "weapon" until you have a defense for it.  All around, it'd make a sorry weapon.  Also, the name of the lab that Jon Stewart was talking about cinches the deal that it wasn't a weapon.  Why'n the fuck would anybody name a lab after a disease they were trying to use as a weapon?  That'd be dumb.  You can damn betcha we're trying to develop sonic and laser weaponry, but they're not coming from the "Institute for Neural Disruptors" or the "Laboratory For The Study Of Long Range Human Combustion" or even "Death Rays R Us."  I mean, shit, please don't be that fucking non-logical.*


All of these factors are why right-wingers (and this particular left-winger) are only making themselves look like stupes who don't understand basic things with this mania to blame China.  "Blame" works really well for something done maliciously.  It's kinda pointless for a mistake or accident, though.  And if this thing escaped from a lab, which it may well have, it's pretty obviously a mistake, because there just isn't a good case to be made for it being anything else.  So the only real worth in investigating that is to prevent it from happening again... not to assigning "blame."   Without malicious intent, what's the real point?

And anybody who thinks they shouldn't have labs to study such things are just earning compound interest on their stupidity at this point, because... ya damn well better be studying viruses, because they're gonna mutate and get more dangerous, and you study them in order to get ahead of 'em.  If it escaped from a lab, then that sucks, but that lab was doing good work and a necessary thing.  Should have taken more precautions if it escaped, sure, but the work itself was something people better be doing.  

So, no, I don't see the "blame China" horseshit as much more than another bigoty-ass way for bigots to go about their bigoting.  Right-wingers just like that because they think it makes Trump look like a victim of someone's attack, and it distracts from the inescapable fact that the sonofabitch didn't do his goddamn job of protecting the American people.  If it had been an attack then things would have been even worse... and conservatives would have been doing an even bigger disservice to their own country by cry-babying their idiotbitch asses off about being asked to do something as small as wearing a mask for the public good.  "Muh riGhtS, natzi Germany holoCaust is the SaMe as asKinG me to where uh may-usk, muh-muh-muh!"  Shut the fuck up and pull together already without always crying about every damn thing.   Recognize Marjorie Taylor Greene ain't doin' yer ass any favors and kick her and big-nose Boebert out of the party if you want to be treated like an adult.  Otherwise, get used to people thinking you're dumb, because that's the only reputation you're earning.

And while I'm at it, this revisionist Tucker Carlson shit about trying to get the Capitol insurrection off the Trumpers' hands is pathetic.  I get it, Republicans are having the apex-stupid moment of a long, stupid history of stupid-dumb-idiot-stupid-stupid, but for fuck's sake there oughtta be a LIMIT.   It was right wingers who attacked the Capitol, and they were trying to cause harm.  Accept it, see it for the problem it is, and work on getting that element out of your party so it can move forward.  It wasn't all right wingers, not by a long shot, but since most right-wing leadership is trying to defend that shit or downplay it or say it was "just tourists," it's making it look like more of the right-wing is sympathetic with that kind of shit than it should be.  Until more Republicans get some courage and join people like Adam Kinzinger, Mitt Romney, and Liz Cheney (who I hate to have to say anything nice about, but, credit is due) and admit "This happened, it was Republicans, they were wrong and that craziness needs to be shut down and kicked out of the party,"  then they're going to have a mess, and they're going to deserve it.  And I don't really give a flyin' fuck what happens to the Republican party.  After what they've done to states like mine, I'm fine with 'em going extinct.  But they're still a sizeable bloc of people, and unless and until they start finding the courage to face reality about what's happening, they're a danger to the country.   I get it, "team sports," you hate "the libtards," whatever... but the price is getting too high for anybody to be playing that game anymore.  

