Stupid shit in Medellin

[Paulie97]

Another excellent example of not knowing what you're talking about.

Paulie and I had a big public, knock down fight right here over 3 years ago. It might have been the reason this thread was started. We haven't really talked since then. We're not sidekicks, friends or buddies.

Here's something you might understand when you reach emotional maturity. I agree or disagree with what is posted. It doesn't matter who posted it. Bullshit (for example, declaring the pandemic is over) is bullshit, regardless of the source. Good advice is good advice regardless of the source.

As for the rest of what you agreed with, I suggest you go read the other threads. There have been a few people over the years who might have agreed with me at one time or another.

I've met JBee62 on at least three occasions. I call him an overall good guy with high mental aptitude and a gift for analogies. That said I've often disagreed with him, especially on mongering issues though his Covid analysis has been very useful and well sourced.

P.S. What about all the guys that refuse to meet up with anyone here? I speak of Elvira, The Marquis de Twat, Just TK, or Shoo Swede? I mean we shouldn't expect anyone to go searching mothers' basements in England, Sweden, or even the USA should we? Colombia should be the point of contact right? Anyone met them? Just asking and thanks. Winks.

[Paulie97]

Oops, sorry, I have a life and don't spend every waking minute on this board typing out non-sensical solipsistic essays

Solipsistic? It looks as though the Botero Plaza barfly found a bottle of Aguarente and a thesaurus, what an odd convergence. Yet you've backed yourself into another pot calling the kettle black corner. Oh well. Even an ape can come up with brilliance if he hammers a keyboard long enough. Wink.

[CrowExplorer]

That is why I say for me freedom is a collective right. Just follow rules and move on. What I am trying to say in my post is that the debate here or issue like this in general is not a science one, not the type of science being discussed here. You won't get very far at this point if you only focus on numbers or medical science alone.

I couldn't disagree with you more on freedom being a "collective right". Fuck that.

As far as debate not being about medical science, I agree. This is more of a social science.

I've seen a lot in the past two years, people clinging to dogmas, afraid to voice an opinion that goes against the consensus.

These are not good things, and definitely not my idea of freedom.

[Elvis 2008]

Enjoy your basements gentlemen. Excuse me as I head out to enjoy this fine Cancun day.

LOL. I will be there next week. My passport's pages are all filled up and no one is doing Express. I was going to have wait 8 weeks for a new one or scratch and claw and get an appointment at a passport agency. I got one in El Paso on Thursday thank God!

It is a four hour drive from Cancun, but I hope my gal and I have the time to see the lake of seven colors, lake Bacalar: https://www.google.com/search?q=lake+bacalar&rls=ig&sxsrf=AOaemvIN5 XlPdJK3 MKaOcH3 a__i5 J58 KWw:1641963902047&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2 ahUKEwjgwvWYuKv1 AhXSmmoFHVMWCtAQ_AUoAnoECAIQBA&biw=1280&bih=577&dpr=1. 5.

Hope the seaweed is not that bad where you are!

[MarquisdeSade1]

We are all dead. Have fun while you can.

"Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said 75% of vaccinated people who died of COVID-19 had at least four comorbidities, sparking an outpouring of commentary from people surprised by her statement and others saying, "I told you so. ".

The top health official made the comment on ABC's Good Morning America on Friday, days after Dr. Anthony Fauci said on TV that statistics on child hospitalizations are being overblown..

For those jabbed with Chinese sewer water aka the CCP vax.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...d-vaccine-type

[Elvis 2008]

We are all dead. Have fun while you can.

"Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said 75% of vaccinated people who died of COVID-19 had at least four comorbidities, sparking an outpouring of commentary from people surprised by her statement and others saying, "I told you so. ".

The top health official made the comment on ABC's Good Morning America on Friday, days after Dr. Anthony Fauci said on TV that statistics on child hospitalizations are being overblown..

Yeah, these CDC assholes have been having a hard time these days. I have lost track of the quarantine times: 5 days for health care workers, 10 for everyone else and 14 for travelers and who needs to be tested prior to travelling or going back to work? In the mean time, omicron is so mild you have people out doing whatever they want when they could be working and teachers in Chicago saying they will only do remote because they are afraid for their lives. I cannot imagine how many pressure they are under now with everyone screaming at them. I almost feel sorry for these CDC bastards. Almost.

Thing is the CDC was overcounting deaths and hospitalization to scare everyone. Then when they used the same methodology and the numbers were like a million cases a day (and it looked like nothing they did was working), the CDC is now changing the methodology to undercount. This is not science; it is fucking politics.

