A Concerned Scientist @BE@qoto.org
Moved full time to my other account @BE soon as this instance is still having issues.
Joined Nov 2022
I've run into multiple people in Florida who absolutely swear that Portland was burnt down. Like, the whole thing. They really believe that it's gone.
@nothingtoseehere @masknerd @DayWalkingRedhead@universeodon.com
I definitely hear you. I go back and forth on the issue myself and so I sometimes have a hard time recommending the LG for others, but, it's a good mask if there's a good enough seal. Always fit test if you can in the end. No matter what anything else or anyone else says that's the best way to know for you and your mask.
We have one of them hanging next to our front door for those times where a delivery person or someone comes up that you can't get rid of and are forced to open the door :)
@nothingtoseehere @DayWalkingRedhead@universeodon.com
We use both Flo masks and GVS Elipse in our house and like both. I'd probably try the "size 2" with Flo for a higher nose bridge.
In terms of disposables, I've found DemeTECH N95's fit some faces that others don't well, and also while they're KF94's the boat-shaped LG Airwashers also seem to fit a wider variety of faces well and tested out well in @masknerd testing if I remember correctly.
This is funny because I just saw a legit chin diaper in the wild for the first time in a long time just a few minutes ago. The guy said his company requires "masking" but his boss said as long as he puts a cloth mask from his ears to his chin he meets the requirement.
Yes, we're doomed.
I used to think it was all performative and "experts" didn't really concern themselves with this any more than before the pandemic, but then we get stuff like this from the WaPo about what "Covid experts"(I put that in quotes largely because it calls Monica Gandhi an expert) are doing these days:
Helene Gayle, a public health physician and president of Spelman College on her current precautions:
"I still remain careful. I try not to do handshaking and I still try to wash my hands frequently, which are always good health practices."
https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2023/03/12/doctors-covid-new-normal/
No wonder our local school district threw away the masks and sanitize all surfaces now.
Along with many other lies, people have consistently been fed the idea that it will always mutate to be less dangerous and that "endemic" is a positive term in which something is no longer worth worrying about.
Neither of those ideas are, of course, any more true than washing your hands and staying 6' away from people will spare you an infection, but, that doesn't mean there's not people pushing them. We're just in the unfortunate situation in which most "news" people are pushing them.
I am not surprised by anything here other than, apparently, 17% of people think it's either at its worst or getting worse. If that were true you'd think you'd see close to 1 out of every 5 people acting like it.
It's pretty heavy reading and I wouldn't expect everyone to do it. I happen to think, on first read, that the science is pretty cool in this case. I'm intrigued.
I also think that calling the ocean an infinite sink is both commonly said by many scientists(dilution is the solution to pollution!) and absurd, so it rings alarm bells on the surface.
Hopefully the science itself clears up some of the questions.
You're asking the right questions, but it's laid out in the paper itself, which is linked from the CNN article. I'm going to admit I didn't bother reading the CNN article beyond where the paper itself is linked, but here's what the paper says after showing the equations:
Upon exhaustion following reaction 2, a passage of NaCl solution or seawater at near-neutral pH causes desorption of HCO3− (Eq. 3), leading to an aqueous exit stream with moderately high alkalinity. This unique attribute that CO2 captured from the air is desorbed and simultaneously sequestered as alkalinity in one step into an aqueous stream makes the process distinctively unique compared to other sorption-desorption processes, in which CO2 is recovered as gas and often injected underground for geological storage (7). Note that the salinity or the total dissolved solids of the spent regenerant remain nearly the same, with an increase in alkalinity due to stoichiometric ion exchange. Once in chloride form, the CO2 sorbent can be converted to hydroxyl form, Polyam-N-Cu2+(OH−)2, by the stoichiometric passage of equivalent amounts of dilute OH− as NaOH or Ca(OH)2 (Eq. 4).