I was actually seeing some right-wingers cheering on Putin at this last meeting.  They'd rather see Russia win than Biden get any credit for success in looking after the country.  That's sick.   I hate Trump, I hope the fucker gets eaten alive by rats, but I never wanted the country to be hurt just to make him look bad.  That's way-yonder too far.   But that's where a lot of right-wingers are going right now.  They need to step back and think about that undermining-their-own shit.  You don't have to like Biden, but you damn sure better like him better'n Vladimir goddamn Putin.



* footnote: I also told the guy that thinking China's attacking us through hand sanitizer is a pretty looney idea that he should probably sit down and think real hard about. And that if he doesn't like the hand sanitizer, he should maybe stop frickin' USING IT? That never occurred to him. Agh, it's painful, dealing with people here...

zsomething wrote:Joe Rogan's about as credible as Alex Jones.  Drugged-out motherfucker doesn't even believe there was actually a moon landing, so I'm not listening to that shitbag whether he supports my position or not.   Posting stuff from him is as gullible as believing the Epoch Times is a credible source.

Anyway, I see right-wingers are still trying to make it a big thing whether the virus came from a lab or not.

Don't think we can ever know for certain, but I'm not sure why -- other than they love blaming everything on non-white folks -- it really matters so much to them... other than they don't seem to understand very basic things.

Although I'll admit this isn't only right-wingers.  I run into one liberal guy who talks to me sometimes (he knows I hate the same local editorial schmuck in the newspaper that he does, so now he always wants to talk politics with me), and he's a nice enough guy and all, but he dropped a stupid-bomb on me the other day.... which is the same stupid-bomb several right-winger co-workers believe, but I expect it from them because... well, I talked about their intellect last week.

Anyhow, after I heard this silly-ass horseshit -- which still isn't as silly-ass as the average stuff I hear from the FOX-watchers at work -- I had to reshuffle the deck and put this guy in the idiot stack:  he thinks the Chinese are putting some secret chemical in hand sanitizer.  See, he thinks he got COVID a few months ago (which he thinks came from a Chinese lab), and he lost some of his sense of smell and taste... and it's only recently starting to come back, but he tastes the hand sanitizer he uses all the time... which he imagines is made in China.   Although we don't know that -- he just figures it is because dumb people figure everything's made in China.

Anyway, he was asking me if I didn't think the Chinese attacked us with this virus, and I had to patiently clue Mr. Fucking Stupid Dumbass Moronidiot that, no, we weren't "attacked" with it.   Now, I don't know if it came from a lab or not.  Maybe it did.  But if it was a bio-weapon then it's the stupidest bio-weapon ever, 'cuz the kill rate is too small and it has its least effect on people of military age.  When you're unleashing biological warfare (like smallpox blankets, which Republicans don't like schoolkids learning about because white people look bad in that one), you wanna kill off your enemy's military strength, so you don't have to fight 'em.   COVID's a bad disease, but it's least effective in taking out military age folks.  Even as a disruptor, it's of little strategic use because (A) again, the kill-rate's not high enough, and (B) ya can't keep it from infecting your own people.  You don't unleash a "weapon" until you have a defense for it.  All around, it'd make a sorry weapon.  Also, the name of the lab that Jon Stewart was talking about cinches the deal that it wasn't a weapon.  Why'n the fuck would anybody name a lab after a disease they were trying to use as a weapon?  That'd be dumb.  You can damn betcha we're trying to develop sonic and laser weaponry, but they're not coming from the "Institute for Neural Disruptors" or the "Laboratory For The Study Of Long Range Human Combustion" or even "Death Rays R Us."  I mean, shit, please don't be that fucking non-logical.*


All of these factors are why right-wingers (and this particular left-winger) are only making themselves look like stupes who don't understand basic things with this mania to blame China.  "Blame" works really well for something done maliciously.  It's kinda pointless for a mistake or accident, though.  And if this thing escaped from a lab, which it may well have, it's pretty obviously a mistake, because there just isn't a good case to be made for it being anything else.  So the only real worth in investigating that is to prevent it from happening again... not to assigning "blame."   Without malicious intent, what's the real point?

