Covid Digest

Many authors of the TRV-hunger are engaged in educational work in social networks. Now one of the main topics with which they pay their attention, effort and time is coronavirus and methods of combating it, in particular vaccination. Here is just a small selection of Facebook posts.

No panic!

Irina Yakutenko , scientific journalist

The other day, the American CDC (Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, the American Rospotrebnadzor, but the pipe is much higher and smoke thicker ) changed their masks to wearing their masks. If in May they pleased completely vaccinated by the fact that now they do not need to wear masks in the room, then the new version says that even those who have already received a full course of immunization should be done, especially if they live in areas where the epidemiological situation is not very good. In Russian Internet, this news immediately gave rise to a flurry of posts in the spirit of “Well, the vaccines do not protect from the“ delta ”-stamma with a paradoxical conclusion that now no one needs to be observed, since nothing helps anyway.

What actually happened and the vaccines do not work? As usual in such cases, of course, no. In the latest CDCs issued by the same CDCs about vaccines [ 2 ], it is written in white in white that the vaccines work, among the vaccinated transmission of the virus is less, and the viral load in those who still fell ill after vaccination below. But journalists who report that the vaccinated passes the Delta as well as the unvaccinated, refer to the director of the CDC Rochel Valensky: they say, at a press conference, she said that it was! Valensky does not hide from the press, her performance about the new CDC guides can be found on the network [ 3 ]. And if you carefully listen to him and her comments by the media [ 4 ], it turns out that many journalists are in their messages, and behind them those who retell these messages missed some important details.

Firstly, the CDC separately emphasizes that indoor masks should be especially worn by vaccinated, living in regions where everything is bad with the epidemic-and this, according to a strange (no) coincidence, is precisely those regions where the least vaccinated. Because vaccines work, and the probability of getting sick, especially with symptoms, if you are vaccinated, are many times lower than if you are not vaccinated. Breakthrough infections, that is, the disease that developed despite vaccination is extremely rare - and this is the second point that many journalists were silent about. The vaccinated ones are very rarely ill with Covid, much less often than unvaccinated, so mass vaccination continues to be the most reliable of the method of stopping the uncontrolled spread of infection. In the USA, at the end of July, about 65 thousand breakthrough infections were registered for 160 million vaccinated, that is, their frequency is 0.04%.

The third moment, which was incorrectly fed in the media, applies to those most rare vaccinated sick people. They write that the concentration of the virus in their upper respiratory tracts is the same as that of unvaccinated diseases - but Valensky, and then Anthony Fauchi, the head of the National Institute of Allergic and Infectious Diseases of the United States and part -time, the main public responsible for Covid in the States, was not said [ 5 ]. They explained that, according to new data, the concentration of the virus in those who get the “delta”-by the scum after vaccination, is 1000 times higher than those who were ill with Alpha-Smamm, which was dominant in the United States a couple of months ago. And such sick people are very few! - Yes, they can infect non -immune. It is still unclear how worse the vaccines protect from the transfer of the virus, although it is clear that in this regard they work worse than against Alpha. The vaccines are still well protected from the severe current and death, which is especially important, given that the “delta” itself is probably more pathogenic.

The recommendation to wear masks in the premises, especially where there are many new cases of “delta”, is due to the fact that in such areas a chance to meet with a person who spreads viral particles around him is high. So, personally, your chance to become a rare case of a breakthrough infection is very non -illusory. In Russia, all this is especially relevant, since Delta is raging there, the degree of protection from this strain that gives the “satellite” is really unknown-Valensky and Fauchi, of course, talked about the protection that the vaccines approved in the United States give. Obviously, he protects, but how well it is not clear, since there were no field research on this score, there were only Logunov’s words about the reduction (like a small) of the neutralization reaction held in the laboratory.

