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CR: COVID-19 --Political Talk


Mrs Whiggins

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4 hours ago, heso said:

And they’d be correct in doing so. 

The American gulf coast is the worst place in the world for the current outbreak. A large swath of the country is on par with the likes of Fiji, Botswana, and Cuba for their current case load. 

And that despite having first access to the vaccine. 

The American south is a self imposed 3rd world shithole. 

Yep.  And that is why I am fucking done with the stupidity of a lot of Americans.  They blather on about it being a personal choice, but those choices are impacting all of us.  So fuck them all.

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9 minutes ago, PenelopeWitherspoon said:

Yep.  And that is why I am fucking done with the stupidity of a lot of Americans.  They blather on about it being a personal choice, but those choices are impacting all of us.  So fuck them all.

American exceptionalism!!!

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https://www.cnbc.com/2021/08/06/doximity-social-network-for-doctors-full-of-antivax-disinformation.html

 

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Dr. Paul Malarik, a retired psychiatrist, now spends about 50 hours a month helping to administer Covid-19 vaccines at pop-up clinics near his home in San Luis Obispo, California. So he’s particularly troubled when he logs onto Doximity, a site used by doctors, and reads anti-vaccine comments.

 

 

Quote

“You rarely get to the level of microchips in vaccines, but a lot of this stuff is pretty close to it,” said Malarik, who volunteers his time to mix vaccines, put shots in arms and educate the public. “They’re actively working against us.”

Doximity, which has long described itself as LinkedIn for doctors, held its stock market debut in June and rocketed up to a $10 billion market cap. In its IPO prospectus, the company said it had 1.8 million members, including 80% of physicians across the U.S. They use the site to connect with one another, share research, stay informed on industry trends and securely communicate with patients.

 

Spoiler

Malarik, who worked in psychiatry for over two decades, said it’s baffling to peruse Doximity’s site and find the type of misinformation that he expects to see on Facebook and YouTube, where conspiracy theories run rampant.

Malarik read directly from several comments posted by people with the initials M.D. or D.O., which indicates doctor of osteopathic medicine, after their names. There’s no anonymity on the site, so everyone is identified. In the posts, they refer to the vaccines as experimental, unproven or deadly and occasionally write “Fauxi” when talking about Dr. Anthony Fauci, the White House chief medical advisor.

Some commenters say that antibodies from contracting Covid are more effective than the messenger RNA, or mRNA, vaccines, which instruct human cells to make specific proteins that produce an immune response to the disease.

While the mRNA vaccines for Covid-19 are currently on the U.S. market under emergency use authorizations from the Food and Drug Administration, clinical trials have proven that they’re highly effective against Covid-19. The FDA and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said they are safe, effective and recommended for everyone 12 and older, even for those who have had the virus. President Joe Biden and CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky have described the current situation as a “pandemic of the unvaccinated.”

As Malarik scrolls down the Doximity news feed, he stops on a New York Times story from June that’s still featured prominently on his page. The headlinereads, “A judge dismisses Houston hospital workers’ lawsuit about vaccine mandates.”

Below the article, hundreds of Doximity users posted comments. Here’s what a surgeon wrote:

“Covid-19 vaccines have already killed over 4,000 adults who’ve received the vaccine,” the post said, appearing to mimic a debunked claim made by Fox News host Tucker Carlson. “To mandate a vaccine that has already killed over 4,000 is akin to murder.”

It’s not an outlier. Dozens of screenshots and descriptions of posts shared with CNBC by other doctors were consistent with Malarik’s experience. Articles about vaccines or masks have hundreds of comments, many that are factually inaccurate and often based on conspiracy theories, while stories on less politically divisive topics have just a few comments, if any at all.

“Everyone is jumping on the articles they can fight about,” Malarik said.

Shares of Doximity were down more than 5% on Friday morning.

The content moderation conundrum

For Doximity, which stayed largely under the radar prior to its IPO, medical misinformation presents a distinct challenge as the San Francisco-based company seeks to grow its user base and remain a source for high-quality reliable data while also navigating the tricky waters of content moderation.

Doximity is scheduled to report quarterly earnings next week for the first time since going public, following a year of 77% revenue growth. The company has been profitable each of the last three years by keeping down operating costs.

Doximity is not an open social network: To join, users must be practicing U.S. health-care professionals. The company verifies members by photo identification of a medical license, a hospital badge, emails from medical institutions and through challenge questions, among other methods.