And anybody who thinks they shouldn't have labs to study such things are just earning compound interest on their stupidity at this point, because... ya damn well better be studying viruses, because they're gonna mutate and get more dangerous, and you study them in order to get ahead of 'em.  If it escaped from a lab, then that sucks, but that lab was doing good work and a necessary thing.  Should have taken more precautions if it escaped, sure, but the work itself was something people better be doing.  

So, no, I don't see the "blame China" horseshit as much more than another bigoty-ass way for bigots to go about their bigoting.  Right-wingers just like that because they think it makes Trump look like a victim of someone's attack, and it distracts from the inescapable fact that the sonofabitch didn't do his goddamn job of protecting the American people.  If it had been an attack then things would have been even worse... and conservatives would have been doing an even bigger disservice to their own country by cry-babying their idiotbitch asses off about being asked to do something as small as wearing a mask for the public good.  "Muh riGhtS, natzi Germany holoCaust is the SaMe as asKinG me to where uh may-usk, muh-muh-muh!"  Shut the fuck up and pull together already without always crying about every damn thing.   Recognize Marjorie Taylor Greene ain't doin' yer ass any favors and kick her and big-nose Boebert out of the party if you want to be treated like an adult.  Otherwise, get used to people thinking you're dumb, because that's the only reputation you're earning.

And while I'm at it, this revisionist Tucker Carlson shit about trying to get the Capitol insurrection off the Trumpers' hands is pathetic.  I get it, Republicans are having the apex-stupid moment of a long, stupid history of stupid-dumb-idiot-stupid-stupid, but for fuck's sake there oughtta be a LIMIT.   It was right wingers who attacked the Capitol, and they were trying to cause harm.  Accept it, see it for the problem it is, and work on getting that element out of your party so it can move forward.  It wasn't all right wingers, not by a long shot, but since most right-wing leadership is trying to defend that shit or downplay it or say it was "just tourists," it's making it look like more of the right-wing is sympathetic with that kind of shit than it should be.  Until more Republicans get some courage and join people like Adam Kinzinger, Mitt Romney, and Liz Cheney (who I hate to have to say anything nice about, but, credit is due) and admit "This happened, it was Republicans, they were wrong and that craziness needs to be shut down and kicked out of the party,"  then they're going to have a mess, and they're going to deserve it.  And I don't really give a flyin' fuck what happens to the Republican party.  After what they've done to states like mine, I'm fine with 'em going extinct.  But they're still a sizeable bloc of people, and unless and until they start finding the courage to face reality about what's happening, they're a danger to the country.   I get it, "team sports," you hate "the libtards," whatever... but the price is getting too high for anybody to be playing that game anymore.  

I was actually seeing some right-wingers cheering on Putin at this last meeting.  They'd rather see Russia win than Biden get any credit for success in looking after the country.  That's sick.   I hate Trump, I hope the fucker gets eaten alive by rats, but I never wanted the country to be hurt just to make him look bad.  That's way-yonder too far.   But that's where a lot of right-wingers are going right now.  They need to step back and think about that undermining-their-own shit.  You don't have to like Biden, but you damn sure better like him better'n Vladimir goddamn Putin.



* footnote: I also told the guy that thinking China's attacking us through hand sanitizer is a pretty looney idea that he should probably sit down and think real hard about.  And that if he doesn't like the hand sanitizer, he should maybe stop frickin' USING IT?  That never occurred to him.  Agh, it's painful, dealing with people here...

"Death Rays R Us" you deserve a Mark Twain Award for that one.

'It just went boom': Florida ICU's swamped with younger COVID victims

According to a report from the Miami Herald, Florida hospitals are being overwhelmed with COVID-19 patients once again in frightening numbers as the Delta variant spreads rapidly among the unvaccinated in the state.

Florida has long been a hot spot for COVID-19 infections as Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis has resisted recommendations from health officials and refuses to mandate the wearing of masks -- recently giving parents the option of not masking up their kids returning to school.

