Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
RebE > the egg is shared
Look up current articles by military people, such as Gen Petraeus, McMaster and even partidians like Seth Moulton, or blogs by US Army veterans, see what they are saying. There is a legitimate military argument for policy – to stay or to leave, and the way it was implemented. For example, many, including Moulton, say that government was not responding to their pleas to start helping those Afghans who were working directly with US military until it was too late.
The underlying theme seems to be arrogance of inexperienced liberals who never ran anything that they know solutions for the problems and hate those who disagree with them. Obama’s brigade was lucky that their early public failure was just a sign up website, and they eventually hired people who know how to make websites. And when thy left Iraq, the country was already functioning, so it did not crumble immediately.
RebE > Afghanistan as Iraq is being overrun by terrorists.
(part of the ) Iraq was overrun by terrorists by the way Obama left it. And he also blamed Bush for that. Possibly were Hillary elected, ISIS would have still be there. Biden had an immediate view, and probably a hand, at that. All he learned was that if you blame others and avoid taking responsibility, you can survive politically.
RW > Those vaccinated who have such pride and think the unvaccinated should be punished and are promoting this new way of life,
We might naturally evolve into 2 species: one with vaccine, and one with Covid. We can have separate schools, shuls. In US, we can have separate states that can make you safe from all regulations, except the federal ones – and even those can be mostly rescinded by the state. But, please, in the areas where you are a minority. either do not walk among vaccinated or have a sign on you so that others could avoid you.
RW > Fine but what is the solution here long term.
You don’t know what the long term is. Maybe, this or next vaccine will work. Or, the virs, h’V will mutate to worse. Or, maybe one of the evil empire will find a way to weaponize the virus (further).
Address the current problem.>> just saying it is a variation of the old one, so no testing is required.”
Health> So why aren’t they doing this?First, as I explained, it seems that manufacturers are not yet requesting it, seeing that the current vaccines are still useful. Biontech founder talked about this recently. Google it for more details.
Second, I outlines two extremes, I don’t know which one is more reasonable. If they follow a permissive one, some would immediately say “untested”!!
In my, not fully informed, opinion, there could be more careful experimentation within the ongoing vaccination: try slightly different doses, slightly different schedules, to gradually build knowledge of what works better without doing much harm.
Biden knows history and Senate. He will only resign when, like w/ Nixon, Senators will tell him they are going to vote to convict. A better question – whether any of the Secretaries – State, Defense or Military leaders or advisors will resign. Either, because their advice was so bad, or if their good advice was not followed.
Unfortunately, lack of public/media criticism of D- Presidents does not serve them well. With Trump, you would have seen people threating or actually resigning or being fired, when he disregarded their opinions. So, each of these disagreements was vetted through robust discussions. Even Obama
had Biden contradicting many of his decisions (killing Osama, staying in Afghanistan), forcing a discussion. With Biden, most of the discussions are happening after the disaster already happened.
Petraeus, McMaster, Bloomberg published in the last day. I don’t know whether they were quiet before, or were not quoted, or were trying to talk in private, but it is too late for a lot of innocent people.phil: it’s a 2x decrease in these approximately 2-4 months. So what happens when a few months go buy and eficacy totally diminishes?
A good Question! I looked up plots for several vaccines and it seems that it is generally NOT declining at the same rate (2x every 4 months). Instead, it goes down rapidly for some months and then approaches some lower limit. for example, rotovirus vaccine for children starts, in rich countries, at 98% and goes to 95% in a year, and stays at 90% for 5 years. In poor countries, it starts 65%, down to 40% in 1 year, and down to 30% in 5 years. Guessing, because antibodies go down quickly, but acquired T-cell immunities stay long-term.
Anyway, if most people will vaccinate while vaccine are working well AND population will keep some caution for a while, then, the overall disease level will be low, and less or no boosting will be required. Conversely, if any time the virus goes down, people will stop vaccinating and start partying, then virus will stay at medium level – going down when peo0le are scared, and going up when people are relaxing. Exactly what happened in April-July – and we are all in a worse condition because of this.
health > You as a Lib will defend it, no matter what.
If you are addressing some other, liberal AAQ, in this group, then let him answer this question. I get enough flak her for my actual positions to answer the baseless one!
