Riobard

I prefer an even number ... a 6-pack of lagers with 6-packs of loggers ;>P

... especially procrastinating getting laid!

My ‘gay life’ consists of trade. At this point, I think the phased order of renewal this late Summer and Fall will be Montreal’s Stock and Campus; Barcelona’s Thermas and Zürich’s Paragonya; and lastly Brazil because I think COVID will be a shit show there much longer.

Hôpital Saint-Eloi (is that where the soup I am slurping today is made?) seems to be still recruiting for the Janssen (J&J) vaccine efficacy study but the protocol is blinded for one to two years and you may get placebo. It’s a two-dose regimen to try to improve on the one-dose format currently approved in some places.

Bien sur. Still, if you attend a series of ten 10-person events, chances are you will encounter minimally one infected person. I would not risk it without CoV immunity. The risk differential relative to Paris is far less than Toronto and Montreal compared to, respectively, northern Ontario and Quebec. Alpes-Maritimes seems to be the most fucked up in France right now.

Interesting, Ft Lauderdale and Miami still pose a similar or higher exposure risk level than Paris (France, not TX). Relaxation of measures seems to be a combination of greater risk tolerance, descending new case incidence, and vaccine optimism supporting the tradeoff between economy/freedom and additional preventable deaths. Florida’s CoV average rolling mortality is currently about 50% higher than France’s, in spite of much higher proportional vaccination. The costs of Spring Break Madness, and perhaps a population age pyramid with proportionally more older folks. One saving grace aspect is a current R = .92 metric. The images depict the probability of at least one contagious CoV carrier within any random group of 50 persons, rolling case incidence 5 times the official reported tallies. But the similarities hold for various group numbers and irrespective of adjusting the case count.

It may be partly the UK variant dominating in France (up to 50% cases) earlier than in Canada? Epidemiologists here fear its current presence will take greater hold and become the main strain of community transmission. However, it’s latent appearance is now up against the vaccination uptake trajectory. If Québecois want a freedom summer, need to keep mitigation tight for a few more months.

Yes, the rank and file here finally settled into a more overall compliant attitude and the 20:00h curfew likely helped attenuate transmission. Now the high end of the R confidence interval is trending towards .90 ... the graph below ends mid-February with a further decline in case reproduction since then. Nonessential stores were opened for March break (just ending) and shopping replaced what would ordinarily be sun travel. Without vaccination set up to offset an uptick of cases usually caused by partial reopening, I doubt the stores would have been allowed to operate. I bought a new Ninja kitchen blender whoo-hoo!

Quebec’s case incidence peaked in May and January, now having dropped by 75% this year so far. Vaccination is beginning to accelerate after a sputtering start, currently 4 products and likely a 5th soon. I think Montreal venues will be open this summer, especially with patio drinking and dining a seasonal norm. The strip clubs in The Village will probably be open. They were last summer, months before vaccine hopefuls were even a glimmer. With bilateral CoV case suppression, the US border restrictions will likely be relaxed or removed. Canada is also leaning against vaccine-specific certification or even broader CoV status documentation, unless new ‘escape’ variants transcend the present state of neutralizing antibodies and our hand is forced.

No visitors. There are even restrictions on family members being in the same room unless it is parent/minor or married couple. For full quarantine there are likely appeal-based exemptions for couples not legally married. Apparently a non-spousal caregiver of a senior must be separated, but allowed an adjoining room. Quarantine, after all, is separation. Do astronauts get to fuck immediately upon re-entry? Your only hope for a rendezvous might be in the bushes at a resort-type hotel. Do you play golf? Are you or can you pretend to be a poor stroke so that you need to go into the foliage to retrieve golf balls? Watch out for the hornets; they do not honour Hornet tricks. But, on another note, I would think that being required to be medically cleared by your primary care practitioner within 72 hours of departure, apart from CoV specifics, would be a pain in the ass. You show a hard copy on arrival but you would have already survived the flight. Odd. I wonder if this requirement will be removed when vaxx certificates replace the current protocol.

A state court has dialled back Mayor Paes’ decree. What a tug’o’war there; elected leaders, courts, public health entities, clinical scientists. The mitigation plan was already little more than a one-week drip-feed for coronavirus containment, unlikely to have much impact. This lockdown may have a bit of a latch-hook on the door but the windows are flung open. Restaurants, including brothels with food services as I understand it, over the next few days will be allowed to open until 20:00; I think admission is shut at 19:00 and alcohol allowed until 17:00 ... I expect there is total messaging confusion about how to comply when there can be little agreement about anything.

Interestingly, the Recent Updates when logged in is not reflecting the fora that are accessible when logged in. However, the Posts section does display recent posts in those fora. Not a major problem ... just pointing it out. On BT, both Recent Updates and Posts included the latest post alerts, some alignment in terms of giving the reader a heads up about updated contributions.

Whoops, I guess I am now one of the guilty as charged ...