As the Herald report notes, the new flood of victims flooding in are even sicker than before -- and also younger.

Pointing out that every bed in Miami's Jackson Memorial Hospital is filled at the moment, the report notes that every patient was unvaccinated and now suffering the devastating effect of COVID-19.

"The youngest patient, a 27-year-old woman on a ventilator, had to be resuscitated with a bag valve mask after her blood oxygen saturation levels crashed. The oldest, a 71-year-old man, has been in the ICU for two weeks. He has been in a coma for three days. When he awakens, if he awakens, he will be a widower. The man's wife, also hospitalized with COVID-19, died two days earlier," the report states. "Many healthcare workers at Jackson Memorial thought the end of the pandemic was in sight, largely due to the effectiveness of the vaccines. Then the delta variant took hold, particularly in areas with low vaccination rates, and cases are surging again, only at a faster clip."

Describing the sudden surge from variant, Ademola Ayo Akinkunmi, director of patient care services for Jackson Health bluntly stated, "It just went boom," before adding, "No matter how hard we work to discharge patients we know there are others coming."

The report goes on to note, "In Florida, the number of new cases and the rate of positive tests for the virus that causes COVID-19 — a measure known as the level of community transmission — is high in all 67 counties, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data. On Saturday, Florida reported 21,683 new COVID-19 cases as of July 30, the single-highest daily COVID case count since the pandemic began 18 months ago, according to CDC data. The seven-day moving average soared to 15,817, a more than 750% increase since July 1."

According to Alix Zacharski, manager of the medical intensive care unit at Jackson Memorial, the critically-ill patients they are seeing are way younger -- and way sicker -- than they were during the first wave of COVID victims.

"Unlike last year, we're getting a very young population, which is extremely concerning because this time we're now getting young people without pre-existing conditions," Zacharski admitted. "So that's scarier."

Case in point, the Herald reports, "On a recent weekday afternoon, Zacharski was working in the ICU when a 27-year-old patient's vital signs crashed, triggering an alarm on a computer monitor in the nurses' station. Her blood oxygen saturation levels had dropped suddenly from 95 to 64. Normal readings usually range from 95 to 100, and anything below 90 is considered low. As the patient's heart rate accelerated, Zacharski and her colleagues rushed to the patient's room and removed the ventilator from her throat. Then they applied a bag valve mask, pumping the air bag by hand to force oxygen into the patient's lungs."

"The medical team revived the patient, and her blood oxygen levels slowly recovered. It's possible that the patient's blood oxygen levels crashed because of a mucus plug, Zacharski said, emphasizing that dangerous complications can arise at any time," the report continued with Zacharski adding, "People come down with it within five days and they're really sick. They are coming to the hospital saying, 'I don't feel good. I can't breathe'. That's when you're feeling, 'Oh, this is very different from what it was before.' "



https://www.alternet.org/2021/08/ron-desantis-2654336770/

DeSantis Leads Florida Into COVID Hell As Cases Hit New Record

"Two days after Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis issued an executive order preventing schools from requiring students to wear masks, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released data showing the state broke records with 21,683 new cases of the virus in one day. In just two days, the number of new cases spiked from 17,093 to more than 21,000, beating a peak of 19,334 new cases reported on Jan. 7, 2021 in Florida, The Associated Press reported.

"The state has become the new national epicenter for the virus, accounting for around a fifth of all new cases in the U.S. as the highly contagious Delta variant of the coronavirus continues to spread," Associated Press writer Mike Schneider wrote on Saturday.

The new figures tracked on Friday and released on Saturday follow the governor's outright rejection of expert advice throughout the pandemic. "The federal government has no right to tell parents that in order for their kids to attend school in person, they must be forced to wear a mask all day, every day," DeSantis said in a news release on Friday. "Many Florida schoolchildren have suffered under forced masking policies, and it is prudent to protect the ability of parents to make decisions regarding the wearing of masks by their children." DeSantis attributed the recent spoke to "a seasonal increase—more Floridians are indoors because of the hot weather with air conditioning circulating the virus," according to The Associated Press..."


https://www.nationalmemo.com/desantis-covid-masks-schools

****************

If only all those thousands of overweight, pasty-skinned, unwashed, uneducated New York tourista morons would just stay home....

