Poll of the Day > How Does the USA still have 4.8 million active cases of Corona?

(+) Yeah! (+)

Like come on!

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We're #1 in everything, baby.

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Because 2/5 of the country hate science and are prolonging the pandemic out of spite.

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it's not like the vaccine means you can't get it again.

and getting tested again and showing positive counts as another result, even if you were tested 1-2 weeks before
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Because people aren't getting the vaccine.

papercup posted...

Because 2/5 of the country hate science and are prolonging the pandemic out of spite.

You sure you didn't get the numbers reversed there?

Anyway I feel like there's some false diagnoses, my mother was diagnosed with it and she just had a minor headache for 2 days and no-one else in the house got sick despite frequent exposure.

Cruddy_horse posted...

You sure you didn't get the numbers reversed there?

Anyway I feel like there's some false diagnoses, my mother was diagnosed with it and she just had a minor headache for 2 days and no-one else in the house got sick despite frequent exposure.

PCR tests are widely available and are used to diagnose covid. Do you think your mother had a false positive PCR test?

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40% of the country won't get a vaccine

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Cruddy_horse posted...

Anyway I feel like there's some false diagnoses, my mother was diagnosed with it and she just had a minor headache for 2 days and no-one else in the house got sick despite frequent exposure.

Was everyone in the house actually tested, or did you just assume that everyone avoided infection entirely because they were asymptomatic?

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Clench281 posted...

PCR tests are widely available and are used to diagnose covid. Do you think your mother had a false positive PCR test?

The guy who invented the PCR test said they weren't meant to be used this way

OhhhJa posted...

The guy who invented the PCR test said they weren't meant to be used this way

[Citation needed]

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adjl posted...

[Citation needed]

https://youtu.be/MkqQIY7J0fQ

OhhhJa posted...

https://youtu.be/MkqQIY7J0fQ

7:00. You can cite better than that.

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adjl posted...

7:00. You can cite better than that.

He starts talking about it right at the beginning but ok. Not my fault if you're lazy

https://youtu.be/rXm9kAhNj-4

Here, this is more concise and to the point

OhhhJa posted...

https://youtu.be/rXm9kAhNj-4

Here, this is more concise and to the point

Can you summarize in your own words what you believe he is saying? It'll be much easier to address your understanding of this quote if I have a better sense of what that understanding is.

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60-40 split on all political issues.

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adjl posted...

Can you summarize in your own words what you believe he is saying? It'll be much easier to address your understanding of this quote if I have a better sense of what that understanding is.

He's saying that if you magnify the results of the pcr test enough that you can find pretty much anything in anyone. He says that in plain English. There's nothing to interpret. He's saying that having trace amounts of covid 19 in your system doesn't prove that you're sick or that you could transmit it to someone else. In other words, the case numbers are inflated

OhhhJa posted...

He's saying that if you magnify the results of the pcr test enough that you can find pretty much anything in anyone. He says that in plain English. There's nothing to interpret. He's saying that having trace amounts of covid 19 in your system doesn't prove that you're sick or that you could transmit it to someone else. In other words, the case numbers are inflated

Next question: Do you understand what PCR is and how it is used to perform these tests?

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adjl posted...

Next question: Do you understand what PCR is and how it is used to perform these tests?

Yes. Do you? I feel like you're trying to talk your way out of the fact that the inventor of the pcr straight up said that it's not intended to be used that way. That's all that really needs to be said. If you can't trust the guy who invented it then who can you trust

OhhhJa posted...

Yes.

Please elaborate. As I said, I'm trying to gauge your understanding so I can better address it.

OhhhJa posted...

If you can't trust the guy who invented it then who can you trust

This is a blatant Appeal to Authority fallacy. You should not base anything you wish to qualify as a logical argument off of it.

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adjl posted...

This is a blatant Appeal to Authority fallacy

Which is the same thing any time someone simply cites the WHO or fauci as the end all be all of any health advice

OhhhJa posted...

Which is the same thing any time someone simply cites the WHO or fauci as the end all be all of any health advice

It is indeed. Citing the body of evidence upon which they're basing their decisions, however, is just good empirical reasoning. By extension, trusting their conclusions instead of personally researching the evidence they are using is generally going to be a reasonable way to save time, since if their evidence isn't a valid support of their point, it's usually easy enough to pick it apart that somebody else will have done it for me. If skeptical, however, I (or anyone else) can go looking through their citations and form dissenting opinions as needed.

Are you going to elaborate, or will I have to do extra work to make sure I cover all possible misinterpretations of Mullis' comments so as to minimize the chance of missing your particular ones?

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Krazy_Kirby posted...

it's not like the vaccine means you can't get it again.

This. You're still going to have people catch it, although supposedly the effect isn't as bad. That and the US has a lot of people, which compounds the issue.

papercup posted...

