The Virus Outbreak Thread

@NitroFury
 
I mean, yes, but we’ve known about its ability to attack the nerves and brain already.
 
We’re just now coming to understand the extent of the damage.

@Zincy  
You mean that it can make you go crazy?

@Goku Black  
Yes

People like those misers on Twitter are why I hate anti-maskers: they seem to have no regard for the suffering others had from losing their loved ones to the Covid virus.
 
I also got into a quarrel with a few anti-maskers on Facebook who accused me of attacking America because I condemned a prayer protest that might spread the virus. They accused me of being a CCP (Chinese) puppet or “supporting slavery” just because I supported wearing masks, and a few refused to answer me when I asked them “what solution do you recommend instead of masks/lockdowns”.
 
TO HELL WITH THEIR “FREEDOM” GARBAGE! These people make me hate the United States and conservatives even more!

@HorsesandMuchMOAR  
They frustrate me as well.  
Wearing a mask seems to have become a political issue,oddly.  
I’m actually pretty happy wearing a mask is now seen as more conventional,since I’ve always had ocd and wished I could wear a mask when I was sick.

@Dex Stewart
 
Maybe it’s because masks are associated with the government, so any order by the gov is “intruding mah rights”.

More data on the Pfizer vaccine has trickled out.
 
It’s now the front-runner by a country mile, especially after Moderna’s rather middling results from back in September.
 
The scientist couple Ugur Sahin and Ozlem Tureci of BioNTech are the two responsible for the groundbreaking mRNA tech that maybe has finally solved the difficulties with making vaccines for coronaviruses.

@Zincy  
Let’s hope it works. It’s just absolutely ludicrous how a vaccine for this got fast-tracked in about a year.

@HorsesandMuchMOAR  
It goes both ways though. Pro maskers pick fights with anti ones.  
A couple days ago I just missed out on an actual fight between a pro masker and someone who wasn’t wearing one at our convenience store (my county hasn’t been impacted too much by the virus even though we’re next to 3 highly impacted counties,so like many other low impact counties the commissioners chose to not have the mask mandate). It started inside and continued outside after the clerk told them to get out. They left before any cops showed up (the health department even told people to be respectful to those who don’t wear a mask and vice versa when the decision was made back in May).

@lonewolf  
They are bigots.

According to Pfizer their vaccine can protect you for a year.  
I don’t know.

@Zincy
 

 

 
Here is some information about the two creative minds behind Biontech: the medical professionals Uğur Şahin, 55, and Özlem Türeci, 53. Şahins His parents came to Germany from Turkey when he was just four years old. His father worked at Ford in Cologne. There, at the university hospital, Şahin studied medicine after graduating from high school. While his friends went home after university and enjoyed their free time, Şahin continued working in the lab until 4 a.m.  
His wife Özlem Türeci, also a doctor, grew up with her grandfather in Istanbul for the first four years of her life and then came to Cloppenburg, where her father worked as a doctor in a small Catholic hospital. Of herself she says: “I am a Prussian Turk.” The two, who now have a daughter together, met at the cancer ward of the hospital in Homburg, Saarland. Şahin worked there as a doctor, Türeci was in the last stages of her medical studies.
 
Şahin is one of the richest Germans since autumn 2019 when Biontech went public on the Nasdaq tech exchange in the USA. He holds 18 percent of the company, which was initially valued at around 3.5 billion US dollars. In the meantime, thanks to research on the coronavirus, Biontech is worth around 20 billion dollars. In October, the newspaper “Welt am Sonntag” reported that Şahin had risen to the top 100 richest Germans - with assets of 2.4 billion euros.
 
But the couple is only interested in research. To this day, Şahin continues to research and teach as professor of experimental oncology at the III. Medical Clinic of the University of Mainz. Türeci also still teaches as a private lecturer at the University of Mainz. The two teach students who want to become what they once were: physicians who put research at the centre of their work.  
An anecdote is symbolic of this work: on the day of their wedding, both of them were still in the laboratory in the morning. And instead of celebrating with family and friends after the wedding, they returned there afterwards.
 
After US President Donald Trump had previously claimed a potential vaccine exclusively for the United States, Şahin stated that a key to the fight against COVID-19 was international cooperation and that “there is no discussion about whether a vaccine is only available for China, Germany or America”.

Now how does a vaccine work? It triggers your immune system to develop antibodies which prevent you from being infected by the corresponded disease.  
The most common type of COVID-19 vaccine under development is called inactivated vaccine, which is made of dead viruses. Of course there are other types like attenuated vaccine (weakened living viruses), subunit vaccine (fragments of the pathogen) and so on. But giving the time, cost and manufacturing constraints, it’s relatively easier to take the sample and just kill the virus.

However, the known COVID-19 antibodies only last for a few months, and there are people being infected twice or more all over the world. Plus because it’s spreading so fast, it also mutates fast. So I doubt a single vaccine can hold the front line for a long time. We’ll need three or four vaccines in that matter.

On the other hand, one vaccine from the USA is enough material for a bunch of patriotic propaganda which serves as nothing but annoyance and sign of one’s ignorance.

@RD4590  
Our vaccine is being designed with mutation of the virus in mind.

@HorsesandMuchMOAR  
You finally get why I’m so anti-American.

As much as I value anti-Americanism from a European point of view – and only to show today’s Europe an independent path, as even the founding fathers would certainly appreciate this – so much as I despise anti-Americanism for the wrong reasons. And I hate not to like the Americans.

@DarkObsidian  
I’m an american and I hate americans, if that makes you feel better.

@DarkObsidian  
I’m part Native American. How are we?

@Meanlucario
 

 
Thanks, but that’s certainly not going to make me feel any better.
 
@Dex Stewart
 
Should I now tell about all the poor and stupid white women and stoned white men (here in Europe) who hang some cheap dreamcatchers in front of their windows and moan about the red man’s land being stolen? Or should I rather talk about the fact that white people are too stupid and all Native Americans throw into the same pot anyway and have no idea about the diversity of faith, culture and way of life?
 
Should I now debate what has gone wrong since 1492, just because the Spanish were broke after they finally completed their Reconquista?
 
No, my anti-Americanism is directed solely against the fixed idea that something like an “American way of life” could still exist today. Also to stay within this thread. As a full-blooded German 1:1 I stand behind the statement of Mr. Şahin that international cooperation alone is the only way out of any form of crisis.
 
And for this reason, I wholeheartedly and firmly reject any national solution and stand alone to this threat. Comes from the US, Russia, or anywhere else. And I would never support an European First path, as would so many of my compatriots. Yes, Europe must now learn to do without the US. Today more than ever. However, this does not mean that it is no longer possible to work together on the international level. Whenever and wherever Europeans in general are able to make the world a little better again, I will agree with that. Everything else I reject from the bottom of my heart.
 
Only together will we be able to defeat this virus. And only together will we be able to avert future threats like this. This is my firm conviction and I will continue to hold this view. Even if that means stepping on the Americans’ toes every now and then. If Russians, Chinese or other nations were represented here, I would probably do the same. And always with the mirror in my hand, to show myself the own fallibility of my own country.
 
Only a critical mind is an open mind. And only an open mind can see the dangers and detours of the future.

@DarkObsidian  
I get dreamcatchers in the mail.  
They keep sending them as an incentive to donate to charity.

@RD4590  
Because we have rights? Unlike communist nations.

@MagpulPony  
Correction, unlike most nations

@Background Pony #39BC  
As it relates to basic freedom of speech, you aren’t wrong.