[HN Gopher] The virus that causes the common cold can effectivel...
___________________________________________________________________
The virus that causes the common cold can effectively boot the
Covid virus out
Author : discocrisco
Score : 193 points
Date : 2021-03-23 12:54 UTC (10 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (bbc.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (bbc.com)
| AntiImperialist wrote:
| So can various other strains of coronaviruses, a lot of which are
| much less harmful to us. In fact, smallpox was eradicated by
| using another species of the virus. The main reason smallpox was
| eradicated was because the vaccine itself was infectious.
|
| Unfortunately, that is terrible for business. So, extreme
| precaution is taken by pharmaceuticals to make sure that
| naturally occurring variants will never be a thing.
| kurthr wrote:
| Add me to the list of people who think this sort of reporting is
| dangerous to the public health.
|
| It's well known that a primed immune system (in non-
| immunocompromised individuals) will combat viral infections more
| readily. The innate immune system (as opposed to the adaptive
| genetically diverse B/T-Cell antibody system) is a Thing and this
| is why people were discussing giving standard vaccines (including
| Flu, BCG, and others) before there were COVID specific vaccines.
| Saying that the "common cold" (which isn't a single virus, but a
| set of conditions), can "boot out" COV2 is silly gibberish and
| completely unsupported by evidence. Furthermore infecting people
| with unknown "colds" could in fact infecting them with (or
| covering up) "pre-symptomatic" COVID.
|
| Sorry, but you need to bring the actual Bigfoot/Nessi in for
| people to believe outrageous claims at this point. Wearing
| "protective amulets" against them is more likely to cause
| problems that promote solutions.
| insickness wrote:
| "From the moment the invaders arrived, breathed our air, ate and
| drank, they were doomed. They were undone, destroyed, after all
| of man's weapons and devices had failed, by the tiniest creatures
| that God in his wisdom put upon this earth. By the toll of a
| billion deaths, man had earned his immunity, his right to survive
| among this planet's infinite organisms. And that right is ours
| against all challenges. For neither do men live nor die in vain."
| WhompingWindows wrote:
| "the tiniest creatures God in his wisdom put upon this earth"
|
| The writing is nice but flawed. Since War of the Worlds, we
| have advanced tremendously and no longer need intelligent
| design or creation myths to explain microorganisms.
|
| Reproducible, testable science demonstrates that in the
| primordial oceans, self-replicating molecules which were
| slightly better at self-replicating produced globules of matter
| capable of inheritance. Small mutations over millions of years
| led to the tiniest organisms, not "creatures", and most
| microorganisms don't even interact with higher life forms. It's
| only after epochs of time that complex mammals arose, breathing
| air, and these mammalian hosts then did provide the harbor for
| pathogens we know today.
| Bancakes wrote:
| I don't see the contradiction honestly. They are creatures
| and they are here. Maybe you misinterpret what a creature is.
| corobo wrote:
| The writing is nice because it's nicely written. It's
| fiction, Wells was a fiction author.
|
| Give the dude a break on the athiest rant, he's been dead
| half a century.
| KoftaBob wrote:
| It's always those that are the least confident in their
| atheism that feel the need to constantly defend it.
| hanche wrote:
| Doesn't that go for _any_ 'ism?
| hutzlibu wrote:
| "Reproducible, testable science demonstrates that in the
| primordial oceans, self-replicating molecules which were
| slightly better at self-replicating produced globules of
| matter capable of inheritance."
|
| Hang on. Are you implying that science created artifical life
| from just elements? Because that would be news to me.
| michaelmrose wrote:
| We don't understand how abiogenesis happened exactly but we
| do know that electricity from lightning is liable to be
| able to produce amino acids from simpler chemicals and we
| have theories as to how the early earth would have been
| amenable to such formation in a way the current earth is
| not.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miller%E2%80%93Urey_experimen
| t
|
| Given the history of shamanistic figures explaining the
| natural world in terms of magical spirits and having
| magical definitions replaced with natural ones thousands of
| years one can perhaps be forgiven for concluding that the
| original of life was just another domino waiting to fall.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiogenesis
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| This is interesting, but it also says nothing about fine-
| tuning, which is likely outside the realms of the
| scientific method.
| michaelmrose wrote:
| Why is it outside of the scientific method? Speculate
| based on the other things we know about the universe,
| devise way of test theory, rinse repeat.
| shadowofneptune wrote:
| HG Wells would have been well aware of this, being an athiest
| of a kind we'd consider close to New Athiesm nowadays.
| brazzy wrote:
| > athiest of a kind we'd consider close to New Athiesm
|
| _twitch_
|
| It's Atheism. "A-" as a negation like in apolitical,
| atypical, aseptic. And "theism" meaning "belief in god",
| same root as theology or theocracy.
| shadowofneptune wrote:
| I do not understand what you mean here.
| JonathonW wrote:
| Grandparent comment misspelled atheism; parent comment is
| being obnoxious about it.
| Izkata wrote:
| I read it as aversion to the "New" part of "New Atheism",
| a term I don't think I've heard of before.
| JonathonW wrote:
| New Atheism refers to a specifically anti-religious/anti-
| theist viewpoint-- see Dawkins, Sam Harris, etc.
|
| I am not familiar enough with H.G. Wells's religious
| leanings (or lack thereof) to make any kind of comparison
| between Wells's views and those of New Atheism's
| proponents, although I will note that War of the Worlds
| was written early enough that Wells may not have been
| atheist yet.
| Vrondi wrote:
| Yeah, you'd almost think he was writing in the voice of a
| fictional character or something bizarre like that.
| junon wrote:
| Or that God was maybe a writing device instead of
| literally referring to God.
| gher-shyu3i wrote:
| Science does not and will not be able to explain the origin
| of life. The statement still holds. It's very arrogant of us
| to assume otherwise.
| techrat wrote:
| Is the theory of gravity still something to be considered
| only a theory?
| hanche wrote:
| A theory, yes. Those who say "only a theory" tend to
| confuse theory with _hypothesis_ , which is much looser.
| A theory is a coherent set of principles serving to
| explain a range of phenomena. Emphasis on _coherent_ ,
| meaning not only internally consistent, but also
| consistent with related knowledge. The road from
| hypothesis to theory can be long and tortuous.
| michaelmrose wrote:
| Presumably so especially since both Newton's and
| Enstein's understanding of gravity is obviously
| incomplete.
| tremon wrote:
| That depends on whether your question to the origin of life
| begins with "How" or "Why".
| behringer wrote:
| Why wouldn't it. If it has an answer science can find it.
| nanis wrote:
| > science can find it.
|
| There is no thing called "science" that finds answers.
| There are scientists who can form hypotheses about the
| universe they can see and perceive and check whether they
| are consistent with what they can see and perceive.
|
| We are mostly ants on a balloon:
|
| https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/does-the-fact-
| tha...
|
| We do not know where the balloon came from.
| behringer wrote:
| science is our method of finding answers. When we say
| science can find it, we mean scientists using the
| scientific method.
| gher-shyu3i wrote:
| Science is _a_ method of finding answers, it 's not the
| only one.
| Retric wrote:
| > There is no thing called "science" that finds answers.
|
| That's equivalent to suggesting people can't do chess.
| Semantically it may be accurate, but it's intentionally
| obtuse.
|
| Language doesn't actually work that way.
|
| Anyway, science isn't experiments and building hypothesis
| etc. That's part of the process, but really quite small
| pieces of a greater whole. It's the long processes of
| generations refining and testing earlier ideas that finds
| truth.
| nanis wrote:
| I am not sure I understand the statement about chess.
|
| It is important to understand that scientists are
| individuals with individual incentives. While some have
| an inherent drive towards getting closer to truths via
| the application of the scientific method, others may find
| other things more important.
|
| Abstracting "the science" from scientists is a convenient
| way of training other people in the acceptance of the
| proposition that there are inherently qualified arbiters
| of truth.
| Retric wrote:
| Chess is an abstract set of rules _not_ the thought
| process behind making a move or the physical action of
| moving a piece. As such nobody actually does chess.
|
| You can play chess, as in follow the rules, or be a
| scientist, as in contribute to the progress of science,
| but nobody is the physical embodiment of chess or
| science.
|
| Edit: To be as clear as possible, the President isn't
| Democracy, but Democracy still exists in that you can
| meaningfully destroy it.
| gher-shyu3i wrote:
| Because it's beyond the realm of space and time. We can't
| go back before t=0 when the universe was created.
| michaelmrose wrote:
| Life is believed to have emerged at ~t=9 billion why
| couldn't we formulate a theory of how it emerged?
