Met Summer Banter

[HoarfrostHubb]

Sometimes I can’t stand his shit.  Sometimes I agree with him.  
Sometimes I learn something. 
 

It’s pretty amazing that he won’t ever admit to being anything other than 100% right all the time and we are all just idiots

 

[HoarfrostHubb]

And in more important news, Treehouse in Charlton is now doing pours.  Enjoy

[WhitinsvilleWX]

4 minutes ago, HoarfrostHubb said:

And in more important news, Treehouse in Charlton is now doing pours.  Enjoy

 

[WhitinsvilleWX]

9 minutes ago, STILL N OF PIKE said:

There has not been any surprise in the efficacy in the data I saw . The trials may have had people sheltering more and certainly less interacting than currently (but there is also much less cases around now ) . I believe it was estimated that real world results in efficacy would be 90% even when the trial data was showing 94% and I think this is what some experts have said is being  borne out. 

It's still 90%+. For comparison, the mumps vaccine is 78%. Highly successful vaccine BTW. Not as much breakthrough since less mumps circulate. Once covid circulation drops more, you'll see fewer breakthroughs.

[WhitinsvilleWX]

9 minutes ago, HoarfrostHubb said:

 

It’s pretty amazing that he won’t ever admit to being anything other than 100% right all the time and we are all just idiots

 

LOL. He's ok. Just a typical engineer. I've known a bunch and they all have the same personality. 

[radarman]

27 minutes ago, Typhoon Tip said:

This whole ordeal was a dress rehearsal - a test, to see if RNA delivery systems can be used efficiently on live targets for the eventual d-day trigger event.  Population and resource procurement is an unattainable, unsustainable physical impossibility so...wipe out 97% of the population, leave the tech infrastructures and libraries in place.  

Boom, problem solved.  Enough pop density for a viable species health remains alive, and the wheel doesn't have to re-invented.  

[Typhoon Tip]

25 minutes ago, STILL N OF PIKE said:

Covid does seem “over” for now In the USA. I mean basically .

Late fall winter may offer some opportunities but the vaccines seem to be doing extremely well at preventing hospitalization and i would think the biggest issue this may create for drug companies is that the percent getting the booster will be much lower than the initial vaccine (because deaths and cases will likely be so low by the time the booster is offered ) .
 

Now if the majority of annual flu shots are able to be combined with a Covid vaccine manufacturer then I think That is the key to having a higher booster shot vaccination rate ( short of a large increase in deaths)

 

Lol -

one way or the other, perhaps.

It was a bit of a race - between patience as a general cultural tenor, collapsing in revolt, vs some semblance in the over arcing theme of the Pandemic's gestation that a salvation was nearing. That latter came in just in time.

SO, a vaccine was produced in unheralded short amount of time, so fast as to wonder if the arc of science was fully executed.  LIke, almost as though it was already invented ? hmm 

kidding -

But, that gave some sort of vibe of resiliency back and the airs of humanity and society were more willing for the perseverance to wait it out.   

Sarcasm aside, I do think that if there wasn't that salvation in sight, the salvation would have come by turning attention aside.   It's just a sociological hot-take but one I advanced early on in this, and can argue evidences were beginning to emerge suggesting break points were nearing - then the vaccine waved through. And one way or the other, its basically over.

[HoarfrostHubb]

6 minutes ago, WhitinsvilleWX said:

LOL. He's ok. Just a typical engineer. I've known a bunch and they all have the same personality. 

Oh I know.  I’m just bustin balls.     

[PhineasC]

1 hour ago, RUNNAWAYICEBERG said:

The dude told us many weeks ago this is over, to stop talking about it, and to go on with our lives…and look at him, he can’t help himself. Glued to covid 24/7 lol. 

I give a shit about paranoid parents injecting their kids to make themselves feel better, I guess. Guilty as charged.