Because 2/5 of the country hate science and are prolonging the pandemic out of spite.

Meanwhile Australia's vaccine rate is 25% for 1-dose, 7% for full-vax and they only have 488 active cases in a population of 26m >_>

Kinda tears apart your overly simplistic, ignorant narrative.

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
https://ourworldindata.org/covid-vaccinations?country=AUS

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adjl posted...

It is indeed. Citing the body of evidence upon which they're basing their decisions, however, is just good empirical reasoning. By extension, trusting their conclusions instead of personally researching the evidence they are using is generally going to be a reasonable way to save time, since if their evidence isn't a valid support of their point, it's usually easy enough to pick it apart that somebody else will have done it for me. If skeptical, however, I (or anyone else) can go looking through their citations and form dissenting opinions as needed.

Are you going to elaborate, or will I have to do extra work to make sure I cover all possible misinterpretations of Mullis' comments so as to minimize the chance of missing your particular ones?

I don't need to prove anything to you. If you want, I can Google a link for you to how they work. It's pretty simple. That wouldn't exactly prove my knowledge or yours though. But I understand how they work and they even say that you can test positive when you are no longer infected

OhhhJa posted...

If you want, I can Google a link for you to how they work. It's pretty simple.

You could, but that would be a terribly rude way to respond to me trying to figure out what your personal understanding is.

Zeus posted...

Meanwhile Australia's vaccine rate is 25% for 1-dose, 7% for full-vax and they only have 488 active cases in a population of 26m >_>

Kinda tears apart your overly simplistic, ignorant narrative.

Australia also kept their case numbers low with measures that would have had the science-hating 2/5 of the US engaging in full-on armed rebellion had they been enacted in the US. Yes, it's overly simplistic to think purely in terms of vaccination rates, but in a country where a virus runs as rampant as Covid has in the US, vaccinations are pretty much the only way to wrangle it, short of welding everyone into their houses for a month. There's also very substantial overlap between those who are refusing to be vaccinated and those who actively undermined and worked against other infection control measures, further contributing to the lingering case count, so it's still a reasonably accurate statement even if we acknowledge that there's more than just vaccinations at play.

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Almost like we are still in a pandemic or something

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Sarcasthma posted...

We're #1 in everything, baby.

I'm pretty sure India has more cases of COVID-19 than the entire population of the US...

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Solid Sonic posted...

I'm pretty sure India has more cases of COVID-19 than the entire population of the US...

Did you mean to say Indiana

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OhhhJa posted...

Which is the same thing any time someone simply cites the WHO or fauci as the end all be all of any health advice

Err, I would disagree with that.

Just because someone pioneers a specific technology or concept, that doesn't make them the ultimate authority.

A reputable authority would incorporate the most up to date and thorough research on a topic. In truth, authority lies within the consensus of a large and diverse group of experts in the field. Fauci has conveniently been a conduit for channeling that consensus to both the executive branch and the public, because he has a reputation for doing so in a manner that accurately represents the current state of research.

but you being misinformed is not a surprise, understanding science can be hard

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Clench281 posted...

but you being misinformed is not a surprise, understanding science can be hard

I mean, I think he deserves some credit for managing to find people dredging up 30-year-old videos of a scientist most people have never heard of making comments on the HIV epidemic (comments amounting to "it's not an epidemic," which should really give people with the benefit of hindsight some pause) and interpreting those comments as a commentary on the Covid pandemic. It's been a year of some very impressive mental gymnastics from the folks that want to believe Covid isn't a big deal, but even with all that competition, I must say this is quite a remarkable display.

That said, I hadn't actually realized that Fauci had played a role in convincing the public that HIV was more than just a gay disease. If anything, that just makes me respect him more, so kudos for... doing the exact opposite of what you wanted, I guess?

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Because the virus became a political issue so now if you get the vaccine or not depends almost entirely on where you lie in the political spectrum.

America is dying a slow death from politics.

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OhhhJa posted...

https://youtu.be/MkqQIY7J0fQ

this is about hiv

has nothing to do with covid.

also, he was very much proven wrong about his views on hiv

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Joe_Biden posted...

this is about hiv

has nothing to do with covid.

also, he was very much proven wrong about his views on hiv

He's considered a crackpot in the scientific field. Literally unstable

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Joe_Biden posted...

this is about hiv

has nothing to do with covid.

Oh, it's relevant enough to Covid. Detecting a virus with PCR is detecting a virus with PCR. The capabilities and limitations of the technology are virtually the same regardless of which virus you're looking for, given a few tweaks to things like detection thresholds and whatnot.

Joe_Biden posted...

also, he was very much proven wrong about his views on hiv

This, however, is more of a reason to discount what he's saying. Not exactly a stellar track record there, even if he makes the theory sound convincing.

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