Linus Torvalds Encourages Kernel Developers & Everyone To Get Vaccinated

[coder]

Last year, we also had sharp decrease in infections and deaths, throughout entire world. There was no vaccines back then. It happened because of summer.

It did not happen only due to the summer. It also dropped because of government restrictions put in place, in response to the surges. However, you're trying to equate one decrease with another, without even looking at the magnitudes. That's not a rational approach.

Here's weekly data, in the US. Our case numbers are significantly lower than a year ago, even though basically all restrictions are now lifted.

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019...iew/index.html

That's how coronaviruses works. If you have any doubts, check seasonal flu death rates and charts and compare them with Covid-19 charts. Flu, and Covid-19, are both coronaviruses.

That's not correct. You're over-generalizing.

Some viruses are temperature-dependent, while SARS-CoV-2 appears not to be. The seasonality is mostly a function of people moving indoors. Indeed, the hotter climates tend to see an increase in cases, during the peak of the summer, since people are back indoors.

Also, infections are not deaths. We talk about deaths here. Coronavirus infections have 99.9% survival rate with or without vaccines.

• To die, you have to be infected, which means you have to get it from another infected person.
• The rate of infections and deaths is higher for variants.
• The rate of long-term complications is much higher than death.
• If you get infected, you could pass it on in a chain of transmission that leads to suffering and death.

[bridgman]

Also, infections are not deaths. We talk about deaths here. Coronavirus infections have 99.9% survival rate with or without vaccines.

COVID-19 infections have been averaging 2% death rate (ie 98% survival rate) for most of the pandemic although IIRC it was higher in the early days when hospitals were being routinely overwhelmed. Latest data shows about 2.17% death rate (3.91M/180M).

The 99.9% number goes back to the early days. IIRC it was not survival rate once infected but also included an estimate of "chance of getting infected" back when people were saying that COVID-19 would go away on its own. Most of that "high chance of survival" came from a high chance of not getting infected in the first place, which turned out not to be true without vaccines and/or lockdowns.

I guess another possibility (from your wording) is that you are lumping COVID-19 in with other coronaviruses to get that 99.9% number, but I don't think that works either. Coronaviruses are implicated in some sub-types of the common cold but also in diseases which have higher fatality rates than COVID-19, as coder pointed out. The regular influenza viruses are not coronaviruses.

[piorunz]

This is backwards-looking data, not accounting for the Delta variant -- now the dominant strain in the UK. That variant is known to attack kids more aggressively than the original strain.

What Delta variant? It's "dominant"? I don't know what comedy TV broadcast have you watched.

Reach to Public Health England, straight from the government: https://assets.publishing.service.go...riefing_17.pdf

Data shows that people over the age of 50 who are unvaccinated account for just 10% of the alleged confirm Covid cases, whilst those who are fully vaccinated account for 37% of the alleged confirmed cases. A further 40% of the alleged cases are people who had received one dose of a Covid-19 vaccine at least 21 days prior to their alleged confirmed Covid-19 infection.
Number of people over 50 who are fully vaccinated with an alleged confirmed case of the Delta variant outnumber those who are unvaccinated by 3 to 1, whilst the number of people over 50 who have had at least one dose of the Covid jab and have an alleged confirmed case of the Delta variant outnumber those who are unvaccinated by nearly 9 to 1. Of the 117 alleged Covid deaths to have occurred since the 1^st February, a huge 60% of them were people who had received at least one dose of a Covid-19 vaccine which is allegedly supposed to protect them from serious illness. But the majority were not people who had only received one dose, 70% of those who had died even after at least one dose of the Covid-19 jab were in fact fully vaccinated, and a further 27% of those who’d had at least one dose had received their first dose at least 21 days prior to their death.
The number of unvaccinated people to have allegedly died of the Delta variant accounted for just 37% of all alleged Covid deaths according to PHE data.


PHE also revealed just how frighteningly dangerous the Delta variant is within their report. Table 2 shows us that the case fatality rate for the Delta variant is an astronomical 0.1%.

[bridgman]

Data shows that people over the age of 50 who are unvaccinated account for just 10% of the alleged confirm Covid cases
...
The number of unvaccinated people to have allegedly died of the Delta variant accounted for just 37% of all alleged Covid deaths according to PHE data.
...
PHE also revealed just how frighteningly dangerous the Delta variant is within their report. Table 2 shows us that the case fatality rate for the Delta variant is an astronomical 0.1%.

That all makes sense, doesn't it ? If 90% of people infected with Delta have been vaccinated and vaccination is believed to significantly reduce the chances of death from infection then having a fairly low death rate from Delta in this data set seems consistent to me. Take away the impact of vaccination and you are up to a 1% death rate.

AFAIK the concern with Delta is not higher death rate but rather (a) faster transmission and (b) greater probability of infecting young people, who in turn are less likely to be vaccinated.

re: "The number of unvaccinated people to have allegedly died of the Delta variant accounted for just 37% of all alleged Covid deaths", that seems alarmingly high to me given how new the Delta variant is.