Facebook.com/irina.yakutenko
Telegram channel "Lice the masons"

1. CDC.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/fully-vaccinated.html

2. CDC.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/science/science-briefs/fully-vaccinated-feople.html

3. YouTube.com/watch?v=ZBAEXV_QDGG&T=217S

4. YouTube.com/watch?v=VY5BWNVF9IM

5. Washingtonpost.com/health/2021/07/27/cdc-masks-guidance-indoors/

Scientific approach

Andrey Rostovtsev , Co -Organizer "Dissernet"

Among my friends and colleagues, I know several ill and then regularly measurements of the concentration of antibodies in the blood. Leonid Shishonkov [1] makes measurements monthly. On his example (Fig. 1), the dynamics of the process is clearly visible - the first derivative first increases rapidly and then gradually subsides, and the distribution itself is raised to the natural level of the concentration of antibodies in the blood. A little more than a year after the illness, there was no trace of excess antibodies.

Facebook.com/andrei.rostovtsev

1. Facebook.com/people/leonid-shishonkov/100000197255409/

Aggression of knowledge

Elena Kleshchenko , scientific journalist, editor -in -chief of the PCR.News portal

I was removed from the medical group on Facebook. The occasion is “unmotivated aggression” on my part. Aggression was as follows: I wrote a comment under the post, where they praised a person who wrote that in the UK with Covid-19 everything is bad, despite vaccination, "it means that the vaccine does not help." The schedule of daily incidence of coronavirus infection and fatal outcomes of Covid-19 in the UK cynically and rudely inserted into this comment, and also made an insulting conclusion that human statements are not true.

One could say: everyone has their own shortcomings - and forget: if there are few strange things in social networks? But, firstly, this is a large medical community, seven thousand people, seemingly interested in medicine. Strange. It seemed that these were allies. There are many medical groups on Facebook, I was immediately invited to another, where you can approve the vaccination, but what about this group? And secondly, here I remembered that the case is far from the first.

A familiar situation? You are polite, like the whole count of the "Downton Abbey", is warning how Siri and Alice, but you think that the opponent’s information is incorrect, and you can prove it. After two coma, they blame you - okay in a sense of their own greatness! - In aggression and rudeness. It is not necessary to talk about vaccination, maybe whether Darwin wrote that a person came from a monkey or not. (I wrote. Not from modern, of course, but from ancient, but undoubtedly from a monkey.) How to explain what is happening?

And very simple. An insult is now considered a statement that you know more than the opponent. I'm not joking and not metaphorizing now. New cultural reality, hello.

Yes, no one was happy about the spocation of centuries when he was convicted of a mistake, but now this moment has gained some disproportionate importance. Not grief, not annoyance. An insult, somewhere in the range from a good-natured Matyug to a deadly insult to the interlocutor and his mother. And this is completely not funny.

It reached me for a long time, but the language is a great barometer, and he hinted for a long time that there was something here. How do opponents call opponents in social networks? -Grammar-Nazi. Stricking. Teacher. An educational party (sometimes with a “liberal” appendage, but not necessarily). Markers of hatred for someone who declares their superiority in knowledge.

Where it came from, the sociologists probably should say. Perhaps, the Soviet cult of education unsuccessfully “sat down” new norms of Internet communication, which has appeared in our life by the standards of cultural evolution instantly. All these “link to the studio” and “what are your evidence”. In real life, the best knowledge of the subject, let's say delicately, does not always give an advantage, but on the network - oh, on the network you are a master of sports in aikido and fencing, if you know better. And, as one wonderful person suggested, it resonates in people with fear characteristic of the era of change. Suddenly, in real life, they will begin to give out painfully smart? Then the wise guy is not just a wise guy, but a contender for some resources. In fact, it is unlikely, but from the inside, Runet may seem possible.

And this also attracts the concepts of democracy and tolerance: "Everyone has the right to their own opinion." The concepts are beautiful and useful, but there is no such bright idea that cannot be used for evil. Everyone’s opinion is equally valuable when it comes to the shape of a flowerbed in the yard or the name for the street. (Yes, even in the first case, I would have listened to flower growers out of turn.) The value of the opinion that 2 × 2 = 4 would not be compared with the opinions of “5” and “6”, especially if something significant depends on the calculation.

