COVID-19 / Coronavirus Pandemic

[TeDaDeS]

The article is scaremongering by inappropriate and incorrect use of publicly published statistics.

The past two years have proven it's hard to make a good conclusion based on a data-set.

While there is a lot of unscientific interpretation of data happening, it's also true that we are getting more information regarding these vaccines and covid itself. And usually it's showing that previously published 'facts' were to optimistic.
Examples:
Covid deaths -> Turns out they counted every death with covid, not only deaths due to covid. But if you cite VAERS it's fake news, as they just report any side-effect after a vaccination, who knows what might have caused death.
Vaccination is 95% effective -> Turns out it's for original covid only, and it wears off after 6-12 months, hence you need a booster. But if you cite research showing the vaccine wears off, it was fake-news. If you say it doesn't work 95% against newer strains it's also fake news.
Vaccination is 100% safe -> The mRNA vaccines have more reported side-effects reported in VAERS then any other vaccination combined in the history of VAERS, but you can't draw any conclusion from that as most reports are 'fake' according to fact-checkers.
mRNA vaccines don't alter DNA -> The mRNA vaccines (and probably covid itself) can reserve transcribe into DNA.

This doesn't mean vaccines against covid don't work, it's just that some of the bad news appears to be confirmed after everyone already got his shots. While it was dismissed earlier.
There appears to be a double standard on preferred news and critical ones. You'll always have people with extreme views you can't align with in any universe, but we've seen mainstream views as preferred fact above scientific research.
That almost looks like religion, holding on to a view that should clearly be illogical even by it's own standards.

The Daily Expose - Bias and Credibility

CONSPIRACY-PSEUDOSCIENCE Sources in the Conspiracy-Pseudoscience category may publish unverifiable information that is not always supported by evidence.

mediabiasfactcheck.com

"Media Bias/Fact Check is a widely cited source for news stories and even studies about misinformation, despite the fact that its method is in no way scientific."

Here's what to expect from fact-checking in 2019 - Poynter

From person-to-person coaching and intensive hands-on seminars to interactive online courses and media reporting, Poynter helps journalists sharpen skills and elevate storytelling throughout their careers.

www.poynter.org

Even Media Bias agrees this website is usually on point: https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/poynter-institute/
Not say Media Bias is wrong, just showing that you'll probably find a counter argument online for most stuff.

 

[levi]

Presumably those right wingers and other alt facters have noticed that newspapers fact check services were pushing back on their narritive to the extent that they were having trouble putting their point of view across. This has led them to set up their own fact check services and now we can't tell truth from lies online.

 

[Confuzzled]

Research regarding mRNA being reverse-transcribed into the human cell genome was actually done in this previous study: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33958444/

Perhaps you should read the comments on the article you link to there:

No evidence of SARS-CoV-2 reverse transcription and integration as the origin of chimeric transcripts in patient tissues​

The very low frequency of identified chimeric events (Table 1) suggests that SARS-CoV-2 integra-tion into the host genome is unlikely. Given that the HEK293T-L1 model increases detection of “rare inte-gration events” and L1 can retrotranspose any poly-adenylated cellular RNA (2) and “insertions” are found preferentially in protein-coding exons, a bias unknown to L1 endonuclease insertions (3), these findings are likely spurious. Additionally, 2 of the identified 61 chime-ric nanopore genomic DNA (gDNA) reads contain hu-man DNA from separate chromosomes (chr1,chr22 and chr18,chrX, respectively), suggesting a portion of chime-ric gDNA nanopore reads have arisen due to infrequent technical artifacts, such as base-calling software not rec-ognizing an open-pore state between distinct molecules.
...
Given the inappropriate interpretation of high-throughput sequencing methods and improper experimental design by the authors (1), we ask for restraint about the conclusions presented by the study. It remains unlikely that retrotranscription and integra-tion of the SARS-CoV-2 genome in patients happens at any nota-ble frequency, or even at all.

