Understood. There are two other hospitals nearby and both of them are closing (one on 12/31 and one on 1/31), so my local hospital may be overwhelmed. I think I am still on a stupid stand-by list to work the floors if they get desperate, my hope is it does not come to that and that our patients who are vaccinated (most of them) won't get very sick.

Rolled out on a short ride and it started to rain. Decided to cut it short, got back a half hour later, wiped down the bike and it stopped raining. **** you, rain.

There are some hospitals around here with 400 open nursing positions they can’t fill.

It was a game time decision, had originally planned on the trainer

From what I'm hearing, in places like Rhode Island, the system already IS overwhelmed, and that's BEFORE the full weight of Omichron falls. But again, the hospitalized are primarily unvaccinated. This has become an epidemic of the unvaccinated minority, and for the rest of us it's a continuing annoyance more than a constant threat.

OMG Civilization doesn't have a chance if so. :eek:

That would be pure speculation, now wouldn't it?

Kinda/sorta.

Think of it this way: when you're vaccinated, or infected, your body generates a wide range of antibodies. It does this by having a large pool of B-cells that produce a wide, wide range of different antibody specificities. The cells that produce antibodies that bind to the new pathogen get turned on, not only to reproduce and expand their numbers, but also to undergo their own evolution, in which cells that produce new versions of the original antibodies that bind better are stimulated to reproduce and expand. This leads to your cells producing a whole bunch of antibodies that bind to different places on the virus, so that even if you encounter a new version of the virus that some antibodies don't bind to, there will still be ones that do, and the cells that produce those will expand. This is a POLYclonal response - MANY different antibodies, and also numerous different versions of the original antibodies that kinda/sorta bound, but whose binding has been enhanced by mutation and testing, mutation and testing, mutation and testing. This is why each successive round of immunization increases the efficacy - it stimulates further expansion, mutation and testing.

A monoclonal antibody is made by isolating individual antibody producing cells, finding the one 'best' antibody, decoding the genes to make it, and then using them to make kilograms of that ONE antibody. Hence MONOclonal.

BUT, in addition to the antibody producing cells, the whole immune system is primed to attack the virus and any cells infected with it, so that the infection gets snuffed out as quickly as possible. Each boost refines and broadens the response, so it's not just antibodies, it's also killer T-cells.

Sorry if this is longwinded, but it's why the vaccine, and boosting is so important - it gives the immune system a leg up, so that it's as strong against the virus as if you had been fighting the infection for a week or more already before it even sees the virus. And the immune cells that produce antiviral antibodies, or know how to kill virally infected cells produce 'memory cells' that hang around for years, so that if you ever see that pathogen again, your immune system says, "Oh, yeah! I've seen this! I need these cells to wake up and get to work!", rather than having to come up with a response from baseline again.

I suspect that he's one of them liberal elites.

Gee, I can't imagine why. :notamused:

I'm sure they're every bit as effective against Omichron as they are against Alpha and Delta.

What I was trying to hint at is, once you ride that Ti beauty you won't need those other bikes.

I have one word to say. Just ONE word!

Epitope.

Need? What's this "Need" nonsense? :rolleyes:

To be fair, I have been thinking about selling the Lotus Classique. It's a nice bike, but as a Sport Tourer, it doesn't really fit so well into the stable, and unlike the others I don't find myself wanting to ride it. There's not a thing wrong with it - it was probably in the best condition when acquired, and it's in even better shape now - but it just doesn't make me want to ride it. It just needs a replacement for one of the black wraps on the downtube, and it will be done.

And here I was trying to avoid jargon.

You know how much I love it when you talk science.

we lost civilization a long time ago.

Well ... Ti is fly ... but steel is real. But, yeah, the aluminum ones and carbon ones can now go in the garbage.

So if steel is "gas pipe" and aluminum is "beer can" and carbon fiber is "plastic", what's the slang for Ti?

Concentration is important.

Healthcare provider vanity tubing (HPVT).

Was this purchase a mistake? Am I gonna be mistaken for a dentist? I mean, I work in healthcare, but at the other end of the drug development pipeline. My job is tossing things into one end of the pipeline.

Explosive.

That's Magnesium.