Like LinkedIn, the company makes money through sponsored content and from recruiters, who use the site to find talent. Because Doximity is entirely focused on medical professionals, the marketing dollars come largely from drug companies and hospitals targeting relevant users with treatments and services, including through sponsored articles and animated videos on the news feed. More than 80% of Doximity’s revenue in its last fiscal year came from its marketing products.

Unlike LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and other popular social media platforms, Doximity doesn’t allow users to post stories. The company posts articles from mainstream news outlets and medical and science publications, and every user’s feed is customized based on area of medical practice and other personal details.

“Our platform uses both algorithms and clinical editors to select content from a variety of sources based on a member’s profile and reading interests,” the company said in its prospectus. “We are able to aggregate connections to relevant content from a variety of different sources, such as medical journals and specialist websites that a member might otherwise have to search for separately.”

One added draw is that users can earn continuing medical education credits by reading certain eligible articles. Some states require doctors to obtain a specified number of credits each year to keep their licenses.

However, users are allowed to comment on these stories — and that’s where medical misinformation can proliferate. On the same news feed as those articles, users are finding an abundance of commentary that’s anything but educational.

For example, a recent article on masking mandates for kids caught the ire of some of the same doctors who oppose the vaccines. A general surgeon commented that “masking children is absolutely ridiculous and a form of child abuse.” Another said that “50 years of data accumulated by the CDC and [World Health Organization] demonstrated those masks to have made no difference. None.”

Scientists and public health organizations have repeatedly said that masks can help slow the spread of Covid-19. The rise of the delta variant and resurgence in hospitalizations across parts of the country led several states to reinstitute mask mandates.

Doximity has rules that should put a lid on misinformation. In its community guidelines, the company lists 11 things that can lead to content being removed, including “spreading false or misleading information.”

The guidelines page has a separate section addressing “content that contradicts widely accepted public health guidelines.” Seven bullet points cover the type of posts that will be taken down. They include content that “promulgates unverified claims about the effectiveness, side effects, or implications of vaccination with FDA-authorized vaccines” and that “promulgates false data about deaths, hospitalizations, infection rates associated with infectious disease.”

Doximity said in an emailed statement that while it supports the exchange of ideas “about emerging science and the latest medical news” among its users, posting medical misinformation is explicitly prohibited.

“Like most virtual communities, we have community guidelines in place to ensure that Doximity remains a safe and respectful environment,” the company said. “We employ a rigorous clinical review process, staffed by physicians, to evaluate member comments that are flagged as being potential misinformation.”

Doctors have a ‘powerful platform in society’

The risk to doctors goes well beyond any potential action taken by Doximity. Last week, the Federation of State Medical Boards, a nonprofit representing medical boards across the country, released a statement telling doctors they can lose their license for such activity.

“Physicians who generate and spread COVID-19 vaccine misinformation or disinformation are risking disciplinary action by state medical boards, including the suspension or revocation of their medical license,” the FSMB said. “Due to their specialized knowledge and training, licensed physicians possess a high degree of public trust and therefore have a powerful platform in society, whether they recognize it or not.”

The FSMB said it was responding to a “dramatic increase” in the dissemination of false information by doctors on social media and elsewhere. But the group isn’t actively scouring sites for abusers.

Joe Knickrehm, a spokesperson for FSMB, told CNBC in an email that state medical boards operate on a “complaint-driven” system, typically taking action when tipped off by patients, health systems, other doctors or members of the public. He said the group runs a free tool called Docinfo.org that allows anyone to look up information on a doctor and to file a complaint.

As a company, Doximity has tried to keep users informed about Covid-19 developments, treatments and vaccines. Early in the pandemic, Doximity launched a private Covid-19 newsroom for clinicians to find updates and recommendations and to discuss best practices. It also offered its new video telehealth service for free, through early 2021, to help doctors work with patients remotely.

Doximity also has a site called Op-Med, where members publish opinion pieces and their personal stories. Numerous doctors have written pieces touting the vaccines with headlines like “How the COVID-19 vaccine has changed my life (so far)” and “How giving vaccinations rekindled my love of practicing medicine.”

But determining where to draw the line between providing an outlet for healthy online debate and letting harmful misinformation proliferate is a problem that’s befuddled social networks for years. It’s particularly important on matters of life and death.