Still, the CDC director is shilling for vaccines, but her days are numbered. She did not agree with Lord Fauci on the triple vaccination being "fully vaccinated", and she was right to do it, but she is going to be axed.

This is a good link as to why she is gone and why so few people should get triple vaxxed: https://vinayprasadmdmph.substack.co...-goes-down-the.

And the vaccine is so political. The data shows the vaccine worked great against the first two waves, so-so against the third, and does jack shit for this one. But how many people have been following the data in real time?

I have not reviewed the data, but Dr. Malone said much the same thing on Joe Rogan as this guy did: https://stevekirsch.substack.com/p/n...ccines-must-be.

"The numbers in the Denmark study described below are now confirmed by government data from Germany showing that vaccinated people are 8 X more likely to develop Omicron than unvaccinated people. This is not surprising since a paper from Germany showed the same thing: the more you vaccinate, the worse it gets.

Worried about Omicron? Guess what? After 90 days, the vaccine they gave you is going to make you more likely to get infected from Omicron, not less."

If this is right, and Fauci, Collins, and Walensky had any honor, they should take a hint from the Japanese and commit seppuku.

[JjBee62]

Nice insult but you did not answer the question. What have you been doing the last 2 years since the pandemic began? All I hear from you is your criticizing anyone else while talking nothing about yourself. Mr. E has been travelling so has JJBee, JustTK, Nounce but you have been mum. I repeat, what have YOU been doing?

Heaven forbid I stand up for Paulie, but in the past 5 years he has very rarely posted trip reports. For a few years, I don't think he posted once, although he was certainly in Medellin more than once during that time. Most of his posts, except on this thread have been a response to someone else.

While it's certainly possible he hasn't traveled during the pandemic, you really can't go off of what he's posted to determine whether he's left home or not.

Even if he has stayed home, I'm sure he's not the only one. Everyone has their own tolerance for risk and it's not limited to the pandemic. There are plenty of guys here who won't go to El Centro. Whether it's a real or imagined risk, it's not one they are willing to take.

I'll throw myself under the bus on this subject. Originally I was hoping to get back to Colombia this spring. That was my plan until a few months ago. However, now I'm uncertain. After vax, plus booster, plus Covid (Alpha or Delta), I'm confident that if I get infected again, it won't be serious (confident doesn't mean I'm right, just that it's not a worry). The risk of getting Covid doesn't bother me, but the risk of another quarantine gives me pause.

Fortunately, I have options. Traveling domestically removes the quarantine risk and my girlfriend* has her visa. She would happily come here, at my expense, to play tourist for a few weeks. The downside is I'll be limited to one girl, and I won't get to decompress like I do in Medellin. It will also be more expensive. On the plus side, it's been over 20 years since I've played tourist in the US.

[Elvis 2008]

Didn't you notice that Elvis was not really saying vaccine does not work, although that may seem what he was saying, but based on the reply, I think he was saying virus is evolving faster than vaccine development.

Yeah, that is exactly right. The virus is evolving faster than the vaccine. If you have been vaccinated 180 days ago, you have no protection against omicron. If you get triple vaxxed, you have like 25% protection for 90 days. Unless you have a rare immune issue, I do not see why anyone would get triple vaxxed because omicron is so mild. There are some people saying the more you get vaxxed now the more likely you are get to infected.

Pfizer and Moderna have omicron vaccines in the works but they will not be available until March and omicron will probably be gone by then.

[JjBee62]

Oops, sorry, I have a life and don't spend every waking minute on this board typing out non-sensical solipsistic essays and giving input on anything and everything related to Colombia.

I keep it short and sweet and 95% of my posts are otg reports with the other 5% are laughing my ass off replying to you paulie and villainy in this silly thread. Peace.

Everyone has their own way. Some guys go to Veracruz, some go to the casas, some go to Gusto. Which is the right way? Some guys never post OTG reports, some post every single encounter, some seldom post reports, but answer questions and give useful information. Which is the right way?

Is giving input, answering questions and helping out others a bad thing? You do it, on a pretty wide variety of subjects. Why is bad when I do it?

It takes all the different styles to make ISG work. I think most people understand that.

[JohnnyWalker55]

Another excellent example of not knowing what you're talking about.

Paulie and I had a big public, knock down fight right here over 3 years ago. It might have been the reason this thread was started. We haven't really talked since then. We're not sidekicks, friends or buddies.

Here's something you might understand when you reach emotional maturity. I agree or disagree with what is posted. It doesn't matter who posted it. Bullshit (for example, declaring the pandemic is over) is bullshit, regardless of the source. Good advice is good advice regardless of the source.

As for the rest of what you agreed with, I suggest you go read the other threads. There have been a few people over the years who might have agreed with me at one time or another.

