- Jada Pinkett Smith Says Chris Rock Approached Her After Will Smith Slap and Said ‘I Didn’t Mean You Any Harm’ — She Hasn’t ‘Talked to Chris Since’ Variety
- Jada Pinkett Smith Says Chris Rock Asked Her Out on a Date (Exclusive) PEOPLE
- Will Smith’s Oscars slap came off as ‘a skit’ to Jada Pinkett Smith Entertainment Weekly News
- “He’s an angry human being”: Before Chris Rock, Will Smith Punched Anthony Mackie Hard In The Face Due To A Misunderstanding FandomWire
- Jada Pinkett Smith Breaks Silence on Marriage, Oscars Slap, Self-Acceptance (Exclusive) PEOPLE
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Tag Archives: talked
College roommate talked to Sam Bankman-Fried about FTX’s $8B hole on a paddle tennis court: Trial – Cointelegraph
- College roommate talked to Sam Bankman-Fried about FTX’s $8B hole on a paddle tennis court: Trial Cointelegraph
- Ex-FTX engineer testifies he alerted SBF of bug that revealed Alameda liabilities: CNBC Crypto World CNBC Television
- FTX Employees Found Alameda’s Secret Backdoor Months Before Collapse – WSJ The Wall Street Journal
- FTX Co-Founder Wang Testifies He, SBF Committed Giant Fraud Bloomberg Television
- Sam Bankman-Fried Told MIT Friend $8 Billion Hole Meant FTX Wasn’t ‘Bulletproof’ Yahoo Finance
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Talking Heads talked ‘Stop Making Sense,’ dodged reunion questions at BAM screening / Q&A – Brooklyn Vegan
- Talking Heads talked ‘Stop Making Sense,’ dodged reunion questions at BAM screening / Q&A Brooklyn Vegan
- Talking Heads’ Tina Weymouth Calls Band’s Breakup ‘Really Sad’ After David Byrne Admitted He Was a ‘Tyrant’ in Group PEOPLE
- Talking Heads appear together for first time in over 20 years at ‘Stop Making Sense’ screening WGN TV Chicago
- Talking Heads reunite for first time in over 20 years to celebrate anniversary of Stop Making Sense hotpress.com
- TIFF: Talking Heads’ Remaster of ‘Stop Making Sense’ Clarifies the Best Concert Film Ever Directed by Jonathan Demme Exclaim!
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Game of Thrones prequel focused on Aegon I Targaryen’s conquering Westeros being talked about at HBO – Daily Mail
- Game of Thrones prequel focused on Aegon I Targaryen’s conquering Westeros being talked about at HBO Daily Mail
- ‘Game of Thrones’ Prequel About Aegon’s Conquest Eyed at HBO (EXCLUSIVE) Variety
- HBO Reportedly Fast Tracking Another ‘Game of Thrones’ Prequel — Why It Might Actually Happen IndieWire
- ‘Game of Thrones’ Spinoff Eyed at HBO — King Aegon I Targaryen TVLine
- Why Game of Thrones’ next spinoff series shouldn’t be Aegon’s Conquest Polygon
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Bills’ Damar Hamlin is breathing on his own and talked to teammates, bolstering them for Sunday’s regular season finale
CNN
—
Just four days after his stunning on-field cardiac arrest, Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin is breathing on his own and speaking to family, physicians and teammates – positive updates that Bills players say will bolster them in this weekend’s matchup against the New England Patriots.
“To hear him talk to us, it was everything, and that’s what we needed. Literally that’s all we needed,” Bills offensive tackle Dion Dawkins said of the team’s Friday video call with Hamlin, who is still undergoing treatment at a Cincinnati hospital.
Hamlin – who was sedated and placed on a ventilator after his collapse Monday – began awakening late this week and was able to have his breathing tube removed before Friday morning, physicians have said.
“Love you boys,” the 24-year-old player told his team Friday via FaceTime, according to head coach Sean McDermott, who added that Hamlin flexed his arms and made his signature heart-shaped hand gesture during the call.
Since he collapsed during the “Monday Night Football” game between the Bills and the Cincinnati Bengals, Hamlin “continues to progress remarkably in his recovery” and “his neurologic function remains intact,” the Bills tweeted Friday, citing his physicians.
Dawkins described the emotional “roller coaster” this week has been for the team – who watched in shock as Hamlin received CPR on the field and was carried from the stadium in an ambulance. But he said news of Hamlin’s significant improvement “will for sure fuel us” in the team’s Sunday showdown against the Patriots.