Assessment of potential SARS-CoV-2 virus integration into human genome reveals no significant impact on RT-qPCR COVID-19 testing​

Only 2 out of 768 samples (0.26%) reproducibly amplified SARS-COV-2 sequences in the absence of RevT enzyme (Tables 1 and and2).2). We attributed spurious −RevT signals to amplicon DNA contaminations, a likely source of artifacts in laboratories performing a high volume of RT-qPCR of the same target, that, in diagnostic laboratories, can be controlled with frequent and thorough surveillance and decontamination procedures. Moreover, samples amplified in the absence of RevT enzyme show much higher Ct values than +RevT matched reactions, demonstrating the presence of abundant viral RNA in the analyzed samples. This indicates that, regardless of possible genomic integration of SARS-CoV-2, all patients reported as positive were infected with SARS-CoV-2 virus, demonstrating no impact of possible viral integration on COVID-19 diagnosis.

Integration of SARS-CoV-2 RNA in infected human cells by retrotransposons: an unlikely hypothesis and old viral relationships ​

Overall, it seems unlikely that the L1 machinery is responsible for “genuine” SARS-CoV-2 genomic inte-gration in infected cells. In fact, this process of trans-mobilization has been infrequent even for exogenous retroviruses that use integration as a key feature of their replication cycle.

 

[Confuzzled]

The past two years have proven it's hard to make a good conclusion based on a data-set.

While there is a lot of unscientific interpretation of data happening, it's also true that we are getting more information regarding these vaccines and covid itself. And usually it's showing that previously published 'facts' were to optimistic.

Facts are neither optimistic or pessimistic. Interpretations of facts may be, and some people, even from teh beginning, were making wild and unsubstantiated interpretations, otherwise known as 'facts'.

Examples:
Covid deaths -> Turns out they counted every death with covid, not only deaths due to covid.

Deciding what is a COVID-19 caused death is difficult. The UK counts deaths that have happened in the 28 days since a positive PCR test - BUT determining whether a death was caused by Covid, or it was 'just' one of possibly several conditions a patient had is difficult and time consuming. If a person travelling as a passenger in a car that has an accident is killed, and that person had a positive test in the previous 28 days in the UK, it'll be counted; but the death certificate will likely state that the cause of death was major traumatic injury, but will also state other medical conditions the patient had at the time of death. But sometimes it is not so clear cut. And it takes a while for the death certificate to be issued. This is why the excess death rate over the normal seasonal death rate is taken as the clearest sign of the effects of the epidemic: and even that is not a clear signal, because there is good evidence to show that the increase sanitary precautions taken by people have decreased the number of influenza deaths, so if the death rate is elevated above normal, more than the elevation could be down to COVID-19 - you need to add in the deaths that woud have been caused by influenza. It is a difficult statistical problem.

But if you cite VAERS it's fake news, as they just report any side-effect after a vaccination, who knows what might have caused death.

The RS in VAERS stands for 'reporting system', and an entry in VAERSsays very little about the cause of the symptoms reported. In any normal day, some people experience unexpected symptoms, and it is entirely natural that they associate unexpected symptoms with recent medical events, such as a vaccination. However, correlation is not causation. People report all sorts of weird and wonderful stuff in VAERS, and there are organised campaigns to push entires of certain types, so it is a noisy signal at best. It is certainly not high quality epidemiological data. That gets generated once people (experts) have looked at VAERS and other sources of information. An experienced symptom, however real, is not necessarily a true 'side effect' of vaccination.

Vaccination is 95% effective -> Turns out it's for original covid only, and it wears off after 6-12 months, hence you need a booster. But if you cite research showing the vaccine wears off, it was fake-news. If you say it doesn't work 95% against newer strains it's also fake news.

Sigh. Immunology 101 here. Your body produces antigens to attach to non-self 'stuff' found in the body, which mark it for destruction and disposal. In the absence of non-self stuff, the level of antigens naturally drops slowly. However, certain other cells in the immune system act as 'memory cells', so that if the non-self stuff turns up again, after a period of two to three days, lots of new antigens can be generated. So yes, the antigen based immunity generated by the vaccine wears off. This is normal. The memory cell immunity takes a lot longer to wear off. It might even last a lifetime. The memory-cell based immunity doesn't stop you from getting infected, but it speeds up the body's reaction to the second and subsequent infection, so you get less sick.

