18 Comments

Sounds like a portable Birx you can wear on your wrist.

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Maybe there's an upgraded version with an Hermès scarf?

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It brings back memories of her exclaiming, about college students: “and they don’t even know they’re sick!”. As I’ve said before I’m embarrassed that I believed the asymptomatic deadly spreader lie when she first pushed it. Mesmerized by Her Hermes??

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To people who work in jobs where they have to show up and come into contact with or proximity to hundreds - if not thousands - of members of the general public every week for 8 hours a day "get sick" more often than anyone else does?

Do cashiers, stewards/stewardesses, waiters/waitresses, nurses, doctors, bartenders, teachers, concession workers, etc etc etc really "get the flu" or "COVID" more often than anyone else?

Clearly not, as everybody witnessed when they went to the store (or bar, or restaurant) "during COVID". (And in retrospect, I realize this is the case per "the flu" or "the cold").

In fact if I had to guess people who have to show up to work every day probably get less sick than people who get to do Zoom calls all day.

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No, they don’t. Remember, shop workers in 2020? They had lower rates of illness iirc and most importantly not greater than usual. If there had been, it would have been all over the news. Could there be better evidence that there was nowt to worry about?

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They were less-tested.

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Thank you. If I’d known that, I’d forgotten.

What they didn’t do is die in greater numbers.

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Well, they were certainly less-tested than hospital patients, care home residents, and doctors/nurses.

And we know what happened to hospital patients and care home residents who tested positive, right? They were "treated" accordingly.

I'm not sure we can say shop workers had lower rates of illness when "illness" is defined as a positive test.

But my point is, when you test as an outpatient (versus in ED, inpatient, care home), you're less likely to be killed.

There is no IFR of SARS-CoV-2 divorced from iatrogenic harm

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Just what our health system doesn't need. Selective monitoring for some things like blood sugar in a diabetic great. However, active vital signs monitoring in a healthy non-medicated adult is a waste. Just like with repeated PCR testing. I'm not sick, my PCR was negative. I must be sick, my PCR is positive buy you feel fine. Most people will know when they are sick without Apple telling us.

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For those interested in a fun deep dive into the power of the "placebo effect", here's a talk by Irving Kirsch, author of a great book, "The Emperor's New Drugs", and meta-analysis that showed that antidepressants are mostly - or perhaps all - placebo effect.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UC5RZRG7-QQ

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Never heard of the "man cold." I watched the video. If it weren't for being 8 yrs old, I'd have thought it was mocking covid. Curious, I checked the channel description: "The Immunisation Coalition is a not for profit advocacy group with a mission to create awareness regarding the importance of immunisation. Our video collection will give you access to information about infectious diseases and vaccines to prevent them. All the information is based on latest science."

I can easily see how the Apple watch might be used to promote vaccine uptake, but how does an insane video like that encourage vaccines?

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Glad I could introduce you to a new concept :)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_flu

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Thanks indeed! According to that article, the first known reference is 1999, so I'm only 25 years behind. Not bad for a guy that has spent so much time with his head in a history book.

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If I had to guess, the observed/reported phenomenon is higher incidence among married men!

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The smart phone as indispensable guide through every hour of your life. The Weather app tells you to put on sunscreen whenever it's sunny, March through October.

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Typical nighttime dialogue at my house:

Me: "What's the weather supposed to be like tomorrow?"

Husband: "Sunny."

Me: "Did you check a weather report?"

Husband: "No, it's just what I think is going to happen."

He's right most of the time tbh... :)

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This idea of pre-symptomatic illness is a bizarre concept to a Boomer who spent an entire career where calling in sick for anything short of hospitalization was treated as virtual treason.. we were always asked if we were actually too sick to work and everyone worked when sick anyway because sick days were used as vacation days and we toughed it out at work sick as dogs.

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Exactly.

We need to get back to that mindset.

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