The New Normal

[Milo Maltbie]

But you can. Doesn't matter who you are or what you believe. That's freedom.

Everyone is free to believe anything they want. Your freedom does not extend to putting public health at risk regardless of your beliefs. It’s pretty clear now that beliefs about vaccines, masks and unproven horse drugs are making the pandemic worse in places where those beliefs are prevalent and where people value “freedom “ over science and public health.

mm

 

[Milo Maltbie]

Louisiana is bracing for a big hit from Hurricane IDA. There is a lot to contend with, including the fact that hospitals are jammed full throughout the southeast and there is no nearby capacity to evacuate patients. Right now the plan is to leave all the patients in place, run the hospitals on huge generators and try to get power back on as quickly as possible. 10,000 lineman have been brought in to try to "quickly" fix the storm damage.

There has been a push to have hospitals install big generators ever since Superstorm Sandy. The idea is the hospital provides its own power and power for the immediate neighborhood. That keeps lots of services running and at least some residences livable. You hope that is enough to avert a disaster like Katrina.
Maybe next week will prove if it works.

mm

 

[wonderpony]

What is PI%?

I'm not abandoning the vax just assuming that at some point, like the flu vax, there will be a new version, modified to account for Delta or other variants. True or false?

I got sucked down the ivermectin rabbit hole last night on Facebook, wow.

Just in case you're curious, we don't use ivermectin that much anymore. It's primarily used for bots. Most of the horse people I know do fecals and adjust any deworming accordingly. I haven't wormed in years, due to a closed herd.

Botflies were a big issue when I was a kid. Ivermectin helped get rid of them. I haven't seen a bot fly egg on a horse's leg in years. I guess I can share my ivermectin.

 

[Brownski]

I haven't wormed in years

That’s awesome... trying to worm 20 horses in a day is a PITA. One of my least favorite horse memories

 

[wonderpony]

That’s awesome... trying to worm 20 horses in a day is a PITA. One of my least favorite horse memories

I am also not around cows. Cows are a big carrier of bots, if I remember correctly.

 

[tirolski]

In general, testing was slow to get organized in 2020. That applied to all types of testing including PCR, rapid antigen, and genomic sequencing.

If ya remember, testing sucked in the beginning.
We were flying blind.
Tis a bit better now but there’s gaps.
There’s OTC pregnancy tests as well as real time BAC tests sold OTC.
Technological advances should have had quick tests mass produced and cheap by now if not sooner.

 

[MarzNC]

Technological advances should have had quick tests mass produced and cheap by now if not sooner.

Yep, relatively cheap but reliable PCR tests should have been under development before March 2020.

The tricky part with the antigen rapid tests is that False Negatives are pretty common because the timing of when someone takes a test matters. That's why having a second test a few days later was important. On the NC Dashboard when antigen tests became more widely used, the stats were kept separate.

Rutgers came up with a saliva-based test early on. It was approved for emergency use by the FDA in April 2020. As I remember the cost if mass production had happened was estimated to be under $10. At least one other university developed a saliva-based test that was used for mass testing of students on a regular basis for the 2020-21 school year. Broad Institute in Boston was doing mass testing for a bunch of New England colleges. A ski buddy had a daughter in a small private college who was being tested three times a week because she lived off campus.

The express delivery approach by Vault for a home PCR test uses a saliva sample. Not cheap at about $120 last winter, but very convenient for my ski buddies who wanted/needed to be tested before and after a ski trip out west. Telemedicine was used so make sure the sample was taken properly. Alta Lodge had Vault test kits available at the desk in April 2021.

 

[G.ski]

Whew! These COVID threads are exhausting to read through.

Can't wait for the snow to fly!

 

[Harvey]

That's the cool thing, read it or don't, if you don't want to.

This made me chuckle, the dude retires on the spot:

UGA professor quits on the spot after student refuses to wear mask properly in class

The Red & Black reported that Irwin Bernstein, who is an 88-year-old retiree-rehire, resigned on Tuesday. Bernstein was teaching an upper division psychology seminar when a student arrived at a 25-person class without a mask.

www.wsbtv.com

 

[G.ski]

That's the cool thing, read it or don't, if you don't want to.

Quite a bit of good info here and more trustworthy than many other sources.
So it's worth the read.