Vaccination is 100% safe -> The mRNA vaccines have more reported side-effects reported in VAERS then any other vaccination combined in the history of VAERS, but you can't draw any conclusion from that as most reports are 'fake' according to fact-checkers.

No vaccinations are not 100% safe. Shock. Horror. However, they are far, far safer than the disease you are being vaccinated against. Yes, a small number of people have bad reactions. The most common severe reaction is anaphylactic shock, which, is why you have to wait after vaccination for 15-20 minutes in case you suffer it. It is eminently treatable with adrenalin injections, when done early enough. The extremely rare blood-clotting reactions seen in some people after Astra-Zeneca vaccinations are also treatable. It was, I believe, some German researchers who identified the problem first. This is why putting correct and accurate data into systems like VAERS is important. Note, VAERS is reports of correlated symptoms, not side effects,

mRNA vaccines don't alter DNA -> The mRNA vaccines (and probably covid itself) can reserve transcribe into DNA.

Not demonstrated. Poor experimental protocol does not exclude contamination. It might be technically possible, but its also technically possible for you to quantum tunnel through your living room wall.

This doesn't mean vaccines against covid don't work, it's just that some of the bad news appears to be confirmed after everyone already got his shots. While it was dismissed earlier.

Depends what you mean by work. On a population level, they are effective enough to reduce the rate of hospital admission by enough that the health services do not get completely overloaded, and people die in the streets. That's a pretty good result.

There appears to be a double standard on preferred news and critical ones. You'll always have people with extreme views you can't align with in any universe, but we've seen mainstream views as preferred fact above scientific research.

Balance in the media does not mean you give equal weight to crackpot theories and the consensus of scientific research. Media reporting of the science around COVID-19 has been abysmal.

That almost looks like religion, holding on to a view that should clearly be illogical even by it's own standards.

Science is falsifiable (Popper). Pseudo-science (or scientism) sometime looks like science, takes on the trappings of science, but even when making falsifiable predictions, carries on telling falsehoods even when shown to be wrong, citing 'fake news', and incredible conspiracy theories. Not every maverick is a Galileo. Most are just wrong, and often peddle dangerous beliefs and practices.

"Media Bias/Fact Check is a widely cited source for news stories and even studies about misinformation, despite the fact that its method is in no way scientific."

Here's what to expect from fact-checking in 2019 - Poynter

From person-to-person coaching and intensive hands-on seminars to interactive online courses and media reporting, Poynter helps journalists sharpen skills and elevate storytelling throughout their careers.

www.poynter.org

Even Media Bias agrees this website is usually on point: https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/poynter-institute/
Not say Media Bias is wrong, just showing that you'll probably find a counter argument online for most stuff.

 

[TeDaDeS]

Perhaps you should read the comments on the article you link to there:

I actually linked to this: https://www.mdpi.com/1467-3045/44/3/73/htm
And I this page doesn't provide nicely linked comments like pubmed.

...(didn't put all quoted text here, too long)..

Thanks for providing such detailed comments.

Facts are neither optimistic or pessimistic. Interpretations of facts may be, and some people, even from teh beginning, were making wild and unsubstantiated interpretations, otherwise known as 'facts'.

fact: a thing that is known or proved to be true. Claiming anything to be proven to be true in the beginning of covid was risky. There is a difference between highly-likely and a fact.

Deciding what is a COVID-19 caused death is difficult.

It was the main reason for all the measures taken. Yes, people die from covid. But a lot of (young) people still believe they might die from covid, while reality shows the chance of death due to covid is more unlikely then likely. Especially for younger people. Everyone dies eventually, and the risk increases a lot when your older. (Not saying it's a breeze to have covid, but it's not 3% mortality for all ages)
These reported deaths include these difficult to distinguish numbers. A discussion here: https://blog.ons.gov.uk/2022/01/26/...have-died-from-covid-19-is-highly-misleading/

The RS in VAERS stands for 'reporting system', and an entry in VAERS says very little about the cause of the symptoms reported. In any normal day, some people experience unexpected symptoms, and it is entirely natural that they associate unexpected symptoms with recent medical events, such as a vaccination. However, correlation is not causation. People report all sorts of weird and wonderful stuff in VAERS, and there are organised campaigns to push entries of certain types, so it is a noisy signal at best. It is certainly not high quality epidemiological data. That gets generated once people (experts) have looked at VAERS and other sources of information. An experienced symptom, however real, is not necessarily a true 'side effect' of vaccination.