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| Life connects back to time zero because everything prior
| was an important boundary condition, e.g. heavy metals
| made through exploding stars supporting elemental
| composition of life, etc.
| benlivengood wrote:
| > Life connects back to time zero because everything
| prior was an important boundary condition, e.g. heavy
| metals made through exploding stars supporting elemental
| composition of life, etc.
|
| The initial conditions were so uniform that it doesn't
| take the same level of detail to understand what
| happened, and we can look all the way back to the CMBR. A
| particle-by-particle reconstruction of interactions since
| the big bang won't make much of a difference in our
| understanding of what happened on Earth. Virtually all of
| the interactions arrived in our solar system in a very
| noisy fashion during star formation and it was up to the
| resulting sun to pump negentropy into the rocks and other
| matter.
| michaelmrose wrote:
| You don't have to understand everything to understand
| anything. Scientific theories are always abstractions
| that reduce the complex interconnected universe to a
| workable surface area we are trying to explore in order
| to produce a model that can be used to make predictions
| about the larger world that in turn can be tested,
| refined, or shit canned as appropriate.
|
| You can say we can't possibly understand how the heart
| works because we do not understand the entire
| evolutionary tree leading up to the human race and how
| the circulatory system evolved over billions of years and
| ergo heart transplants are impossible. This is trivially
| false and its false for the same reason parent posters
| assertion is false. Everything is how it is because of
| initial conditions ergo everything connects back to time
| zero but we can still use the abstract understanding we
| do have to make models and predictions.
| behringer wrote:
| Until we know the nature of the universe, that may not be
| correct.
| __s wrote:
| It may not be correct, but it may be correct
|
| Your statement "If it has an answer" only holds if you
| say that any truth science can't prove doesn't exist
|
| But this isn't true. See Halting problem etc. There are
| things for which the answer can exist & yet be
| undeterminable
|
| This is fine. I prefer to look at it this way: science is
| searching out a subset of knowable truths. The origin of
| the universe is interesting only insofar as we can dredge
| up relevant information, but coming up with an origin
| story or not isn't what proves the validity of science
|
| Science isn't about getting all the answers, it's about
| getting the answers right & at it's best admitting when
| we got the answers wrong
|
| When someone asks "If God doesn't exist what created the
| universe?" I say "I don't know, I don't care"
| marshmallow_12 wrote:
| He means to say that science does not have the tools to
| reproduce the beginning of the Universe. If it's not
| reproducible it's not Science. Confident assertions non-
| withstanding, the Human mind is a slave to nature, in
| that can never hope to uncover it's deepest secrets and
| thus, it's true.....nature?
| michaelmrose wrote:
| By that definition science is entirely unreal because we
| can't reproduce an apple pie from scratch without first
| creating the universe. We explore geology including
| theories about the formation of the earth without making
| new planets.
|
| What is supposed to be reproducible is the act of
| collecting and processing data to ensure that your
| conclusion isn't based on error, falsehood, or
| happenstance. What he is promoting is a basic
| misunderstanding of both science and logic.
|
| People with preconceived anti science attitudes do this
| all the time. They face you down at high noon in their
| fancy duds, six guns ready at their hips sure of
| themselves and ready to kill and draw pearl handled....
| water pistols.
|
| They went looking for the correct answer to satisfy their
| religion not a commitment to truth and found cheaply
| manufactured baubles they are sure are deadly weapons
| because the very skills that would enable them to see it
| clearly would prevent them from looking for such easy
| answers in the first place.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| This article by an MIT prof might be interesting: https:/
| /www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2021/03/miracles...
|
| tl;dr At some depth, you ask questions beyond the
| scientific method itself.
| gher-shyu3i wrote:
| Your argument is a straw man.
| marshmallow_12 wrote:
| let me rephrase; science has limited itself to
| understanding the laws of Nature. It can never tell us
| how the world -and thus life- came to be. I admit your
| argument was a good one. But not the anti religious
| points. Essentially atheists has declared Nature as the
| true god. In the rules he has imposed, he has left us
| with no choice. Science has hardly managed to do away
| with god, it has merely managed to exchange him as it
| were.
|
| I will also argue that atheism is a religion. There is
| nothing more exciting than being able to throw off the
| rules of one god by replacing him with another who asks
| for nothing.
| michaelmrose wrote:
| Only theists conceive of God as an essential element and
| thereby perceive a god shaped hole in atheists world
| view? What religion does your cat practice for example?
|
| Nature is like gravity it is a label we attach to things
| in order to communicate about some aspect of our mental
| models of the universe we share or imagine we share
| sufficiently to communicate theories about the underlying
| thing those models point to. It isn't in most cases not
| imagined to be a sentience modeled after ourselves but
| rather an abstraction around some aspects of everything
| in the overarching model.
|
| Religion, Philosophy, Science are all systems of models
| of the world but they belong in different category based
| on characteristics in the same way that a trout, a dog,
| and an duck are all animals but they aren't all fish just
| because they all swim.
|
| Religion especially western religion has classically been
| a pre scientific exploration of different theories about
| how the world came to be lacking virtually all actual
| understanding and focused on the idea that something much
| like man writ large was responsible for the universe and
| that the man who acted as conduit to the wishes off that
| man would derive some measure of that beings power
| mirroring primitive social structures and extending them
| skyward to the fanciful creations of our own mind. As if
| an ant had imagined the entire world was a giant burrow
| made by giant ants who could make their wishes known to
| lesser ants by way of the arrangements of your dogs
| droppings in your yard.
|
| Science is merely a system for harnessing the same
| imagination but directed towards testing our fanciful
| explanations and building an increasingly powerful set of
| facts and models that are extremely likely to be somewhat
| true. We by the nature of our brains are builders of
| models and we must have them to exist and to progress but
| we don't need to build a system that glorifies the very
| flaws to which our minds are most heir to and exploits
| them. That is to say we haven't replaced God with nature
| we have simply built mental models of the universe that
| don't contain a first cause because we don't believe
| there is a conscious act at the center of it all.
|
| Those of us who have wings know that a wing isn't a
| different kind of fin and a rocket engine isn't a
| different sort of wing and naked is not a style of pants.
|
| There is no reason that we can't at the end of a long
| road have a pretty good idea how how life on earth came
| to be in the same way as we have a pretty good idea of
| how to continents came to be as they are. It wont be
| perfect but it will keep getting better every year as we
| learn more.
|
| Your god was invented thousands of years ago so someone
| could claim to speak for him and attain status within his
| or her tribe without hunting more animals a trick that
| amazingly still works NOW. Throwing off the yoke of his
| adherents doesn't free one from the obligation of life,
| meaning, your family, or your fellow man. It is a harder
| obligation not an easier one. You incorrectly frame
| casting out comforting lies and facing down a terrifying
| truth as an easy way out but nothing could be further
| from the truth.
|
| If a lie it is and I for myself call it a lie then
| adhering to it would be an unacceptable act of cowardice.
| If you truly believe it then to you it is courage to
| adhere to it but neither of our experiences is a lie and
| you definitely do not understand mine or any other alike.
| Shorel wrote:
| Neither will religion.
|
| It is very arrogant of any ideology to pretend it can
| explain things it can't.
| michaelmrose wrote:
| I suggest you defend that position instead of stating it so
| boldly and asking us to accept your reasoning.
| gher-shyu3i wrote:
| I mentioned in another comment just one counter example:
| we cannot go back to before t=0 when the universe was
| created. There is knowledge beyond the realm of space and
| time which we have no access to.
| zuminator wrote:
| If the universe "began" at t=0, and life began at, let's
| call it t=100, then all we need is access to t=99, not
| all the way back to the beginning. I'm not saying that's
| actually achievable, I'm just saying your argument is not
| persuasive.
| gher-shyu3i wrote:
| I gave it as an example to close the debate fully,
| because I'm aware of this line of arguing. The point
| remains, (1) life will not be possible without the
| universe, (2) the universe exists, and (3) we do not have
| access to the knowledge about how the universe was
| created, nor before it was created.
| michaelmrose wrote:
| Lets go to Wile E. Coyote for this one.
|
| https://i.pinimg.com/originals/e2/f0/16/e2f0165777598a13c
| 246...
|
| Anvils would not be possible without the universe ergo we
| cannot possible predict solely on our knowledge of Warner
| Brothers physics and prior plot lines that the anvil trap
| he is laying will fall on his own head comically
| flattening him yet somehow leaving him alive and ready to
| chase the road runner again in the next sketch.
|
| Our models don't capture every aspect of the world but
| good models capture enough to make increasingly good
| predictions about the past and future and the more we
| test them and winnow out the bad we approach but can
| never achieve perfection. The origin of life isn't
| inherently any different than the evolution of the
| continents, the planets, or the tree of life over the
| eons. No fundamental barrier stands in the way of our
| understanding. You didn't "close the debate fully".
| Nobody who didn't start out agreeing with you now does
| and its because they understand things you do not.
| gumby wrote:
| HG Wells?
| Vrondi wrote:
| Yes: War of the Worlds
| hutzlibu wrote:
| It is.
| hinkley wrote:
| There's a concept in domestication that it's not always clear
| in a symbiotic relationship as to which party is in 'control'
| of the relationship, especially when one party gets a huge
| boost in reproductive rates from the other. Did humans
| domesticate dogs, or did dogs domesticate humans?
|
| Viruses are specialized. They won't attack aliens. Bacteria
| might. It's the fungi in many respects that are the masters of
| this planet. If we manage to destroy ourselves so badly that we
| take out most multicellular organisms as well, it'll be the
| fungi that rebuild the ecology.
|
| It'll probably be the fungi that the aliens have to worry about
| too.
| Verdex wrote:
| This is one of the things that I like about the expanse
| series. When people first start moving out to alien
| ecosystems, they specifically go into how alien viruses etc
| are probably not going to be a problem. The metaphor they use
| is "mining" basically. Where they're not concerned that
| people will get infected, but they're concerned that some
| organism will find out that people are full of some resource
| that the organism can use.
|
| And in fact they bump into some sort of algae that lives in
| the atmosphere that really likes the saline mixture that
| makes up most of the liquid in our bodies.
| elliekelly wrote:
| I've never heard of the Expanse series but your mining
| comment is both terrifying and intriguing! DuckDuckGo tells
| me it's both a series of novels and a Syfy TV series - I'm
| curious which one (or perhaps both?) you're referring to so
| I can add it to my read and/or watch list.
