Posted on 07/31/2021 7:48:46 AM PDT by logi_cal869
What a mess.
I’ve reviewed the slide deck about the Provincetown Bear Week outbreak which was leaked to the NYT and WaPo. The last slide has the appropriate disclaimer “These are the opinions of the author and do not reflect official CDC or USPHS positions”.
First of all, the cases: At Bear Week in Provincetown, there are, shall we say, “conditions that facilitate transmission”. Unlike some of their early HIV work, the people who put this slide deck together did not provide any behavioral details about “Bear Week” to help the casual reader.
Second of all: A very high percentage of the people present in Provincetown during this time were vaccinated. It therefore follows that “most of the cases” occurred in vaccinated people. Had the Bear Week attendees done their thing in crowds of that size with very low vaccination rates, obviously you would have had Alabama.
Third of all: The ultra-high viral loads and the imputed infectivity with an R0 >8 are modeled, not observed. The cycle time data comes from a very small group of individuals who have not been analyzed for relevant comorbid conditions. There is nowhere in the world that a sustained R0 >8 has been observed with B.1.617.2 (the “India strain”, a/k/a delta), so either CDC has not properly sequenced the viral strain, they have not incorporated behavioral variables into their models, or they are making it up.
As I have said before: That someone in CDC is leaking “data” (scare quotes because the investigation of this event has barely started) is an indication of warfare WITHIN the establishment, or Deep State if you will.
CDC, FDA, PHS, CDC, NIH and the media could act in unity as long as the job was getting rid of Trump.
OK, mission accomplished.
Now, there is no agreement on the mission, and the main actors have fallen to fighting among themselves over the usual bureaucratic imperatives: power (within an agency), money (from Congress), avoidance of blame, ability to assign responsibility elsewhere, and all the rest. To some degree, I wonder if this is not “look, a squirrel!” to draw attention away from the two critical things: US research into human-mouse hybrids to study and then create binding proteins that could turn animal viruses into human pathogens; and the Big Enchilada: the transfer of funding for this research out of the US after it was banned to the Wuhan Institute of Virology via a third party to avoid a required review.
At least when Trump was President, someone could TRY to lead this mess in a positive direction. Now, without a leader, the Executive Branch agencies with responsibility and authority over this are each pursuing their own interests and creating survival strategies, which is why there is no single narrative or guidance.
When my (female) wife and I were married in 1981, we honeymooned on Cape Cod. Provincetown had a gay community that long ago, maybe not as open or large as it is today, but it was there.
Which is ironic, given only one unvaccinated fruit ended up in the hospital. There were probably more ER visits to remove objects than that.
You raise a good point, though -- the CDC report intimates they achieved nearly perfect tracking status in mASS to compile their report! That syncs perfectly with gays who don't care about giving away their private info to Apple or Grindr or one stall over...
P-Town has been well known to those in Southern New England for decades. Back in the 80s, my sister used to like partying there because there was a lot of clubs and the gay guys would dance but she wouldn't have to worry about getting hit on.(female logic)
I believe that I neglected the URL for the article re the last cited study in my post
CDC Releases Report Confirming Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual People at Greater Risk of COVID-19 Illness, Calls for More Data Collection
Swab up my nose?
I know better places.
Bkmk
Freak week.
In P-town you’d get a mile long line of volunteers.
Typical for shore towns.
Pournelle’s Iron Law of Bureaucracy applies here, in spades.
https://www.jerrypournelle.com/reports/jerryp/iron.html
The result is that everyone is “leading” to effect organizational survival, not for a quest for truth and a way out of this year-and-a-half long mess.
Very interesting post there.
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