>> Every year they change the Flu vaccines to deal with the Mutants.
They could do the same thing with the Covid 19 vaccines.from memory: Flu vaccine is developed in a totally different, and a simpler, way, than Covid. They also need I think about 6 months for production, so they use early data from Southern Hemisphere’s winter to (imperfectly) predict what strain will happen during the winter. COVID manufacturing was set up in about 8 months completely anew and consist of several contractors each, and I would trust companies like Moderna and Biontech on weighting new v. old processes. The only government input might be – how much testing they would require for a changed vaccine: extremes would be requiring Phase1-2-3 as with a new one, or just saying it is a variation of the old one, so no testing is required. I would think if the companies had a new product, they’ll not hesitate press the government. So far, I did not see that happening.
health > But the Government should persuade the Pharmaceutical companies to make vaccines that work directly on the Variants!
so far, response was that they are tracking it and testing new vaccines but for now the original vaccines are sufficient. Maybe this takes into account difficulty of changing manufacturing process that is quite complicated.
>> However with viruses like the flu and covid-19, they mutate constantly and therefore the shots against them are virtually useless.
Phil, Covid vaccine developers took that into account. Covid mutates less than flu and there are certain features that Covid virus needs to have in order to be effective. Vaccines were developed to attack multiple patterns like that. Variants seem to decrease vaccine effectiveness but not fully. Level of antibodies does not fully account for the whole immune system, such as T-cells. Real-life data is more indictive. This month Israeli data – seniors have 7x less hospitalizations with vaccine months ago v. those who do not. So, this is a 2x decrease from 15x as in Phase 3 against original virus, but still substantial effect.
> Is there any state in the USA that the government successfully handled Covid?
a good question that is hard to answer given randomness of pandemic over time and different condition in each state. But see below states with lowest cumulative deaths/100K population – it is obvious that most of them are remote, rural, low density, but not all remote states are on this list! And many of them have older population (Maine, Vermont), so maybe they did something right.
Hawaii 40 / 100k
Vermont
Alaska
Utah
Oregon
Maine 80
Washington
Guam
puerto rico
New Hampshire
Colorado
Nebraska
Idaho 120/100k
Virginia
Wyomingcoffee > The hygiene thing was about masks or about shots?
I am calling on all of us to behave like menchen in all aspects and treat others with respect and care, whether this requires masks, shots, or helping an elderly person cross the road.
There is an expression I do not hear often lately – Ehricher Yid. If we foolow that, many questions here will not need to be asked. I checked with Prof. Google – he has 3K of Ehricher Yids v. 7 mlns of ‘frum” …
phil > In Israel it is currently at 53% while the unvaccinated positive cases are only at 43%
recent stats from Israel: rate of serious cases among older than 60 vaccinated is 7x lower than among remaining unvaccinated. From early data, seems like 3rd booster reduces this further.
>> most doctors. What choice do they have other than to support the vaccine?
my doctor asked whether I am vaccinated and the, unexpectedly and embarrassing to me, said “thank you”, as if I did him a favor … He surely did not have to say that.
Shmuel’s father used same layered approach, keeping orphan’s money hidden and between 2 layers of his own – top for robbers, lower for damage
> I don’t think people should be forced to be mensches
I am not talking about forcing, I am talking what is proper for us to do, so you seem to be on board
> make the masks free (subsidized)
makes sense. whoever here does not have a mask, please ask mods to forward your address to me, I’ll send you some, bli neder. I actually put a bag in one shul early on, when they were hard to find and expensive (with uncertain effect). And, I think, a number of places, like hospitals, give away some. Also consider spending some of the stimulus money on that.
> Covid-19 strikes hardest as those whose lives were already coming to an end meaning that but for the government, the economic impact would have been negligible.
I don’t think this is how halakha looks at the value of life.
coffee, the question is – how often problems found during Phase 3 vaccine trials more than 6-12 months after the start of trials. This should be disclosed as part of Phase 3 results. I recall looking at this, not exhaustively, and did not see any
coffee, a good question. I’ve looked at recall information. It seems that problems with vaccines are typically found quickly. That is, there might be short-term side effect after vaccine uptake, but not long-term. It seems to make sense in terms of how immunity reacts to a threat. If there are long-term vaccine cases, please point me to them.
