BC SOCIETY
Saved by @SteveeRogerr

There's been a lot of discussion about how to communicate uncertainty about vaccines/transmission, guidance for vaccinated people, how to increase vaccine demand/address hesitancy, & what vaccines mean for the "end" of the pandemic.

Here are my thoughts. I call it "the well."

 This pandemic has plunged us to the bottom of a very deep well. After recovering from the shock of a long, abrupt fall into cold, fetid water, we looked up and saw only darkness. But we did find a ladder leading upward.
We've been slowly climbing this ladder, sometimes slipping and falling down a few rungs, but we've endured and kept climbing. Our dedication was rewarded. We've developed very efficacious vaccines, and now as we look up, we can see a small circle of light at the top.
As we continue to climb, the circle will slowly expand. The hope of that circle, slowly growing as we climb ever closer to the top, keeps us going. Eventually we will emerge into the bright sun. Hopefully then we'll put a cover on the well so we can't fall in again.
Now that we have two very efficacious vaccines—that have exceeded our wildest expectations at protecting us against disease. That's a tremendous public health achievement. It should allow us to tighten our grip on the ladder and give us a second wind on the climb.
But there's still a lot we don't know about the vaccines. Will they prevent infection? Will they reduce transmission when enough people are vaccinated? We don't yet know. But this research is ongoing because it is so crucially important.
https://t.co/9ZmDc92dE1
My suspicion is that vaccines this good at preventing disease will have a substantial impact on protecting against infection altogether, and will likely reduce transmission. It's unlikely that these vaccines would have no effect on transmission. But we don't know that yet.
This is supported by pre-clinical data in non-human primates, as reviewed here by @florian_krammer.

Most of the vaccines under development or authorized at least partially protect against infection & reduce replication (see URT and LRT protection columns)
https://t.co/g8NrCISY7E
But you can see that some of that protection was partial, and this was in monkeys anyway. Therefore we can't assume that vaccination alone will completely prevent transmission in the real world (though it likely will reduce it significantly!)
Thus, we must be cautious, especially when not many people have been vaccinated. It doesn't mean we'll be wearing masks and distancing indefinitely or that we release the ladder in despair. It means we grip the ladder tighter, fix our gaze on the light, and keep climbing.
So right now, when people get vaccinated, they should continue taking precautions until we know more. Be reassured that studies are ongoing to get more information on transmission and asymptomatic infection, and we'll know more very soon (in a month or two).
But as we gaze at the light at the top of the well, and it drives us forward, we also can't forget that we aren't there yet. If we look around, we are still surrounded by the cold, dark stones lining the well.
https://t.co/qQjID1s9yz
Right now in many places, including the US, the situation is very grim. More transmission=more cases=more hospitalization=more deaths. We can't become complacent. We can't become so fixated on the light that we forget to climb towards it. We MUST reduce transmission.
That means increasing vigilance on measures to reduce our own exposure risk:
-Avoid gatherings outside your household
-Stay home if sick
-Avoid crowded spaces
-Avoid enclosed spaces
-Ventilate if possible
-Masks
-Distancing
-Wash hands
-Disinfect high-touch surfaces
It also means advocating for public health policies that serve this goal:
-Increase test/trace capacity
-Increase surveillance (genomic, wastewater, etc)
-Economic support to help people comply with the risk reduction measures above
-Create vaccine demand
-Counter misinformation
The good news that's often lost is that if we reduce overall transmission & vaccinate more people, the effect will be synergistic. Less transmission + more vaccines = faster progress to fewer restrictions. It will feel like the climb is getting faster. Hope will be more tangible.
There have also been a lot of alarming statements about the herd immunity threshold, as in "it's much higher than we thought". Maybe, but if we can reduce transmission, we don't need to get all the way to 80-90% vaccination uptake before we can relax restrictions. Here's why.
Viruses are obligate parasites and can't exist without a host. They are driven by evolution to find a susceptible host (in this case, a person) & thus spread in populations. Herd immunity threshold is the & of immune people at which a virus can no longer spread in a population.
When a virus hits an immunized host, it's a dead end. Even if immunized people can become asymptomatically infected and shed virus to infect unvaccinated people, it's very unlikely this would result in transmission to another vaccinated person. This is not typical virus behavior.
Furthermore, we know from non-human primate vaccine and convalescent rechallenge studies that this doesn't happen in monkeys. So it would be very unusual, and I'd go so far as to say it's probably not going to happen in people either.
If everyone is susceptible and/or if virus transmission is rampant, it's not hard for the virus to find a new host. But if there's more people immunized, there are fewer susceptible hosts. If there's less virus spreading around, that decreases opportunity for spread further.
So back to the well, as we keep climbing, more people are going to be vaccinated. If we reduce transmission too, then we're going to increase the pace at which we climb this ladder. The circle of light at the top will expand faster as we get closer and closer.
The challenge now is to keep climbing. To not lose our grip because we are tired and this climb has already been so long and so arduous. We are exhausted, physically and mentally. Our health has suffered. We are tired of being in the dark.
So keep your eyes on the circle of light. Have hope that though each step up the ladder feels like a herculean effort, the circle is expanding. If we can summon the reserves to make it through this final climb, we'll step into the light, possibly by summer. It all depends on us.
Vaccines work and we have great ones. Risk reduction works if we can stay the course. Get vaccinated as soon as you can. Be cautious but know that this is in our power and the end is in sight, even though things are still hard. Let's just keep climbing towards it.
Also just adding here the things that will set us back:
-Overstating or outright lying about vaccine efficacy
-Equating guidance intended to address a short-term problem as telling people to abandon hope
-Stating that education/nuance=telling people restrictions are eternal
Here's a great perspective from @notdred about vaccines being undersold. We need to create vaccine demand. We should do so by being honest and direct about what we know and what we don't.
https://t.co/L2ROwFqvZB
Finally, my predictions for when we will "step into the light". If we can get vaccination > 40% and rising by May/June while simultaneously reducing transmission, we can probably start to relax. Travel and in-person holidays in 2021 will be totally feasible for vaccinated people.
So bottom line: take precautions now. Get the vaccines when you can. I certainly will be first in line when my number is called for either Pfizer or Moderna (and J&J or Novavax if the data is similar). Vaccines work, are safe, and yes, they are the long-term solution!