Everyone can, and is motivated, to report symptoms in VAERS. And some are required to do this: "Healthcare providers who administer COVID-19 vaccines are required by law to report to VAERS the following after vaccination:" (from VAERS).
There is no indication massive entries are reported to VAERS: "'We don't have evidence that there is widespread fraud or gaming of the system,' says Tom Shimabukuro, deputy director of CDC's Immunization Safety Office, which oversees VAERS. 'We have to balance keeping VAERS an open system and getting as much information as we can on vaccine safety against potential data quality problems.'" source: https://www.science.org/content/art...government-database-side-effects-scare-public
Sure correlation isn't causation, but I assume medical professionals know what they are reporting to VAERS, and these signals are equally marked as 'invalid' making it harder to be taken seriously as a person who actually encounters a side-effect.

Sigh. Immunology 101 here. Your body produces antigens to attach to non-self 'stuff' found in the body, which mark it for destruction and disposal. In the absence of non-self stuff, the level of antigens naturally drops slowly. However, certain other cells in the immune system act as 'memory cells', so that if the non-self stuff turns up again, after a period of two to three days, lots of new antigens can be generated. So yes, the antigen based immunity generated by the vaccine wears off. This is normal. The memory cell immunity takes a lot longer to wear off. It might even last a lifetime. The memory-cell based immunity doesn't stop you from getting infected, but it speeds up the body's reaction to the second and subsequent infection, so you get less sick.

Exactly. But stating the obvious in the first year of the pandemic would get you cancelled. Just like stating the vaccine could be less effective to newer variants.

No vaccinations are not 100% safe. Shock. Horror. However, they are far, far safer than the disease you are being vaccinated against. Yes, a small number of people have bad reactions. The most common severe reaction is anaphylactic shock, which, is why you have to wait after vaccination for 15-20 minutes in case you suffer it. It is eminently treatable with adrenalin injections, when done early enough. The extremely rare blood-clotting reactions seen in some people after Astra-Zeneca vaccinations are also treatable. It was, I believe, some German researchers who identified the problem first. This is why putting correct and accurate data into systems like VAERS is important. Note, VAERS is reports of correlated symptoms, not side effects,

Stating there was any risk in taking the vaccine could get you cancelled also. It's absurd to claim there is no risk to taking a vaccine, just like there is a (tiny) risk in taking a paracetamol (while we all agree it's safe in general).
Reports from FDA show that during the Pfizer trails ~1200 adverse effects were reported: does this mean it's unsafe, no. But it at least is a signal that could have been shared with medical professionals, so they would take claims from impacted people more seriously.
Taking the vaccine when in a higher age or having other risk factors is surely a better choice. But I don't see this choice is equally true for babies, kids, or boys ~14 years old. Myocarditis is still suggested to be a mild inconvenience, while scar tissue in your heart is not easy to heal.

Not demonstrated. Poor experimental protocol does not exclude contamination. It might be technically possible, but its also technically possible for you to quantum tunnel through your living room wall.

While I can agree it's not 100% clear what the effects are, rating it as implausible I would not do yet. Surely more research is needed but this one didn't show it wasn't: https://www.mdpi.com/1467-3045/44/3/73/htm

Depends what you mean by work. On a population level, they are effective enough to reduce the rate of hospital admission by enough that the health services do not get completely overloaded, and people die in the streets. That's a pretty good result.

I agree. Doesn't mean it's 100% safe and we should mandate (force) everyone to take it, even if they had prior adverse effects with their first dose. And it also doesn't mean it works as well on newer variants, even though we had near perfect results with the original covid.
Also any treatment for covid was mostly ignored, while vaccination only reduced the likelihood of getting sick or seriously sick. It would have been nice to see all ways to prevent serious illness due to covid being advocated, not only a vaccine.