“The excitement was beautiful, it was amazing,” he said of the call with Hamlin. “It has given us so much energy, so much bright, high spirits – whatever you want to call it – it has given it to us to see that boy’s face.”
Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown said Hamlin’s continued recovery is “uplifting news” for the city of Buffalo, which has recently been struck by several tragedies, including a racist mass shooting and a brutal blizzard that left at least 41 dead in Erie County.
“What happened to Damar Hamlin, his injury, was another gut punch to the city of Buffalo and to see him recovering so remarkably is certainly lifting spirits throughout our community and across the country,” Brown told CNN’s Kate Bolduan Friday.
After millions witnessed Hamlin’s emergency play out live, a wave of support has emerged from fans and strangers across the nation, many of whom have purchased his jersey or donated to his foundation’s charity fund, which has topped $8 million raised as of Saturday morning. Teams across the NFL have also rallied behind the Bills player by wearing his number, 3, lighting up stadiums and scoreboards, and sharing words of solidarity.
Displays of support will continue this weekend as the league prepares for an emotional return to competition for the final games of the regular season on Saturday and Sunday. The NFL plans to honor Hamlin before each game.
The NFL announced Thursday the Bills-Bengals game – which was initially postponed Monday night – will not be resumed or made up.
The cancellation will have no effect on which teams qualify for the playoffs, as both the Bills and Bengals have already secured spots. But the imbalance in number of games played has prompted the league to approve unprecedented provisions for the postseason based on how the Bills and Bengals are seeded and their potential opponents.
As players head into the final week of the regular season, the NFL announced several ways that teams may honor Hamlin before this weekend’s matchups, including holding a “moment of support” before games or outlining the “3” on the 30-yard line in the Bills’ red or blue colors.
Players also have the option to wear shirts emblazoned with “Love for Damar 3” during warmups and the Bills will wear “3” patches on their jerseys, the NFL said.
Bills general manager Brandon Beane – who stayed in Cincinnati following the game’s postponement to be with Hamlin and his family – praised the unified message of support across the league this week, noting how characteristically competitive the sport is.
“Yeah, we go to battle. But in the end, life is the number one battle,” Beane said Friday. “And to see that unity from players, coaches, (general managers), owners, fans, is unheard of. But I think it’s a good light. It sheds a great light on the NFL. The NFL is truly a family.”
The NFL Players Association named Hamlin its Community MVP of Week 18, announcing that the organization will donate $10,000 to his Chasing M’s Foundation.
Philadelphia Eagles running back Miles Sanders said he was able to video chat with Hamlin, telling him, “You know you’re the most famous person in the world right now?”
Hamlin replied, “But not for the right reasons,” according to Sanders, who told Hamlin, “You’re blessed, bro, you don’t know how blessed you are.”
Sanders describe Hamlin as his best friend and said the two spoke after every game, according to NFL Network reporter James Palmer.
What’s It Like To Get Monkeypox? We Talked To People Who Have It
Marco, 40, lives with his partner in Edmonton, Alberta. Marco’s partner had been “feeling off” for a couple days — a low fever, some fatigue, and a few little bumps on his hands, which he didn’t give much thought as they didn’t look serious.
Marco joked with him, suggesting that it might be monkeypox. “I mean, what are the chances? Like 1 in 6 billion?” he told BuzzFeed News.
At that point, there was only one confirmed case of the monkeypox virus in all of Alberta.
The next day, Marco’s partner received a call from a public health nurse letting him know that he had been in close contact with a person who had tested positive for monkeypox. Marco spoke with the nurse as well, telling her that he felt fine, but he did have what seemed to be a canker sore under his tongue, only it wasn’t particularly sensitive.
“I just had tacos with Valentina sauce on them, and it didn’t hurt at all,” he said. (The hot sauce would cause most canker sores to burn.) Assessing their risk and symptoms, the nurse asked both of them to come in for testing right away.
Two days after they went in for testing, Marco and his partner received another call from the public health nurse. “Just got the call we are both positive for monkeypox,” he told BuzzFeed News on Wednesday.
Monkeypox is still relatively rare, but cases are on the rise
A new outbreak of monkeypox is spreading throughout the US, Canada, and Europe, and many of the initial cases have been in queer men. According to the World Health Organization, as of June 8, there are now about 1,200 monkeypox cases worldwide, including 321 in the UK, 100 in Canada, and 39 in the US. Fifteen different states have had cases, including California, New York, and Florida.