More from Society

Dr. Simon \u30c4
Dr. Simon ツ
@goddeketal
1/ One year of destroyed economies, social isolation & deep social splits calls for an anniversary ⬇️thread ⬇️ to celebrate the RT-qPCR manuscript by Christian Drosten (@c_drosten) & Victor Corman (@vmcorman), submitted on 21st Jan 2020 to @Eurosurveillanc. #UnbiasedScience


2/ Before this very publication, virologists were neither treated like superstars, nor were they considered icons or half-gods. In 2009, Drosten almost succeeded in installing the false premise virology could supersede holistic medical sciences as discussed in this thread.

3/ Drosten is a virologist. He neither has any background in epidemiology, nor has he ever worked in the civil service. He also doesn’t have a background in public health. Yet he and his colleagues affect our daily lives to the level of whom to meet up or how to flush the toilet.


4/ Before January 2020, Drosten and Corman were common virologists at Charité Berlin, whenever they were not involved in economic implications (https://t.co/UTDwG8U7Du). Other than that, they looked at coronaviruses in dromedary calves in the Middle East or Africa. 😍 #cute


5/ Finally in Jan 2020, the published paper laid the theoretical grounds for the current pandemic, the RT-qPCR mass testing-religion, for which he was awarded his second German Federal Cross of Merit (he received the first one in 2005 for developing the SARS-CoV PCR test).
SOCIETY
Noah Smith
Noah Smith
@Noahpinion
Remember: Just because an idea is old doesn't mean it's good.

Knowing whether old ideas are more likely to be good requires understanding whether conditions have changed in important ways.

Horse archery was an amazing method of warfare for over a thousand years...then people invented guns, and suddenly this great idea that had stood the test of time became obsolete.

Then again, when underlying conditions don't change much, tried-and-true approaches are probably better.

"Learning the lessons of history" usually just means assuming ergodicity and stationarity in an informal time-series model...

(end)
SOCIETY
Advertisement
\U0001f1fa\U0001f1f8 JFK 2 DJT \U0001f1fa\U0001f1f8
🇺🇸 JFK 2 DJT 🇺🇸...
@jfk2djt
The Nashville Operation - A Battle in the War

A thread exploring the Nashville bombing in the context of the 2020 Digital War (via SolarWinds) against the United States perpetrated by our enemies, likely China, Iran and/or Russia.


SolarWinds Hack

A digital "Pearl Harbor" moment for the United States, whoever was responsible had access to the keys to the kingdom for months during 2020, including sensitive military infrastructure. This is war!

SunGard + SolarWinds

SolarWinds software company is owned by same company that owns SunGard, which essentially provides data center services. A secure place to host internet servers with redundant power and "big pipe" data connections.

https://t.co/U3P3SrrkM1


SunGard Data Center

In Nashville, around the corner from their "big pipe" connection, AT&T. Like any data center, highly secure. Only authorized personnel can enter, and even fewer can access the actual server rooms. Backup generators are available in case of power failure.


