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Excerpt for those w/o the time to read the entire piece. (I miss Eco.)
We must keep alert, so that the sense of these words will not be forgotten again. Ur-Fascism is still around us, sometimes in plainclothes. It would be so much easier, for us, if there appeared on the world scene somebody saying, “I want to reopen Auschwitz, I want the Black Shirts to parade again in the Italian squares.” Life is not that simple. Ur-Fascism can come back under the most innocent of disguises. Our duty is to uncover it and to point our finger at any of its new instances — every day, in every part of the world. Franklin Roosevelt’s words of November 4, 1938, are worth recalling:
I venture the challenging statement that if American democracy ceases to move forward as a living force, seeking day and night by peaceful means to better the lot of our citizens, fascism will grow in strength in our land.
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That is the wetly glistening nub of it.
It is very easy to say that Turmpism [or nazism or fascism] is bad once the dark side has become undeniable. Question is, where was this backbone 10 or 20 or 40 years ago when decent folk were smugly tolerating the same fascist sentiments as “patriotism” and “folksiness”?
The reason people don’t see fascism coming is that it’s not enough to just oppose bad things – you have to be prepared to oppose “good” things, if you can see they have bad ends.
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I have to take a week off every year to get my annual jabs for flu, polio, tetanus, measles, mumps, chickenpox and smallpox, but I’m doing my part!
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I had the understanding that the vaccine did not prevent you from being able to contract the virus itself, but acted as a priming agent to increase your natural immune response to it (if exposed).
Perhaps I understand this incorrectly? Based on that, the vaccine is going to do little to stop the spread of the virus. Well it will help due to less people being as sick and infected, but it will not prevent the spread. If that’s accurate then masks should be used until the virus spread is at some extremely low rate.
Am I understanding this right? I had my JJ shot two months ago, so I’m not against the science.
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My ignorant self is still trying to get a handle on the contours here. My take on it, that I would very much like an actual Doctor type person to confirm, is that the vaccine functions more like a fire break.
It is still possible for you, a fully vaccinated person, to contract the virus. But it’s unlikely to multiply within you in sufficient numbers to assimilate you, and therefore to get spat out by you. But if it did get spat out by you, the particle count would presumably be very low, so I, whether vaccinated or not, would be very unlikely to suck up enough particles to become infected. And even if I did, being fully vaccinated, I would probably be able to tamp it down before they take hold in sufficient numbers to assimilate me and/or start being spat out by me.
Is this a decent layperson’s explanation of functional yet non-sterilizing immunity in this context?
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That’s an excellent description! Viral infection and transmission is a statistical phenomenon. Individual cells get taken for a ride by viruses all the time. That does not represent an infection. As you state, only when enough of a body’s system gets hijacked to affect function would we call it an infection.
Likewise, we breathe in, store, and breathe out viral particles all the time. We are only infectious when we are shedding so much that it is likely to overwhelm someone else’s defenses.
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Vaccines induce the patient to generate appropriate Memory T-cells.
Flu vaccines are given out every year not out of a concern that the immunity wears off, but because there are so many kinds of viruses. Each year, immunologists try to predict which strains will cause human epidemics-- and are incorparated into a vaccine.
For instance, for 2019:
It is recommended that quadrivalent vaccines for use in the 2019-2020 northern hemisphere influenza season contain the following:
- an A/Brisbane/02/2018 (H1N1)pdm09-like virus;
- an A(H3N2) virus to be announced on 21 March 2019*;
- a B/Colorado/06/2017-like virus (B/Victoria/2/87 lineage); and - a B/Phuket/3073/2013-like virus (B/Yamagata/16/88 lineage).
It is recommended that the influenza B virus component of trivalent vaccines for use in the 2019- 2020 northern hemisphere influenza season be a B/Colorado/06/2017-like virus of the B/Victoria/2/87-lineage.
In light of recent changes in the proportions of genetically and antigenically diverse A(H3N2) viruses, the recommendation for the A(H3N2) component has been postponed.
from https://www.who.int/influenza/vaccines/virus/recommendations/201902_recommendation.pdf
Sometimes the predictions come true, sometimes they don’t. The next season usually involves a different set of viruses, and a novel vaccine. It’s possible that these vaccines generate long term immunity, lasting decades, but generally no one cares because the next flu epidemic will be caused by different viruses. Sometimes the flu vaccine doesn’t work because a different virus turns out to be the dominant strand.
I’d like to find a chart that shows that the variation in COVID viruses is much less than the variation displayed from year to year in influenza viruses.
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I realize that the following is a nonsensical question to ask right now, in mid-2021.
But would it perhaps be a reasonable question by mid-2121 to ask how many (of which) cells need to get hijacked to induce the constellation of longterm symptoms? Or is likely to be that the odds and severity of the longterm constellation are also tied directly to initial load and first-week response to initial load?
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That’s unlikely to have a concrete answer, unfortunately. Different people are different, and even a single individual has a different immune response over time. The viral load that I handled with ease last week might put me in bed this week and in the hospital next week. It’s not usually that stark, but there’s just no way of making a blanket statement.
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Don’t mind me, just a barely educated layperson trying to come to terms with the idea that catching this disease might not even evaluate to a boolean.
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No worries. You seem to have a good grasp of it, especially rated against the populace overall.
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Mole people libelz
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No, we don’t, because is is one way street. They look at those qualities as weaknesses.
It would be wasted effort.
And just why the FUCK should I forgive someone who supports the Coup?
I, for one, have had it up to here with their spewage, especially after the past few years… and their ‘fears’ are based on bigotry, ignorance, and greed, among others.
The only ‘fear’ they have is not getting their way.
I have no sympathy for self-inflicted wounds.
They could choose to change the channel, or turn the damn thing off.
They have no interest in ‘building bridges’ or ‘finding common ground’.
It’s their way, or the highway, baby, & if you ain’t with them, then you are against them & you hate America and are a traitor.
I don’t think you have been listening to them.
Change will have to come from that side.
Trying to placate Fascists doesn’t work.
Just ask Neville Chamberlain.
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Actual doctor-type person here. This is a statistical game. The vaccine is very very effective at preventing contracting the virus at all, but the human immune response is variable and unpredictable and there will be a few who can contract the virus and pass it on, and a much small number who actually go on to develop illness from it. The risk is based on level of exposure, and if we could have reached that level of vaccination to achieve herd immunity, we could put this behind us. That ship has largely sailed, due to politicization of public health which is (IMHO) an unforgivable sin for which the GQP should burn in hell, but that is beside the point. Sterilizing immunity will not happen, but we can reach sufficient immunity to live a normal(ish) life again.
(Edit: Or I could just let @DukeTrout and @jerwin take care of it! They did much better than I did.)
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