There is reason to be concerned, but this is not another COVID. The virus is not as contagious or as easy to spread, and there are already two monkeypox vaccines. One is Jynneos (also known by the brand names Imvamune or Imvanex), and the other is ACAM2000. They can help prevent symptoms even after exposure or infection.
While about 3% to 6% of people with monkeypox can die of the infection, which is more dangerous in children and people who are immunocompromised, the strain of the virus currently spreading appears to be milder, similar to the one endemic to West Africa. A more dangerous strain of monkeypox is endemic to Central Africa.
The cases are happening just as Pride events are underway in many cities. People are traveling and celebrating during a time that for many is the first summer since 2019 when they can finally gather free of COVID restrictions. Mask mandates are no longer in place on public transit or in many cities. Because close contact is one way the virus can spread, health experts are on alert, working quickly to get the word out about STIs to LGBTQ+ communities.
But to be clear — monkeypox is not technically an STI, although some people report having lesions on their genitals or acquiring the virus during sexual contact. The disease can be spread through any kind of close or body contact, which includes cuddling and kissing, sharing towels or sheets, or even respiratory secretions from breathing or talking during prolonged face-to-face contact — so, wearing a mask can help stop the spread of the virus.
Monkeypox is not a new disease. It was first discovered in monkeys used for scientific research (hence the name) in 1958 and first observed in humans in 1970. In places where it is endemic, it naturally circulates in animals such as rodents, occasionally jumping to humans who handle infected animals or are bitten or scratched by them.
Cases are uncommon outside of Africa or among people who have not recently traveled to an endemic area, though there was an outbreak in the Midwestern US in 2003. In that case, 70 people got the virus from pet prairie dogs that were housed with imported rats and dormice.
In general, monkeypox symptoms include fever, headaches, muscle aches, backaches, swollen lymph nodes, chills, and exhaustion. The symptoms usually show up 7 to 14 days after exposure, but they can appear anywhere from 5 to 21 days. About one to three days after symptoms begin, people generally develop rashes and raised lesions, which eventually crust over and form scabs that fall off. Overall, symptoms can persist for up to four weeks.
Marco has found his and his partner’s symptoms to be different from what he has read on the websites of public health agencies.
“You know how when people start getting symptoms, they’ll go to Dr. Google,” Marco said. “And you see the signs and symptoms, but nobody is saying that the signs and symptoms can vary.”
People infected with monkeypox can have a rash that begins on the face before spreading to other parts of the body, according to the CDC.
Marco noted that neither he nor his partner developed a rash. “The rash is supposed to turn into pustules all over the body,” Marco said. “That didn’t happen to us, either, except for maybe under my tongue.”
Monkeypox is not a “gay disease” and the potential for stigma is a concern
Marco asked us to use his first name only to avoid a potential stigma of the diagnosis for him or his partner, but he also wanted to share their experiences to prevent further spread of the virus.
Stigma is built into the LGBTQ+ experience.
HIV/AIDS has been closely associated with queer men since the epidemic’s rise in the 1980s. Some have concerns that monkeypox will follow the same path. This year, UNAIDS, the international HIV/AIDS organization, released a statement about the stigmatizing effects of referencing LGBTQ+ people, as well as African people, in public communications about monkeypox.
In addition to causing social harm, UNAIDS also warned that such associations could result in more problems for public health. The program’s deputy executive director, Dr. Matthew Kavanagh, said in the release, “Stigma hurts everyone. Shared science and social solidarity help everyone.”
Others say concern about stigma is less important when public health is at stake. Historian Jim Downs recently wrote a piece for the Atlantic titled “Gay Men Need a Specific Warning About Monkeypox.” In that piece, Downs writes, “Giving gay men carefully tailored warnings about monkeypox risk can be a form of education, not a form of stigma.”
Peter Staley, one of the original members of the HIV/AIDS activist organization ACT UP, agrees. He said that queer men will always experience stigma, whether it’s through rhetoric surrounding monkeypox or otherwise.
“The right is going to attack us for everything and anything they can. They always have and they always will,” he told BuzzFeed News. “We should never let that dictate how gay men talk to each other about health and risks.”
Staley fully acknowledges that communicating risk about monkeypox carries the possibility that the broader public could associate the virus with queer men, thereby creating a stigma.
“You have to fight two battles at once. We need to get the word out to gay men through targeted messages. And we need to be ready to fight the resulting stigma by delivering messages tailored for the general public.”
Just weeks after the first US case was reported on May 19, targeted messages about monkeypox are already reaching queer men in the country. Such agile communications are possible through existing infrastructures paved through campaigns to reach LGBTQ+ folks for the prevention of HIV/AIDS and other STIs.