As to short-term, there is a lot of data by now. First, original Phase 3 trials are now more than a year old. So, they would have safety info. Second, real world tests are now done on millions of people and statistics collected.
That said, there are some decisions that are made as pressed by time and conservative approach – such as having, for now, doses for younger adults and children being same as for older people.
Immune response seems to be universally higher with younger age, and risk lower… These decisions are based on Phase 3s being set up for a reasonably high dose to pass the test from the first attempt, and lack of data on lower doses. Whenever FDA authorizes 10 mcg for children < 12 y.o. (v 30 mcg for adults) or when regular authorization will be available, hopefully it will be possible for all young people, even above ba mitzva to use lower doses.> Acknowledge that the anti Corona vaxxers may be right about some points and adre them honestly .
I thought lots of people were talking here. I agree that there are gov sources that turn information the way they need today, and there are some reasonable anti-vaccine arguments. Still, the way anti-vaxxers present their information (or, more likely, copy it from dark corners of internet or “russia today”) does not help their cause. If the same person is against mRNA for reason A, of J&J of reason B, of masks for reason C, and of Social distancing for reason D – and all reasons are not very reasonable – what is a chance he came to these conclusions through logical thinking? not much. It means that the person’s thinking ability is overwhelmed by a stream of propaganda that he is consuming. If this person lives in China or Russia, this would be understandable, but if this is a Jewish person living in a free world, there is something wrong here. It seems that we have pockets of the community that is getting sucked into the DarkWeb, some of them not even using internet, but hearing it from friends.
coffee > you’re not forced to, it’s your choice
> you shouldn’t be forced to “protect someone who doesn’t want itWhat happened with being a baal middos and tzedokah? I think you are tripped by the abnormality of the situation. I am sure, if a reasonable poor person approaches you, you are not saying “you should have gone to college”. So, if some poor uneducated souls walk around, you won’t inconvenience yourself? And, again, as they are endangering vulnerable people, you are indirectly doing the same.
RebE > Use j&j which does not use this technology
I think he already found a tiruts for that also. But let’s put aside the medical discussion – it is understandable that someone can get lost in medical terminology about a cutting-edge technology. Go, down to basics. So, someone is not vaccinating, and thus, are a higher danger to the society around him. If he is Jewish, then to the Jewish society.
Then, there are kosher solutions:
– limit your interaction, especially with vulnerable people,
– do not congregate in large groups
– wear a mask
– do weekly COVID test (this is now offered as an alternative to some government workers)It may be unclear where exactly to draw the line, but a person should do some hishtadlus in bein adam l’havero in this case. I hope that vaccine sceptics can report on what they and their haverim do in this regard. If they are not, then we need to talk about middos in a wider context, not just about medical and statistical education.
Avira, thanks for acknowledging that Chareidi lifestyle is an emergency decree, and it produced measurable results in terms of dedication to Torah and cohesive communities. And I understand your feeling that the dangers are higher and higher.
There is a reason that this is a emergency decree, so Torah/Chachamim would not want us to live like that under normal conditions. So, the next question is to ask honestly – what are the downsides and how can we mitigate them without losing the positive sides. And situation is different: we are 200+ years into modernity, 100 years in USA and Israel, we have more tools to deal with it than 100 years ago.
Avram > Good thing there are many rabbis and poskim who are aware of how frum Jews live and who advise Jewish families.
This is not an answer. There is a reason we are learning traditional sources. We learn from Gemora/Rishonim/Aharonim who to resolve modern issues. You are welcome to quote specific psak and analyze how it applies to previous ones and to modern conditions, but simply outsource a solution is OK for an Am Haaertz, but if someone is trying to defend a lifestyle of learning Torah, you should do better than that.
Ari > many modern orthodox spend even more money on university, major in art history or philosophy
Avira> MO move out of Brooklyn and aren’t as embarrassed to send their children to public school r”l.I think you guys generalize somewhat. A lot of people go into engineering, computer science, medicine, law. True some elitism is there. A friend who sends kids to YU & Stern to be ina Jewish U, reported that some of them were looked down by classmates by going to an inferior school. There is also an assimilated idea of “kids going away to college” as a bar-mitzva of sort, need to separate the idea of education from “exciting experience” that indeed often ends badly. Sending kids to a local university should be a fine alternative. Some “MO” students, though, are mature enough and thrive in colleges, continuing learning and fully observant. I think you can see in advance which ones can do it.