| Verdex wrote:
| I prefer the books but the episodes I saw were all really
| good. I think I watched to seasson 3.
| ido wrote:
| They both tell more or less the same story (the show is
| based on the books) but I believe they were referring to
| the tv show.
| cbsks wrote:
| The series is streaming on Amazon Prime, FYI
| [deleted]
| elsonrodriguez wrote:
| I experienced the Expanse by watching the first season,
| binging all the books because I was impatient, then
| watching the rest with my partner.
|
| I feel I've gotten the best of both by doing that.
| dehrmann wrote:
| > which party is in 'control' of the relationship
|
| Any one taking care of a cat knows this well.
| toast0 wrote:
| It's the toxoplasmosis in control, right?
| burnte wrote:
| Viruses will attack anything they can successfully reproduce
| in, they have absolutely no preferences. They are binary,
| they survive and thrive or they don't. That's why some
| viruses can sucessfully jump species, and some can't, some
| viruses are able to survive in multiple hosts through dumb
| luck. Yes, they all need specific types of conditions in
| their hosts to survive, but they don't care if it's a big, a
| dog, a human, or an alien. If it gets what it needs, it'll go
| there.
|
| Note: I'm not saying viruses don't have conditions they need
| met, they do, obviously. I'm saying they can attack an alien
| just as likely as they can a human.
| kiba wrote:
| Yes, viruses don't care. But at the same time, I am
| doubtful that they could.
| maxerickson wrote:
| We don't really know whether other forms of life would use
| proteins, or make the same ones the same way we do.
|
| Both of those things are important to all of the viruses we
| have experience with.
| [deleted]
| mrkstu wrote:
| Viruses have evolved to hijack DNA- I'd find it highly
| unlikely a truly alien biology would be susceptible to
| earth viruses. Maybe some truly primitive precursor virus
| may have been able to, but I'd think any of those would be
| long gone.
| WalterBright wrote:
| But will the alien viruses attack us?
| jdlyga wrote:
| Rhino Virus
| spinny wrote:
| well guess we are all f'ed anyway ... many countries are
| reporting record low numbers for the common cold ... because
| covid. in many places the common cold is the new covid, it seems.
|
| and my fifi's got massively offended by the usage of the word
| "trump". my inner ninja karen is about to pull the facemask and
| do a reeeeeeeeeee mortal kombat finish move
| etiam wrote:
| Maybe this could be an explanation for the most unexpected dip in
| COVID-19 infection around January. Does data for rhinovirus
| infections get collected to such an extent that it would be
| possible to compare curves?
| danaliv wrote:
| I thought the January dip was from the end of holiday travel.
| thehappypm wrote:
| Short answer is nobody knows. The winter spike began around
| late October so you can't say it had much to do with holidays
| really -- maybe it's weather, made worse by holiday travel,
| made worse by students being back in school.
| throwaway122378 wrote:
| The dip was correlated to Trump leaving office.
| dehrmann wrote:
| Flu cases are _way_ down, so by proxy, I 'd assume colds are
| also down unless a lot more people got flu shots this season.
| klebe wrote:
| adults average 2-4 colds per year; kids even more so (6-8)
|
| Think about all the natural immunity we squandered by locking
| everyone down.....not only did we miss out on herd immunity, but
| now it seems that even the common cold would've acted as a
| defense system
|
| experts are to be doubted. always.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_cold
| trhway wrote:
| >all the natural immunity we squandered by locking everyone
| down
|
| especially when it comes to children. It has already been
| established that the too sanitized modern existence leads to
| increase of allergies/autoimmunes/etc. Now the lockdowns and
| masks (which judging by the numbers haven't so far helped much
| with Covid) denied to children the early immune system "cross-
| pollination" of kinder-gardens/schools/etc. , thus one can
| expect even more immune system related issues down the road.
|
| >experts are to be doubted. always
|
| different experts were saying different things (like those
| epidemiologists saying that blocking people from beach is
| meaningless to say the least - i mean it is obvious even for
| non-experts, yet politicians still did it in order to "Do
| Something"). The key here is the choice of an expert to listen
| to, the choice made by the politicians and the populace scared
| by them.
| grumpwagon wrote:
| All I can think of is the Simpsons gif of Mr Burns being alive
| because he has so many ailments they all cancel each other out.
|
| [0] https://twitter.com/ddiamond/status/951930408261881856
| Techbrunch wrote:
| Mr. Burns is Indestructible:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aI0euMFAWF8
| rrmm wrote:
| Ah, The three stooges syndrome, whoop whoop whoop whoop!
| sktrdie wrote:
| Yeah but once you're better, covid is free to infect you.
| postalrat wrote:
| Then just make sure you are infected with both.
| calltrak wrote:
| https://picc.io/tq2sFHU.png
| dragonwriter wrote:
| There are many different viruses that cause the "common cold",
| including various coronaviruses; this is specifically about some
| rhinoviruses.
| cdrini wrote:
| This seems unlikely to scale out of the lab. The experiment used
| a "replica of the lining of our airways, made out of the same
| types of cells, and infected it with Sars-CoV-2 and rhinovirus".
| Although rhinoviruses primarily target receptors found in the
| airway, Sars-Cov-2 targets the ACE2 receptor, which is found in
| just about every organ in your body. If the airway cells were
| "occupied" by rhinoviruses, then Sars-Cov-2 could just travel to
| the lungs and infect the cells there. Or to the cells of your
| olfactory system, and cause loss of smell. Or to your stomach.
| Although it is interesting that these viruses compete when
| targeting the same cells, using rhinoviruses to prevent Sars-
| Cov-2 seems very unlikely in the real world.
| TheBlight wrote:
| Are you a doctor or biologist?
| mrkramer wrote:
| Another reason I personally would not like to get vaccinated.
| Nature and evolution solve all problems sooner or later.
| shishy wrote:
| Talk about confirmation bias!
| robotbikes wrote:
| People should be free to make choices regarding their own body
| but the notion of "nature" as an anthromorphic problem solver
| and superiority of genes is pretty out of sync with our
| reality. There are many augmentations we use to help survive
| and vaccines are no different. Glasses for instance are not
| "natural" but I don't see many people arguing that we should
| only let those with 20/20 vision survive. Going down that route
| leads to a lot of toxic notions. Writing this during the 15
| minutes cool down after getting the first vaccine shot. So I
| know where I stand.
| mrkramer wrote:
| >Glasses for instance are not "natural" but I don't see many
| people arguing that we should only let those with 20/20
| vision survive.
|
| I agree with you. Glasses and vaccine are great achievements
| of human civilization but I raised questions about freedom,
| biology and moral.
|
| I'm not against vaccination I took many of them as a child
| and I have glasses which help and enhance me significantly
| but I'm not for mandatory vaccination or COVID passports that
| my European Union wants to enforce and I'm not for European
| Union limiting my human rights. We are going back to the days
| of Hitler where it was more important who you are
| "biologically" than looking at the fact that we are all
| humans and that we all have equal rights.
| Mediterraneo10 wrote:
| > Glasses for instance are not "natural"
|
| There is quite a bit of pseudoscience on the internet that
| people don't really need glasses, they can train their eyes
| to work without them. See, for instance, the so-called Bates
| method[0], which had been well-debunked already in the
| mid-20th-century but, like so many quack claims, got a new
| life from the web.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bates_method
| anonymouswacker wrote:
| I share your skepticism. Vaccines are a relatively new
| technology, with various buggy vaccines coming out that were
| actually more harmful than helpful. Time will tell if the mRNA
| "Vaccine" will be a net positive. I am totally okay with other
| people injecting whatever they want in their bodies, as long as
| they don't try to make me do it, too. I would rather die of
| natural causes than a rushed-to-market product.
| andruby wrote:
| What do you mean "Vaccines are a relatively new technology"?
|
| We've had vaccines since 1796 [0] when Edward Jenner
| developed a vaccine for smallpox, a terrible disease that we
| fully eradicated thanks to vaccination. A disease that you
| and me don't have to worry about because of vaccines.
|
| (Likewise for Cholera, Tetanus, Polio, Tuberculosis,
| Meningitis, etc)
|
| Also, trains, cars, planes, cameras, lightbulbs and every
| invention of Edison are newer technologies than vaccines.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_human_vaccines
| mamon wrote:
| Maybe they mean "mRNA vaccines"? COVID vaccine is the first
| of this kind, so some side effects, especially long term
| ones, are still unknown. It's still unlikely that they
| would be very serious but we won't know for sure until 10
| years from now.
| hef19898 wrote:
| The "later" part is the problem so.
| mrkramer wrote:
| I mean it is natural selection if I'm weak I will die if I'm
| not I will pass my genes to my kids. That's how we evolved to
| the level of biological machine that human body is.
| the_af wrote:
| > _I mean it is natural selection if I 'm weak I will die
| if I'm not I will pass my genes to my kids._
|
| That's not how natural selection works.
| eCa wrote:
| I will (most likely) not have kids, but even if I'm weak I
| don't see it as my duty to die in order to not dilute the
| species.
| Zelphyr wrote:
| It's not you dying that's the problem with your statement
| so much as the other people you're going to kill because of
| your choice not to get vaccinated.
|
| That's one step away from a family member of mine saying
| recently, "You all can live in fear but I choose to live my
| life in faith that God will take care of me."
| gjs278 wrote:
| all of those people are weak and it was their time to die
| hyko wrote:
| If you absolutely have to resort to trial and error, at
| least don't be the error.
