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And even those voting against mentioned that what the president did was not right, but he learned his lesson. This time even McConnel has mentioned that the are impeachable offenses... Potentially because a Trump 2024 run could make the GOP implode.

Well there is probably more need for nuance but I think it is not quite fair to say that say European conservatives are more progressives than US conservatives or Republicans. For example, Europe is for much of it fairly left when it comes to the financing social programs. However, many areas are very socially conservative. I think it is fair to say, though that in the US being fiscally conservative is not really associated with the GOP anymore. It has always been a talking point, but never a policy point. There are also certain aspects that are universal among conservatives, though perhaps differently scaled. But again fiscal conservatism is in most areas of the world not really a defining aspect. Fundamentally we are talking about political identity here and what the worldview of folks are that consider themselves conservative vs those that do not. There are of course common themes, such as traditionalism, often associated religiosity (to various degrees) but various surveys and studies indicate that born of these there are also certain traits that are more common. Such as admiration for strong (often father-)figures, an assumption of how things should be (basically assuming a natural order of sorts) and so on. Republicans are obviously just a certain (somewhat crazy) flavour of conservatism and I take your point that one should separate those in most contexts. I will say especially in the Western world the political movements (such as social Democrats, Liberals, Conservatives etc.) are not that isolated anymore that they used to be and there crazy flavours popping up everywhere.

If you go through the headers there is a line somewhere indicating the original submission, as well as another line stating whether the sequence has been updated at some point. If you are interested about variants, I think the GISAID database is more helpful (https://www.gisaid.org/).

I was more thinking back to 9/11 (and to some degree to the more recent terror attacks in Europe) and how it galvanized the population with anti-Muslim sentiments and, among others, resulting in endless wars. Also how a fairly open society managed to become fearful and increasingly restrictive. The main reason I thought about this are because of the parallels some see between Islamic extremists and the radical white evangelical movement (https://nyti.ms/2LHNB5u). They even got their martyrs among the QAnon believers. Also one should not underestimate how deep they are in conspiracy theories. There is a good chance that folks would think that the deep state got to him and that they need to be even more violent to liberate their savior.

These are very different mechanisms. Mononucleosis is mostly caused by the Epstein Barr virus. There is no immunity per se. You get infected and then you carry it. About 90% of adults carry the virus. However, if you only shed low level of viral particles, so often transmission requires intimate contact. So yeah, college. However, childhood infections are often subclinical. However, infection amog kids is often associated with poor hygiene, shared utensils etc. That is why folks in cleaner homes might not get infected as children and therefore develop symptoms. But it is not because the body gained or lost resistance or immunity. Also, fecal transplants are generally screened for potential pathogens, so that is quite a different matter than ingesting manure.

That is not fundamentally wrong, but I am a bit confused how that relates to vaccination hesitancy (also, I would counsel against using manure as an attempt to adapt to unsafe drinking water).

Well, I am certain you are wrong. I have looked at the sequence days after it was published mid-January (well, and the rest of the community even earlier). I suspect you might have looked at the revision dates rather than the original posting date (I remember that there were a few bases being corrected after more sequencing, but I might be misremembering). There are also many more sequences out there and perhaps updates to RefSeqs. But either way, your premise is clearly wrong. Edit: I quickly checked the entry: the date in the header of Genbank entries signifies the date of last modification, not the date of submission and I think that is what you looked at. It is the right sequence, though, but you can look at the history and see where it was originally posted. IIRC it was originally submitted early January and I think it was available about a week after. Double edit: apparently lack of sleep significantly reduces my already poor spelling abilities. I should call it a day at some point.

It is unfortunately a bad example. If there was really significant runoff from manure there is no way to get used to that level of exposure. In fact, similarly contaminated water sources are a source for lethal infections throughout much of the world, there is only so much the immune system can fight off. One can develop a certain amount of resistance to infections, but only by low-level exposure. Also, I am not sure how that actually relates to being vaccinated. I.e. do you mean that low level exposure to pathogen is similar to vaccination? In principle it is, though obviously it carries more risks as the pathogens are still viable.

Just imagine how the mood would be different if there were Muslim groups throughout USA who threaten to conduct violence on social media. I suppose will take the threats a bit more seriously now. However, similarly to Europe, right-wing (white) terrorism was often not considered to be real, until they start investigating it (the scandals in Germany was an admittedly almost laughable example).

Yey, as if a raging pandemic which folks still kind of ignore was not enough.

