Joseph Mallozzi's Weblog

September 2, 2021: Read between the tweet lines!

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So, came across the following video the other day.  Dr. John Campbell has been offering terrific science-based updates on the pandemic since its beginnings – and this latest is pretty significant.

If he is right, and the experts are resigned to Covid becoming endemic, then what does that mean for vaccine passports or mask mandates for that matter?  Honest question.  I’m double vaccinated and wear a mask indoors in public settings, but if they’re giving up on attempting to control the virus, how will this shape public policy?

Today’s Yes/No…

Disappointingly, actual tear gas is NOT an ingredient.

Well, this is exciting…

If this A.I. works out, I may hire it for my next writers’ room.

Also in Stargate-related news…maybe…

And in Stargate-adjacent but no less important news…

Tonight’s big exciting plans…

Img_1141

And you?

 

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12 responses

  1. Gildermcc Avatar
    Gildermcc

    Worried about friends in my home region of New Jersey, USA. I’m hearing that towns /rural townships in Hunterdon County and on the banks of the Delaware have flooded due to Hurr. Ida. This is an area that RARELY floods.

    SG fan Anika Phillips has reported herself safe on Facebook.

    Reply
  2. Tam Dixon Avatar
    Tam Dixon

    Fascinating video! I was just telling someone today that we’re all going to be exposed. (they didn’t believe me) Get vaxxed, stay in shape, stay home if you’re sick and live your life. Another variant will come along and then another, etc. We’ll be fighting this forever. I take the flu shot every year, I’ll just add a covid shot, as well.

    I just don’t understand the reluctance of intelligent, educated people refusing the vaccine! I’m doing my part trying to convince people. Thankfully, I don’t know many that haven’t been vaxxed but I’m working on those that I do know about.

    I’m used to arguing for flu shots, so I’m used to it. If you think people are crazy over covid shots, try convincing them to take a flu shot. My son was seriously ill from the flu when he was younger and now, we make sure the whole family gets a yearly flu shot. Here’s a bit of good news from the flu shot front: https://www.news-medical.net/news/20210804/Flu-vaccine-may-provide-vital-protection-against-COVID-19-study-shows.aspx

    On the chips, I’d try them! Of course, I’d want a glass of milk handy….

    Tear gas ramen? That’s a big NO. You can have my share. All yours. 🙂

    Reply
  3. nantokanaru77 Avatar
    nantokanaru77

    There are people out there still calling for “covid-zero” strategy … I’d say good luck with that. As I recall, since flu pandemic 1918, multiple versions of vaccines and 100+ years on, we still haven’t reached “influenza-zero.”

    The strategy used nowadays I see is an attempt to prevent our chronically underfunded healthcare system from being overwhelmed. There is unfortunately no quick fix to this problem. 🙁

    Love to see Robert Picardo hosting Jeopardy!

    Reply
  4. DP Avatar
    DP

    None of the concepts he discusses are new to immunology – people just have to wait in this environment to discuss scenarios because they could be shut down viciously. It was easily predictable that it would become more infectious in order to still spread in a highly concentrated population that reached herd immunity early. It was either bad luck or a sign that the virus was already well-optimized for spreading that the virus became more infectious by creating higher viral loads. This exposes the newly infected to a higher initial load, making the illness at least as severe as the previous version.

    Usually, the natural course is for the more infectious variation to become less severe because more people will have “walking illness”, meaning not bed-ridden, so they’re moving about their communities spreading it. (Note that the Spanish flu emerged in an environment where young adults who became the sickest in the trenches of WWI didn’t stay put, but were put on trains, so the natural course of its mutation was likely thwarted.) The tendency of this virus to create such a wide variation in how sick people get may be why it didn’t need to mutate into a “walking” version in order to continue to spread and that was a possibility that added a little hesitation to my earlier assurance this should become milder. The milder version has been delayed by this higher viral load version.

    It was easily predictable that vaccine efficacy would wane. More, a different form of the virus has probably already emerged from a highly vaccinated population, possibly even one with more severe early symptoms. I assume they’re saying that already, but I’m not sure.

    The mechanism where both the vaccine and illness can cause long-term inflammation caused by the form the anti-bodies sometimes take weren’t as predictable in the extreme form it took – that was very bad luck and related to the portion of the virus that was used to make vaccines being the same portion that causes one of the conditions associated with the virus. That a problem with the vaccine would be suppressed from discussion, thus delaying it being resolved, was, however, easily predictable. When this delay is overcome, a vaccine will become available that targets a different portion of the virus or at least discourages the antibodies formed from taking the problematic configuration.

