End of an era. At last, Oregon is finally ending COVID-19 emergency status. But Sidelinger is careful to maintain the fear factor:
the risk of future significant outbreaks "remains low."
"But risk is not non-existent," Sidelinger said. "We anticipate that COVID-19 will be with us for the foreseeable future, perhaps forever."
Only 22% of Oregonians got the bivalent booster, and the data suggest that getting the earlier vax products developed before the bivalent vaccine is ineffective against the latest variants, which pretty much make up everything we see now. Even the bivalent booster is fairly ineffective against the latest variants. As expected, only the mRNA vaccines are promoted as the way to mitigate against the virus. No consideration of natural immunity status, which is very protective.
"Anyone who is eligible should get it," Sidelinger said.
Sure. And I say "mitigate" because the it certainly doesn't prevent you from getting sick with the virus, which is has "had less impact that [sic] expected in Oregon".
Interesting that news about the TOGETHER trial hasn't gotten much traction in the news. Fluvoxamine really is effective against mild COVID-19. Astral Codex's instincts were dead on. I find it notable that the fluvoxamine study had to be conducted in Brazil. Shameful that the U.S. authorities only supported vax efforts.
Related, the financial difficulties of Oregon hospitals are against mentioned in the news. The nurses' union has reached some sort of an agreement which they hope will mitigate the stress. But setting standards for staffing and raising their compensation is not the only issue. Another major issue that staffing agencies have encountered is that few people want to move to Oregon, especially Portland. It's just not worth it. I wonder if the nursing shortage is just a problem in the larger cities. It's interesting that it's projected that in 2030, Oregon will have an excess of nurses.
Sad. Real efforts to make life better in Oregon - reduction of impactful taxes - has failed in the legislature. I can understand this. When the tax base leaves the state and you still need to give away money to homeless people and illegal immigrants, among other things, what else are you going to do, right?
OHSU extended President Danny Jacob's contract by two years (physicians usually have a one-year contract), but not without dissent. "...we have received wide-ranging views of Dr. Jacobs’ performance from multiple sources".
What's the moral of this story? Don't base your business model on offering favorable financial products and services to reward those with good credit scores and are fiscally responsible. Because the Biden administration is going to undercut you, and you'll just look bad trying to defend yourself. Remember, those other people are "victims", and how dare you.
So can we keep our gas stoves? Recent research suggests that methane is not as bad a contributor to climate change as the greenies believe. While still considered a greenhouse gas, effects of shortwave absorbance reduces its contribution to global warming (since pre-industrial times) from 0.2 °C to 0.16 °C. I'm sure I'll feel this.
Goodbye innocence. Parrots can initiate video calls to other birds to communicate and learn new calls.