[PhineasC]

1 hour ago, Spanks45 said:

I will wait to see what direction Covid decides to take before I make a decision on whether my children get the vaccine. However, at this point I would feel safer having them get this vaccine than I would taking them to eat at McDonalds everyweek or feeding them hormone enhanced Franken meats. The longterm effects on our population being fed the food we are today has not yet been studied and highly questionable if we really want to go down that road.....

I don't disagree. There are many things we allow kids to do that are more dangerous or detrimental to them than a vaccine. 

I would say that allowing your child to be morbidly obese and eat McDonalds every day also makes you a monster. There is a good chance you are actively shortening their lifespan due to your own laziness.

[PhineasC]

50 minutes ago, HoarfrostHubb said:

Sometimes I can’t stand his shit.  Sometimes I agree with him.  
Sometimes I learn something. 
 

It’s pretty amazing that he won’t ever admit to being anything other than 100% right all the time and we are all just idiots

 

I am definitely an acquired taste, like a cicada.

There are hundreds of media outlets repeating the same messaging every day all day about COVID and vaccines. I'm sure you guys can handle one lone crazy person on the Internet saying something else.

[PhineasC]

1 hour ago, WhitinsvilleWX said:

Link?

You may be a great engineer, but you know shit about pharma, clinical trials an drug development:

https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2021/05/three-vaccines-show-promise-against-covid-variants

The natural course of variants are steadily eroding vaccine efficacy from the prior laboratory and trial results.

I don't think that is unexpected. Just saying that we are still learning about this virus and the vaccines, hence my original "experimental" comment.

[tamarack]

1 hour ago, Typhoon Tip said:

This whole ordeal was a dress rehearsal - a test, to see if RNA delivery systems can be used efficiently on live targets for the eventual d-day trigger event.  Population and resource procurement is an unattainable, unsustainable physical impossibility so...wipe out 97% of the population, leave the tech infrastructures and libraries in place.  

Boom, problem solved.  Enough pop density for a viable species health remains alive, and the wheel doesn't have to re-invented.  

Hve you read Clancy's "Rainbow Six"?  Only difference is intent vs. happenstance.

[TauntonBlizzard2013]

I have seen nothing to indicate efficacy in the “real world” isn’t somewhere near where it was in the trials. It’s not like we went from 95% to 40%. A shave of a percentage or two was kind of expected; and many expressed that.

 

Wherever that information is coming from smells like an anti vax stance to me. Questioning the efficacy as a way to cast doubt on the shot

[HoarfrostHubb]

8 minutes ago, PhineasC said:

I am definitely an acquired taste, like a cicada.

There are hundreds of media outlets repeating the same messaging every day all day about COVID and vaccines. I'm sure you guys can handle one lone crazy person on the Internet saying something else.

I kid.  
speaking of cicadas Brood x or whatever,  I only ever saw them in large #s as a kid on Cape Cod in the late 1970s or so.   Very cool bugs.  
I have seen one or two random ones since then. Never a mass emergence. 

[HoarfrostHubb]

The whole of human existence and life in general is experimental.  

[PhineasC]

7 minutes ago, TauntonBlizzard2013 said:

I have seen nothing to indicate efficacy in the “real world” isn’t somewhere near where it was in the trials. It’s not like we went from 95% to 40%. A shave of a percentage or two was kind of expected; and many expressed that.

 

Wherever that information is coming from smells like an anti vax stance to me. Questioning the efficacy as a way to cast doubt on the shot

It came from "science."

Quote

In the second NEJM study, researchers from Weill Cornell Medicine and Hamad Medical Corp. in Qatar used national COVID-19 data to analyze the efficacy of the Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine against B1351 and B117, which was first observed in the United Kingdom.

As of Mar 31, 385,853 people in Qatar had received at least one dose of the vaccine, and 265,410 had received two doses. After Mar 7, almost all COVID-19 cases in Qatar were caused by B1351 or B117. 

