TimB

This “fitness can prevent severe covid” debate is turning into the new “masks can make you sick.” At least this one has more legitimacy, but we’re beating a dead horse here.

I’d bet that Potter County and the rest of the northern tier sees measurable snow next week as well.

You’re right. Hiding the bad news from the public is never a good idea either.

I just feel like this will fan the flames of vaccine hesitancy, and this has already been a bad week in that regard.

I don’t immediately suspect a conspiracy. But a lot of people will. You’ve seen from this thread itself how many people throw rationality to the wind when it comes to this vaccine. I’m not saying he isn’t knowledgeable or privy to the issues at hand, but in my opinion he shouldn’t be the communicator of them.

Ah, the optics don’t look quite as bad now that I see the updated article. I think Kessler is a more palatable source than a corporate bigwig is.

I agree with this, but let’s remember that Pfizer is a business and isn’t necessarily just producing this vaccine out of the goodness of their hearts. I would argue that it’s fairly likely that a booster is required, but from an optics perspective that information should be provided to the general public by an actual medical expert (in human medicine), not the CEO of one of the biggest pharmaceutical companies in the world (who happens to be a DVM).

Exactly. Pfizer didn’t do all this work only to produce a vaccine that didn’t require a booster that could allow them to make a killing off of American citizens and our artificially high drug prices.

Interesting that this information is coming from the Pfizer CEO in this respect.

I’m distracted by the fact that 69.420% is one of the benchmarks here. But I think the point is that the rate will probably slow down as time goes on and more people who want the vaccine will have already gotten it.

50% of adults or 50% of the US population?

I agree wholeheartedly that there’s always incentive to get more physical activity and lose weight, pandemic or not. I just don’t know if psychologically “because covid is more likely to kill you if you get it when you’re obese” would be enough of a PSA for the average overweight person to try harder. Think about all the arguments that smokers’ loved ones use to try to get them to quit, often to no avail. It’s not quite the same thing because of the addiction factor, but to some extent overeating is similar (though there are many, many other causes of obesity).

Careful, remember what happened the last time an athlete’s name was mentioned in this thread. That said, of course having a heart and lungs that are in good working order (as many athletes do) will likely reduce the severity of covid if you do get it in many cases. But I do see two issues here: 1. A massive number of people died in the early months of this pandemic. Even if a lot of them started exercising as soon as they heard about covid, they wouldn’t have had time to get into good enough shape to make a significant difference before they contracted covid and died. 2. We now have something that prevents severe covid even more effectively than exercise.

I think they’re at least native to the area and not stuff we accidentally imported.

Do swarms of those show up on radar like other flying critters can? Maybe we can at least get some pretend storm cells.

Ah yes, we’re halfway through spring. The day formerly known as Tax Day. Still 45 more days for something to happen.

I would take anything to break up the monotony of this boring spring. Could be a rare snow event, could be a severe thunderstorm risk, could be a freezing rain event on the penultimate day of April (yes, I just thought it’d be fun to use that word in the correct context).

I’m obviously of the opinion that vaccine passports to attend sporting events, concerts, etc. are just fine and dandy. That said, I think there’s even more of a case to be made for having vaccine passports for international travel. Do we really want unvaccinated Americans or whatever country is having a surge at the time traveling to other countries and spreading covid? It’s one thing for unvaccinated people to spread it to other willfully unvaccinated Americans who know the risks they’re taking, but it’s an entirely different thing to go to Jamaica or Cancun or something and start an outbreak among people who haven’t even had the opportunity to get vaccinated. Yes, there’s the argument that it discriminates against people in poorer countries with less vaccine access, but I can’t imagine a lot of people in these countries are jet-setting around the world.

You mean a freezing rain event in PA on April 29th isn’t plausible? (The 12z had 80s with mid 60s dewpoints for that day.)

Way too far out to mean anything, but the last two runs of the GFS toward the end of the period are entertaining.

A slow, painful transition to summer with scarcely a rumble of thunder or even a snow flurry in most areas.

How often in April do the SPC outlooks for both D3 and D4-8 show absolutely zero chance of severe anywhere in the CONUS? And not “predictability too low,” this is “potential too low.”

This is incredible.

It’s my fault. I should have taken the high road instead of engaging with a bad faith, off topic comment. None of the ensuing flame war would have occurred if I just did that. I’ll do better the next time. Apologies.

I mean I agree that it probably doesn’t belong in a thread discussing April 2021 weather in the Midwest, but I am disappointed in the number of fellow weather enthusiasts who put their fingers in their ears when it comes to science.