The viral load being exhausted into the air makes it more infective. — Book273

There has to be more to it than just that. Good hypothesis though! :up:

In a nutshell, not really. Omicron reproduces 70 times more than previous strains, in the upper airways, nasal passages etc, and gets exhaled out with higher viral loads. Viola! higher spread. It seems to not get as deep into the lungs and has greater difficulty penetrating the lung tissue...viola! Less severe outcomes. It doesn't have to be complex.

Simple is harder to fight actually. It is usually more resilient and has less areas to exploit weakness in. A better mouse trap is simple, not more complex.

Nothing complex about a tsunami: a big wall of water moving at 150+ kilometers per hour. However, all you can do is get out of it's way, if not, you are screwed.

I have many times on this thread and others. It’s all over the papers and polling. Republicans, Trump voting districts, evangelical Christians, etc — all much more likely to refuse the vaccine. — Xtrix

A majority of Republicans believe these things, yes. — Xtrix

Yet...

Why do you think doctors are recommending the vaccines so much? We're in a pandemic and we have safe and effective vaccines, and so those who are eligible should take them. Fairly simple — Xtrix

So here's a conundrum for you.

https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/hospital-physician-relationships/physicians-in-these-14-specialties-more-likely-to-vote-republican.html

Doctors in Family Medicine are more likely than not to vote Republican. even if you take the data direct from Campaign contribution data from the FEC, it's about 50/50 across Physicians in general.

So most Republicans are mislead by the media - we know they're being mislead because they deny the truth. The truth that has been told to us by our physicians...most of whom are Republicans, the ones who are mislead...

Err?

don't think this is the appropriate place for this discussion (which is purely about economics). I've given a very brief case, as have you both. — Isaac

I don't think it's inappropriate to caution other posters about hyperbole and misinformation, especially wrt a public health issue

Does that sound like an out of control monster? — Isaac

If the inflation persists and the economy tanks (stagflation), it might result in an out of control monster. We have to understand that the actions taken against the pandemic have been taken in the economic realm.

We cannot just think of the pandemic as a health or medical issue and then assume that other things, like the economy or economic policy, are totally separate from it.

Around here the government has seized the economy, effectively denying many people to conduct businesses, and in some cases to leave their homes, to enter businesses, to gather with others.

Unfortunately, these aren’t market forces at work here, but legislation that favors those who can afford to adapt to capricious government policy, those who who can afford to work from home, those who work on the internet, and so on.

None of this would have been possible without a vast segment of corporate interest, as large telecommunication companies, social media companies, multinational technology companies, media companies, have already provided the infrastructure required to pull it all off. We have effectively been forced to use their products and services, if not to survive, than to retain some sanity during isolation. Our loss, in fact, is their gain.

I don't think it's inappropriate to caution other posters about hyperbole and misinformation, especially wrt a public health issue — frank

No, neither do I.

Good to see you joining lustily in with the new tradition of calling disagreement 'misinformation'. You do have to move with the times.

If the inflation persists and the economy tanks (stagflation), it might result in an out of control monster. — ssu

We'll see.

We cannot just think of the pandemic as a health or medical issue and then assume that other things, like the economy or economic policy, are totally separate from it. — ssu

Yes, I completely agree, though I suspect you and I have very different ideas about how that economy functions.

I'm sorry, I mean... I suspect I have some misinformation about how that economy functions...

...I'm still getting used to the newspeak.

If you could provide evidence that the covid response was the biggest transfer of wealth from poor to rich in history, that would be much appreciated.

2022: same shit, different year :brow:

World record: 1 million Covid cases reported on Monday Jan. 3rd in U.S. and more half a million Covid cases average in last 7 days

Here you go:

https://newleftreview.org/issues/ii123/articles/robert-brenner-escalating-plunder

Incidentally, Americans who have not read this article are bad people.

If you could provide evidence that the covid response was the biggest transfer of wealth from poor to rich in history, that would be much appreciated. — frank

Well it appears to have been done already (thanks @StreetlightX).

Also there's https://ips-dc.org/us-billionaire-wealth-584-billion-20-percent-pandemic/

Billionaire wealth surged over $584 billion as $6.5 trillion in household wealth vanishes during first Quarter.

As the Federal Reserve reported during the week of June 10th, more than $6.5 trillion in household wealth vanished during the first three months of this year as the pandemic tightened its hold on the global economy. — IPS

This is the biggest economic shock in the U.S. and in the world, really, in living memory — Fed Chair, Jerome H. Powell

And https://americansfortaxfairness.org/issue/pressure-builds-repeal-135-billion-millionaires-giveaway-cares-act/

If you prefer your news in the right-wing flavour

https://www.forbes.com/sites/giacomotognini/2021/04/06/meet-the-40-new-billionaires-who-got-rich-fighting-covid-19/?sh=5f66e0b117e5

https://inthesetimes.com/article/covid-19-coronavirus-wealthy-corporate-welfare

https://www.ft.com/content/747a76dd-f018-4d0d-a9f3-4069bf2f5a93

Notwithstanding the evidence of transfer, the point I was making was simply that it's absurd to suggest the corporations have 'created a monster'. They've created the exact thing they intended to create - a distraction from their continued oppression of the working class. Same old...