Estimated Pfizer vaccine efficacy against B117 was 89.5% (95% CI, 85.9% to 92.3%) at least 14 days after the second dose, while efficacy against B1351 was 75.0% (95% CI, 70.5% to 78.9%). Efficacy against severe outcomes caused by any SARS-CoV-2 variant was 97.4% (95% CI, 92.2% to 99.5%).

When the researchers used a cohort study design to compare the incidence of infection in vaccinated people with that of an antibody-negative national cohort, vaccine efficacy against B117 was estimated at 87% (95% CI, 81.8% to 90.7%), and efficacy against B1351 was 72.1% (95% CI, 66.4% to 76.8%).

The authors observed that the vaccine was effective against the variants but that efficacy against B1351 was about 20 percentage points lower than that reported in a December 2020 Pfizer vaccine efficacy trial and in real-world studies in Israel and the United States. Also, 6,689 people in Qatar who had received one dose of the vaccine and 1,616 who had received two doses had breakthrough infections as of Mar 31; five people died of their infections after the first dose, and two died after the second.

"Nevertheless, the reduced protection against infection with the B.1.351 variant did not seem to translate into poor protection against the most severe forms of infection (i.e., those resulting in hospitalization or death), which was robust, at greater than 90%," the researchers concluded.

 

[PhineasC]

7 minutes ago, HoarfrostHubb said:

I kid.  
speaking of cicadas Brood x or whatever,  I only ever saw them in large #s as a kid on Cape Cod in the late 1970s or so.   Very cool bugs.  
I have seen one or two random ones since then. Never a mass emergence. 

It's hitting 92 dB here last few days.

[STILL N OF PIKE]

Anyone got a Dewpoint Map

[TalcottWx]

Hubbardston, MA (Worcester County)| Major Accident| Williamsville Rd| U/D: OIC reports victim not impaled, serious open abdomen wound, 10 ft down embankment. Req recon. M/A:Barre| 18:32
 

[HoarfrostHubb]

2 minutes ago, DotRat_Wx said:

Hubbardston, MA (Worcester County)| Major Accident| Williamsville Rd| U/D: OIC reports victim not impaled, serious open abdomen wound, 10 ft down embankment. Req recon. M/A:Barre| 18:32
 

Oof.  Life Flight picking them up from our town field.  That road sucks.  

[PhineasC]

I guess those of you with pools have been hit by this "chlorine shortage" deal? I have a saltwater pool but the chlorine generator died so I have to add chlorine myself until it can be fixed. Sheesh, had to go to different stores and then finally got the last box of tablets I could find and it was 90 bucks! I bought some regular household bleach last night to pour in just to clear it up as it was starting to turn green. But it takes many jugs of regular bleach to do the job.

First a lumber shortage and now a chlorine shortage? I wonder what random thing will suddenly be suffering from a scarcity problem next... perhaps waffles or vacuum cleaners?

[Ginx snewx]

36 minutes ago, PhineasC said:

I guess those of you with pools have been hit by this "chlorine shortage" deal? I have a saltwater pool but the chlorine generator died so I have to add chlorine myself until it can be fixed. Sheesh, had to go to different stores and then finally got the last box of tablets I could find and it was 90 bucks! I bought some regular household bleach last night to pour in just to clear it up as it was starting to turn green. But it takes many jugs of regular bleach to do the job.

First a lumber shortage and now a chlorine shortage? I wonder what random thing will suddenly be suffering from a scarcity problem next... perhaps waffles or vacuum cleaners?

Tons of tablets here at Job lot. Very expensive this year. Just use shock as a chlorination. There are only 3 plants in the USA that make them and 1 died in the hurricane that hit Lake Charles La. Also so many people bought pools last summer and so many home using them. But again plenty up here and pallets of shock

[PhineasC]

4 minutes ago, Ginx snewx said:

Tons of tablets here at Job lot. Very expensive this year. Just use shock as a chlorination. There are only 3 plants in the USA that make them and 1 died in the hurricane that hit Lake Charles La. Also so many people bought pools last summer and so many home using them. But again plenty up here and pallets of shock

I couldn't find any shock here. Otherwise, I would have just used that. I checked three stores around me, Home Depot and Walmarts. Home Depot had no pool supplies whatsoever.

