To me. Even though, we have access to the thoughts and opinions, of the whole planet. Finding real facts, about such things, is really hard to achieve. Every data source of current information, has some form of bias. Historic facts are easy, last years 'facts' are easy to find, but what happened today or yesterday, always seems to have some-ones spin on it.
Yep bias sells people gravitate to what they agree with. Even if the reporter is neutral the editor will add his slant then the owner will add or enforce his own. In the internet age with cookies and suggestions it's possible to go fully into a huge hug-box where you never see an opposing view. Which could explain some of our lost ability to disagree and get along anyway which is the basic idea behind democracy.
I tend to read a few different versions of the same story. They can easily be skewed by just picking your source though.
The Daily Mails a good example of press bias they've been spewing immigrant hate for twenty years because that's what keeps a lot of their readers interested but they got so nonfactual with it they got ranked alongside things like infowars on factchecker websites. They've pushed back a bit to the left over the last year or so to stop themselves being written off as a far right paper again, which happened to them before after their open support for Hitler in the late thirties.
Yep loads of information is now readily available to all, however critical thinking still isn't taught until university so a huge chunk of the population are incapable of their own fact checking either through being a bit dim or never being taught how. They can get suckered into all kinds of conspiracies and misinformation hence growing anti-vax sentiments and the efforts to reduce the disinformation.
Older people are vulnerable to it as they haven't grown up knowing the internet should be assumed to be wrong until proven otherwise.
Conspiracy cults are like scammers they target the vulnerable.
Funnily enough I was speaking to someone at work today (video conference) who is in the high risk category due to old age. He said he wasn't going to take the vaccine because the Russians developed it using foetus lungs
Funnily enough I was speaking to someone at work today (video conference) who is in the high risk category due to old age. He said he wasn't going to take the vaccine because the Russians developed it using foetus lungs
Three of my colleagues are off with covid now, two confirmed one awaiting tests. Another just came back after spending a few weeks in ICU. Still at least one anti-vaxxer popped up when we were offered flu-jabs last week. It's just bonkers.
Yep bias sells people gravitate to what they agree with. Even if the reporter is neutral the editor will add his slant then the owner will add or enforce his own. In the internet age with cookies and suggestions it's possible to go fully into a huge hug-box where you never see an opposing view. Which could explain some of our lost ability to disagree and get along anyway which is the basic idea behind democracy.
I tend to read a few different versions of the same story. They can easily be skewed by just picking your source though.
The Daily Mails a good example of press bias they've been spewing immigrant hate for twenty years because that's what keeps a lot of their readers interested but they got so nonfactual with it they got ranked alongside things like infowars on factchecker websites. They've pushed back a bit to the left over the last year or so to stop themselves being written off as a far right paper again, which happened to them before after their open support for Hitler in the late thirties.
.......'twenty years'? Go back to before the first world war, they were spouting bile, before then. It is a rag, that I simply refuse to read, they put fox towards the centre of opinion. The BBC is quite reasonable, as long as you understand, that they have to toe the 'current party' line.
Funnily enough I was speaking to someone at work today (video conference) who is in the high risk category due to old age. He said he wasn't going to take the vaccine because the Russians developed it using foetus lungs
I'm pretty sure if Homo habilis had Twitter, Facebook and Instagram they'd still be bickering and dog piling over everything, watching comedy cat & dog videos or whatever the comedy animal du jour was in those days, and they'd still be doing duck face selfies over the place.
ETA - I was thinking character traits not technologies or accumulated knowledge - perhaps I should have been more specific.
The World Health Organization has recommended against the use of the drug remdesivir to treat COVID-19. After analyzing the randomized trials of 7,000 patients hospitalized with COVID-19, the public health group wrote in the British medical journal The BMJ on Thursday that the drug “has no meaningful effect on mortality or on other important outcomes for patients, such as the need for mechanical ventilation or time to clinical improvement.”
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It's no secret that I feel this medicine product is just expensive repurposed trash.
But we were hopeful that maybe if started early it might help even a proportion of cases. It is just Big Pharma's version of meatless chicken nuggets. Waste material they were going to discard.
Objective To investigate the effectiveness of using convalescent plasma to treat moderate coronavirus disease 2019 (covid-19) in adults in India. Design Open label, parallel arm, phase II, multicentre, randomised controlled trial. Setting 39 public and private hospitals across India...
www.bmj.com
This study found no difference in 28 day mortality or progression to severe disease among patients with moderate covid-19 treated with convalescent plasma along with best standard of care compared with best standard of care alone.
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Should come as no surprise that convalescent plasma has no effect on outcomes, considering that giving immunogenic substances after all the virus is DEAD is a pointless waste of time and money, and might worsen the immune overreaction...
For example:
Three deaths could possibly be related to transfusion, which is comparable to the other larger report on safety of convalescent plasma use to treat covid-19.12 In our study we defined a “possible” adverse event as a clinical event that occurred within six hours of convalescent plasma transfusion but could also be explained by worsening covid-19.
^ Could be the convalescent plasma intensified the lung dysfunction, killing them too, as the transfusion increased the antibody levels.
3)
Clinical researchers looking at clusters of blood test results in hundreds of patients over time, have worked out a predictive protocol to tell which ones are going to get a cytokine storm. Not posting this reference as it's pending peer review and might not get adopted. General outline for laymen below if you are interested in details.
Ok, they check for changes in a number of clustered tests. You need a case with clinical signs of Covid plus just supplemental O2 to start, a positive PCR doesn't matter.
Broadly the categories include
1) Signs of immune cell dysfunction such as drop in lymphocytes and rise in neutrophils.
2) Evidence of tissue damage. Egs, heart enzymes/troponin I elevation, liver enzymes up, D-dimer for clotting up, albumin down
3)Rise in acute phase proteins such as CRP and Ferritin
4) Signs of kidney troubles, such as potassium up, widened anion gap, and increased BUN to Creatinine ratio.
Plus a lot more.
Cases with one or more positive from every category are likely verging on crashing. Intervention with immune suppression is urgently indicated. The protocol was derived from existing data on old cases, and successfully applied to new ones, predicting trouble efficiently.
.......'twenty years'? Go back to before the first world war, they were spouting bile, before then. It is a rag, that I simply refuse to read, they put fox towards the centre of opinion. The BBC is quite reasonable, as long as you understand, that they have to toe the 'current party' line.
New: the superspreader locus in Washington DC has had more cases. The son of Rudy Guiliani has tested positive, and Guiliani himself has been forced to isolate in DC. No link, due to forum rules.
Funnily enough I was speaking to someone at work today (video conference) who is in the high risk category due to old age. He said he wasn't going to take the vaccine because the Russians developed it using foetus lungs
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