|
| Natural Selection is as dumb as a box of rocks and slow as
| molasses; when it comes to achieving a goal we humans do
| _far_ better, far faster.
|
| There's obviously the merest whiff of trolling here, but
| come on.
|
| *Edited so as not to besmirch the good name of frogs.
| james4k wrote:
| Natural selection gave us the social structures that allow
| you to buy your cold cuts and quietly hoard your wealth so
| that you don't have to face an ounce of real hardship in
| your life.
| marcodiego wrote:
| So, why don't you move to the wilderness and leaves the
| internet for us, the weak ones?
| hprotagonist wrote:
| and now we're evolved enough to have brains capable of
| giving us a competitive advantage against diseases!
|
| unless you think that brains somehow aren't part of our
| biological machine.
| NicoJuicy wrote:
| How about IVF and that it becomes almost a necessity for
| all their children.
|
| Or the increased necessity of glasses at a young age.
|
| It's not the beneficiaries particular brain that gave the
| competitive edge ;)
| Omnitaus wrote:
| This is only an issue if everyone wants or needs kids.
| Glasses are similarly not a big deal. I feel like you
| could have used better examples to argue in favor of
| eugenics but at the end of the day it's still eugenics?
| People should have access to any and all medical
| advancements, better to address the problem than ignore
| it with selective breeding
| meowface wrote:
| But if you're not "weak", you could inadvertently spread it
| to someone who is "weak", and they could spread it to many
| other "weak" people, and then they all die and don't pass
| on their genes. It's true that this is a form of eugenics
| and natural selection, but it's not the kind that's
| compatible with the values of most humans.
| mrkramer wrote:
| Don't worry I'm not going to harm anyone just like
| Spanish flu ended in 2 years this pandemic will also end
| soon. I discussed months ago here on HN that looking
| legally causing someone's death without intent is not
| criminal because you had no intent of killing. Take a
| look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mens_rea
|
| "A person commits an offense if he: intentionally or
| knowingly causes the death of an individual."
|
| I have no intent or knowledge that I'm going to harm
| anyone.
|
| Another guy said in that discussion something like "How
| is this virus any different from other viruses?"
|
| Should I blame people for spreading STDs for example? Of
| course not they spread it unintentionally and without
| knowledge in most cases.
| nkohari wrote:
| Legality and ethics are two distinct things.
| mrkramer wrote:
| I know but legal system is based on ethics. E.g. not
| stealing or not killing etc.
| SirSavary wrote:
| You better hope that the judge handling your case doesn't
| stumble upon this comment thread. Your lack of Mens Rea
| isn't going to fly if you're caught meta-discussing the
| whole thing.
|
| Also, manslaughter?
| mrkramer wrote:
| I'm not a lawyer but am I guilty because I want my human
| rights and my freedom of choice?
|
| Should I blame you or any other person of spreading STDs
| for example? Or any other disease without intent or
| knowledge?
|
| I welcome any legal advice because I have no INTENTION of
| HARMING anyone.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| > I have no INTENTION of HARMING anyone.
|
| I feel the same way when I'm doing 150mph down the
| highway. And yet...
| mrkramer wrote:
| If you kill somebody you will be charged for involuntary
| manslaughter or constructive manslaughter depending on
| what speed limit was but if I sit next to you
| unvaccinated in a waiting room should I be charged as
| well?
| Omnitaus wrote:
| I mean if you're against vaccines, the best public health
| measure since soap, perhaps you're the weakest link we're
| begging natural selection to act on. Hope you don't use
| glasses, take antibiotics, receive surgery, or benefit
| otherwise from the million and one things humans have
| invented so as to not deal with random selection
| dependent on changing external stimuli
| mrkramer wrote:
| >I mean if you're against vaccines, the best public
| health measure since soap, perhaps you're the weakest
| link we're begging natural selection to act on.
|
| I'm not against vaccination I'm against mandatory
| vaccination and limiting my human rights if I don't
| vaccinate. Nobody will prevent you from visiting a
| country if you don't use glasses, take antibiotics or
| anything else you mentioned.
|
| I never visited Africa but I heard there are some
| security measures regarding Malaria but c'mon forbidding
| someone to work or travel only because he or she didn't
| get vaccinated against 1 pathogen is over the top.
| selimthegrim wrote:
| I guess you're against sovereignty of nations other than
| your own? Plus how are they going to buy your country's
| vaccine if you/your countrymen won't take it?
| [deleted]
| sunopener wrote:
| > weakest link Oh boy, oh boy... at what point do we get
| to admit we're fascists?!?!
| rootusrootus wrote:
| Are you asking for an ethical opinion, or legal one? I am
| no lawyer, I have no idea if you could be on the hook for
| reckless endangerment. If you know that your choice is
| risky, and you fail to act, then there are circumstances
| when you could be criminally liable. But usually these
| are situations where the law prescribes a duty to act.
|
| Are you comfortable endangering those around you because
| protecting them is an inconvenient imposition on your
| freedom? That's an entirely different issue.
| sunopener wrote:
| You feel the same way when your having a conscious
| experience. There's no way I could hurt someone by being
| conscious... is there?
| mrkramer wrote:
| And btw I understand what manslaughter is but again I'm
| not a lawyer. Refer me to any case or cases where someone
| is guilty of spreading a virus without
| intent(Involuntary).
| dragonwriter wrote:
| Laws adopted in the course of the HIV pandemic in many
| jurisdictions made various acts that were more likely to
| spread the virus criminal if you knew you were infected
| unless other people put at risk were informed of the fact
| and consented to the risk, whether or not you intended to
| cause harm.
| WJW wrote:
| First google result:
| https://www.irishtimes.com/news/crime-and-
| law/courts/circuit.... It's not difficult to find more
| examples.
|
| If you know or could reasonably suspect you have a lethal
| virus and still go out without taking proper precautions
| then that is absolutely something people have sued over
| many many times.
| mrkramer wrote:
| It is unclear whether defendant was aware of having a
| HIV. It seems like he had no intent of spreading a
| disease and had limited or no knowledge of having it.
|
| "I didn't really do it intentionally but when we were
| drunk it ended up happening"."
|
| How the case ended?
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > I discussed months ago here on HN that looking legally
| causing someone's death without intent is not criminal
| because you had no intent of killing
|
| Intentional killing is usually first degree murder, or
| voluntary manslaughter, depending on premeditation.
| Second (in some schemes third) degree murder (depraved
| indifference) and involuntary manslaughter, and negligent
| homicide all are crimes, and do not require intent to
| kill.
|
| So, you are very, very wrong.
|
| > I have no intent or knowledge that I'm going to harm
| anyone
|
| The source you link notes that there are other levels of
| _mens rea_ supporting criminal offenses (recklessness,
| negligence) as well as offenses which are not dependent
| on mental state at all (strict liability offenses.)
| mrkramer wrote:
| I understand what involuntary manslaughter is but does it
| apply to spreading a virus? I'm not a lawyer but if it
| does I will act accordingly and try not to commit
| involuntary manslaughter hypothetically speaking.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > I understand what involuntary manslaughter is but does
| it apply to spreading a virus?
|
| Neither depraved heart murder nor involuntary
| manslaughter has an _exception_ for viral-agent-as-
| mechanism on any jurisdiction I 'm familiar with.
| sobriquet9 wrote:
| You augment your memory with Google searches and your
| running speed with cars, why not augment your natural
| immune system with vaccines.
| hutzlibu wrote:
| Well, I am about to get vaccinated with astrazeneca in
| half an hour ... but my counter argument would be:
| relying on vaccination and sterilisation too much, causes
| the immune system to be weak, too. Immune system needs
| practice, too.
| marcodiego wrote:
| Antibiotics, maybe. But vaccines stimulate your immune
| system to produce antibodies.
| maxrev17 wrote:
| That's literally what the jab does?
| manwe150 wrote:
| I came to counter him with a joke, but the downvoters
| beat me to it. Anyways:
|
| The vaccine is more like going to the gym. We could
| continue our ancestor's practice of trying to run from
| lions, which was possibly better adrenaline practice, and
| even mostly successful. We might not be scientifically
| certain of the long-term side-effects of going to the
| gym, but I'll just rely on the gym nonetheless. And good
| for you going to the gym too!
| hutzlibu wrote:
| Agreed.
| hef19898 wrote:
| Vaccines are immune system training on literal steroids.
| Overall I get your point so, as we see with increased
| allergies.
| biswaroop wrote:
| > relying on vaccination and sterilisation too much,
| causes the immune system to be weak
|
| I think you fundamentally misunderstand the mechanism of
| vaccination.
| hutzlibu wrote:
| I think I do, but do you?
|
| Because the way I understand it, vaccination trains only
| a very specific part of the immune system. Which is then
| indeed effective against the very specific virus, but
| does not really increase your general immune system
| strength.
| Omnitaus wrote:
| Huh, it's almost as if the vaccine is to innoculate me
| against a specific lethal pathogen that I don't want to
| risk training my immune system on
|
| If you want a better overall immune system eat better and
| excercise, there is zero reason to avoid a vaccine unless
| you're immunocompromised or allergic
| hutzlibu wrote:
| "there is zero reason to avoid a vaccine unless you're
| immunocompromised or allergic"
|
| _sigh_ did you really get all the vaccines, that exist?