Balance in the media does not mean you give equal weight to crackpot theories and the consensus of scientific research. Media reporting of the science around COVID-19 has been abysmal.

The bias and perverse incentive to highlight the extremes in media is probably more clear since they have to compete with other sources of online media. An unbiased report will probably be read less then a breaking news article claiming vaccines are best/worst.
I like that I see all kinds of opinions on the forum, it at least gives you a better way to shape your opinion, even if you might not agree.

Science is falsifiable (Popper). Pseudo-science (or scientism) sometime looks like science, takes on the trappings of science, but even when making falsifiable predictions, carries on telling falsehoods even when shown to be wrong, citing 'fake news', and incredible conspiracy theories. Not every maverick is a Galileo. Most are just wrong, and often peddle dangerous beliefs and practices.

While I agree there are a lot of outrageous claims to be found on the internet, there was never a time in my life conspiracy theories were more backed-up by evidence then now.
Could that evidence be wrong, sure. But being able to check and have the discussion helps, and it's a trend to halt those discussions lately.
Should every concern be aired on live news: no. Should we silence every critical person, even if it's a renown scientist: also no.

And I attached a picture of a cat to cheer-up this post:

 

[λ the β-Redex Reducer]

Taking the vaccine when in a higher age or having other risk factors is surely a better choice. But I don't see this choice is equally true for babies, kids, or boys ~14 years old.

Those are being vaccinated to protect the vaccinated elderly. First we give this experimental vaccine to the elderly in order to protect them against flu-19, and then, just for the case that the experimental vaccines do not work, we give those same experimental vaccines to children to protect the elderly again.

 

[FBnil]

Covid trials started last saturday against the crimes against humanity:

Grand Jury | Day 1

https://grand-jury.net

odysee.com

 

[Confuzzled]

The inimitable ORAC has written on:

Return of the revenge of the COVID vaccine “spike” in your DNA​

Claims that COVID-19 vaccines “permanently alter your DNA” were resurrected recently based on a dubious study. No matter how many times you think this myth has been debunked, it always comes back for another installment [sic] of the same misinformation franchise.

It is a l-o-n-g article, well worth a read.

 

[TeDaDeS]

The inimitable ORAC has written on:


It is a l-o-n-g article, well worth a read.

While interesting the author does sound really opinionated. I do see there are many attempts to smear his name online, so I can imagine his reactions being more offensive. But it also somewhat sounds like his hobby.

I would guess this claim should be easy to verify:
"Note that this study most definitely did not show that this reverse transcription had anything to do with LINE-1, leaving the authors to speculate. They could have presented evidence that LINE-1 was responsible, perhaps by knocking it out to produce cells that don’t make it or using siRNA that targets the LINE-1 mRNA to decrease its level, and showing that that it blocked the reverse transcription of spike. They didn’t do that. So they speculate, and antivaxxers ignore that this is speculation to present it as a fact that SARS-CoV-2 is reverse transcribed through the reverse transcriptase activity of LINE-1."

I would think everyone reading the article, including this part in the abstract would read that into it: "We also show that BNT162b2 mRNA is reverse transcribed intracellularly into DNA in as fast as 6 h upon BNT162b2 exposure.".
As he points out any person can make different claims about this study, the study did draw this conclusion. So while I'll consider his opinion on the research based on his credentials, I rather see an actual comment on the research instead.

 

[Confuzzled]

As Orac points out in the 'About' page, he is a qualified and practicing surgical oncologist by the name of David Gorski, and yes, his hobby is debunking (mostly) medical pseudoscience. It's worth reading the second link to learn about the campaign of vilification against him using false accusations. He is not liked by many, and certainly has a 'robust' style.

However, the point is not deferring to the expert in the white coat - he is using his knowledge to make valid criticisms which stand for themselves. Authors make many claims in papers, not all of which stand up to scrutiny, and abstracts are written to grab attention.