If the SunGard hardware was being used to "host" critical command and control software related to SolarWinds, the US powers would be very interested in gaining special access keys that are stored on the hard-drives of specific servers.
SOCIETY
Vaidehi Joshi
Vaidehi Joshi
@vaidehijoshi
women of twitter: raise your hand if you’ve ever discovered that a male colleague with the same (or less!) years of experience and same job title as you was actually making more money?

i’ll go first: 🙋🏽‍♀️

i’ll never forget the feelings i experience when i found this out. initially, i felt shock, followed immediately by self-loathing—it seemed like the company had gotten me “on the cheap” and it made me feel incredibly like i had been incredibly stupid to not negotiate for more.

that quickly evolved into rage: how did they think it was okay to meet his negotiation demands when he was hired but not think to look at the other people at the same level and wonder if their compensation should be raised to match his, too?

i had always thought that i had always been an excellent performer at every company and role that i’ve held, so finding this news out felt a bit humiliating; i had to fight feelings of self-doubt and push myself to remember that i am stellar and deserved better—i deserved equity.

this is the moment in my career where i fully realized that i had to be own fiercest advocate. that was the moment that i decided to never assume that the company would see your worth—instead, it was always going to be on me to MAKE them to see it, or to go somewhere that would.
SOCIETY
Kurt "Masks Save Lives" Eichenwald
Kurt "Masks Save Lives...
@kurteichenwald
For those of us suffering & dying in Texas, the sociopathy of @GOP that leads to an astonishing lack of concern about our lives by evil folk like @GregAbbott_TX @GovernorPerry @TuckerCarlson @DanCrenshawTX et al who blatantly lie about what’s happening...1

...just to score political points - and protect the profits of energy companies - is almost incomprehensible. These are people who would claim Social Security caused 9/11 if it was convenient. What caused this catastrophe is vast vast majority from gas, then coal/nuclear...2

...then wind. The ONLY source of power that is delivering more than expected in budgeting is wind. But that’s not convenient to say for the oil/gas/coal industry, so the @GregAbbott_TX @GovernorPerry @DanCrenshawTX stand atop our dead bodies lying to protect the companies...2

...shockingly, the ONLY people in a position of state/national strength are the executives with the company that manages electricity in the state, @ERCOT_ISO. But they can’t tell the whole truth, because that would entail revealing how much stupidity was done here for profit...3

...of industry by Texas @GOP. If gas/nuke/nuclear/wind had been winterized - as they are everywhere else in the country - this would have largely been prevented. But it would have cost companies money, and that would cut into profits. If the gas lines has been buried deeper...3
SOCIETY

You May Also Like

:Billy-Don :I-AM
:Billy-Don :I-AM
@ValiantThor12
1) 💜 THE EVENT 2020 - THE 1221 MULTIDIMENSIONAL STARGATE 💜
PLEIADIAN LIGHT FORCES TRANSMISSIONS - 12182020
CHANNELED BY MICHAEL LOVE
A SPECIAL MESSAGE TO THE STARSEEDS OF NEW EARTH, FOR IMMEDIATE PLANETARY BROADCAST…
PRELUDE:
THE FOLLOWING INFORMATION IS DERIVED FROM DIRECT,

2) DECODED ETHERIC TRANSMISSIONS FROM BENEVOLENT LIGHT FORCES DOCKED IN EARTH’S SOLAR SYSTEM AND SOME OF THE DATA COMES DIRECTLY FROM CERTAIN INSIDE EARTH ALLIANCE MEMBERS KNOWN AS THE WHITE HATS, AND THE GREAT WHITE BROTHERHOOD STRATEGICALLY PLACED IN KEY POSITIONS OF POWER BY

3) THE GALACTICS ON THE SURFACE OF PLANET EARTH!
THE DATA HEREIN IS RECEIVED AND TRANSMITTED FROM THE 5D LEVEL! THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE STARSEEDS OF EARTH!
GREAT ONES,
WE HAVE SPOKEN OF THE EVENT 2020 THIS ENTIRE EARTH YEAR AS ALL PLEIADIAN AND EARTH ALLIANCE INTEL

4) SHOWS INDEED THAT A MAJOR COSMIC EVENT IS GOING TO OCCUR IN ONLY 3 EARTH DAYS FROM NOW!
ON DECEMBER 21, 2020, A MAGNIFICENT CELESTIAL STARGATE WILL OPEN IN THE HEAVENS WHICH MARKS THE DAWN OF THE NEW GOLDEN AGE OF AQUARIUS AND THE 1ST DAY OF THE SATYUGA OF CENTRAL SUNLIGHT!

