dprh

Nuance schmuance.  Why do you hate science?

I found it......oh wait  
I think it's easy to lose the nuance in a discussion like this.  Vort expresses issues with the media, statistics and reporting on COVID and it can be easy to lump him in with the Anti-vaxxers.  NT touts the vaccines effectiveness and it can be easy to think that indicates support of governments or business requiring people to get the shot.

Sorry, with the depopulation of burning California, endless variants of a virus that's destroying our cultural cohesion, woke people abandoning MLK to pick up BLM, the fascinating and violent civil war between the LG and the TQ parts of that acronym, high school cryptocurrency hacker millionaires, and American business pretending to understand and agree with it all to entice lazy entitled millennials to be employed by them, I haven't even had time to notice that I've been replaced by an AI on Thirdhour.
 
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You've got a point, but not as pointy as you believe.  This is largely 2021 data - nothing from 2020.

 
And take a look at Arizona - the case data only covers the last two months:


 
And, again, google yourself up as many craptons of links as you like - there are plenty available with recent data, and they all point to the same obvious reality.
May data: https://apnews.com/article/coronavirus-pandemic-health-941fcf43d9731c76c16e7354f5d5e187
"An Associated Press analysis of available government data from May shows that “breakthrough” infections in fully vaccinated people accounted for fewer than 1,200 of more than 107,000 COVID-19 hospitalizations. That’s about 1.1%.  And only about 150 of the more than 18,000 COVID-19 deaths in May were in fully vaccinated people. That translates to about 0.8%, or five deaths per day on average."
 
Story written 3 days ago: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/aug/03/us-covid-coronavirus-cases-hospitalizations-unvaccinated
"On Monday, there were more Covid-19 hospitalizations in Florida than at any time in the pandemic. The chief executive of the Florida Hospital Association, Mary Mayhew, told MSNBC that about 95% of those hospitalized were unvaccinated."
 
August 2: https://t.e2ma.net/message/0uap6m/wfgsz9
"Our Lady of the Lake is currently treating 155 COVID-19 patients in the hospital, with about one-third in intensive care. On average, one COVID-19 patient is being admitted every hour in addition to a steady influx of patients coming into the Emergency Department. The hospital already instated an earlier pause on non-urgent inpatient procedures to make additional beds and staff available for COVID-19 patients. Our beds are full of patients with COVID-19 who are predominately unvaccinated."
 
Here's a fact-checking website sourcing and verifying the claim: https://healthfeedback.org/claimreview/unvaccinated-individuals-now-account-for-the-vast-majority-of-covid-19-hospitalizations-and-deaths-in-the-u-s-according-to-available-data/
 
@Vort, you are like, really, really invested in vaccines not being as wildly effective as they are.  How come?
 

Ok, forget New Jersey - here's more context.  The phenomenon is happening across the country (and probably the planet). Again: 
 
There are dozens of other links - feel free to google up as many as you like.  Honestly, at this point, anyone left out there who doesn't believe the vaccine is wildly effective, the burden of proof is on them to show why they think such things.   I've yet to hear any good answer.  Folks can be concerned about side effects, wonder if it's necessary, be ticked off at government, but nobody has really been able to counter the claim "vaccines are wildly effective".
 
 
A valid point.  What I've read about the Spanish Flu, that thing was actually worse for healthy young adults, while COVID mainly reaps the elderly and ill.  And yes, herd immunity comes from both everyone getting it and having natural immunity, or vaccines.  If you just let the virus rampage through humanity, it would eventually burn itself out.  
Pros:
- Over and done with.
- No delta variant and having to deal with things in '22 onward.
Cons:
- Global death toll in the hundreds of millions, as opposed to the ~4 million we've got now.  (I'm estimating: The Spanish Flu killed ~20-50 million, and the current global population of 80+ year olds is ~105,000,000.  COVID would probably take half or more, and kill a percentage of everyone else, more of the older, fewer of the younger.) 
- Long term health impacts in tens or hundreds of millions.
- Chaos, downfall of nations, and collapse of economies as hundreds of millions die all at once, overloading every city/county/state/nation's ability to handle the corpses.
It would appear to me that the Cons may just have a tiny edge against the pros, but I understand we're all sick and tired of this thing.
 