The authors have done some experiments and processed the results using an incorrect statistical approach. Had they used the correct approach, they would have seen the results were most consistent with noise - that is, no signal there. As it is, they have misinterpreted the results and the misinterpretation makes it look like some reverse transcription has occurred. They then go on to say that a possible mechanism is through endogenous reverse transcriptase LINE-1: not that they have demonstrated that this is indeed the mechanism, but simple speculation on what the mechanism might be if reverse transcription had occurred - which they have no evidence for, as their results are most consistent with noise when analysed correctly. So a whole lot of nothing. Other commentators have pointed out what they could have done to confirm/firm up their results. Maybe they will follow the advice and produce some good science. So far they have demonstrated nothing but a badly reported null result. Null results are still useful science, but not in the way the authors hoped.

 

[TeDaDeS]

As Orac points out in the 'About' page, he is a qualified and practicing surgical oncologist by the name of David Gorski, and yes, his hobby is debunking (mostly) medical pseudoscience. It's worth reading the second link to learn about the campaign of vilification against him using false accusations. He is not liked by many, and certainly has a 'robust' style.

However, the point is not deferring to the expert in the white coat - he is using his knowledge to make valid criticisms which stand for themselves. Authors make many claims in papers, not all of which stand up to scrutiny, and abstracts are written to grab attention.

I did read that page. But as he mentions himself, anyone can have an opinion. Surely the paper should be scrutinized, but until it's proven to be incorrect I'll view his opinion as an opinion.
If we can dismiss anything with a tweet or a blog post science wouldn't be science. If the paper has obvious mistakes it clearly will be corroborate by others including the authors (assuming they didn't do these things on purpose).

 

[Confuzzled]

Those are being vaccinated to protect the vaccinated elderly. First we give this experimental vaccine to the elderly in order to protect them against flu-19, and then, just for the case that the experimental vaccines do not work, we give those same experimental vaccines to children to protect the elderly again.

We need a sarcasm tag/emoji.

 

[netcat]

But that's basically the official rhetoric.

 

[Confuzzled]

But that's basically the official rhetoric.

[Citation Needed]

 

[Linux-SWAT]

Just watch mainstream medias. They are not livestreaming, they are liestreaming.

 

[λ the β-Redex Reducer]

I have to admit that I may be a bit behind on the propaganda because I do not watch the news anymore. Covid-19 has been many things. I remember when it killed everyone on the spot and turned Wuhan into a ghost town. If covid-19 was like that then I definitely would have noticed, as according to the news I have been in the midst of multiple horrible covid-19 waves. I am not sure how many though, I could never notice any of those horrible covid-19 waves that I was in the midst of and I did not keep up with the news all that much back then either.

 

[pyrat]

Well, I didn't catch COVID-19 (as far as I can tell) but I sure noticed its terror in the different waves. I know people who died, relatives in hospital, it was not a flu. Maybe it will eventually be (not yet, I think). But there's no denying it's been very bad. THis does not mean I agree with any decision imposed on the pretext to stoped or with not imposing others... I was more terrified of human stupidity than of the virus itself, but the virus itself is quite terrible.

 

[λ the β-Redex Reducer]

Covid-19 is a flu.

And besides that, the common flu is deadly for people with severe underlying conditions. Covid-19 killing people in hospitals actually makes it more similar to the common flu.

The difference between the common flu and covid-19 is one of PR. To most of us the common flu got introduced as something minor that everyone gets and that only kills the elderly. But covid-19 got introduced to us as the ultimate virus that kills you on the spot when you get it and that littered Wuhan with corpses turning it into a ghost town. And of course, covid-19 fear mongering is repeated non-stop on the news to keep this fear alive even though we all know that the initial reports must have been nonsense because covid-19 is not even close to being that deadly. Also, when terminal people die of the flu we emphasise that they were terminal anyway and thus we reason that the flu is not that deadly, but when terminal people die of covid-19 we reason that they would have lived forever if it were not for covid-19.

 

[netcat]

Amen.

 

[levi]

Covid-19 omicron might be likened to a kind of flu only if you're up to date on your vaccinations. And if it is a type of flu, it's the only flu that I know that can give you long flu.