I am not well versed with the Brooklyn exodus phenomenon, but maybe these people were not able to send kids to public school in NY and now moved to suburbs where they can. So, it is not that they compromised their values now, they just did what they had to do to save their kids from bad public schools while they lived in Brooklyn.
And “rather finance a house” is something to think about.. for people who pay full, or close to full, tuition, Jewish school, whether MO or not, is a major expense (that includes paying part of the tuition for those who do not). If the school also doe not prepare kids for professions at their parents level, it is a very hard proposition to keep kids in such schools.
you don’t need to buy expensive cartridges from the manufacturer, this is same scam as over-priced esrogim or wine, and halakha usually allows boycotting them. Buy third party half-price cartridges, they are as good (or as bad) as the originals. Or invest in a laser printer that prints cheaply.
> The elderly neighbor would be protected if they got the vaccine
coffee, out of 100 neighbors, 10 will be low on their antibodies, and 3 will get sick ….
I am really puzzled my this behavior. We learned over centuries a lot of good practices that we apply without doing a heshbon each time whether it is necessary: don’t sneeze on people, wash your hands before eating (what is percentage of food with E-coli?!), stopping on a red light (what is percentage that someone will walk at you or police hiding nearby), saying hello (what is percentage that are depressed and really need a hello), wearing tzitzis (what is a chance you are going to “follow your eyes” while on a shopping trip), wearing shoes (what is a chance there is glass on the floor)
philosopher,
this is like looking for a posuk in New York Public library catalog …ctrl-h opens your history and then you can search your history
you can also search medline, google scholar, researchnet, etc, for scientific articles instead of internet.RW, Hashem sent this plague, we need to deal with that and use it as a source of teshuva.
Consider many things that you were doing routinely, now they might have small risk associated with them, so you may want to re-think: should you be going to restaurants as you did before? which asifas are worth attending? which travel is essential? which meetings can be done online? you now have a good excuse to avoid unproductive things you were doing before.
there were a lot of small and large changes in the society, such as local ordinances allowing restaurants to occupy sidewalks, Trump’s enabling Medicare payments for tele-medicine, current Florida decision to allow whole districts to use vouchers to avoid “mask bullying”.
The question is not only whether something is sustainable [Cuban economy is sustainable], but whether this is a good thing for a Jew to do.
There is no problem if someone does not chase money, and lives off his meager earnings, as long as his wife is ok with that.
There is no problem, if someone is supported by an honest private person, if he learns according to the donor’s expectation.
I am not sure what are the classical sources for using non-Jewish, or Jewish, government funds dedicated to support of poor by people who are able to work, while there are sources condemning it (make your Shabbat k’hol, but do ot rely on tzedokah)
> what antisemitic source did I quote.
Thai-German Dr
I am puzzled, here and in other places, when people connect Poles to murders of Jews during WW2 .. Poland was the first country to be attacked from two sides, and Polish Jews – as non-Jews – were sure that Polish cavalry will repulse the attack. Warsaw Jews record the shock when they realized that planes in the air are not Polish … We may be victims of an echo of old Soviet propaganda that was accusing pre-Soviet Polish government of all kind of crimes while covering their own. Remember Katyn where Soviets killed 22,000 Polish officers, half of all officers, 8% estimated Jewish, blamed Nazis for that, and Jewish organizations supported Soviet lies over the years. Even in 2020, there was an issue at Yad Vashem where they presented a pro-Russian exhibit.
Justd looked it up, USHMM still omits who killed Chief Rabbi of Polish Army:
“Rabbi Steinberg was later killed in Katyn massacre.”Enigma did not provide relevant information, except for 2 months in 1941 about mass killing at the beginning of invasion into USSR. After Churchill started talking about atrocities there (without mentioning Jews specifically), Germans stopped transmitting thee reports on the radio.
in general, Roosevelt ignored a number of important enigma reports. There was internal rivalry between Army and Navy departments that were presenting him these reports, and they did not often register enough.
rightwriter > Possibly the Jews in Europe felt that way as well and couldn’t believe something like that could happen in a modern Germany. But it did.