It didn’t occur to me before that someone else's knowledge could be perceived so negatively. The journalist has such a job: to find people who know what I do not know, and talk to them about it. I am a biologist by education, but I know much less about biology than those who have interviewed. And I know very little about Hebrew and French, programming on Python, the dogmas of Catholicism, the device of the carburetor and the driving of the machine, the history of the Aquitaine, the organization of observation in the elections, the interstellar substance. For any of these questions and many others, if they tell me: shut up, let me speak out to understand people - I will be silent. Human oycumen is great, no one can know everything. In order for this of our Baida to work at least somehow, you need to go forward specialists.

Yes, I read the “cloud democracy” of Volkov and Krasheninnikov [ 1 ], and I liked it. I’m not sure that this is achievable in real society, but in the ideal society - the right to make decisions on a particular issue should be determined by competence in this matter. In this. In no other, not connected with this.

So what to do? How to behave so that you are not banned for information about vaccinations? Why do something to do something, asked me in the comments. Why am I striving to talk about vaccines with people who do not want to talk and are angry? Are there fools of their own fate? - In another case, she would have provided, but when not only they are sick, but also all whom they infect, this is hardly correct.

Who am I imagining myself that I strive to convince adults with access to the fullness of information, to invade their personal space? - There were many words in response, but then another story about Abuez flew along the same Facebook. And people - sometimes the same - said: where were others, why did not tell young people that they should not ... And instead they should ... did not finally give the abuser hands? .. What? Adults, let them understand themselves? Yes, how do you not understand!

Apparently, it is time to admit: the stories about the personal space that cannot be invaded, and equal opinions are for adults not only in passports and (or) for safe situations. In all other layouts, of course, we cannot force an adult to anything, but we have the right to say that he is mistaken. And someone will add-they must. Access to the completeness of information and the ownership of information, alas, is not the same. Who knows, maybe if we had not said in past years: “Since you believe that the flu vaccine itself causes influenza, or still will not help, or that mercury and autism in it, believe, do not get grabbing, go from me with a forest” - now there would be more vaccinated. For a minute, it was our work. Another thing is that we cannot replace high school in any case.

So how to work now? How not to contribute to polarization, not to allow the “antivaxes” and “covidisturics” to closed in their virtual bubbles and lost the latest chances of dialogue?

Here are a few thoughts that were born in the discussion.

1. Remember that people are annoyed. And our complaints about omniscience, and the topic of vaccination itself is terribly overheated, people divided into warring camps worse than on the question of which Crimea. Doctors are not a fact that the allies: they are annoying that virologists and molecular biologists who have not sniffed clinics invade their territory with teachings. (This is not so, but so many people see it.) Keep in your mind, a propagandist of vaccination that you go along the minefield, and do not aggravate your position. While the dialogue is possible, between the witty and neutral word, choose the second. Speak, not broadcast. Your task is not to win, but to convince.

2. Lifehack from journalist Daniil Davydov for social networks and forums: to the one who infuriates you, write the answer not in the “reply” window, but in a text editor, then insert a copy -paste. It is amazing how much it helps to answer more calmly.

3. Look for the point of contact with the interlocutor. Find out why he doubts the vaccines that bothers him. In general, people are not fools or villains, their fears are logical. Another thing is that popular rumor turns the logical into mythologic, “the muscle hurts, it is difficult to raise your hand” after a few iterations turns around by the nightmare “Half of the vaccinated hands are taken away”. But you can work with this.

4. If you got a neglected case, the interlocutor is not an interlocutor, but an enraged goblin, and any hint that vaccines are useful, he infuriates him in advance - lead a dialogue not for him, but for others. Let the goblin serve as a negative example. It is possible that they want to stand with him in a row. The person who is angry does not need to be exposed with a fool, he himself will cope.

Good luck to us all!

Facebook.com/lena.kleschenko.5

1. TRV-SCIENCE.ru/2012/01/oblachnaya-demokratiya-klyuchevye-idei