|
| I doubt so. I actually never heard anyone recomending
| that. Quite the contrary. The idea is to get vaccinated
| against diseases you are likely to get in contact with -
| and then you still have to think about it, if it is worth
| it. Because EVERY vaccination has potential negative side
| effects, some quite severe.
|
| So now there is a great chance to get in contact with
| Covid - so yeah, it makes sense to take that vaccine. I
| think I said, I did today.
|
| But taking every vaccination?!? Come on. Or provide a
| source that the WHO or alike do recommend it. That would
| surprise me, as I traveled quite a bit and therefore
| discussed various vaccines with various doctors before.
|
| And also, I never implied that you should skip a vaccine
| to get training on that disease. I said if you rely too
| much on sterilisation and vaccines - it does not help
| your immune system overal. Counterclaims to that? I doubt
| it. I am a bit annoyed by that bite-reflex of the crowd
| here. Maybe save that for the anti-vaxxers?
| hutzlibu wrote:
| Reply to all:
|
| (you all missed the sterilisation part and the "relying
| too much")
|
| And well yes, vaccination is training. And training is
| good. Thats why I just did it. But training is not a real
| fight. Real battle experience beats training experience
| by far. At least in martial arts.(and as far as I know
| with the immune system, too. the immune system is a
| little bit more sophisticated than "antibodies". And the
| vaccinations mostly train only one part of it - the
| antibodies)
|
| Meaning when your body would be vaccinated against
| everything known in a sterilized environment - he would
| never have to fight for real. Just against cripled germs
| or parts of them. So chances would be, a great
| disadvantage when facing a new disease it did not train
| for. A disease that is actively attacking and not just
| providing dna to read and store.
|
| And my immune system is in a quite good shape(I travelled
| a lot off grid), which is why I actually was indeed more
| sceptical to the vaccination than the actual disease.
| Because it is a new technology. And nobody can guarantee,
| that the side effects are not worse for me, than the
| disease would be. Especially in the long run. Autoimmune
| diseases are increasing a lot. I can only trust the
| developers that their genetically modified cure does not
| mess with my immune system. I recon chances are low, so I
| got the shot.
| belinder wrote:
| Vaccine is the practice
| quonn wrote:
| What strength is there in being able to resist COVID-19
| specifically, which is just one arbitrary sickness out of
| many that can still arise? One that didn't even exist until
| recently?
|
| Strength and weakness are completely dependent on the
| environment and we are shaping that environment, for
| example by vaccinating.
| Robotbeat wrote:
| Well, I prefer to prove my fitness by having the sense to be
| vaccinated rather than trying to fight against drowning in
| mucus.
| grumpwagon wrote:
| Please get vaccinated, it's good for society and yourself.
| ghoward wrote:
| Not the GP.
|
| Because society has accepted liability for vaccine injury (ht
| tps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Childhood_Vaccine_Inj...
| and https://www.medicallicenselawyers.com/blog/covid-19-vacci
| ne-...), it seems to me that it would be good for society for
| me to make the best choice for myself about the vaccine.
| Since society will pay if I get hurt, it would be best for me
| to weigh that in the decision to get vaccinated.
| mrkramer wrote:
| I will if government requires it but it was not my free will.
| SketchySeaBeast wrote:
| That would still be your free will. You'd still be
| presented with a choice:
|
| A) Don't do the thing you don't want to (Vaccination)
|
| - or -
|
| B) Don't do the thing that having a vaccination would let
| you do.
|
| That's still freedom of choice - you're free to decide what
| you want more. Having constraints on you isn't removing
| your free will.
| gjs278 wrote:
| that's barely freedom of choice. a robber pulling a gun
| on you and saying your money or your life isn't what any
| reasonable person interprets as free will. free will
| would be not going to jail or being banned from society
| if you chose not to take the vaccine.
| SketchySeaBeast wrote:
| Is there any such discussion about being banned from
| society or going to jail? That seems incredibly
| hyperbolic. What I've heard is discussions of things like
| cruises and international travel to certain destination,
| which are entirely optional activities.
| guscost wrote:
| Funny, I'm the opposite. I would have no significant
| reservations if it wasn't for the creepy fascist vibe
| oozing from beneath the facade of "science".
|
| As it stands, I'll go to war today and die to guarantee my
| and your and everyone's right to refuse, should TPTB
| actually try anything that stupid. Shouldn't be a problem
| though, the people in favor seem to be mostly bullies
| making noise. They tend to shut up when you let them know
| that their only path forward is to start, and then try to
| win, a war.
| anoonmoose wrote:
| "I believe the vaccine works and I'll die for your right
| not to take it" is one hell of a take, and I'm just happy
| there really aren't that many of you out there.
|
| You may want to remove the link in your profile where you
| express skepticism that we'll hit millions of deaths
| worldwide, as it's going to make people question your
| already questionable viewpoints even more.
| guscost wrote:
| A wild bully appears!
|
| > skepticism that we'll hit millions of deaths worldwide
|
| Here's the exact quote from the blog, in case any
| bystanders suspect that this person _might not be arguing
| in good faith_ :
|
| "Personally I don't think that millions of healthy people
| will ever drop dead from one of these diseases in the
| space of a year, like they once did from a flu in 1918."
|
| > I'm just happy there really aren't that many of you out
| there.
|
| Should it come to the point where "dying for rights" is a
| real thing again (in America), I guess you'll find out.
| anoonmoose wrote:
| Question- since there are plenty of vaccines that are
| already mandatory for various things in the US, shouldn't
| you already be dying for your rights?
| ghoward wrote:
| Not the GP, but those laws are unconstitutional. If we
| don't assert our rights, we will lose them.
|
| "Those who will give up liberty for security [from a
| virus] will lose both."
| anoonmoose wrote:
| not only are you not the GP, you also didn't and can't
| answer my question
| ghoward wrote:
| If you are not willing to die for them, you will lose
| them.
|
| We are, in fact, losing them now, so yes, now is the time
| to be willing to die for them.
| brigandish wrote:
| It's hardly a surprise that someone who believes strongly
| in personal freedom might fight to defend it for (what
| are supposedly) liberal societies, especially given that
| several very large wars of the 20th century (hot and
| cold) are often described as fights for freedom, and
| usual for the freedom of of others and of all.
|
| This is basically the default position of every liberal
| (not in the misapplied American parlance) for at least
| 150 years now and surely far longer.
|
| "War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things: the
| decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling
| which thinks that nothing is worth a war, is much worse.
| When a people are used as mere human instruments for
| firing cannon or thrusting bayonets, in the service and
| for the selfish purposes of a master, such war degrades a
| people. A war to protect other human beings against
| tyrannical injustice; a war to give victory to their own
| ideas of right and good, and which is their own war,
| carried on for an honest purpose by their free choice, --
| is often the means of their regeneration. A man who has
| nothing which he is willing to fight for, nothing which
| he cares more about than he does about his personal
| safety, is a miserable creature who has no chance of
| being free, unless made and kept so by the exertions of
| better men than himself. As long as justice and injustice
| have not terminated their ever-renewing fight for
| ascendancy in the affairs of mankind, human beings must
| be willing, when need is, to do battle for the one
| against the other."
|
| John Stuart Mill, 1862
|
| https://www.bartleby.com/73/1934.html
| kbelder wrote:
| That's my stance. I'll get vaccinated, I'd recommend it
| to others, but wouldn't want to live in a society where
| it was mandatory.
| anoonmoose wrote:
| there are a lot of things that are mandatory in this
| country, some of which I think should not be, and some of
| which I think should be
|
| I think vaccines are a good one to be mandatory
| Karsteski wrote:
| Which country are you talking about?
| bart_spoon wrote:
| No one is holding people down and injecting them with a
| vaccine. Everyone has the right to refuse. But society
| also has a right (and an obligation) to ensure that
| externalities are costed appropriately. You refusing a
| vaccine is a choice, but it also negatively affects
| others around you.
|
| Whether its in the form of tax penalties, barred
| admission from public services, vaccination "passport"
| campaigns, or what have you, there needs to be a cost to
| associated with the damage your personal decision does to
| our society. If refusing a vaccine is truly that
| important to you, you are welcome to pay the cost. But I
| suspect many anti-vaxxers are simply societal freeloaders
| whose "principles" will melt away when they actually cost
| them something.
| cashewchoo wrote:
| Unfortunately for us, nature and evolution "solving problems"
| frequently involves us all just dying and/or Earth spending a
| long period of time as a magma ocean and then several aeons as
| a hot rock.
| myself248 wrote:
| "The _planet_ is fine. It 's the _people_ that 're fucked!"
| -- Carlin
| AshWolfy wrote:
| Humans are a part of nature and vaccines are an evolutionary
| adaptation
| meowface wrote:
| >However, Covid would be able to cause an infection again once
| the cold had passed and the immune response calmed down.
|
| >Dr Murcia said: "Vaccination, plus hygiene measures, plus the
| interactions between viruses could lower the incidence of Sars-
| CoV-2 heavily, but the maximum effect will come from
| vaccination."
|
| Vaccines are an end product of nature and evolution, too, and
| are much more reliable than hoping you always happen to get
| infected with rhinovirus near the same time you're exposed to
| SARS-CoV-2.
| mrkramer wrote:
| >Vaccines are an end product of nature and evolution, too,
| and are much more reliable than hoping you always happen to
| get infected with rhinovirus near the same time you're
| exposed to SARS-CoV-2.
|
| I agree with you but how safe is mRNA vaccine in the long
| term? I would rather take "classical" vaccine.