I am with you here. My motto is “if you are paranoid, it does not mean there is no one after you”.
Still, you are not helping everyone to be on a lookout for danger, if you are quoting totally discredited, and even anti-semitic, sources.coffee > I’m not worried about the unvaxxed they should worry about themselves
What is the halakha about this? You don’t have to help the donkey if the owner is not helping, but I think we are still obligated to help our fellow Jews. To what extent? And, as I mentioned, they are a threat to immunocompromised vaxed people, if they come in direct contact with them.
Syag > When someone’s mind is made up before the fact,
Indeed, stats show that there are 2 clusters of adults who are not taking the vaccine, each about 12% of population. One is 20 to 3- y.o, urban, somewhat more minority, both parties. They claim “wait and see” attitude, presumably will vaccinate after the formality of full authorization in several weeks.
The 2nd are 20-50 y.o., mostly Republicans, rural, without college education. Their attitude is “never”. Jewish anti-vaxers seem to belong to this 2nd hard-core group, fitting into everything except “rural”.
This seems to be infospace phenomenon: it is not that these people each independently came to a conclusion. It is that they somehow get news from some weirdo doctors, directly or indirectly … It is not clear how we can help this 2nd group to look at the issues clearly. One recommended approach is to listen to their concerns and discuss them. Does not seem to work online. Maybe if you know people like that, esp with medical issues, call them up and express your friendly concern for their help before it is late.
philosopher, this is called random sampling:
you select some of the tests and do additional analysis on them. Delta is 97% in US, 100% in UK, 91% in Israel, 68% in Canada. With such overwhelming numbers, hard to make a mistake.philosopher, thanks for bringing your sources. Here is the info about the professor. I am not analyzing his science, but you may want to question his analytical abilities, see below. I would be interested what made you decide to rely on this particular expert v. the others?
Sucharit Bhakdi, a former professor of microbiology at the University of Mainz, made several antisemitic comments in an online video promoting his parliamentary candidacy for “Die Basis” — a political party founded during the pandemic by conspiracy theorists who charge that governments have deliberately misled their populations over both the nature of the virus and its cure.
“The people who fled this country, where there was arch evil, and founded their own country, they have turned their country into something that is even worse than [Nazi] Germany was,” .. “That’s the bad thing about Jews: They learn well,” he continued. “There is no people that learns better than they do. But they have now learned the evil — and implemented it. That is why Israel is now … a living hell.”
here are arrivals to FLL in 2019, closest I could match Common’s travel pattern:
so, spirit is cancelled at 1% more than Delta. So, add 1% to the price comparison in favor of delta
and use these funds to buy a new ticket when a flight is cancelled. congrats, Common, on a good investment. So, aside from the flexibility, there is nothing wrong with Spirit, so hopefully ew resolved this motzi shem ra. Note: I once used frontier for business travel as it had a red eye to take me right from one meeting to another. Looked weird in a suit, with other people not bothering to dress up for a $40 flight… the only consolation was saving money for the client.% on time, % canceled
southwest 82 1.8
spirit 80 1.6
delta 80 0.4
united 74 0.9
AA 72 1.8
jetblue 72 1.2
frontier 71 1.6Gadol > Data can be misleading.. Spirit has more frequent catastrophic events
Agree. Definitely, bigger airlines allow easier way to get out of a pickle. And better for flexible business travel. I once was stuck at West Coast because JetBlue flight arrived late to East Coat and triggered a chain of delays ..
So, I looked at cancelled flights. Delta is best at 0.2% of flights, the rest, including Spirit, are at 1.5-2%. So, you need to define in what sense you think Spirit is worse. Is there a specific route where you feel Spirit is Inferior to others?
coffee, upon request for 2019:
Spirit 79, Jetblue 73, Frontier 72, Southwest 80, American 77, Delta 85so, your perception does not much the data. Possibly something wrong with the data.
Only half-joking: maybe we need to look at longer delays and comparable routes. Also, airlines may on purpose plan for longer trips to avoid being called on lateness.Feel free to check out other stats. The data is by DoT BTS.