Given that June is Pride Month, the CDC acted quickly to dispatch its director of HIV/AIDS Prevention, Dr. Demetre Daskalakis, to engage with organizations and health groups to get the word out about monkeypox. He and his team have plans to speak with multiple Pride organizers this week. Daskalakis said that this summer’s gatherings can be considered more opportunity than risk.
“I believe that Pride is an excellent opportunity to educate people. And when I think about our advice, it’s really about giving people the knowledge that they need to navigate events that can happen all summer, whether they go to Pride or not,” he told BuzzFeed News. “I tend not to think of places as risky environments, because it’s really about mitigating your own risk, to have the right information to be able to navigate what you’re willing to do.”
Daskalakis believes this surge of monkeypox has more parallels to a 2008 outbreak of MRSA, an antibiotic-resistant staph infection, than the HIV/AIDS pandemic that began in the ’80s. The so-called flesh-eating bacteria initially spread among clusters of queer men before leaping to the general population.
“It’s so similar in that it’s spread by really close contact. Sex could be one reason that there is close contact, of course, or other intimacy,” Daskalakis said.
Back then, like now, agencies issued similar warnings through healthcare providers, specifically those focused on HIV/AIDS, who had more queer clients. That was before the advent of smartphones and location-based dating apps. Now, the conversation has expanded.
Grindr, the most popular of these apps, has issued multiple information warnings about monkeypox. The app blasted the inbox of every user in the US, Canada, and most European countries with a message written by a local health agency and a link for more official information from a source in their country.
“We are not a public health authority, but we are excellent connective tissue,” said Patrick Lenihan, Grindr’s vice president of communications. “Our users want this information, and these groups want to distribute it to keep this population safe.”
In the US, Grindr is working with a group called Building Healthy Online Communities, which aims to provide targeted messaging about sexual health by bridging public health professionals and dating apps. The app has connected with the Public Health Agency of Canada to deliver warning messages to its users.
What to do if you think you have monkeypox
Fish Have ‘Talked’ For 155 Million Years, And Now You Can Hear Their ‘Voices’
All manner of croaks, chirps, and deep trombone moans permeate Earth’s waters, just like the cacophony of sounds that fill its forest air. For example, reefs are surprisingly noisy places, and many of the noisemakers are fish.
“We’ve known for a long time that some fish make sounds, but fish sounds were always perceived as rare oddities,” said Cornell University ecologist Aaron Rice.
It was likely assumed fish relied primarily on other means of communication, from color signals and body language to electricity. But recent discoveries have demonstrated fish even have dawn and dusk choruses, just like birds.
“They’ve probably been overlooked because fishes are not easily heard or seen, and the science of underwater acoustic communication has primarily focused on whales and dolphins,” said Cornell evolutionary neuroscientist Andrew Bass.
“But fishes have voices too.”
And some sound like the most magnificent foghorn:
Scouring records of anatomical descriptions, sound recordings, and vocal accounts, Rice and colleagues identified several physiological features that allow the ray-finned (Actinopterygii) group of fishes to make these noises without vocal cords. This group contains more than 34,000 currently living species.
“They can grind their teeth or make movement noise in the water, and we do see a number of specializations that are involved,” Rice told Syfy Wire.
“Probably the most common adaptation are muscles associated with swim bladders. In fact, the swim bladder muscles of the toadfish are the fastest contracting vertebrate skeletal muscles. These are high-performing adaptations.”
Of 175 families of fishes, two-thirds were likely to communicate with sound – much more talkative fish than the one-fifth previously estimated. Analysis suggests these vocal communications may have evolved independently at least 33 times in fishes. Clearly, fish have some important things to say.
What’s more, fish-speak appeared around 155 million years ago, which interestingly happens to be around the same time evidence suggests land animals with backbones first vocalized too – animals we eventually evolved from.
“Our results strongly support the hypothesis that soniferous behavior is ancient,” the team wrote in their paper. “Together, these findings highlight the strong selection pressure favoring the evolution of this character across vertebrate lineages.”
Some fish groups were chattier than others, with toadfish and catfish amongst the most verbose groups. However, Rice and the team caution that their analysis only shows the presence of vocalizing fish rather than the presence of absence – it may just be that we just haven’t listened hard enough to hear the other groups out yet.
As for what they’re trying to say, fish are probably jabbering about food, warnings of danger, social happenings (including territorial arguments), and of course, sex. But who knows what other fishy secrets they may recite!