| itsmeamario wrote:
| Tell that to the dinosaurs.
| otabdeveloper4 wrote:
| Pretty sure dinosaurs didn't die from Covid.
|
| (But it's a good theory, who really knows, amirite?)
| hypertele-Xii wrote:
| They grew wings and spread to every corner of the Earth? We
| call them "birds" now.
| marcodiego wrote:
| Evolution gaves us very powerful brains. Why not use it?
| _joel wrote:
| You might be happy to die needlessly but you endager others who
| don't want to.
| ghoward wrote:
| Not the GP, but I have a question for you: if the vaccine
| works, why would I be putting others in danger by not getting
| it? Can't they get vaccinated instead?
|
| If they can't, doesn't that just mean the vaccine is
| defective? As far as I know, vaccines are meant for those who
| are weaker, so if they can't get it, it seems to me that the
| vaccine is defective.
|
| Also, the CDC has admitted that the asymptomatic transmission
| rate is far less than previously thought. (https://www.cdc.go
| v/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7004e3.htm?s_cid=mm...)
|
| With all of that put together, it seems to me that if I am
| healthy, it would be better for me to save the vaccines for
| those who want them and need them and let my immune system
| build my immunity.
| Tagbert wrote:
| If we have a significant population of unvaccinated people,
| that provides the breeding ground for the virus to multiply
| and mutate into new strains that may bypass the current
| vaccine induced immunity which would require yet another
| round of vaccines.
| ghoward wrote:
| Vaccinated people are still breeding grounds for a virus;
| they can still be carriers. Vaccines just give people the
| antibodies to not be affected by a virus.
| _joel wrote:
| But they are vastly less likely to shed if they have been
| vaccinated, therefore less transmission.
|
| https://theconversation.com/can-vaccinated-people-still-
| spre...
| ghoward wrote:
| That article gave no numbers. It made a claim and didn't
| back it up.
| _joel wrote:
| There's links in the article to Scientific American which
| also had papers from October 2020.
| [deleted]
| ghoward wrote:
| Cool. Where does that dispute the fact that those who are
| vaccinated are still breeding grounds for new variants of
| the virus?
| _joel wrote:
| If they shed less then they are less transmissible, it's
| in the article. It isn't about completely erradicating
| tranmission but bringing it to a level where the problem
| receeds. It's statistics, not a binary thing.
| Dudideloo wrote:
| I'd love to hear that from you when you're going to die.
| nomy99 wrote:
| You do understand that nature/evolution's plan or 'solution'
| can be to eradicate you?
| [deleted]
| mrkramer wrote:
| Should I cry that mother nature doesn't like me? It's not
| like I can do something about natural disaster(hurricane,
| flood, earthquake, volcano eruption etc.) killing me.
| nomy99 wrote:
| No but you should not assume that defaulting to the
| victim's mindset will help your chances of survival. Your
| initial comment implied that nature has your best interest
| in heart; and your child comment is contradicting it?
|
| What's so hard about taking a cautious approach and
| proactively increase your chances of survival? I.e get to
| higher grounds (floods), evacuating(hurricanes), get
| vaccinated (covid + new diseases?), etc.
| mrkramer wrote:
| I don't have time to explain you anymore but I will say
| this. I'm liberal, pro God and pro Science. I don't have
| anything against God or nature taking my life away or
| improving it (evolution) and I don't have anything
| against defense mechanisms like natural disaster controls
| or public health measurements like vaccination but I want
| my freedom. Someone said vaccination is our evolution I
| agree maybe we are approaching singularity but nobody can
| forbid me to work or travel because of 1 pathogen. I took
| all vaccines prior to this but I will not take this one
| so I can laugh at COVID passport because I live in free
| Europe and not in Hitler's Europe anymore. If this
| pandemic is something nearly close to Spanish Flu or
| Black Plague which took hundreds of millions of lives I
| would be the first one to take vaccine but not like this.
|
| WHO's dubious approach and dubious rhetoric only made me
| suspicious. I'm still waiting for their investigation on
| where and how pandemic originated.
| hinkley wrote:
| So centuries of civil engineering advances by the
| Netherlands and Japan don't count as 'doing something'?
| mrkramer wrote:
| Doing as an individual not as a society. Of course I can
| go to engineering school and help build defense
| mechanisms but as an average Joe I can move the needle
| only so much. I was speaking about a life of an
| individual not of human society or human civilization.
| hinkley wrote:
| You can choose to move away (although then you might have
| to deal with lightning and tornadoes and droughts), or
| you can choose to live in areas with better code
| compliance. Those are still in your control.
| mrkramer wrote:
| Yea I or you should evaluate risk factors but there is
| always a degree of randomness involved. There is no place
| on Earth you are 100% safe from natural disasters.
| thelean12 wrote:
| If a Cat 5 hurricane is heading directly towards you, would
| you stay and say "If nature wants to kill me it can.
| Nothing I can do", or would you idk... go somewhere else?
|
| When the tide comes in while you're on the beach, do you
| stay and accept your fate? Or do you move?
| guscost wrote:
| All human coronavirus diseases, including COVID-19, are colds.
| Always have been. This one from 1890 might have been caused by
| OC43:
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1889-1890_pandemic
| GavinMcG wrote:
| I think this misunderstands what a "cold" is. Merely being a
| respiratory infection doesn't make something a cold. We call
| something a cold when it's 1) a mild upper respiratory
| infection that 2) is viral, but 3) is not specifically
| attributable.
|
| There are colds caused by influenza viruses, but because "the
| common cold is defined on the basis of its clinical
| presentation, a mild influenza infection can accurately be
| diagnosed as a cold, meaning that the two infections are not
| completely distinct disease entities."[0] Once someone with a
| cold tests positive for the flu, though, we would generally
| correct the description to a mild case of the flu and no longer
| say they have a cold.
|
| [0] https://www.hmsreview.org/issue/2015/1/the-most-common-
| illne...
| danaliv wrote:
| Ah, so in other words, a cold is a syndrome.
| dcolkitt wrote:
| This is a pretty interesting hypothesis. Maybe there's nothing
| really special about SARS type coronaviruses besides their
| novelty.
|
| Is it possible that all coronaviruses, including the ones that
| cause a common cold, have a similar morbidity profile to COVID?
| Very minor infection in the young or those with previous
| exposure, extremely deadly in the old and naive. Except we all
| catch a bunch of colds in childhood, so nobody has to worry
| about a cold wiping out nursing homes.
| cdrini wrote:
| No it's not possible. The thing that makes Sars-Cov-2 unique
| is its binding site in the human body. Sars-Cov-2 binds to
| the ACE2 receptor, which is found in just about every organ
| in your body. Unlike many other viruses which target
| receptors more localized to e.g. your throat/airway, Sars-
| Cov-2 can infect cells in your nasal cavity, stomach, lungs,
| heart, olfactory neurons, you name it. And every cell it
| infects will be destroyed; either by bursting to release the
| viral replicas, or by an immune system response.
| Wintamute wrote:
| I'm not sure that damage to various organs around the body
| beyond respiratory system is that a unique of a property -
| see myocarditis and the like related to influenza
| infection, which is a significant cause of mortality.
| franl wrote:
| I'm not sure I've seen the difference described so clearly
| and succinctly! How would you describe the seasonal flu in
| this same regard to receptors?
| Omnitaus wrote:
| Seasonal flu is multiple different strains that can
| exchange genetic material, as contrasted with COVID that
| doesn't have different strains but small mutations
| guscost wrote:
| I have been saying this for many years, and have been
| condescended to a lot (by friends, even) for saying it.
|
| We clearly don't have the faintest understanding of the long-
| term dynamics of something like SARS, when all the
| conventional model parameters go to such extremes. And when
| the disease is evolving. And when people retreat inside and
| stop getting sun. And so on.
| valarauko wrote:
| > _I have been saying this for many years, and have been
| condescended to a lot (by friends, even) for saying it._
|
| What exactly have you been saying?
| _nalply wrote:
| He maintains that he has been laughed off for his wild
| conspiracy theories.
| valarauko wrote:
| I'm unclear what the specific claim that he's been making
| for years exactly is - that coronaviruses have a
| morbidity profile similar to COVID, from the GP? Or that
| we can't believe long term dynamics for disease models
| because the parameters go to extremes?
| nradov wrote:
| Yes that's possible, at least for some other coronavirus.
| HCoV-OC43 is an endemic betacoronavirus very similar to SARS-
| CoV-2. It typically causes common cold symptoms in healthy
| people but is extremely dangerous to the elderly.
|
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2095096/
| andruby wrote:
| > are colds.
|
| What constitutes a "cold"? Is there some kind of definition for
| it?
| maxerickson wrote:
| It's a lay term for the various respiratory viruses that are
| pretty much constantly in circulation, especially when the
| infection is symptomatic.
|
| So I think you have an implied question as to whether there
| is some more specific meaning, the answer to that is no.
| guscost wrote:
| Exactly! Colds are poorly understood, and can be very
| dangerous.
|
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4181476/
| frenchy wrote:
| I'm not sure this will really add anything to the
| discussion, but I think the common usage of the term "cold"
| is for an endemic, mostly-harmless disease, not just any
| viral respiratory illness.
|
| Also, my quick read of that paper was that it was mostly
| concerned with immunocompromised individuals, and with
| secondary pneumonia infections. Secondary pneumonia is
| certainly a problem for old people, or otherwise vulnerable
| people with colds. Antibiotics can be pretty helpful but
| they have limitations.