I think one thing that's so important to make clear here is that it doesn't mean 9%(on the low end) of *people*. When NBC published the recent article talking about an estimated 5-10% rate of long COVID, nearly every non-scientist I know interpreted that as "5-10% of the population is at risk." They, therefore, all said "Hey, I've had COVID already, don't have long COVID(although some of them clearly do and won't admit or deal with it....different story), so I wasn't in that 5-10%. I'm at no risk anymore!" Which is wildly wrong, but there's no convincing many people otherwise. Sadly, I think that article did a lot more damage than good.
This appears to be an actual great paper on my first read, though. Defines what they're calling long COVID right off the bat, in a time when many articles never even do so, and also points out that there's likely many causes, so there's no one size fits all treatments coming. They hit on so many important factors that are often ignored and appear to have done a really well balanced job of putting a lot of data out there from a lot of sources.
There's tons of great quotable material here, so I'm not going to pick a bunch out, but I'll be saving this one for future reference. From the conclusion for anyone who still thinks there's nothing to worry about:
"Notably, the intersection of these figures with the WHO official statistics (650 million diagnoses of SARS‐CoV‐2 infection up to the end of 2022) would enable us to hypothesize that up to 400 million people worldwide (underestimated) may be already seeking care for long‐COVID in the near future, thus putting under unprecedented pressure the already exhausted and drained health care system."
This is a must read for people who still care. Apparently it's been out for a little while and I hadn't seen it, so thank you very much for sharing it!
I've really been pushing probiotics with people I know who have shown vagus nerve issues. Perhaps you know this already but I wanted to throw it out there alongside the massage. Great resource and thanks for sharing!
And, as in many of these studies, they get portrayed in many media sources as "For nearly a year" when it's really "For *at least* nearly a year" because the study, in this case, only lasted 49 weeks.
From the study:
"We studied vascular diseases after COVID-19 diagnosis in population-wide anonymized linked English and Welsh electronic health records from January 1 to December 7, 2020."
https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/10.1161/CIRCULATIONAHA.122.060785
I appreciate that you put "probably" on that. I know I always go back to the kids, but that's because that's the way I see it daily as a parent.
The previous estimate of an infection every 8 months on average is looking pretty optimistic at this point, but let's use it for this example. Now take my 9yo. If we gave up all precautions today he'd be expected to get 7 COVID infections by the time he was 18 and on his own. I think there's a world in which if you squint just right you can see him coming out OK from that, but I wouldn't bet on those odds. Then you'd hope he's got a good 50-70 years after that.
It's bleak given the data we have today.
I was thinking the same thing.
Not me, but I might be a weirdo. It wouldn't be the first time. I don't think I've ever even laid eyes upon any diploma I've ever earned. All just a means to an end.
I think we always were AND it's gotten worse. A lot of people who once upon a time wouldn't have gone somewhere, like on public transportation, drooling snot sick now don't think twice about it. Sadly, even if they do think twice about it, they'll often think they're "strengthening immune systems." What a society we've built.
Long COVID: 3 years in
@themaskerscomic @travelhealthdoc
And if you can keep them alive long enough you can squeeze a bunch of money out of symptom treatment.
There's a couple pretty important pieces missing from the raw story link there. The chairwoman who is reported as having apologized was supposed to have shut down the woman's public comments when she began verbally abusing him according to other school board members. She didn't because she's a right-wing, hand-picked DeSantis lackey who appears on Fox News to spew CRT BS and she wanted to make sure all of those comments were out there on the public record.
Honestly, that's pretty tame for Florida school board meetings these days and a lot of people on the boards won't show up anymore, or only attend virtually out of fear for their lives. So good on him for even showing up for it.
Throw in a little T cell dysfunction and exhaustion and it seems like a bad mix for future cancer rates.
When I read the jobs report I imagined a scene in my head in which Jerome Powell screams out in agony wondering why he can't get the unemployment rate up to 5.5%. Maybe it's just me :)
Is Jerome Powell losing his mind right now trying to figure out how to get unemployment back up again?
Moved full time to my other account @BE soon as this instance is still having issues.
Joined Nov 2022