[Dedale]

Why do some posters here say flu is a coronavirus ? It isn't. Influenza viruses are a different family.

[bridgman]

Why do some posters here say flu is a coronavirus ? It isn't. Influenza viruses are a different family.

Probably fallout from all the "COVID-19 is just like regular flu" misinformation that was going around a year ago.

It may not be correct but unfortunately it's easy to remember.

[coder]

Soso I am now a "anti government type",

That's not what I said. What I said is that the tactic of publicizing a lot of little negative stories is one also employed by those with a vested interest in damaging public trust in government.

If you're not simply trying to create a "cloud of suspicion" around the pandemic, then I don't see the relevance that story to this discussion.

And yes if we have to assume that politicians lie about such essential stuff nonstop, then it's a big wolf cry and whatever they say next can't be trusted at all.

I think you should distinguish between politicians and bureaucrats. While "unelected bureaucrats" have become a political punching bag for right-wing media, a non-partisan administrative corps that's (usually) somewhat protected from political influence is far more appealing and trustworthy than the alternative.

Yes the pandemic is real, but that alone don't justify taking away guaranteed rights of 100% of the population,

It's not 100% or anywhere near that. The freedoms impacted are just the ones which can endanger the health of others. This is not different than other things government does, such as regulating commercial food & beverage production or traffic laws. It's just more unusual and disruptive to people's daily life.

Yes, there's a balancing act between public health, the economy, mental health, etc. That's why we should all get vaccinated and adhere to other guidelines, so that life can get back to normal as much and as quickly as possible.

[coder]

I can't be certain but so can't you,

Yes, I think we can be reasonably certain that the WHO has not been told all the intricate technical details of how the vaccines are produced. The information they need is simply the vaccines' ingredients, the trial data, and instructions on transportation, storage, and administration. There's no reason a producer would tell them proprietary information about the manufacturing process.

Bill Gates actually funds vaccine research and distribution, and therefore undoubtedly has lots of industry and academic contacts. As he doesn't personally stand to profit from vaccine production, I think he's a reasonably trustworthy reference. I wouldn't take his word as gospel, but I'd pay attention to his advice and see how well it checks out.

if we would give em the data and they can't make the vaccine nothing bad happen, if we don't give em but they could make it, then people not only there but also in our countries die because people travel.

If the objective is to scale up production as quickly as possible and some producers flail because they don't understand the manufacturing process and technology, then that's lives lost vs. having the original producers partner with them to make sure they do it properly and efficiently.

The point is to focus on the goal and then find the quickest path to it. Not to presume what the path is, without completely understanding the problem.

And yes you must be clear, either it's the pest and we all (very many) die if we do not everything to stop it, or it's just some field for some rich people to get richer, if we accept the latter we must accept that all they say is corrupt because them saying all is bad and so on makes them money, so we just can't trust them and any scientist or anything they pay. Because they then all are biased.

All I'm saying is that we need informed skepticism. We cannot take the industry at its word, when it comes to things like safety and efficacy -- those need to be independently verified. However, we should not go so far in the other direction of assuming everything they say is a lie.

mRNA vaccines are a new technology, and I think the stakes are high enough that if the vaccine makers have a workable and affordable plan for scaling up production, I think it's worth taking that bet. Due to the circumstances, we should view that separately from the broader discussion around drug and vaccine patents.

[coder]

The question that I wanted to ask the experts is why they feel it's okay to remove their masks. I know each of them had different ways of how they received immunity. My understanding is that you can still get local infections outside of your bloodstream. Would a mask not assist in spreading the disease for those type of events or is the probability so low that it is not worth the effort?

Ideally, everyone would continue to wear masks, even after getting vaccinated, until the case counts drop near zero. However, the risk of infection and transmission are both so greatly reduced by the vaccine that I think public health officials have made a calculated decision that there's more to be gained by letting vaccinated people remove their masks with each other, because that could serve as an additional incentive for people to get the vaccine.

[coder]

What I don't understand is why so many still believe Covid 19 should be on the A list of infectious decease.

Covid is only on that list, because the WHO changed the definition. (2009)

It's funny how you latch onto these points and cling to them, even when they're essentially irrelevant. In point of fact, the WHO was initially reluctant to declare Covid-19 a pandemic, because they had stopped declaring pandemics.

https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-c...-idUKKCN20I0PD

They eventually relented, under pressure to spur more drastic public health actions by governments around the world.

I don't need a conspiracy theory to see they are fucking up.

There's all the hospitalizations and deaths.

IFR 0.15 % world wide. That 20 times lower, then what they claimed at the start.

If we assume that's accurate, WeAreDoomed points out that you're still talking about millions of people. However, the statistic is very suspicious, since the US lost about 0.2% of its population to Covid-19, and the infection rate has been nowhere near 100%. If we figure about 20% of the US population has been infected, that would put the fatality rate close to 1%.

It's also a backward-looking measure, not accounting for increased leathality of variants.

Finally, the rate of long-term health consequences are much more common than death. So, you're not getting the whole picture, if you look only at the fatality rate.