5) IN THE MORNING HOURS OF THE WINTER SOLSTICE, THE LONG-AWAITED NEW ERA OF LIGHT WILL FINALLY DAWN AND THE NEW 5D EARTH WILL BE BORN!
THE COSMIC GATES WILL BE FULLY OPENED ON 12/21/20 ALLOWING POWERFUL STREAMS OF COSMIC LIGHT TO ENTER EARTH'S ATMOSPHERE, UPGRADING ALL SENTIENT
ECONOMY
MAKE THE WORLD GREAT AGAIN \U0001f30d
MAKE THE WORLD GREAT A...
@joyoftheawoke
The take down of the Cabal A-Z Charlie Freak & @djmarkdevlin

...In May 2017- Prince alwaleed tala sold his soul to the 13 bloodline families

Thread.. please retweet this truth 🙏


Trump visits the Middle East and receives royal Saudi welcome, highest Saudi honour by receiving the golden collar of abdulaziz al Saud
Not been seen with past presidents ...


When trump arrived in the summer of 2017 14/09/2017 he laid out all the documents, all the folders and they had all the photographs, disks, cds, dvds with all footage of them doing horrific things, the NSA has it all!

2 weeks later the richest men begun getting arrested...

They hand picked Obama, alwaleed tala decided to make Obama the linchpin of the us presidency. Barack has connections all over the cabal
TRUMP
Advertisement
foone
foone
@Foone
So there's a class of puzzles called "river crossing puzzles" which involve having to cross a river on a boat/bridge containing some set of individuals/items with restrictions on which ones can be on the boat/left on each shore, right?

and the most common subclass of these problems is the one where you have 3 items/animals to cross with.
This is alternatively called the "fox, goose, and bag of beans" or "wolf, goat, and cabbage" puzzle.

the idea is that your boat can only carry one item at a time, but if you leave the wolf/fox unattended with the goat/goose, the wolf/fox will eat the goat/goose.
and similarly, the goose/goat will eat the beans/cabbage if left alone

so you have to set up a set of actions that never leaves either side of the river in one of the lose-states.

the solution to this variant being:
1. take the goat/goose over
2. return empty
3. take the wolf/fox over
4. return with the goat/goose
5. take the cabbage/beans over
6. return empty
7. take the goat/goose over
GAMES
Dr Naomi Wolf
Dr Naomi Wolf
@naomirwolf
1/Just had an interview scheduled with @goddeketal, Dr Simon Goddek, the post-doctoral researcher at the Faculty of Mathematics and Statistics in the field of biotechnology, at an unnamed Dutch university. This researcher has been publicly pointing out that the paper that...

2/ the PCR test as the gold standard underlying global "lockdowns" was passed after maximum ONE day of peer review, as opposed to the average at that same journal of 172 days in 2019. Also that several authors have conflicts of interest. Unfortunately we were forced to cancel..

3/ because he was strongly advised by his university to maintain silence and not speak publicly -- to step back from this issue. I learned from a source that his university was heavily assailed by many complaints. Other scientists who have signed the review criticizing the PRC..

4/test, the "Retraction Request Letter", a critique that got worldwide attention, have also been bombarded with attacks, their relatives are being called at night, and their universities assailed. Some are at risk of losing jobs. Even former employers are being harassed. I..

5/ Note : scientists around the world are being silenced and harassed if they speak up in normal criticism of the scientific methods or conclusions used to advance the lockdown agenda and COVID testing. This is not post-enlightenment scientific discourse, this is how scientists
SCIENCE
Vibhu Vashisth
Vibhu Vashisth
@VIBHU_Tweet
THE LESSER KNOWN MAHARANA OF MEWAR:RANA KUMBHA
Kumbalgarh Fort is one of most spectacular sites of India,atop a hill abt 3600ft above sea lvl in the https://t.co/LkjmzzBhE2's second largest wall is surrounding it.A fort wall second only to Great wall of China,still not so famous.


This longest wall of India stretches to almost 36Km and encompasses a few hills, many step wells and over 360 temples and palaces. Birth place of the Great Maharana Pratap, this fort is named after another Great Maharana of Mewar, who is not given his due in the History.


Builder of many architectural marvels like the Kumbhalgarh Fort, an erudite scholar, a patron of arts, music, culture & a great warrior was the Great Maharana Kumbha. Yet we don't know much about him. Let's get to know him a little.


Maharana Kumbha was the undefeated King of Mewar from 1433-1468CE.He never lost any battles &kept Mewar out of the reach of Islamic Invaders till the time he was alive. Born on Makar Sakranti to Maharana Mokal & Saubhagya Devi, Rana Kumbha was only 13 when he ascended the throne.


His father was killed by his own relatives in a political conspiracy. He was a powerful King about 8ft tall &charismatic personality,a hardcore Hindu Rajput who could shed his life for Hindu honour without thinking twice.He was an ardent skillful warrior who never lost a battle.
ALL