Oops, sorry, I have a life and don't spend every waking minute on this board typing out non-sensical solipsistic essays and giving input on anything and everything related to Colombia.

I keep it short and sweet and 95% of my posts are otg reports with the other 5% are laughing my ass off replying to you paulie and villainy in this silly thread. Peace.

[JjBee62]

With hundreds of thousands of cases of Omicron daily, should we still have to take a covid test to re-enter the country? Hmmmmm.

Vaccines were supposed to be 95% effective. More people die in 2021 than 2020 when there were no vaccines available. Why are Vaccines mandates and Boosters are still being discussed? Why is no one talking about the false effectiveness of the vaccines? Hmmmmmmmmm.

How does China, a nation of 1.3 billion people, not have more cases of Omicron? Hmmmmm.

The answers to these questions seem like common sense to me, but half the country will cry murder if I were to state my opinion publicly. Hmmmmmm. Freedom of speech? Hmmmmm. LOL let the name calling and slandering begin! Jaja.

Why do you still have to take a Covid test to enter? Because that's the rule that's currently in place. Does it do anything? Who knows? Does the law against removing mattress tags serve any purpose?

Vaccines weren't supposed to be 95% effective. Initial data showed up to 95% effectiveness. Later data lowered that number. Further studies are showing that effectiveness decreases over time, hence the reason for boosters.

More people died in 2021 than in 2020? True. Can you think of any reason why? I can think of a few. First, there were very few known cases in the US, or anywhere outside of a small area in China, until March of 2020. However, at the beginning of 2021 there were 200,000 new cases per day in the US. There's 2 reasons, a shorter effective year and a much lower starting point for 2020.

There are other factors, but the easiest way to look at it is to look at the number of those deaths which were unvaccinated for each year. For 2020 100% of the deaths (or nearly) were unvaccinated. In 2021 roughly 84% of the deaths were unvaccinated. The vaccine doesn't keep anyone from dying, if they don't get vaccinated.

I think you're overestimating your own importance. You can say anything you want about Covid, vaccines or anything else and at least 99.9% won't even know you said anything at all. Certainly half the country isn't going to cry murder.

Don't you understand freedom of speech? Your right to say whatever you want, with some fairly specific limitations, is protected. However, if you say something stupid anyone who notices has the protected right to point it out to you.

[JjBee62]

CL, what is frustrating to me is that it is the number of droplets that cause disease, and the government has just emphasized the mask when that is a small part of the whole picture. Yeah, N95 probably works better than cloth. I think both are helpful though. Thing is that it is just not masks but length of time with someone and talking to them and also the force of the particles expired so more with singing, laughing, coughing, or the force of someone's voice. The goal is to limit the exposure of those particles.

And handwashing was a complete joke. Social distancing was pretty arbitrary as well.

You started off very well. Your first paragraph sums up the problem pretty well. Your second paragraph went downhill somewhat.

The hand washing did turn out to not be a significant factor. However, the proper response is to be more cautious, rather than less cautious. If you have people washing their hands more than necessary, worst case, you have some dry skin. Very few people are going to complain that your hands are too clean.

Social distancing is another story. "The goal is to limit exposure to those particles. " One way to limit exposure is social distancing. It's like using the N95 instead of a regular mask, an added layer of protection.

The NFL did some great Covid studies. It was thought that you had to be present with someone for 10 minutes indoors to catch Covid from them. The NFL found that if people were talking to each other and not wearing masks, there could be transmission of the virus in as little as 5 minutes.

But like I said, you can throw that all out the window now. You have teams that are 98% vaxxed and half the team has Covid. I do not know what the time frame is with catching Covid now. It seems like it may be down to a minute or two and now the people do not look sick. Outside of doing what Paulie does and living in a bunker, I do not know how someone does not catch omicron.

The NFL isn't really a level playing field. Average age is probably under 30, high level of fitness, overall a better immune system than average. However, the issues they faced, with more precautions than most take, illustrates how quickly the virus can spread.

I also don't know how anyone can avoid catching omicron. To me that's good news. By now anyone in the US, who has anything to worry about with Covid, has had ample opportunity to get vaccinated. This all comes (eventually) to an end when everyone has sufficient immunity to reduce the spread. There are 2 ways to get sufficient immunity. Omicron makes the second way much easier for everyone who hasn't chosen the first way.

[JjBee62]

We are all dead. Have fun while you can.

"Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said 75% of vaccinated people who died of COVID-19 had at least four comorbidities, sparking an outpouring of commentary from people surprised by her statement and others saying, "I told you so. ".

