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Science YouTuber physicsgirl (Dianna Cowern) stands for the first time in 2 yrs

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Re: Science YouTuber physicsgirl (Dianna Cowern) stands for the first time in 2 yrs

#241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps it is a new variant.

Proteins like reverse-transcriptase are quite complex, it’s not a mutation that would appear so suddenly. Also, having such a protein would significantly change how the virus operates, and it would be visible upon sequencing it.

I am way outside my area of expertise and speculating wildly here, but aren't various retroviruses quite common in our environment? Enough so that many COVID-19 infections must have occurred simultaneously with one of many such viruses?

So, logically, COVID-19 viral components likely have coexisted inside our bodies with some quantity of reverse transcriptase, no?

I do know that we find viral DNA in human DNA, likely as a result of past retroviral activity. I wonder if we ever find sequences from non-retroviruses that have hitched a ride so to speak.

Re: Science YouTuber physicsgirl (Dianna Cowern) stands for the first time in 2 yrs

#243
post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

It's interesting to me how COVID vaccine skepticism has persisted so long despite the evidence the vaccine was safe and effective. All the nightmare scenarios and long-term side effects people speculated about never happened and more and more doses of the vaccine have been taken safely.

Regular vaccine skepticism has persisted for far longer, even after one of the cornerstones was exposed as outright fraud. We’ve got a “vaccines cause autism” nut in the Capitol right now about to be put in charge of the government’s health services. Covid vaccine hesitancy is nothing by comparison.

Re: Science YouTuber physicsgirl (Dianna Cowern) stands for the first time in 2 yrs

#244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Masks, gloves, and frequent hand washing with soap and warm water have been proven to work for both COVID and other viral diseases and this has been settled science for a long, long, time. Of course your definition of "proven to work" may mean "works 100% of the time with no exceptions" and that is an impossible bar to meet. My, and many others', definition of "proven to work" is "reduces the rate of spread to the po…

> Masks, gloves, and frequent hand washing with soap and warm water have been proven to work for both COVID and other viral diseases and this has been settled science for a long, long, time.

Before COVID times people didn't even do the most basic of measures like staying home while sick, regular hand washing, sneezing into elbows instead of the air or their hands, etc. Once COVID happened and the media told them that they had to everybody became hyper-vigilant about preventative measures. Now that it's been a few years since the height of the pandemic people are back to being out and about with little consideration for how their actions affect others. People go out sick, nobody's getting seasonal vaccines, nobody cares (of course I'm being slightly hyperbolic and n=1 in my anecdata).

I shouldn't be surprised but it is a bit disheartening to be sitting next to somebody at a bar or restaurant and hear them say "oh I'm kind of sick right now" :-/

Re: Science YouTuber physicsgirl (Dianna Cowern) stands for the first time in 2 yrs

#245
post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Joining the current century and getting vaccinated perhaps?

I was vaccinated and boosted, ended up catching covid 3x so far.

Serious question: How many boosters, and how many more do you plan to take until you give up?

Re: Science YouTuber physicsgirl (Dianna Cowern) stands for the first time in 2 yrs

#246
post #179

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In my mind, that doesn't make the symptoms any less real to the person suffering from them and does absolutely nothing to remedy the situation. Even if it is in the person's head, any doctor offering that advice should be facing consequences for not offering a legitimate path for treatment.

Many conditions aren't well understood and simply don't have effective treatments.

My apologies if my comment sounded insensitive towards people who have real physical ailments, but there are cases where psychology may play a role and I firmly believe the medical system should take responsibility for those cases rather than shrugging them off and leaving the patient to figure it out on their own. First and foremost, they are leaving the patient suffering. Then there are other factors to consider, ranging from patients seeking out ineffective and unproven treatments for something that may not have a physiological basis to something having a physiological basis not being diagnosed because it was dismissed as having a psychological basis.

Re: Science YouTuber physicsgirl (Dianna Cowern) stands for the first time in 2 yrs

#247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> safe and effective Do you have any long studies you can point to? Let’s go very short. 5 years or more? The “The Science” crowd is so perplexing. You can’t believe in the upside in just faith. That’s exactly what you’re pretending not to do.

"Do you have 5 years or more of evidence about this thing that has existed for less than that time?" Obviously this is not a good faith question. And yes, we may find out that the vaccines are, over a long period of time, not perfectly safe. But we do have enough data to know they aren't super risky (at least for the vast majority), because big effects would be easy to see, and we do know that COVID is very risky. Cl…

Do you need big negative effects to outweigh the pros of another booster? If you take an under 40 healthy person who already had covid, the vaccine did basically nothing for them after a few months. It doesnt take a "big effect" to counter that, right?

Re: Science YouTuber physicsgirl (Dianna Cowern) stands for the first time in 2 yrs

#248
post #221

We already had deeply insightful discussions on this topic here, but I will repeat for new HN people. Covid-19 tends to cause post-viral complications, which manifest themselves as chronic fatigue, body temperature dysregulation, air hunger / shortness of breath with SpO2 of 99%, various neurological symptoms: pain/tingling/numbing sensations in the extremities, parosmia (a distorted sense of smell), parageusia (a di…

I've read about long COVID and the hallmarks but it seems like Dianna is experiencing something far worse than average. Chronic fatigue is one thing but unable to stand for two years is horrendous. Are there any other recorded cases this severe?

To further this, is "long COVID" actually something we can definitively diagnose? Clearly something is going on with Dianna, but if the symptoms or severity don't match other long COVID cases perhaps there is something else going on there.

Re: Science YouTuber physicsgirl (Dianna Cowern) stands for the first time in 2 yrs

#249
post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's interesting to me how COVID vaccine skepticism has persisted so long despite the evidence the vaccine was safe and effective. All the nightmare scenarios and long-term side effects people speculated about never happened and more and more doses of the vaccine have been taken safely.

A close family member has permanent heart failure caused by the first Covid booster. They now go to the top heart hospital in the world. The doctors there say that while nothing can be proven for certain - obviously - the timing of their booster and the onset of their heart symptoms and the fact that there was no indication they had Covid at the time all point to the high probability it was the vaccine. And they’ve s…

Doctors are as susceptible as anyone to all the cognitive biases that result in post hoc ergo propter hoc. I wouldn’t assume they’re correct about the cause just because of the timing and the fact that they’re doctors.

Re: Science YouTuber physicsgirl (Dianna Cowern) stands for the first time in 2 yrs

#250
post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "its in your head" insane that it's still so common...

I really get the sentiment that if you look at people who are told "it's all in your head" and then they find some obscure condition that is treatable, it might be considered borderline malpractice for the physician to have told them that... but does the frequency with which patients are told that maybe give some insight into how many psychosomatic patients there really are out there?

I don't think so. I have literal objective tested allergies and people ask me if I think the symptoms (allergic rhinitis) are psychosomatic all the time. So many people I talk to have real symptoms and down play them as probably having some mental component.
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