Good example how perceptions do not always match data even in a simple case. Forget about COVID…
> have reasonable confidence you will be home before licht benchen on Freytik
stats for Dec 2020 to May 2021 for “all major airports”, % age on Time
Spirit 82, JetBlue 80, Frontier 85, Southwest 87, American 88, Delta 90so, if you pay double, you reduce chances of being late by 2. Fair fares..
I will just take Mishna with me and learn at half-pricethe last word, whatever your feelings are, it is somewhat strange to put Poland in the same line as Germany here.
“2) it is clear that unvaccinated are threat to vaccinated“
coffee: What is the “threat”? That they get a cold?
A fair question. Depends on the recipient. The good news for un-vaxed would be that if indeed vaxed people do not transmit much under reasonable conditions, then un-vaxed need to worry “only” about one contact. So, if you are in contact with only healthy young people, then indeed most of them would only get a cold and probably will not transmit to their friends who will transmit to the grandmas … If you are working or davening or in any other pro-longed contact with old or possibly unhealthy people, then they can still get seriously sick.
I do not disagree w/ Common’s sentiment, just want to make sure we are not getting used in some other nefarious political campaign. For example, a lot of Jewish (often justified) criticism happen to go against former Soviet satellites – Poland, Lithuania, Ukraine, Hungary, while they still had or have issues with the Bear nearby. This is a re-run. In 19203-s, Jews were very active in newly created small countries between Germany and Soviet Russia. They appealed to League of Nation to protect their minority rights (as well as other minorities including Germans and Russians). There is a book published in Israel in 1950s by surviving Latvian politicians. They lament that they were so excited fighting those governments and only later realized that they were pawns in the hands of Nazis and Soviets who sought to weaken and eventually occupy these countries. Their first realization was when Nazis started prosecuting Jews and they appealed to the same department of the League as usual – and got a cold response that “German Jews are not a minority registered by the LofN” …
So, the same now – do we condemn for old sins or support in current struggle, say, Ukraine, that has a Jewish President and is partly occupied by Russia.
>> The CNBC reported on July 30th that 74% of people infected in Massachusetts Covid outbreak were fully vaccinated.””
because the outbreak happened in a very vaccinated community where, I think, people were carded before – and when these vaccinated people decided that COVID is gone and they jammed in a one huge party. As Israeli study that I quoted showed – if vaccinated people keep to their four amot, they do not generate a new cluster, although they might get sick from unvaccinated. If they disregard all caution, then R0 grows over 1
Avram, I agree that the current question is: to what degree immunity by vaccine or disease w/ previous strains are effective against Delta, so old results are not appropriate any more.
Two things to note:
1) growing number of cases now affects everyone who was not vaccinated. I hear again, unfortunately, of people in dire state. You may want to check with people in your circle, esp, anyone over 40 and with any kind of health conditions, whether they are vaccinated. And I would not count on a mild case to provide protection, unless confirmed by recent antibody test.2) it is clear that unvaccinated are threat to vaccinated, and government is not there yet. There are lots of unvaccinated workers in nursing homes and any other facilities for elderly. Check with your relatives and friends where they are. Maybe get them a 3rd vaccine without waiting for CDC.
rightwriter > Why does it make sense in your mind that people should live in a “New Normal” way of life?
This attitude seems to be underlying theme of people who refuse to follow any guidance. Psychologists might be talking about denial, but I think Jews call this “rebels against Hashem”. He sends us a certain reality and we are to respond at our best. People lived through wars, epidemics, pogroms, crusades, recessions, revolutions, and every time, we need to figure out what to do. The position of “Hashem I do not like that interfere with my plans – I have it all figured out: learning zman, summer travel plans, please do not bother me” is untenable.
TMI may be helping to create confusion here: you are quoting one study after another, but it looks like that you simply listen to other people quoting some studies and you are not aware of other studies that were not quoted in your channel. Give the author and title of the study and read it yourself, at least an abstract and a conclusion, and then let’s discuss.
Syag, simple reading is that Hashem would not give us mitzvos that can hurt us. And I am asking if someone could look up what is the definition of danger here.
There is definitely time for mesiras nefesh during the time of prosecution, but my sense of this Gemora is that Hashem does not give us mitzvos that their ordinary performance is bad for us. There are extra-ordinary examples of, say Rabbi Chaninah making the snake bite him and the snake dies, but I don’t think we are called to emulate him.