The top health official made the comment on ABC's Good Morning America on Friday, days after Dr. Anthony Fauci said on TV that statistics on child hospitalizations are being overblown..

I'm pretty sure I posted that already. Having 4 or more comorbidities puts you at a high risk for anything which stresses your system. No vaccine can change that. The fact that 75% of vaccinated deaths were in that category isn't extremely useful.

What's more useful is the percentage of deaths which were fully vaccinated, or the unvaccinated percentage.

This link has interactive graphs and country by country breakdowns, making it easy to visualize the data.

https://ourworldindata.org/covid-deaths-by-vaccination

For the US fully vaccinated death rate (all vaccines) for all age groups was 0. 54 per 100,000 (Oct 30,2021). That number jumps to 5. 53 when you consider just people 80 and older. Unvaccinated for all ages was 3.47, 28.70 for 80 and up.

Looking at my age range, 50-64 the fully vaccinated death rate is 0.20 per 100 k, compared to 5.25 for unvaccinated.

Drop down to the 30-49 age range you get vaccinated 0.03, unvaccinated 1.20.

Only the 12-17 age group shows no difference between vaccinated and unvaccinated.

To put it another way, vaccination prevents death in:

1.O% of cases for people 12-17.

2.94% of cases for people 18-29.

3.96% of cases for people 30-49.

4.96% of cases for people 50-64.

5.95% of cases for people 65-79.

6.81% of cases for people 80 or older.

If you're under 18, getting vaccinated has minimal personal benefit. You might be less likely to get infected and infect others, but there's no real impact on your survival. If you're over 80 and have at least a couple of other risk factors, your personal benefit might not be significant. At 95, obese, with high blood pressure and diabetes, your life expectancy probably isn't changing much with vaccination.

If you're under 80, or over 80 and in good health, well the data is readily available.

[Mr Enternational]

We are all dead. Have fun while you can.

"Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said 75% of vaccinated people who died of COVID-19 had at least four comorbidities, sparking an outpouring of commentary from people surprised by her statement and others saying, "I told you so. ".

The top health official made the comment on ABC's Good Morning America on Friday, days after Dr. Anthony Fauci said on TV that statistics on child hospitalizations are being overblown. ".

[JjBee62]

First, allow me to say kudos on a well thought out response. I would agree with most of your points and disagree with a few.

I could not disagree more. As I said earlier in the thread, this was arguably the most important human trials of our lifetime. You contradict yourself when you say everything went as planned. And then detail how they moved the mark. It's like a 100-question exam. If you answer the first 10 questions correctly, you can stop there and claim a perfect score? I concede there is an ethical argument that can be made. (I don't necessarily agree with it on balance.) But to pull the plug 2 months in because you like the early results? That's borderline unethical. We lost any ability to track longevity. And lo and behold, one of the biggest problems we have today is the vaccine waning. Let's not mention long term side effects. But this is where it gets ugly and sinister. We allowed Pfizer to grade their own test. Granted, that's normal. But the FDA and CDC were waiting with their rubber stamp. The reality: they got a 100% on those first 10 questions but boy, they sure didn't earn a perfect score.

Weren't you earlier complaining about using analogies? Your 100 question exam is a false equivalence. You really should learn about logical fallacies. A better analogy would be an exam with a time limit, such as IQ and Aptitude tests. Once you've answered all the questions, the time remaining is no longer important. You can hand in your paper and find out your score.

It wasn't the most important human trial in our lifetime. Whoever put that idea in your head is a fool. Take for example a study to determine if cigarette smoking has associated health risks? Would you put all your faith in the study if it was completely funded by a tobacco company, using tobacco company employees? A Pfizer study on a Pfizer vaccine? If they had continued the study for 30 years, one of your complaints would still be that the study was conducted by Pfizer, so it must be tainted.

Long term efficacy wasn't part of the study. It was released very early that how long the vaccine would be effective was unknown. Studies are continuing to determine how much efficacy wanes over time. This is nothing new. Polio vaccine efficacy wanes over time. The minimum schedule requires 3 doses, some countries use more. Tetanus, TB, Pneumonia, etc, all lose effectiveness over time. We didn't lose the ability to track longevity. Those studies are continuing around the world, every day, by researchers unaffiliated with Pfizer.

As I've stated before, and which can be easily verified, long term side effects aren't an issue with vaccines. You keep repeating that nonsense and it's downright silly. It's like drinking a glass of water. If there's something bad in the water it will make you sick, within a matter of hours, days at the most. Unless you continue drinking water from the same source, long term side effects aren't an issue. Even if long term side effects were an issue, many things take decades to show up, such as liver damage or kidney failure. Do you wait 20 years to release a vaccine? It would be completely worthless.