Walmart at least had one box of tablets left. Might be a localized thing, but the pool rush time should be over here by now. People open the pools around here in mid-April.

[Dan76]

Ordered a cap for my pickup I bought in March.....see you in September lol.

[RUNNAWAYICEBERG]

Import supply is crippled with worldwide container shortages, jammed ports, and skyrocketing ocean freight costs. The biggest importer in the world, Walmart, is having difficulty securing containers. Capacity is a huge problem with no end in sight. The good thing to come out of this is the smarter American companies are beginning to realize the benefits of producing domestically again. The penny pinching savings from closing plants in the US to abuse cheap Asian labor has begun to wane. It will take a while but we also need congress to eventually strap on their big boy pants and incentivize American companies who benefit from American consumers to produce in America. It creates jobs and improves supply chain efficiency. But that may mean CEOs and shareholders may actually have to make a little less millions and billions to make this change sustainable. Crazy idea, I know. 

[STILL N OF PIKE]

Supply chain disruptions . The chip issue in cars and iPhones won’t be cleared to till after least early next year and should become worse before better . A handful of car manufacturers who didn’t secure supplies were hit very hard by this (Ford, Chevy, Jeep) disastah.

[PhineasC]

25 minutes ago, RUNNAWAYICEBERG said:

Import supply is crippled with worldwide container shortages, jammed ports, and skyrocketing ocean freight costs. The biggest importer in the world, Walmart, is having difficulty securing containers. Capacity is a huge problem with no end in sight. The good thing to come out of this is the smarter American companies are beginning to realize the benefits of producing domestically again. The penny pinching savings from closing plants in the US to abuse cheap Asian labor has begun to wane. It will take a while but we also need congress to eventually strap on their big boy pants and incentivize American companies who benefit from American consumers to produce in America. It creates jobs and improves supply chain efficiency. But that may mean CEOs and shareholders may actually have to make a little less millions and billions to make this change sustainable. Crazy idea, I know. 

Or they will simply raise prices and create artificial shortages. It's not like people really have a choice to not shop at Walmart and Amazon now. Those two are sometimes literally the only reasonable retail choices people have. It's not really a free market where people can simply take their money elsewhere.

I doubt anyone in Congress has the guts to confront Amazon, who will be taking over basically all retail if Walmart is forced to confront higher costs due to US-based manufacturing and then raises prices. Amazon and Walmart only "work" as business models because of cheap overseas goods.

I don't think anyone disagrees with bringing the jobs and production back to the US, but we will need to get used to paying higher prices in that kind of environment. Our economy is geared around endless consumption these days so there hasn't been much effort to go there.

You talk about soaking the rich for billions of dollars, but is the average middle-class American family ready to forgo the latest laptops, TVs, cellphones, video game consoles, new furniture, etc?

[PhineasC]

Just now, STILL N OF PIKE said:

Supply chain disruptions . The chip issue in cars and iPhones won’t be cleared to till after least early next year and should become worse before better . A handful of car manufacturers who didn’t secure supplies were hit very hard by this (Ford, Chevy, Jeep) disastah.

It's getting pretty hard to believe anything in the economy is real and naturally-occurring at this point. It all seems very fake and manufactured. A giant bubble, or a balloon that is being squeezed at different ends by someone.

[STILL N OF PIKE]

Just now, PhineasC said:

It's getting pretty hard to believe anything in the economy is real and naturally-occurring at this point. It all seems very fake and manufactured. A giant bubble, or a balloon that is being squeezed at different ends by someone.

Covid closures were the main culprit for supply chain disruptions