That people are looking at DeSantis as a presidential candidate makes me marvel at the power of brainwashing. They can't see a disastrous failure even when they're grabbed by the scruff of the neck and have their nose rubbed in it. There's literally nobody so incompetent that they won't reject 'em.

On the good news side, one of my right-wing co-workers is going to go get vaccinated, despite all the stuff on Facebook. She's actually thinking that people on her side of the aisle have become crazy regarding the virus. She didn't get vaccinated initially because she's had bad reactions to vaccines in the past, but decided it's safer to risk a reaction than it is to risk getting COVID. Good for her.

Now, if several of our other co-workers would also wise up. A couple of 'em who are refusing the vaccine are pretty dang fat, which puts them at a far greater risk if they catch it. Hope their luck will hold out, but the way this thing's spreading in this state, I sure wouldn't wanna gamble on it. Even if it doesn't kill you, it'll wreck your health for a long damn time.

The Cleveland Clinic

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.06.01.21258176v2

Results: Among the 52238 included employees, 1359 (53%) of 2579 previously infected subjects remained unvaccinated, compared with 22777 (41%) of 49659 not previously infected. The cumulative incidence of SARS-CoV-2 infection remained almost zero among previously infected unvaccinated subjects, previously infected subjects who were vaccinated, and previously uninfected subjects who were vaccinated, compared with a steady increase in cumulative incidence among previously uninfected subjects who remained unvaccinated. Not one of the 1359 previously infected subjects who remained unvaccinated had a SARS-CoV-2 infection over the duration of the study. In a Cox proportional hazards regression model, after adjusting for the phase of the epidemic, vaccination was associated with a significantly lower risk of SARS-CoV-2 infection among those not previously infected (HR 0.031, 95% CI 0.015 to 0.061) but not among those previously infected (HR 0.313, 95% CI 0 to Infinity).

Summary: Cumulative incidence of COVID-19 was examined among 52238 employees in an American healthcare system. COVID-19 did not occur in anyone over the five months of the study among 2579 individuals previously infected with COVID-19, including 1359 who did not take the vaccine.

Conclusions: Individuals who have had SARS-CoV-2 infection are unlikely to benefit from COVID-19 vaccination, and vaccines can be safely prioritized to those who have not been infected before.

"We know today that many of the face cloth wearings people wear today are not very effective in reducing any of the virus movement in or out. Either you're breathing out or you're breathing in," Osterholm said during an interview with CNN. "We need to talk about better masking. We need to talk about N95 respirators." University of Minnesota Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy Director Michael Osterholm

"The typical mask you buy in the drug store is not really effective in keeping out virus, which is small enough to pass through the material. It might, however, provide some slight benefit in keep out gross droplets if someone coughs or sneezes on you. I do not recommend you wear a mask." Dr. Fauci

White House Friday, Press Secretary Jen Psaki: "Osterholm is not an [current] advisor to the president, to the administration, to the White House, he doesn't work here. He's a private citizen and a public health expert, but a lot of public health experts are out there speaking, and good for them. I will say that we are going to rely on the advice of medical experts in the federal government on what kind of masks we all should wear, what kind of masks kids should wear and if they change that advice then the Department of Education will be working with schools to make sure the is implemented as a mitigation measure."

The Little General rallies the troops against the enemy, AKA common sense. He stops short of saying "I will lead you." but only a blithering idiot would make that claim.

www.cnbc.com/amp/2021/06/25/covid-breakthrough-cases-cdc-says-more-than-4100-people-have-been-hospitalized-or-died-after-vaccination.html