I'm ashamed to admit to being a numbers nerd. LOL. Again, I don't disagree with much of what was said. Both RRR and ARR are valid metrics. And you were very effective in summarizing their worth. But what I strongly object to is selling RRR as efficacy. Or even the false definition spread about efficacy. Use your example. If that old lady got a flier saying you are 95% more likely to stay free of covid if you take this shot, would she? Because that's what happened to the masses. And that is not at all accurate. So I suppose my beef is more with the marketing vs the actual math. Here again, I blame CDC and FDA as much as I blame Pfizer. And I blame our policy makers even more. They put the politics over science anf clarity.

I'll agree to disagree with you on these points. But I appreciate the dialogue.

Assuming you're a numbers nerd, why didn't you pick up that the CCCA video was using numbers from 7 days into the study, instead of the numbers at the end of the study?

The only people saying the Pfizer vaccine is 95% effective are the people who are beating their anti-vax drums saying that Pfizer lied. However, Pfizer didn't lie. Their preliminary finding was up to, or as much as 95% protection. Their completed study lowered that to up to 91% protection. You call it a marketing ploy, I call it common sense.

First, as I've already pointed out too many times, you will never know the absolute risk. Never. Not now, not in 2 years, not in 100 years. The only way to know is to take a large population of people, expose them all to the virus, then count how many test positive. Then you withhold medical treatment and see how many get seriously ill and eventually count how many die. It's the same basic method the US used to determine the effects of radiation exposure. It's not exactly ethical, but it does give you accurate results.

If you don't know the absolute risk, you have to work with what you have. Placebo group had 850 infections, vaccine group 77. Assuming both groups had equal random exposure to infection, it's simple math, 77÷850=0. 09, or 9%, a 91% reduction. Surely a numbers nerd spotted that. If they knew everyone in both groups had been exposed, with identical exposure, then ARR comes into play, but nobody knows that. So it's as much as 91%.

Is it safe to assume the other 42 k people in the study had natural immunity to Covid? Not unless you exposed them all to the virus, which I've already covered. Do you publish that, since under 1,000 of 43,000 people got infected during the study, the chance of getting infected is only 2. 3%? Not if you are being ethical. Which leaves the ethical and common sense result, up to 91%.

As I said, what you call marketing, I call common sense. Let's say Pfizer went with your understanding of the issue and they let you use the cherry picked data from the 7 day point. That leaves Pfizer telling people their risk of Covid is only 0. 88%. Assuming the other vaccine manufacturers followed along, we have everyone informed that almost nobody is getting Covid. Using your ARR which you keep insisting on, it's impossible for more than 300,000 people in the US to get Covid (for the numbers nerd, 330,000,000×0. 88=290,400).

That might just cause some confusion. How could we have 61 million cases and over 800 k deaths when that critical ARR clearly states that only 290 k could ever possibly test positive? Numbers nerd time again, that brings US deaths down to 5808. Sure, still using your ARR, the vaccine will cut the total number of cases from 290 k to 13 k, but is it worth it, when there are less than 6 k deaths?

Along comes common sense to save the day. The Absolute Risk isn't 0. 88%. Everyone knows that. ARR isn't critical. Almost everyone knows that. Does the vaccine reduce your risk of becoming infected? Yes. Are you going to need a booster dose? Probably. Will you need a 4th dose? Possibly. Does the vaccine reduce your risk of dying from Covid, if you get infected? Yes. Does it reduce your risk of hospitalization if you become infected? Again the answer is yes. Should you personally get vaccinated? Go talk to your doctor.

Which leaves Pfizer with the choice of lying about Covid and saying almost nobody is getting sick or dying (your preference) or telling people that their vaccine is an effective alternative to getting sick and dying (my preference).

"Agree to disagree" is one of the stupidest cliches out there. It works fine when discussing restaurants, or girls. It works fine when comparing mongering destinations. It becomes completely useless when discussing anything objective.

One more example, I'll make it relevant. You're getting ready to start a short trip to Medellin? You've voiced concerns over getting stuck there with a positive Covid test? I pointed out, arriving tomorrow, getting tested on Saturday and returning to the US on Sunday carries a low risk of testing positive. However, I left one important thing out.

So let's agree to disagree on how important that 0. 88% Absolute Risk number from the CCCA video is. I say it's not only useless, it's ridiculously low, especially with the current spread of omicron. You say that only 0. 88% of the population is susceptible to Covid. Since you're vaccinated, your AR is a dismal 0. 04%.

So there's absolutely no need to worry about what I forgot to mention. Enjoy your trip!