I’m beginning to feel like what would be the offspring of Chicken Little and Debbie Downer. lol (half-hearted) ... some of this liability is a 24- year clinical history in Infectious Diseases. Are you keeping up with the news? The more contagious P1 variant is gaining traction across Brazil and is believed to be leading to substantial re-infection potential among those with immunity to the original wild-type coronavirus strain. Those earlier antibodies are assessed to be 60% less effective against the more recent P1 spike mutation. Paradoxically, while immune locals had the edge over the vaccinated, given more breakthrough infection for artificial immunity compared to natural immunity, the vaccinated visitors in Brazil may now have the edge given that artificial immunity may be reasonably effective with respect to the P1 variant. In contrast, both locals and visitors with natural early immunity are likely more vulnerable compared to those vaccinated with a product conferring good but less than 100% protection. Best to have recovered from the P1 variant or both the initial strain and that variant. The commercial sex work arena is now likely a major breeding ground for CoV-specific “typhoid Mary’s”. While many of these guys have likely been exposed to the initial strain, a majority of them could be back at square one because the current wave is genetically distinctive. Prez Bozo is, ironically, pretty much the biggest supporter of misguided business as usual. His delusion of being The Tempest in a tempest-in-a-teapot scenario is really very very bad news. https://www.google.ca/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/world/2021/mar/03/brazil-covid-global-threat-new-more-lethal-variants-miguel-nicolelis

So far, just for the next week ... the Dance, not the Hammer. I think the Hammer may come into play if and when serious CoV cases exceed acute care capacity and deaths occur due to lack of available health care. Such a scenario is plausible. Keep an eye on mortality. It tends to lag behind case count. Deaths are at a record high. As case counts have been increasing, the lethality rate and absolute daily deaths would not be expected to subside. I don’t know how curfew implementation works for airports, ie, you need to get into town after 23:00, I think that you are not bothered if you are in a vehicle. In fact, I doubt the police care about isolated cases of individuals out in public. In contrast, in Montreal, a huge fine from patrolling cops after 20:00, for weeks now. But the late night arrivals in Brazil tend to be Copa and I think they are cancelling most if not all.

It might have to come to things like this before it’s realized and accepted that you cannot negotiate with a tiger with your head in it’s mouth ... FullSizeRender.mov

[deleted ... ignore]

Commencing this weekend (6th March) Phase Red restrictions state-wide, only essential businesses allowed to operate. Also more bad news on the inoculation front. A new lab study demonstrates that neither convalescent plasma from the original circulating coronavirus nor the predominant and already poorly performing by efficacy vaccine rolled out there, CoronaVac, are effectively neutralizing the P1 Manaus variant. CoronaVac is supplied by China’s Sinovac to 11 countries. Getting the supplies from China to Brazil has already been fraught with problems. Until Brazil’s Butantan Institute acquires production critical mass, Sinovac would need to selectively, for Brazil, alter the inactivated coronavirus vaccine component to reflect the P1 spike mutation. How predominant the P1 strain becomes in Brazil remains unclear. Other countries are very worried about it and are diligently tracking it. Coronavac is also the primary vaccine initiated in Dominican Republic. WTF?! They have a huge contract with Sinovac. There are also contracts with Pfizer and AstraZeneca but delivery is stalled.

Here is the forum heading group that displays on the main page, along with the open access exclusively viewable headings, only if a logged-in registered member, presumably also meeting the minimum posting criterion ...

I note that if you are posting but then wish to go to the forum main page you click the three bars, then Browse —> Forums. Previously you just clicked the bars and selected Forums.

Point 3, not exactly, but the news is still good. In Phase III trials the numbers of overall cases were set at an occurrence threshold to meet bare minimum statistical power for inferential analysis. The severe case counts were too small to meaningful analyze, for example in Pfizer/BioNTech the study had one case in vaccinated group and four in placebo group. So the unvaccinated actually fared quite well in terms of severity but we would not say that if trying to promote vaccination. A handful of severe cases is consistent with such occurrence over a few months in the general population. The efficacy touted in the media regarding severity is, perhaps, selectively cherry-picked to counter vaccine hesitancy and refusal. The follow-up was short-changed by about 80% of the study protocol’s intended efficacy time frame. Unblinding to offer vaccine to the placebo group has also irreversibly compromised more rigorous efficacy assessment. I am not criticizing these decisions but the data distortions can sometimes end up fuelling the anti-vaxxer agenda. Moderna could claim 100% prevention of severe disease because they could not isolate virus and corroborate diagnosis in the one vaccine recipient with apparent severe COVID, perhaps due to timing. 0 cases, 1 case, 4 cases out of thousands ... potayto potahto. Bear in mind that if 10,000 of us used condoms with zero or one HIV infection acquired over one year, and 10,000 barebacked with four HIV infections resulting among them over the same time period, we would not assert that condom use was preventive. But our cocks are smarter than the average CoV denialist and are not easily hoodwinked. Now then ... The real-world Pfindings comparing large swaths of recently vaccinated people in Israel demonstrate a marked reduction in case severity. This from a large vaccine waitlist-control trial there, in which for every eleven severe cases among the not yet vaccinated there was one severe novel coronavirus case among the full dose cycle vaccinated. Technically better than the essentially meaningless 4:1 ratio in the pre-authorization efficacy trial. It stands to reason that you can definitely become infected following vaccination, we know this, though the probability is much less. Since you can also acquire severe illness, I am currently convinced that you would be contagious and can transmit viral particles. This may depend on the viral load and be less likely as you shift on the gradient from severe down to mild or asymptomatic. So Virginia and West Virginia, yes there is a post-vaxx Severity Clause. Being vaccinated will apparently not entirely eliminate the chance of serious COVID disease. ——- Re: Sinovac ... for any vaccine I would assess both statistical efficacy, poor in this case, and immunogenicity prior to embracing it. I would want to know if the clinical production of antibodies meant they were effectively virus-neutralizing, since the ratio of infection cases between vaccine and placebo trial groups suggested poor performance, in Brazil where the study number of subjects supported more credible inferential analysis. For this vaccine I would be more confident once the majority of the population received it.

Don’t y’all hate being overcharged? I commiserate with this Jupiter Boy and would say “sorry you probably feel like you had something unpleasant up Uranus.”

Never mind ... I grasp it now. The downward arrow means ‘blow me.’

Know morr edditt aupchun? [OK I see it now]