| Izkata wrote:
| That link appears to be about the flu, not the common cold.
| They're different, but something I've learned over the past
| year is that most people think of the flu as another name
| for the common cold.
| detritus wrote:
| Here in Britain at least, having 'the flu' is basically
| having a particularly miserable cold - rather than a bout
| of influenza which fills the lungs with fluids and
| decimates armies.
| rovr138 wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_cold
|
| > The common cold, also known simply as a cold, is a viral
| infectious disease of the upper respiratory tract that
| primarily affects the respiratory mucosa of the nose, throat,
| sinuses, and larynx.
|
| further down,
|
| > Well over 200 virus strains are implicated in causing the
| common cold, with rhinoviruses being the most common.[13]
| [deleted]
| nanis wrote:
| Related comment of mine:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26196318
| grapecookie wrote:
| We've know this since last may.
| jimmaswell wrote:
| Then why weren't we mass producing pills of cold viruses for
| people to take?
| Omnitaus wrote:
| After the cold runs its course COVID can infect the cell
| again, it still hangs around until it gets the opening
| [deleted]
| rootusrootus wrote:
| I wonder if we will find out, as time goes on and the studies are
| finished, that parents of school-age children were significantly
| less likely to come down with severe COVID.
| marsrover wrote:
| It's an interesting thought. It is true that the further one is
| from being around school-aged children (age wise), the more
| likely they are to die.
| timr wrote:
| There has been a lot of (IMHO unsupported) speculation that the
| almost complete eradication of influenza in 2020 was due to
| competitive inhibition from SARS-CoV2. However, data I've seen
| suggests that rhinovirus is still circulating at its usual rate
| [1].
|
| If it's true that rhinovirus is such a potent inhibitor of SARS-
| CoV2, at the very least, the interplay between SARS-CoV2 and
| other respiratory viruses is non-trivial, and doesn't explain the
| complete suppression of influenza. Any simple hypothesis
| involving "competitive inhibition" is likely to be wrong.
|
| The fact that rhinovirus continues to circulate so widely should
| also make people at least _question_ the dominant narrative
| concerning masks and respiratory viruses. But I digress...
|
| [1]
| https://syndromictrends.com/metric/panel/rp/percent_positivi...
| manwe150 wrote:
| If I'm reading that chart right, it is the percentage of
| sicknesses caused by each virus type, not the rate of sickness
| in the population. So we don't have information in this chart
| on the absolute prevalence. The change in relative rates may
| suggest which measures are relatively more effective on
| different viruses, but doesn't help us analyze the
| effectiveness of the current narrative.
|
| On the research presented in the original article, what
| predicted implications would this research have had for March
| 2020? I thought 2020 seemed like a fairly average year for
| colds up until March, when COVID spiked. Is that suggesting
| this benefit/effect weaker in a population than the test
| measures in a individual, or just that March could have been
| much worse across the world? (for example, was hypothetically
| Italy having a very low rate of colds at the time?)
| [deleted]
| BoiledCabbage wrote:
| > If I'm reading that chart right, it is the percentage of
| sicknesses caused by each virus type, not the rate of
| sickness in the population. So we don't have information in
| this chart on the absolute prevalence. The change in relative
| rates may suggest which measures are relatively more
| effective on different viruses, but doesn't help us analyze
| the effectiveness of the current narrative.
|
| That's exactly correct, and instead the poster is
| continuously misinterpreting a rate as a fixed quantity.
| postalrat wrote:
| If that's exactly correct why doesn't it always add up to
| 100%?
| timr wrote:
| > the poster is continuously misinterpreting a rate as a
| fixed quantity.
|
| I am not. It is a measurement of the percentage of samples
| in a surveillance network, positive for each pathogen. Here
| is the methods paper:
|
| https://publichealth.jmir.org/2018/3/e59/
|
| Here is the relevant section:
|
| > To calculate the pathogen detection rate (as displayed in
| Figure 2 [second data view] and on the Trend website), we
| compute the rate for each organism at each institution as a
| centered 3-week moving average. To adjust for the capacity
| differences between sites, a national aggregate is
| calculated as the unweighted average of individual site
| rates. Only data from sites contributing more than 30 tests
| per week is included to avoid noise from small numbers of
| tests. Because the calculation of pathogen detection rate
| includes results from patients with multiple detections,
| the detection rate for all organisms can, in theory, add up
| to greater than one. In practice, this does not occur.
|
| The data says exactly what I described: influenza
| prevalence has declined to nearly zero. Rhinovirus has
| continued to circulate at normal levels.
| BoiledCabbage wrote:
| I think this will be my final reply on this topic. I
| appreciate you posting links to support your view, but I
| don't believe you're taking time to reflect on what I'm
| saying.
|
| > The fact that rhinovirus continues to circulate so
| widely
|
| This statement cannot be made from the link you posted.
| This is a rate. A frequency rate among sampled data.
| However it does not track the _number_ of samples
| occurring. No amount of averaging can cover that. As a
| result, a person cannot make a conclusion to support the
| above statement on frequency of circulation of
| rhinovirus.
|
| > Rhinovirus has continued to circulate at normal levels.
|
| This statement is _not_ supported by the data you list.
| The description you provide above even supports my
| argument. They are adjusting for capacity differences,
| but are still reporting a rate.
|
| This is the key statement they make supporting my point:
|
| > To adjust for the capacity differences between sites, a
| national aggregate is calculated as the unweighted
| average of individual site rates.
|
| They are averaging _rates_ of infection. You _cannot_ use
| that to make the statement that you 're making that
| "Rhinovirus has continued to circulate at normal levels."
|
| This is all very well understood stats. The only thing I
| can suggest at this point is to do some background
| reading on statistics, sampling and statistical
| inference.
|
| I'm trying to both be cordial about it, as you have been
| cordial in your tone and appear to have an earnest
| interest in this topic - but also trying to make clear
| that you are unintentionally spreading false information.
|
| You are doing something that statistics 101 makes clear
| is invalid to do. I'm not certain how else to put it. My
| only request is that you refrain from repeatedly posting.
| It is incorrect information, and it turns out it isn't
| just an invalid conclusion, it's actually the opposite of
| what is occurring.
|
| Keep the enthusiasm, but just understand the math/stats a
| bit more.
| timr wrote:
| > This statement cannot be made from the link you posted.
| This is a rate. A frequency rate among sampled data.
| However it does not track the number of samples
| occurring.
|
| It does. Click the link [1]. Figure 2 [2] _shows the
| number of samples_. They explain it clearly:
|
| > The FilmArray RP test utilization rate (TUR) metric is
| defined as the non-normalized number of RP patient test
| results generated each week across the Trend sites
| (computed as a centered 3-week moving average).
|
| "Non-normalized number of RP patient test results" =>
| count of samples
|
| > To calculate the pathogen detection rate (as displayed
| in Figure 2 [second data view] and on the Trend website),
| we compute the rate for each organism at each institution
| as a centered 3-week moving average
|
| They calculate positive rates for each pathogen, using
| the the number of samples as the denominator.
|
| > They are averaging rates of infection.
|
| They are not. They are computing an unweighted average
| rate across sites. Look at figure 2. Read the text again.
|
| This surveillance data is showing you that _the rate of
| samples positive for rhinovirus in their network_ is
| ~unchanged. The rate of influenza has disproportionately
| declined. There is nothing wrong with the data.
|
| > Keep the enthusiasm, but just understand the math/stats
| a bit more.
|
| Thanks for the advice.
|
| [1] https://publichealth.jmir.org/2018/3/e59/
|
| [2] https://publichealth.jmir.org/2018/3/e59/#figure2
| WhompingWindows wrote:
| You haven't mentioned social behavioral change in your
| speculation about the decimated 2020-2021 flu season. I'd wager
| that has a very large part in why the flu hasn't spread:
| everyone is socially distanced, remote, masked, extra hygienic,
| and extra aware of illness.
| timr wrote:
| I didn't mention it because it's not addressed by this
| article, which is specifically about competitive inhibition.
|
| That said, if you're going to claim that all of these things
| we have done have _eliminated_ the flu, you should take at
| least a few moments to reflect on the fact that they have
| done ~nothing to rhinovirus.
| BoiledCabbage wrote:
| > That said, if you're going to claim that all of these
| things we have done have eliminated the flu, you should
| take at least a few moments to reflect on the fact that
| they have done ~nothing to rhinovirus.
|
| Why do you keep saying these measures have done nothing to
| rhinovirus?
|
| The link you've shared does _not_ support that. It shows
| _relative_ percentages - and you 're confusing that for
| absolute infection counts.
|
| Unless you also believe that 60% of the population has a
| stomach virus on a daily basis (data from their other
| chart).
| timr wrote:
| > Why do you keep saying these measures have done nothing
| to rhinovirus?
|
| Because they haven't.
|
| > The link you've shared does not support that. It shows
| relative percentages - and you're confusing that for
| absolute infection counts.
|
| I am not confusing it. It shows you the percentage of
| samples they test that come up positive for rhinovirus
| (and other things. They test for all of the things
| listed, in parallel.)
|
| Influenza A & B, RSV, and some other viruses have been
| virtually eliminated across their sampled population.
| _The rate has dropped to zero._ Rhinovirus has not -- the
| rate of detection is unchanged.
| BoiledCabbage wrote:
| Again, you're confusing percentages.
