As I don't want my comment partially quoted in post #314 to be taken out of context, I'll re-post the full thing from post #306

I need to apologize, ntubski, or at least toss something of an olive branch. My take on it probably isn't exactly like yours but something of an ugly truth regarding inequities has indeed reared it's head. Until recently the US banned a lot of incoming international travelers here. Apparently some rich folks paid as much as $50,000.00 USD to travel here from far away poorer countries to get vaccinated. Now many places, like NYC are not only welcoming, but actively inviting vacationers even opening vaccination centers in Central Park and other common tourist spots. Supply has exceeded demands here for over a month despiite reaching something like 62% of US Citizens getting at least one shot, and AFAIK, we have yet to share without the dough, re, mi.

It's ugly because none of us likes to be reminded of the disparity in wealth. We hate it when we learn some Celebrity, Sports Star, or the likes of Bill Gates, to name just a few, make more every minute than most of us will in our entire lives. It's hurtful to discover there exists people who don't even flinch when dropping tens of thousands of dollars on a poker hand, or pay out $100,000.00 just to fill the gas tanks on their yacht. It's sort of ugly but it is also the way of the world and as far as Covid vaccine is concerned, it's also getting really obvious that the US, after the typical foolishness and false starts, finally got something right. There might be political and economic lessons in that.

On the brighter side, COVAX has indeed so far fallen WAY short of it's projected goals BUT nevertheless it has distributed some 65,000,000 doses of quality vaccine so far and that already matters even on a global scale. Almost everyone, at least in the US, can afford 7 bux. I urge anyone who can to please consider donating to COVAX. It should make you quite proud not to mention, safer.

Riding buddy of mine just got re-infected at a Sunday BBq he was doing.
2nd time he has caught covid.
He still refuses the vaccine.

He is in late 20's so I figure he can handle his druthers.
After covid infection symptoms remind me a bit of Tuberculosis.

So I got both pfizer shots. I did not attend his bbq. Had other plans that day.

PS. My shots were free and there was no lines on waiting. Took only a few minutes locally.
Marine Corp put more shots in me back in the day when going over seas. With air gun syringes.

"removed from the public eye" is quite euphemistic. Having their careers destroyed maybe closer to what happens.

I'm not sure that "Cancel Culture" is governed by popularity or unpopularity. It's more to do with intimidatory power plays by well-organized groups. I'm excluding direct government action here.

+1 on that - especially in the sciences. In the 19th century, doctors often trained students by autopsy in the morning and treated patients in the afternoon. Doctors had a worryingly high death rate when involved in childbirth. But the first doctor (whose name I never knew) to suggest that doctors make a practice of washing their hands was drummed out of the medical profession.

J.K. Galbraith, as always, provides an appropriate quote:

He was called Semmelweis. He went mad from the way he was treated by his profession. And women went on dying.

More precisely, Semmelweis Ignáz - where Ignáz was his personal name (apparently Hungarians do the family name first, like in Eastern Asia) - the Wikipedia page on him goes into a fair bit of detail, and there's also a dedicated page on the contemporary reaction to Ignaz Semmelweis too.

Any time I've heard about this in the past, it's been essentially "doctor who proposes hand washing before surgery is ridiculed" - on reading those pages, it seems Ignáz's proposal was washing hands with chlorinated lime after visiting the morgue - hand washing with soap after visiting the morgue was already done.

There's certainly a lot more to it than "medical community destroyed career of the first doctor to suggest washing hands".

I won't reply to the refinements/corrections, as we'd hijack the thread. The title says "Covid Topic Redux." Washing properly with soapy water removes Covid too. I meanproperly washing, not a quick finger rinse, as some abbreviate the practice to. Mind you, I prefer alcohol, with only one cooperative hand you can see why.

That was the peak in reported infections. Now it looks like the death rate has peaked and is coming down as well.

https://ourworldindata.org/explorers...e&country=~IND

Meanwhile, Statewide Reopening During Mass Vaccination: Evidence on Mobility, Public Health and Economic Activity from Texas

Linus on vaccines.

I love that! The old man still has fire in his belly.

The scriptures encourage in Eph 4: 23-24 to 'put on the new personality. His obviously didn't last too long, or is at least removable

Seems a rational, calmly phrased argument to me. He showed more restraint than I might have.

Seems Torvalds now became expert in biotechnology. So what should I do: listen to researcher bio-technolog or to Torvalds? Mhhmmm maybe I should ask that researcher what he thinks about Linux kernel. Maybe he has some valuable suggestions to Torvalds how to improve kernel. To make it even better.

Looks to me that Torvalds was responding to "Enrico Weigelt, metux IT consult", not a bio-tech researcher.

But also, don't people learn about mRNA in high school? I don't think you need to be an expert to figure out that injecting mRNA won't create "a new humanoid race".