Balta1701

Every commercial break on MLB tv now features on average 1.5 appearances of Shaq.

This would be a 26 game hit streak if I were the official scorer in Oakland.

So this happened today. Let's see, important details - they already previously authorized boosters for immune compromised individuals because they know we're a freaking mess, so that wasn't this group. The fundamental data here is that the first 2 shots in you normal people produce a set of antibodies that seem to fade over 6-12 months, and those antibodies are the direct shield against infection. However, the protection against severe disease appears essentially unaffected - basically you can get it in your nose, you can get sick, but even if the antibodies decrease over time, the vaccine has trained the immune system well enough to target the virus that it kills off the virus before the virus can kill you, by making more antibodies and such. A booster shot has been tested in Israel and it has been shown to massively increase the body's antibody response, which could well restore a strong immunity against infection. However, there are problems - first, that would take shots away from countries lower on the list. Second, and this seems to have been a bigger problem for the FDA - Israel's data is almost entirely in an elderly population, so Pfizer was asking the FDA to approve something for an age group that hasn't been tested yet. So, if you're 65 or older, or otherwise at high risk, they've recommended it, but they won't go outside the data to approve it for the general population, which I have a hard time arguing against. Tell Pfizer to come back with more complete data to demonstrate safety and usefulness in a full population - they haven't demonstrated that booster shots to everyone will affect the course of the pandemic based on this data.

ugh. Just so someone says this, the scientific evidence over the last few months has come down hard on the side that this was a zoonotic virus, circulating in some population of animals, that spilled over to humans and went wild after an early super-spreader event at the Wuhan animal market last December. There's case tracing, there's testing of family members of people who work at the lab, and there is some extremely powerful DNA evidence on the side of this. While the Chinese government remains uncooperative for reasons that are unknown, and for that reason the hypothesis of something else deserved testing, right now the evidence is strongly on the side of "virus that was out there in some animal population, yet to be identified".

That said, the White Sox won a game in Tampa this year. They didn't in Houston.

Yes. But if you are doing something that poses a danger to the people around you, then the rest of us have an equal right to block your access to places of work, schools, and places of business so that you cannot pose that danger to the population.

This franchise hasn't exactly been a model of sharing health information this year though, we were just talking about that the other day. Remember how Grandal was "ahead of schedule" the whole time on a 4-6 week injury and came back after 6 weeks?

If you happen to get tickets on Monday, I guarantee you will be able to re-sell them if the Astros wind up as the #1 seed.

If you go to Minute Maid, do not get in the line for the Shake Shack during the game. Get there early if you want to go to that. You will miss at least half an inning, maybe a full inning.

FWIW, Extra Rest in the postseason is likely unless he starts game 1 of the ALDS. If he starts game 2, his next "turn" would be game 1 of the ALCS, which would be ~8 days later.

This is actually a really well timed thread, FWIW. Looks like the on sale is Monday. https://www.mlb.com/astros/tickets/postseason

Cincinnati featured the game where LaRussa had the rules explained to him afterwards.

The steroids they use are somewhat effective at limiting deaths, >25% of the deaths give or take can be eliminated by the current steroids. The Monoclonal antibodies are quite effective, even more effective than the steroids, but they need to be used early in treatment, which means you need to have a person who is being tested often or who is tested right at the onset of symptoms for those to be useful. If you let the disease progress because you think it might be just a cold, it is probably too late. It is very interesting that these same two, both of whom have spread false information about the disease, were tested rapidly and were able to get the expensive treatment before the infection was able to do very much. Almost as if they minimize it publicly while panicking the second they get exposed or don't feel right. And even then, the older of them wound up hospitalized.

Apparently his last homer was on August 29 against the Cubs.

4th time is the charm (or 5th? How many setbacks did he have before coming back the first time?)