As it is, some anti-vaxxers already think they’re being silenced by Doximity. In one recent comment to a vaccine story, an anesthesiologist said he’d been offered the opportunity to invest in Doximity’s IPO, which included up to 15% allocation to doctors on the platform.

He wrote that Doximity had censored a prior post because it didn’t fit within the company’s “position on vaccination.” Thus, he had no interest in IPO shares.

“I will not invest in your directed information highway with your thought control bulls---,” he wrote in the comment. “Have a good day.”

 

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2 hours ago, Anastasis said:

Well yeah. This is not reality based. 
 

The American south is a self imposed 3rd world shithole. 

The second you cross the mason dixon line you’re in the exact equivalent of Central African human development index. 

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7 hours ago, WhatTheBuck said:

And they’re going to take it back to their home towns and spread it there.

I saw a piece on CBS News this morning where they were in Sturgis and the reporter was interviewing this fat old biker skank and asking her if she was concerned about Covid. She said, “Nope, not since day 1,” and she also said she wouldn’t get vaccinated, all while sporting a shit-eating grin and cackling like the moron that she is. Dirt fucking stupid, a threat to public health, and proud of it.

If she doesn’t catch Covid and die from that, maybe she’ll wreck her bike and not get a hospital bed because they’re all full of Covid patients. 

I am not sure that Sturgis will make much difference this year, simply because the people who go there and breathe on each other would be doing the exact same thing if they stayed home. I mean, maybe it'll go up a little, but it's not as if these conformist play-pirates were showing any consideration in their home towns beforehand. It might just change where they got it, not if.

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13 minutes ago, RDCanecutter said:

I am not sure that Sturgis will make much difference this year, simply because the people who go there and breathe on each other would be doing the exact same thing if they stayed home. I mean, maybe it'll go up a little, but it's not as if these conformist play-pirates were showing any consideration in their home towns beforehand. It might just change where they got it, not if.

It's going to be a massive super spreader event. Delta is crazy contagious, like catch it from the person you stand next to ordering a beer, or in line for the bathroom contagious. They are all going to be crammed into a small South Dakota town. In lots of small towns, Delta is just revving up. Sturgis is happening just in time to pour gasoline all over the growing fire as they return home. 

Edited by Pods
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6 minutes ago, 956 Worldwide said:

Wish this were true but you’re seeing extreme vaccine hesitancy in lots of places in the EU with UHC. It’s a brain and toxic information issue. 

Yet they’ve pretty much all passed us in vax rates. 

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21 minutes ago, washparkhorn said:

What is going on in Euroland? Anti-authoritarians? 

It’s weird, it’s more like people who crave authoritarianism everywhere but in this little sector. At least in my small corner of Central Europe. And a lot of Kremlin sponsored information warfare. 

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1 hour ago, Pods said:

It's going to be a massive super spreader event. Delta is crazy contagious, like catch it from the person you stand next to ordering a beer, or in line for the bathroom contagious. They are all going to be crammed into a small South Dakota town. In lots of small towns, Delta is just revving up. Sturgis is happening just in time to pour gasoline all over the growing fire as they return home. 

It was terrible LAST year.  This year is gonna be off the charts.

Silver lining:  lots of cherry hogs being sold on the cheap to pay for insurance agents' funerals.

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Just now, Anastasis said:

Chicago Human Improvement-Reassessing American Quandrants.

CHI-RAQ.  

Jesus Christ man I know you’re not this dense. 

clearly I wasn’t comparing Savannah to Brazzaville. I was commenting on the fact that a large portion of the south has a current covid death rate per capita on par with countries whose citizens’ primary concern is access to drinkable water. 

But these morons’ brains are so addled with GOP encephalopathy that instead of taking the vaccine that’s been readily available for months they are consuming apple flavored horse dewormer. They’re only one step above recommending shark fins or rhino horn powder as a cure. 

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30 minutes ago, washparkhorn said:

What is going on in Euroland? Anti-authoritarians? 

Well, on the one hand, you got who-knows-who.

And on the other, there's favoritism.

 

More seriously, in France if you don't believe in at least one good conspiracy theory, you're socially unacceptable, like walking around with a booger on your lip. You have to be able to take any "fact" the authorities give you, and show detachment, an arched eyebrow, to show that you are not so easily fooled, you see through this, you are no child, hawn hawn.

Par exemple:

"Salut washparkhorn, do you 'ear zat eet rains later?"

