SARS II: Respiratory Boogaloo

Oh, Junior is already whining about that on Twitter.

Pence and Haley try to claim the vaccine resulted from Operation: Warp Speed. Pfizer slaps the shit out of them:



Also, the development partner that actually created it are German:

May the ghost of Jonas Salk smile upon him.

By two Germans of Turkish descent, no less. It's that uneducated Muslim immigration again!

If only they'd been Iranian.....

The level of stupidity in that Twitter thread is astonishing. People seem oblivious to the difference between investing in development of a product and purchasing the end result.

"The virus doesn't care who it infects".

Yeah, but sometimes you have to wonder

Just want to point out that more than five people in the White House have tested positive this week.

What Fauci Thinks About Pfizer Vaccine
'Extraordinary,' he says, and explains why the news is doubly good

Anxiety, depression and insomnia count as mental illness?
Well fuck, I know a lot of mentally ill people.
I was just told it was "work-related stress" when it was me.

No kidding.

There's a difference between situational depression and anxiety and actual chemical changes in the brain. There's some evidence that COVID, while it doesn't necessarily cross the blood-brain barrier, it does sometimes make it "leaky." Thus chemical depression. Some people are born with it (there's some indication it's genetic but, then again, if your parents were depressed, are you just mimicking their behaviors?); now it seems this damn virus can sometimes cause it.

I bet you're a lot less anxious and depressed now that you're retired. That's situational. Maybe you've even stopped losing sleep about Obama coming to take your gunz.

I'd have very serious concerns about the impact on clinical duties.

Regardless of the obvious infection risks the simple matter is those nurses would ordinarily be off sick because they are ill and thus likely to make mistakes.

It would be interesting to see how a tribunal would play out if one of them made a fatal error and was struck off as a consequence.

Yes, they do. Almost any psychologist could tell you that. They aren't necessarily serious mental illnesses (certainly not to be counted as psychoses), and the term "mental illnesses" is debated in some psychological circles, but anxiety, depression and insomnia are all signs of psychological instability. (The caveat being that anxiety before a genuine problem that you know is going to happen is normal, and insomnia due to some temporary physical condition such as overdosing on coffee in order to finish that 900-mile drive home, are not signs of psychological instability. It is when they occur regularly that there is very likely a problem there, that it wouldn't hurt to explore and, if possible, treat.)

I say it with surprise as a sufferer myself, most severely about 25 years ago, but ongoing in degrees until I retired. It was clearly due almost entirely to work-related stress. I was treated happily with Atavan and Ambien, and a few visits to a social worker to "talk about it." The words mental illness never came up. Thankfully pretty much gone with retirement.

That's because dementia has set in.

Most pyschologists would probably reserve the term "illness" for something that is serious enough that it prevents you from functioning normally in ordinary life. But almost everyone has what could best be termed mental "issues", rooted for the most part in feelings of insufficiency, fear, or unsatisfying life conditions (including relationships). All of those things destabilize us more than we normaly like to admit.

Anyway, glad to hear that things are much better for you now that you are retired.

Atavan is a drug to treat mental illness. I'm not sure whether you're overestimating that term or underestimating your condition, but that's what 'mental illness' means.

It is true however that a good social worker would avoid the term due to the negative connotations. But I'm betting they asked Forbin something along the lines of "you aren't doing that well, are you?"

I can't honestly say I've really felt happy for quite a while. That's not JUST work stress. But society doesn't like us calling it what it is, because society needs us to keep grinding away for the economy.

Pfizer teamed with BioNtech for their vaccine. BioNTech did the lion share of the development, based on RNA work the husband and wife team pioneered.

Just like to point out - they are second-generation Muslim immigrants from Turkey, whose parents moved to Germany for work.

These are the type of people Trump vilified and banned.

Oh, and due to their incredible biotech work, they are now among the top 100 richest Germans.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...hot-in-the-arm-for-germanys-turkish-community

And while Pfizer guy is proudly telling US media how they never took any government funding, Biontech has (rightly!) been raking in EU and German subsidies.

JFC that's terrifying.

The local news is breathlessly reporting on the outrage of business owners in the tourist district who refused to follow CDC guidelines and were being mocked by medical professionals for being super spreader sites.

And you all said herd immunity wasn’t possible. Just watch America prove you wrong.

Herd immunity absolutely is possible.

It's just that Darwin demands a very high price for it.

Or a viable vaccine.

Whichever costs less.

Whichever comes first. At this point I’m pretty sure at least ¾ of the country is actively racing towards paying Darwin’s price.

I’m starting to rethink my opinion on the death penalty, as applied to anti-maskers.

is not a sufficient smilie for how salty I’m feeling right now.