Some researchers have even been trying to use fish songs as underwater siren calls to beckon fish back to rejuvenating coral reefs.
“Fish do everything. They breathe air, they fly, they eat anything and everything – at this point, nothing would surprise me about fishes and the sounds that they can make,” said Rice.
This research was published in Ichthyology & Herpetology.
Report: Saints, Browns talked about a possible Odell Beckham Jr. deal
The Saints don’t have, and apparently won’t have, receiver Michael Thomas. They considered having receiver Odell Beckham, Jr.
Kimberley Martin of ESPN.com reports that the Saints and Browns had discussions about a possible trade for Beckham. The two sides couldn’t work out the terms, however, given the magnitude of Beckham’s salary.
More and more teams pay a significant chunk of a player’s salary in order to facilitate a trade. It’s a sliding scale, with the compensation the player’s former team receives hinging on the financial obligation that team will retain.
And so Beckham remains with the Browns, even though yesterday’s events made it clear that he doesn’t want to be. Which means that the Browns, underachieving at 4-4, have a problem that needs to be resolved. Even if the only way to resolve it will be to release Beckham.
Pete Carroll: Seahawks have talked to Cam Newton
The Seahawks reached out to free agent quarterback Cam Newton after Russell Wilson went down with a finger injury last week.
Seahawks coach Pete Carroll confirmed today that the Seahawks and Newton touched base, although Carroll indicated that it was more about doing their due diligence with every available quarterback than an indication that Newton was likely to sign.
“Just so you know, we have talked to him. We’re talking to everybody that could help us,” Carroll said to Mike Salk of 710 ESPN.
Newton’s departure from New England was preceded by him missing five days of practice when he was out of town and missed daily testing at the team facility — an issue that wouldn’t have come up if he had been vaccinated at the time. Newton got the COVID-19 vaccine since then, and he said he wants to play.
Dr. Sanjay Gupta: Why Joe Rogan and I sat down and talked — for more than 3 hours
I don’t think I have ever had a conversation that long with anyone. Seriously — think about that. We sat in a windowless podcast booth with two sets of headphones and microphones, and a few feet between us. Not a single interruption. No cellphones. No distractions. No bathroom breaks.
At a time when there is a desire for shorter, crisper content — responding to abbreviated human attention spans — one of the most popular podcasts in the country features conversations that last exceptionally long and go particularly deep.
Many friends cautioned me against accepting Joe’s invitation. “There is little room for reasonable conversations anymore,” one person told me. “He is a brawler and doesn’t play fair,” another warned. In fact, when I told Joe early in the podcast that I didn’t agree with his apparent views on vaccines against Covid, ivermectin and many things in between, part of me thought the MMA, former Taekwondo champion might hurtle himself across the table and throttle my neck. But, instead he smiled, and off we went.
OK, I am embellishing here, but Joe Rogan is the one guy in the country I wanted to exchange views with in a real dialogue — one that could potentially be among the most important conversations of this entire pandemic. After listening to his podcasts for a while now, I wanted to know: Was Joe simply a sower of doubt, a creator of chaos? Or was there something more? Was he asking questions that begged to be asked, fueled by necessary suspicion and skepticism?
Into the lion’s den
It wasn’t what Joe Rogan thinks that most interested me, it was how he thinks. That is what I really wanted to understand.
Truth is, I have always been a naturally skeptical person myself. One of my personal heroes, the physicist Edwin Hubble, said a scientist has a “healthy skepticism, suspended judgment and disciplined imagination, not only about other people’s ideas but also about their own.”
It’s a good way of thinking about the world — full of honesty and humility. I live by that, and I think Joe may to some extent as well. He will be the first to point out that he is not a doctor or a scientist who has studied these topics. Instead, he seems to see himself less a rapscallion and more of a sort of guardian of the galaxy, pointing out the missteps made by large institutions such as the government and mainstream medicine, and then wondering aloud if they can still be trusted to make recommendations or even mandates for the rest of us. To many, he represents a queen bee in a hive mind, advancing free will and personal liberty above all else.
The free will of your fist ends where my nose begins
When I said this to Joe, the MMA fighter, he paused, sat back and listened for a while. I asked him: Is it not possible to advocate strongly for personal freedoms, but also recognize the unique threat a highly contagious disease represents? He seemed to agree, but then quickly countered with a common misconception about the overall utility of the vaccines.
If vaccinated people transmit just as much as the unvaccinated, why are they really necessary?