|
| To use some simplified numbers to explain it - consider
| that normally 100,000 people are infected with some form
| of respiratory virus on a daily, basis and 20% of those
| are rhinoviruses, then that means there are 20,000 daily
| rhinovirus infections. And let's also say that strains of
| influenza are another 20% and 20,000/day.
|
| Now what is happening, is in a covid world, due to masks
| and distancing, the number of people infected on a daily
| basis drops from 100,000 to 10,000. Rhinoviruses are sill
| 20% of that, but they are now down to 2,000. Masks and
| social distancing has had a drastic affect on them.
|
| Influenza drops down to only 2% so only 200 cases daily.
| Masks and distancing have an even more drastic effect in
| influenza.
|
| As a result, we're seeing exactly the graph you've
| linked.
|
| Rhinovirus is 20% rate, but of a much smaller pie. And
| you're mistaking that as masks and distancing having
| little or no effect.
| [deleted]
| timr wrote:
| I am not "confusing percentages". You (now) agree with me
| on what the data says, you just don't like how it fits in
| with your theory.
|
| > Now what is happening, is in a covid world, due to
| masks and distancing, the number of people infected on a
| daily basis drops from 100,000 to 10,000. Rhinoviruses
| are sill 20% of that, but they are now down to
| 2,000....Influenza drops down to only 2% so only 200
| cases daily. Masks and distancing have an even more
| drastic effect in influenza.
|
| Yes, I understand your hypothesis: masks make influenza
| go down to almost 0, but somehow rhinovirus ends up at
| _exactly the same percentage_ as it was before. In other
| words: masks work exceptionally well for flu, don 't work
| at all for rhinovirus.
|
| This is a theory. It is...implausible...but if you want
| to believe it explains the patterns in the data, you're
| certainly welcome to do so.
| codeulike wrote:
| Flu has an R0 of about 1.3, Rhinovirus has an R0 of around
| 2.7, and Covid is estimated to have an R0 of 2.7 or higher.
| So it makes sense that the measures we have taken have
| stopped the flu but not stopped covid or rhinovirus.
|
| Sources: https://www.qps.com/2020/10/05/covid-19-versus-
| the-seasonal-... https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti
| cle/pii/S246804271...
| https://www.bmj.com/content/369/bmj.m1891
| timr wrote:
| You are leaning _way_ too hard on point estimates of R0.
| The way people estimate R0 is noisy, and the error bars
| on these estimates are significant. It 's fairly
| pointless to take any two papers and compare the values
| as if they're precise.
|
| This literature review has estimates of R0 for flu
| running from 1.06-3.4, and rhinovirus running from
| 1.2-1.83:
|
| https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.02.04.200204
| 04v...
|
| Given the uncertainties involved, these ranges are
| effectively identical, with flu maybe being a bit _more_
| contagious.
| [deleted]
| codeulike wrote:
| OK I've got a better idea:
|
| In the particular conditions we created in 2020, the
| Rhinovirus was better able to spread than the Flu. Why?
|
| Because people were on the lookout for fever (and other
| things like continuous cough etc). Flu causes fever, and
| anyone who got a fever and was sensibly-minded would self
| isolate at least for a few days until they got test
| results or until symptoms abated. Whereas Rhinovirus is
| much less likely to cause a fever, so people twig that
| they've 'just got a cold' and carry on going about their
| day.
|
| Especially for schoolkids - if they've got a fever,
| they're kept at home. If they've just got a snotty nose
| then they're likely to still go to school.
|
| So Rhiniovirus was able to fly under the radar whereas
| Flu wasn't.
| timr wrote:
| Could be. Covid is certainly more flu-like than
| rhinovirus-like. Kids were also not in school, and kids
| are historically a big spreader of influenza.
|
| I generally think people look for "fancy" explanations
| for the trends, when simpler explanations (i.e. people
| weren't going to the doctor) work just as well.
| goatinaboat wrote:
| _everyone is socially distanced, remote, masked, extra
| hygienic, and extra aware of illness._
|
| Flu has been eradicated by lockdown, but lockdown must
| continue because COVID has not. That appears to be the policy
| right now.
| learnstats2 wrote:
| > doesn't explain the complete suppression of influenza
|
| Influenza isn't infective enough to spread during the summer
| months anyway (i.e. it is completely suppressed), unlike
| rhinoviruses, so it's easily most plausible that a few
| additional hygiene measures have suppressed influenza further.
| timr wrote:
| The data I linked to covers the winter -- the same "hygiene
| measures" were in place in the winter, and clearly affecting
| both viruses differently.
|
| If you're saying that rhinoviruses are _more_ contagious than
| the flu because they 're less seasonal...there's really no
| evidence to support that. They're more-or-less the same [1].
| It's possible that influenza is more sensitive to heat,
| light, etc.
|
| My point is, the story isn't likely to be simple or
| reductionist.
|
| [1] https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.02.04.200204
| 04v...
| TheOtherHobbes wrote:
| This covers the bases. There isn't a huge mystery here,
| although there are some unknowns that need more research.
|
| https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-03519-3
|
| R0 rates are just an indicative estimates. They don't
| account for different modes or vectors of transmission.
|
| So it's not a given that mask wearing, social distancing,
| temperature, UV, humidity, and hand washing would
| _necessarily_ all have identical effects on Covid, flu, and
| the various virus families that cause colds.
| timr wrote:
| That Nature story is a great example of the speculation I
| was talking about in my first post: a sample of
| "experts", chosen by reporters, repeating opinions.
|
| There's a pretty decent coverage of the level of
| uncertainty involved, but the reporter _still_ can 't
| resist the urge of "crafting a narrative" that bypasses
| the uncertainty. For example:
|
| > In May...when some of the strictest lockdowns were in
| place, health workers noted an abrupt and early halt to
| the 2019-20 flu season in the Northern Hemisphere. That
| might partly have been an artefact caused by fewer people
| coming to a clinic for testing, experts say, but it was
| also attributable to the effectiveness of policies such
| as social distancing.
|
| Pretty definitive statement, there. _But not even two
| paragraphs later:_
|
| > "Some South American countries haven't done such a good
| job controlling COVID, but even there flu is low," says
| virologist Richard Webby at St Jude's hospital in
| Memphis, Tennessee. "I don't think we can put it all down
| to mask wearing and social distancing." He suspects that
| the dearth of international travel played a part.
|
| So...yeah. We don't know the answer. The article makes it
| sound like we do. The headline and photo captions
| _really_ makes it sound like we know.
|
| Reporters are constantly putting their thumb on the scale
| by crafting editorially convenient narratives. Richard
| Webby's opinion doesn't properly emphasize the impact of
| of social distancing? Bury it under a vaguely definitive-
| sounding lede, and quote some other "expert" who does
| agree.
|
| </rant>
| nitrogen wrote:
| _question the dominant narrative concerning masks and
| respiratory viruses_
|
| My limited understanding of that narrative is that
| COVID19/SARS-CoV-2 needs larger droplets to spread, and thus
| common masks help. But other viruses may be able to spread
| further as aerosols and last longer on surfaces, thus
| common/non-fine-particulate-filtering masks may not help.
| Causality1 wrote:
| Why is so much in this article contradictory? It opens by saying
| viruses allow or inhibit other viruses by way of differing
| methods of entering cells but only a few paragraphs later says
| the difference is entirely due to triggering an immune response.
|
| _Further experiments showed rhinovirus was triggering an immune
| response inside the infected cells, which blocked the ability of
| Sars-CoV-2 to make copies of itself._
|
| What? What defenses do cells have after already being infected
| with viral RNA?
|
| _" We could see surges in flu. We could see surges in other
| respiratory viruses and other respiratory pathogens," she said,_
|
| Why? Why does covid mean we're going to see unusual winter surges
| in non-covid diseases?
| hfktk4nrn wrote:
| Cells have ways to detect non-self RNA and react to it, like
| stopping protein expression and releasing alarm chemicals to
| call in immune system cells. Viruses of course try to block
| these cell defenses.
|
| This is actually a big problem for mRNA vaccines, which are
| also foreign RNAs, and to overcome it for example
| Pfizer/Moderna use unnatural RNA bases, among other things, to
| bypass these detection mechanisms.
|
| It's not exactly clear how cells can distinguish self/non-self
| RNA, some markers are known, like different RNA cappings,
| different letter frequencies, some chemical modifications.
| dukeofdoom wrote:
| I always wondered why religious pilgrimages and retreats where so
| common back in the history. The motivation is often some sort of
| healing. Sunshine, Mountain or Forest air is described in
| literature as things to seek when sick. Just curious if for
| example molds found in forest air, might play a similar function.
| Or perhaps being in close contact being exposed to bacteria from
| other people. Or if viruses can swap genetic code, is there some
| pathway through which our immune system can import antibodies or
| genetic information from other people we are in contact with
| through pheromones to boost its own defences. Perhaps its the
| drinking of water from new sources along the journey that has
| benefits. Why does fiji water taste so much better than other
| waters.
| hinkley wrote:
| Exposure to forests improves mood. Mood affects outcomes. It's
| a question of whether the exertion of going somewhere healthier
| is great enough to kill you (and if anyone attributes your
| death to the attempt, which I don't think we always did).
|
| Also post-industrial Europe and especially London had awful,
| awful air quality. I'll bet if you look at the 'seasons' for
| going to Bath, for instance, that they overlapped with the
| worst weather for creating smog in London.
| swader999 wrote:
| This seems to support easing the lockdown approach once vaccines
| are widely deployed.
| autokad wrote:
| or even if the lockdown approach is good at all, given how well
| it has not worked.
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