Fundamentally being vaccinated only means that a person is exposed to an additional antigen (or set of antigens) compared to an unvaccinated persons. However, since everyone is exposed to many, many antigens every day day simply by eating or breathing, the overall immune system won't look fundamentally different. Likewise, an unvaccinated person can remain healthy, provided they never encounter the pathogen in question. But in return it means that a non-vaccinated person simply won't have antibodies to a disease and are susceptible to infection. There is no mechanism how a healthy lifestyle can prevent that. But the more people are around who are susceptible (e.g. not vaccinated) the less likely it is that you can keep away from folks might infect you. That is precisely what we see with measles and mumps and a few other diseases that were almost eradicated, but are now making a revival among unvaccinated communities. And no, drinking kelp won't save you. There have been a number of studies on vegans and if you look at some immune markers, either there is no difference to non-vegetarian diets in certain factors (e.g. natural killer cell ctyotoxic activity) or lower (e.g. lower leukocyte and lymphocyte counts) (Haddad et al. Am J Clin Nut 70:3 1999; . This is not necessarily a fundamental problem, but shows no indication of actually increasing the body's ability to deal with infections. They are likely better off than very unheathy folks (e.g. obese folks) but there is not benefit over non-vegetarian folks within healthy BMIs, for example. While it goes on a tangent, I should add that during pregnancies vegans have to monitor themselves more than usual with respect to micronutrient deficiency (see e.g. Sebastiani et al. Nutrients 2019 11:3 557 https://doi.org/10.3390/nu11030557) However, I think there is fundamental flaw of that thinking, because a) vaccines are a targeted protection system but perhaps more importantly they are b) a means to maintain population health. You see, it is as at least much about as not infecting someone else and spreading the disease as it is to keep yourself healthy. Focusing exclusively on the health status of the (un)vaccinated is therefore missing at least half the picture. From the public health perspective, vaccinations do at least the following: - curb disease related effects (including mortality, death, loss of quality of life etc.) - maintain public health and reduce strain on the health care system (loss of work and hospitalization- the latter is one of the reason why COVID-19 mortality spikes in overstrained systems) - protect susceptible folks (e.g. folks with weak immune systems, undergoing chemo, elderly and kids, etc.) - reduce the risk of new strains (the more a disease circulates, the more likely it can acquire mutations against which vaccines might not work anymore, potentially happening right now with SARS-CoV-2). - have the potential to eradicate disease entirely. In other words, not vaccinating counters above effects.

Yes, but I would argue that it took a minimum of effort , buy-in from the establishment and elimination of other voices. Nowadays apparently all you need to do is post fiction somewhere and folks are going to run with it.

I think it may be related to getting old, but what gets me is the lack of effort in many of these things. The lies (e.g. QAnon conspiracy) are so obviously absurd and made with no real effort. And conversely folks simply believe even the most absurd of claims without making the effort of double-checking. Trump rose to the top without really putting the works in and was even able to incite an attempted coup. And all without even trying or at least preparing a proper speech. Their whole effort of usurping the power was just lazy and cumulated in a press conference on the parking lot of a gardening centre. Yet folks that are so obviously inept and lazy obviously have no problem getting what they want and, even worse, get support from other folks. I really have trouble understanding that (and the world at large). To me, social media seems intrinsically connected to that, somehow. I am just not sure what is cause and what is effect.

No doubt, I think it has crystallized that really burning out the case numbers is absolutely necessary and surfing the curve is not a good strategy. Provinces such as Manitoba which did well for a time were rather quickly overwhelmed once the numbers surged.

As a whole the flu season in Canada is very mild to almost non-existent. It is almost certainly related to isolation and distancing measures.

There was an interesting article from buzzfeed of all places: It does seem that among the mob, there were folks that had more planned. I doubt that they were able to whip up pipe bombs between Trump's rally and the storming of the capitol.

Also, taking someone's job is just a PC version of why folks really do not want immigration (hint: there is a reason why certain folks are alright with immigration from Norway or Denmark, and it is not the better health care system).

Yes, these go the heart of the issue, I think. The biggest issue (I thought) would be monopolies, be it private or public, as it would create a means to easily control information flow. In that context, the rise of huge news conglomerates was a huge worry to me. One could see twitter and facebook as similar entities if that is where folks de facto obtain their information regarding the world. On the other hand (though that leads a bit off-topic) even if facebook et al. were not private companies we now also see how badly false information can impact society. To a degree that leads to massive number of deaths in, say, a disease outbreaks (with more to come in the future). So from this standpoint I am not at all certain what the best model should be. I still think that diverse platform rather than monopolies are one aspect. But I am not quite certain whether I am as much on board with social media news distribution as I might have been in the past. Perhaps it is just a consequence of freedom of expression plus new technology and we should just live with the fact that folks will reside in fractured realities. It would also mean that we have effectively crippled our ability to address big challenges which will result in uncountable suffering of the following generations.

Or one can ask the opposite question. Should we have a situation where much of not most of public discourse is owned and mediated by private companies?

Actually the issue is a bit different. For the most part the issue of trans fats and there catabolic products can trigger a range of health effects. In many cases we are not entirely sure why. TFAs for example are often incompletely oxidized and potentially by inhibition of the required enzymes result in lowering polyunsaturated fatty acids, which in turn can result in lower membrane fluidity which kicks off a number of regulatory cascades that can result in poor health outcomes. They also result in the increase of LDL, and some decrease in HDL, which is associated with clogging (chronic inflammation resulting in atherosclerotic plaques for example).

There are different state laws (I think in Canada it is regulated federally), and many do not require time off. In cases where it is allowed one might get 1-2 hours (usuall) paid time off. A big issue is that this time might often not be enough, especially in poor and minority neighbourhoods. Some data suggests that e.g. black voters are 3x more likely to wait 30 mins or longer compared to white voters. In those cases one or even two hours may not be enough to get back to work on time. This year the situation has been especially bad, but there has been a confluence of many issues.

As related piece of information which somewhat connects to the whole matter (specifically with regard to BLM which protests police violence) is in this article.

If you are talking about trans fats, they are metabolized by the body as other fatty acids.

According to Reuters

Adding to that, the Moderna CEO announced that their vaccine is likely effective against the Sourh African and UK strains. However, no data has been forthcoming (yet).