Crises are capitalists' wet dream. Every time there is one - without tipping over into full blown revolution, which is the only proper alternative - they consolidate and secure their power and wealth. Anyone who knows anything about anything should know this. Capitalism lives on crises - it is an accelerant to it. The revelant question is at what point they tip their hand too far. Maybe once the hospital system explodes. Maybe not even then.

Yes, I completely agree, though I suspect you and I have very different ideas about how that economy functions.

I'm sorry, I mean... I suspect I have some misinformation about how that economy functions... — Isaac

Oh no worries, economists themselves have very different ideas about how the economy functions. As the saying goes, when two economists meet three alternative and opposing views of how the economy works are presented.

Unfortunately, these aren’t market forces at work here, but legislation that favors those who can afford to adapt to capricious government policy, those who who can afford to work from home, those who work on the internet, and so on. — NOS4A2

You don't have free markets anywhere. Didn't have much even before the pandemic. Especially what isn't tolerated at all is that the market would correct it's excesses, which has created the current economic situation we live in.

As this has been such a huge forced experiment, there has been also negative effects that everybody has seen. For example, the schooling from home has been a terrible disaster and it's something that (at least here) is the last thing the government wants to do.

:100: Latest manifestation (re: "neoliberal G7") of the perennial pyramid scheme of the prevailing (hegemonic) dominance hierarchies. Just like anthropogenic global warming: shareholder profits at accelerating costs to stakeholders.

Notwithstanding the evidence of transfer, the point I was making was simply that it's absurd to suggest the corporations have 'created a monster'. They've created the exact thing they intended to create - a distraction from their continued oppression of the working class. Same old... — Isaac

So you agree the largest wealth transfer in history didn't just happen. You coulda said so.

Incidentally, Americans who have not read this article are bad people — StreetlightX

There's no god, so it doesn't matter.

Yes, it’s a state-managed collectivist economy through-and-through, and the current seizure is only evidence of how far it is willing to go. But forcing businesses to limit capacity, to enforce mandates, to close early, to adopt shifting policies, to collect subsidies, to outlaw dancing, gathering, walking to the bathroom without a mask etc. is unprecedented, especially in countries that haven’t quite swallowed the socialist pill yet.

I disagree. I think it's come from those institutions themselves being demonstrably untrustworthy. — Isaac

So science is untrustworthy. Yes, I do disagree with this. I think science is, in fact, trustworthy— and the best enterprise we have for determining what’s true.

But it’s been undermined for political reasons. Climate denial, election fraud, vaccine irrationality, etc. All symptoms of the same underlining issue.

suggest that this crisis is a 'monster out of control' — Isaac

No one once said that “this crisis” (here I assume you’re referring to th pandemic) is a monster out of control. Rather, it is a symptom — along with election fraud and other instances you want to ignore — of an underlining problem. It is that underlining problem that is the monster. That underlining problem is a systematic, deliberate erosion of trust in science and expertise.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-021-01115-7

So most Republicans are mislead by the media - we know they're being mislead because they deny the truth. The truth that has been told to us by our physicians...most of whom are Republicans, the ones who are mislead... — Isaac

No.

This absurd debacle over whether Novak Djokovic can enter Australia and play in the Australian Open despite being unvaccinated illustrates so much of the theater and bullshit embedded in COVID policy.

There's not an iota of science or public health driving any of this madness:

Lol let Djokovic rot

Or is COVID irrelevant here and it's just Scotty from Marketing, (our Prime Minister), knowing how much people dislike Djokovic and using him in this instance to play populist games?

NOVAK Djokovic has the perfect name for someone who doesn't want vaccines

and Ass-ange

When called upon to believe that Barack Obama was really born in Kenya, millions got in line. When encouraged to believe that the 2012 Sandy Hook murder of twenty children and six adults was a hoax, too many stepped up. When urged to believe that Hillary Clinton was trafficking children in the basement of a Washington, D.C., pizza parlor with no basement, they bought it, and one of them showed up in the pizza place with a rifle to protect the kids. The fictions fed the frenzies, and the frenzies shaped the crises of 2020 and 2021. The delusions are legion: Secret Democratic cabals of child abusers, millions of undocumented voters, falsehoods about the Covid-19 pandemic and the vaccine.

