For those not in the Biden thread:
https://twitter.com/BBCBreaking/status/1550125890616512519?s=20&t=r-wvkOhpPDnRVIXCMdjF-Q
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Heās double-boosted and taking paxlovid, so heās almost certainly going to be fine. That may be good news or bad news depending upon your viewpoints of the matter.
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Harris kinda sucks. Sheās basically a black female Joe Biden.
So based on wastewater, COVID spread appears to be the second highest its ever been.
Iām still holding out hope that I can continue to avoid it, but man that seems like wishful thinking right now.
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Iām super frustrated weāre not seeing faster movement on the release of an apparently effective omicron booster.
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My work has an on-site for the first time in a while and guy across the table has been coughing all morning and I ask my boss to send him home and yep heās still here 
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I finally got it; no big deal and at this point it barely rates a text to your friends, but after doing so much to dodge this for two years, the inner eye roll at seeing that first red positive line flare like a lightsaber felt more profound than most of my other eye rolls. Still, a bigger-than-expected share of my reaction was Well, at least I know Iāve been running these fucking tests right!
Would love to see an instant replay of the room where it happened, because (unlike a bunch of times in the past year) there wasnāt an obvious exposure that makes timeline sense and Iām still KF94ing it all over the place. But whatever: itās everywhere, itās wily, the end. And Iām sure thereās some fussy powerpointable reason but why on earth doesnāt this have its own greek letter? Would feel way better getting zapped by pi or rho or, be still my heart, sigma. Iām not a stats guy but would be curious about the mean #days people test positive and the SD etc. My brother-in-law just tested positive for twenty days and Iām sure we all know loads of people whoāve gone ten.
I do some volunteer work in medicine, and one of the things I do is talk with a bazillion underinsured or immensely embarrassed people who want an appointment to see if their concern is within our dinky clinicās scope. A few days ago I was talking to this dude who said he felt ānot great,ā and ācanāt taste things.ā Ah, Iām sorry to hear that. Sayā¦have you had a COVID test recently? āCOVID?!? No way, Iām not sick, just no taste!ā
As always I appreciate how this thread has been a place for reasonable evidence-based discussion about this bullshit for the last two years. Itās like how without dvaut and 2p2 and UP Iād prob still be into West Wing. Thanks!
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Wonāt make any difference whether Biden survives or not, except for ending the speculation about running again (in both senses).
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MAGA would nom a dead Donnie
Based on a preprint, but if Nature is running with it, itās probably okay to post.
Prior Omicron infection protects against BA.4 and BA.5 variants
The researchers found that infection with a pre-Omicron variant prevented reinfection with BA.4 or BA.5 with an effectiveness of 28.3%, and prevented symptomatic reinfection with either subvariant with an effectiveness of 15.1%. Prior infection with Omicron granted stronger protection: it was 79.7% effective at preventing BA.4 and BA.5 reinfection and 76.1% effective at preventing symptomatic reinfection.
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The researchers found that infection with a pre-Omicron variant prevented reinfection with BA.4 or BA.5 with an effectiveness of 28.3%, and prevented symptomatic reinfection with either subvariant with an effectiveness of 15.1%
The first part is spectacularly bad news. Expected though given how the vaccine efficacy has dropped.
Prior infection with Omicron granted stronger protection: it was 79.7% effective at preventing BA.4 and BA.5 reinfection and 76.1% effective at preventing symptomatic reinfection.
This is reason for hopeā¦ would sure be nice if we had an omicron specific vaccine.
Pour one out for natural immunity morons.
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Not COVID related, but any of the science people here ever done part of an ELISA outside? Doing that now.
Like outdoors? No.
Is it a lack of ac in a lab?
The problem is the reasonable likelihood that we are going to see the same results for pi next year and Ro in 2024 and I donāt see a lot of evidence vaccine updates can keep up, let alone that we run an effective vax campaign barring true calamity.
Fucking anti-vaxxers:
Maybe he was worried about new polio variants making the vaccine worthless, or autism.
Fire alarm. The second one of the day.
We didnāt have any idea what to do.
I think we made the right call.
Boss is not going to be happy on Monday (I should be safe from wrath though).
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2022/07/21/polio-rockland-county-unvaccinated/
For the record here, thereās a particularly crazy group of Orthodox Jews in this area that stopped vaccinating their kids awhile ago. They had a big measles outbreak a few years back too.
Update: He still has symptoms but he tested ānegativeā today (faint positive line according to my brother-in-law) so he went out to do some critically important things like buying an air filter from Loweās and getting gas.
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I guess this is probably your point, but did you tell him that a faint line is a positive result?
Covid remains undefeated