You "Oh no! Eet rains!?" [WRONG, WHAT ARE YOU, A STUPIDE CHILD?]

Try again.

You "So zey say eet will rain, quoi?" and you gaze past zem, amused, implying perfectly zat you 'ave 'eard EVERYSING before... [RIGHT! NOW OF COURSE YOU GET TO REPRODUCE.]

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1 hour ago, 956 Worldwide said:

Wish this were true but you’re seeing extreme vaccine hesitancy in lots of places in the EU with UHC. It’s a brain and toxic information issue. 

Vaccine hesitancy exists in mostly 1st World countries while the rest of the world goes begging for vaccine lifelines.

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8 hours ago, BrickHorn said:

A lot of doctors are dipshits. Film at eleven.

Yep.  I’ve said it before.  The further out into the boondocks you get, the higher the odds your doctor is a dipshit.  Also I’ve known dozens of surgeons who start in the city and keep moving further out as their subpar results are better known - sadly they usually do well set up in some bumblefuck outpost.  
Of course there are exceptions but it’s certainly a fact that the stupid ends up concentrated rurally.  

Edited by ChiTownDoc
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Update for the J&J folks on here.

South African single dose J&J study showed it did reasonably well against Beta and Delta in a real world setting with 480,000 health care workers. Good news regarding hospitalizations and deaths, though a little below the mRNA numbers.

No idea on transmission rate though, so still mask up and keep your viral loads low. 

  Quote

The single-dose shot was 71% effective against hospitalization and as much as 96% effective against death, she said. It also demonstrated durability of eight months.

https://time.com/6088040/johnson-jj-shot-delta-variant/

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21 minutes ago, ChiTownDoc said:

Yep.  I’ve said it before.  The further out into the boondocks you get, the higher the odds your doctor is a dipshit.  Also I’ve known dozens of surgeons who start in the city and keep moving further out as they subpar results are better known - sadly they usually do well set up in some bumblefuck outpost.  
Of course there are exceptions but it’s certainly a fact that the stupid ends up concentrated rurally.  

Also (you’ll agree with this) doctors can be super brilliant about one narrow subject and obtuse morons about everything else.  (Ben Carson.)

Father in law was a very senior partner at a Big 6 firm back in the day and said doctors were generally a financial wreck.  Great income but teetering on the edge on bankruptcy for one reason or another.

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5 minutes ago, Aqua Buddha said:

Also (you’ll agree with this) doctors can be super brilliant about one narrow subject and obtuse morons about everything else.  (Ben Carson.)

Father in law was a very senior partner at a Big 6 firm back in the day and said doctors were generally a financial wreck.  Great income but teetering on the edge on bankruptcy for one reason or another.

In my experience, there are a lot of doctors who think they're automatically good businessmen.

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Updates from my texts today:

me: “please. Just get the shot. I’m begging you. I’m not trying to change your beliefs. I care about you and getting vaccinated will let make it better for me, even if you think it’s unnecessary.”

her: “you really don’t have to worry tho. I never get sick. And I’m staying very raw/clean/organic and keeping my body super alkaline.”

Me: “Have you seen a Milgauss in the wild recently? it seems like everything available is going for 25%+ over MSRP.”

him: “My watch guy has been battling a fierce case of COVID (!), but he seems to be on the mend. I’ll get in line for one.

He tried to go to the hospital because he couldn’t breathe and they wouldn’t take him. Suffice it to say he believes in COVID more than he used to. “

Me: “Unvaccinated  I take it?”

him: “Of course. 
The general theme of his texts has been, “Wow, this is as bad as they said.”

 

Edited by Bozo_Casanova
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2 hours ago, Pods said:

It's going to be a massive super spreader event. Delta is crazy contagious, like catch it from the person you stand next to ordering a beer, or in line for the bathroom contagious. They are all going to be crammed into a small South Dakota town. In lots of small towns, Delta is just revving up. Sturgis is happening just in time to pour gasoline all over the growing fire as they return home. 

How big of a super-spreader would Lollapalooza be compared to Sturgis?

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2 minutes ago, lmao said:

How big of a super-spreader would Lollapalooza be compared to Sturgis?

Is it a fucking contest?  

How much of Lollapalooza is indoors, packed to the gills, every night for hours at a time?

Fuck you.  I wouldn't go to either.  It's not a hard decision.

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