While much has been said about the moral and political stance of people who support right-wing conspiracy theories, their gullibility is itself alarming. Gullibility means malleability and manipulability. We don’t know if the people who believed the prevailing 2012 conspiracy theories believed the 2016 or 2020 versions, but we do know that a swath of the conservative population is available for the next delusion and the one after that. And on Jan. 6, 2021, we saw that a lot of them were willing to act on those beliefs.
[...]

Though when we talk about cults and conspiracies we usually look to more outlandish beliefs, climate denial and gun obsessions both fit this template.

Both originated as industry agendas that were then embraced by both right-wing politicians and the right-leaning public. For decades, the fossil fuel industry pumped out ads and reports, and supported lobbyists and front groups misleading the public on the science and import of climate change. The current gun cult is likewise the result of the National Rifle Association and the gun industry pushing battlefield-style weapons and a new white male identity — more paramilitary than rural hunter — along with fear, rage and racist dog whistles. I think of it as a cult, because guns serve first as totems of identity and belonging, and because the beliefs seem counterfactual about guns as sources of safety rather than danger when roughly 60 percent of gun deaths are suicides and self-defense by gun is a surpassingly rare phenomenon.
[...]

Issues from climate to Covid are anathema to the right because solving them would require large-scale cooperation, in conflict with the idea that individual rights should be paramount. That may be why conservatives framed all Covid precautionary measures as violations of individual freedom. Dying for your beliefs has taken on grim new meaning: Since vaccines became widely available, counties that voted heavily for Donald Trump have had nearly three times the Covid-19 death rate as counties that voted for Joe Biden.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/05/opinion/republicans-trump-lies.html

So you agree the largest wealth transfer in history didn't just happen. — frank

Not sure how you get that from what I've said, but...

So science is untrustworthy. — Xtrix

Science is an activity, not an institution.

But it’s been undermined for political reasons. — Xtrix

What political reasons? What have the Republicans got to gain from vaccine hesitancy? The vast majority of their shares are in the companies who'll benefit from vaccine uptake, the vast majority of their lobbying money comes from those who'd benefit from vaccine uptake, so what have they got to gain from vaccine hesitancy? In fact, what has anyone got to gain from vaccine hesitancy?

No one once said that “this crisis” (here I assume you’re referring to th pandemic) is a monster out of control. — Xtrix

No, I'm referring to the 'crisis' you were talking about - that people believe any old crap they read on Facebook.

it is a symptom — along with election fraud and other instances you want to ignore — Xtrix

What am I ignoring?

That underlining problem is a systematic, deliberate erosion of trust in science and expertise. — Xtrix

Right. So a minority of people not trusting science and expertise is a monster for the powers that be? Why? What have they got to lose from that state of affairs?

You've not linked any of this to a 'problem' yet. What's the problem that's being caused by this minority not trusting scientists?

No. — Xtrix

Go on... If the Republican doctors are not mislead then how do you support your claim that a majority of Republicans are mislead? Are you claiming that doctors are somehow immune from the forces of misinformation that mislead all other Republicans? If so, then what's their secret? What's the source of this powerful immunity to influence they have - and more importantly, why did it fail them when a few complimentary soaps were enough to sway them toward prescribing lethal amounts of opioids?



From your article

When called upon to believe that...

Both originated as industry agendas...

...all good so far. Republicans win seats if Obama is pilloried, The gun lobby get sales if guns are still legal, the fossil fuel industry swell profits if climate change is denied.Then...

...vaccines...

Republicans gain if people take vaccines (the whole thing was developed on their watch). Industry gains if people take vaccines (by the billions of dollars), the most powerful lobby in the world is pushing for it and most countries (US included) are falling into line with increasingly draconian measure to make it impossible not to be vaccinated). So where's the problem here? Are there laws being avoided which could increase vaccine uptake? No. Are there budgets being cut which could have gone to vaccine manufacturers? No Are there regulations being put in place which make it difficult for vaccines to be produced and marketed? No. Are there pecuniary restrictions in place which artificially restrict vaccines in favour of their alternatives? No.

Unlike fossil fuels, voting shenanigans, gun laws, and every other right-wing lovechild. The entire system is already set up to make vaccines the clear winner. Vaccination is, without a shadow of a doubt, as well supported by the industrial and legal system as guns, fossil fuels and vote gerrymandering. Yet you're trying to paint them as the victims here. The poor oppressed pharmaceuticals who no-one trusts, how will they ever sell their products now, with so little trust. they've hardly got anyone rooting for them - just the largest lobbying group the world's ever seen, virtually every major news outlet in the country, a legal team the Gods themselves are frightened of and political support so strong that many countries are considering making it a legal requirement to 'enjoy' their products...

Sob! However will they cope!