It was like Joe and I were now in the octagon, circling one another. He stared at me intently now, eyebrows raised. I admitted that the vaccinated could still carry the virus at similar loads as the unvaccinated, but swiftly added — before he could claim victory — that there was more to the story.
I shared data with Joe showing the vaccinated were eight times less likely to become infected in the first place, and that their viral loads came down more rapidly if they did get infected — making them contagious for a shorter period and less likely to spread the virus.
Vaccines are not perfect, but he had to agree they are certainly a worthy tool to help control the spread of the virus. And, they are particularly effective at keeping people from getting severely ill or dying. They also may help prevent the development of long Covid, a chronic state of illness that some people develop after natural infection, even if their bout with the acute phase of infection was mild.
What he said next surprised me
So, it turns out that Joe Rogan nearly got vaccinated. That was a headline. It was a few months ago when he was in Las Vegas. He had an appointment scheduled but had logistical hurdles and couldn’t make it. He offered up this story as proof he is not necessarily “anti-vaccine,” even if he does consistently raise issues questioning their legitimacy.
It’s this sort of back and forth that makes it hard to pin Joe Rogan down, both in martial arts and a podcast interview.
For example: Even as he sometimes railed against masks, “The Joe Rogan Experience” masks emblazoned with his logo are available for sale on his website. I even bought one ahead of time and gave it to him as a gift. He looked surprised. (Incidentally, they are made in China.)
Despite a downplaying of Covid risks often heard on Joe’s podcast, his private studio prioritizes safety. A nurse was present to perform a rapid Covid test before we began. We were even checked for the presence of antibodies with a finger prick blood test.
Both of us carried antibodies — his from natural immunity, mine from the vaccine. I was vaccinated in December of last year and Rogan contracted Covid at the end of August. Even though this antibody test could only detect the presence of antibodies and not their strength, Joe took great pride in his test, insisting the thickness of his lines must mean stronger immunity. I am fairly certain he was joking. And, I didn’t have the heart to tell him that my antibody line was significantly thicker than his anyway.
The nuance of immunity
It bears repeating that no one should choose infection over vaccination. That is the concern many public health officials have had since the earliest days of the pandemic. If nothing else comes out of my conversation with Joe Rogan, I hope at least this point does. Far too many people have become severely ill and died, even after the effective vaccines became available. Just in the last three months, there have been more than 90,000 preventable Covid-19 deaths in the US among unvaccinated adults, according to a new analysis by the Kaiser Family Foundation.
At the same time, an Israeli study garnered a lot of attention after it appeared to show that natural immunity offered significant protection — even stronger than two doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine in people who had never been infected.”
So the question Joe raises, as do many others: Why should those who have previously had Covid still get the vaccine?
It’s a fair question, and one that I raised myself with Dr. Anthony Fauci back in early September. At the time, he told me there was no firm answer on this, and they were still looking into what the recommendations should be going forward and how durable natural immunity is in the long run.”
Part of the issue is that we still don’t have a clear idea of how many people have contracted Covid in the United States. The official number is around 45 million, but due to continued lack of sufficient testing, it remains uncertain. And many of the antibody tests that are currently available have high rates of both false negative and false positive results, oftentimes making them unreliable as proof of immunity.
Another issue with natural immunity is that it can vary substantially based on the age of the individual and just how sick they got in the first place. Milder illness in older people often resulted in fewer antibodies being produced.
Some studies have shown between 30 and 40 percent of people who have recovered from Covid did not have detectable neutralizing antibodies at all. That probably explains why a recent study showed that unvaccinated people who already had Covid were more than twice as likely to get reinfected as those who had also been vaccinated.
I told Joe that even in the study from Israel, the authors concluded with the recommendation that people who had recovered from Covid still get a vaccine. And when Joe pushed hard on the risk of myocarditis in kids who receive the vaccine, especially young boys, I countered back equally hard that the risk of myocarditis has been shown to be much higher for infected children under 16 years old compared to their uninfected peers. Those numbers dwarf the risk of myocarditis in kids who receive the vaccine (and, to be sure, most cases of myocarditis can be treated without hospitalization). For me, the risk-benefit analysis is clear: Vaccination is safer than infection.
I guess a small part of me thought I might change Joe Rogan’s mind about vaccines. After this last exchange, I realized it was probably futile. His mind was made up, and there would always be plenty of misinformation out there neatly packaged to support his convictions. Truth is though, I am still glad I did it. My three-hour-long conversation wasn’t just with Rogan. If just a few of his listeners were convinced, it will have been well worth it.