    This virus will eventually become like chicken pox in that most people get it in childhood and have fewer problems with it because of that and then start worrying more about it as they become older. Better treatments to prevent the cytokine storm will come out, especially when people aren’t so afraid to discuss treatments because the law wouldn’t allow emergency use authorization of the vaccines if an effective treatment were available. Medicine will get better at treating the long-term problems and other conditions will benefit from these additional treatments, while people who already had those conditions may have a harder time figuring out the root cause because the doctors will all say it’s Covid complications. Hopefully, mutations will become milder.

    For vaccine passports and mask mandates, they aren’t about stopping the virus and never were. If they have to give up on them, they at least have people conditioned to expect things like this more so they weren’t a complete failure from an authoritarian’s set of values. This was also easily predictable. I’m in the middle of a Thomas Sowell book where he goes over example after example of experts knowing how something would play out, but the political environment advocating for something else and how the politics “wins”.

    What I’m pleasantly surprised by is the amount of pushback. I thought the global advances in totalitarianism would continue to be a slow ratchet and irreversible. The elites were right to be concerned about the protests in Europe before the pandemic and must have been relieved to have an excuse to lock those countries down, but those people are still there – not fully subjugated yet.

    The ability to keep people from going out in public or vent online will be a great tool to further subjugate and won’t be relinquished easily. I do hate to see the tribal tendencies behind which side people fall on on these issues, but I’ll take what I can get to make this world liveable a bit longer. As we form parallel social structures to get around the exclusion that’ll be a major tool of subjugation in the future – again, that tool expanding was easily predicatable, we will benefit from the number of people we can get on board now.

    Reply
    1. Joseph Mallozzi Avatar
      Joseph Mallozzi

      What a terrific and eloquent comment. Thank you.

      Reply
  5. DP Avatar
    DP

    If the script-writing AI is good at hitting the right beats in a five act structure, it should be a useful tool. You could let it write a script and then back engineer an outline from it. At that point, the AI would have helped you visualize the story to build from your outline. Would there even be writer’s block in this process? I say cannonball right into this new way of writing.

    Reply
  6. DP Avatar
    DP

    Thanks. An AI helped me write it.

    Reply
  7. DP Avatar
    DP

    I don’t really have an AI, but it ties the A and B story together to say I do.

    Reply
  8. Ponytail Avatar
    Ponytail

    Tam Dixon wrote:

    “I just don’t understand the reluctance of intelligent, educated people refusing the vaccine!”

    You can be the smartest person in the room yet still have ZERO common sense.

    Living in the increasingly fucked up embarrassing state of Texas (pardon my French. It’s a language I’ve learned to speak fluently during the pandemic), I am exhausted by all the stupidity being displayed around me. It’s getting down right depressing. I can’t even get my own brother to get the vaccination, even after we buried our father last year from Covid! He caught a mild case of Covid earlier this year. He got two weeks off from work which he used that time to go shopping and get things done! No wonder this virus is here to stay!

    Oh and hey, I can now go buy a gun, no training required on how to use it, then strap it to my body and go out in public. “Open carry” for everyone! Maybe I will do that. Any suggestions on which part of my body I should wear it? ZERO common sense!

    Reply
    1. msstargate Avatar
      msstargate

      Amen ponytail… Texan all my life and never have I Been more embarrassed by my state.

      Reply
  9. shinyhula Avatar
    shinyhula

    Sars has caused epidemics and suffering since 2002, Covid may stick around just as long causing outbreaks, but now there are vaccines and Monoclonal Antibody infusion; it could become like serious outbreaks of the measles where contact tracing helps contain outbreaks. But also it could weaken and become like the flu prevented/mitigated by an annual vaccine.

    The flu is still heartbreakingly deadly, as are measles and other diseases that people assume are not a big deal. I think it’s hard to see the end of this while we’re still in it, but we can keep taking precautions and take care of our friends and family.

    Reply
  10. maggiemayday Avatar
    maggiemayday

    Egg yolk chips are great! Spicy? I’d give it a go.

    I’ve been tear gassed. In ramen? Nope.

    Reply

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