Not sure of your reasoning.  (You're making a point about "the way people talk", I honestly don't care how people talk about things - especially with so many ignorant or nefarious opinions out there.)
But yes, natural immunity is one of the two very effective ways to be protected against Coronavirus.  It's sort of part of the dictionary definition - you catch COVID and don't die, you end up with natural immunity.    But the Spanish Flu happened 100 years ago.  Since then we've upped our global healthcare game in areas like medical care, hygiene, food supply, and of course vaccines.  That last one is probably the biggest reason.  There are many reasons why COVID doesn't have to kill a huge % of humanity and lower life expectancy of everyone else by a dozen years.  The good old days of Spanish Flu eventually have every human get it, and the only humans left alive on the planet now are descended from the survivors. (source)  With the vaccine however, the people who survive COVID will be those who catch it and survive, and those protected by vaccines (4.3 billion humans vaccinated so far, and we're not done yet.)
A fun tangent: I have a lunch buddy (very much NOT a pro-vax guy).  He got COVID last year, and got better, like most folks do.  He was mad during lunch yesterday - between his fiance, pressure from work, and the way the laws are going, he bit the bullet and got vaccinated anyway.  Both of us agree he didn't really need to - because natural immunity should be at least as effective as the best vaccine.  I asked him if he had any side effects, and he said "just anger".  I sympathized, and told him I still held his principled stances in high esteem. 
 
Ok, so all the data and charts and links and stuff only deal with people who are hospitalized or die.  Yes indeed, both natural immunity (and vaccinated imunity) are keeping people from showing up in those numbers.  That is an important point, and yes, it's totally absent from my links.
I dearly, dearly, want to put this thing in our rear view mirror.  Both vaccinations and natural immunity will help us get there. 

I have to admit that I am confused by some of the logic presented here.
Today's youth have fewer of the characteristics that I value in the previous generation's youth, therefore they must not be among the more valiant souls....(paraphrased, I didn't take the effort to make a full and concise statement)
What isn't considered, however, is the possibility that the trait's of today's youth are the very manifestation of their valiance. It's sloppy of me to do this, but I'm going to make claims without evidence, so consider it anecdotal.  By and large, the youth today seem to be more empathetic, comfortable with nuance and complexity, and more prone to value social improvement over personal wealth.  What if their willingness and determination to tear down long standing social norms is their valiance in action? What if their unwillingness to accept racial animus (for example) in scripture as divinely-directed is a sign of their valiance?
In other words, we're often quick to judge others (including other generations) for their unrighteousness for no other reason than they have different values or priorities than we do. I would submit that doing so is a dangerous business if you don't fully understand what makes those people tick, and are unwilling to question whether your own perspectives might need some adjustment.
 
Another perspective you can put on this all is to consider that the people that were the target of that "most valiant souls" comment are the very people that raised today's youth. So if today's youth really are so much worse, then it seems that it would be the fault of those most valiant souls for raising a bunch of screw ups. So before we go railing on how not-valiant today's youth are, maybe we should question whether those valiant ones were really as valiant as we thought, seeing as they obviously screwed up their most noble calling so badly......

I do understand where you're coming from.  And I share the same feelings.  But that's all they are -- feelings.  Here are some facts from my life:
I will gladly present my children as evidence.  I will gladly present the children of my extended family as evidence.  Valiant-to-the-core.  Over 40 of them who have a testimony of the Atonement of Jesus Christ.  Strong gospel knowledge.  All raised on the scriptures. 
All the males are mission-bound (several already returned missionaries).  The oldest one just got engaged and will be marrying in the temple to another returned missionary.  Most of the girls are also mission-bound.  Two already returned.
All of the girls old enough have earned their young women's medallion (before they ended it).  The oldest boys received their eagle (before they ended it).  I don't know what other fruits you'd be looking for to verify my claim.
"Need"?  No, they get the privilege.  But who says all the missionaries in the field "need" to?  And if the prophet approved it, why do you condemn it?
Results are not necessarily indicative of the pre-mortal spiritual preparation.  We are also in an era where the temptations and pitfalls are greater.  We could very well have 10x greater preparation and valiance.  But if the temptations are 20x greater, well...  You do the math.
I was just talking with my daughter who is preparing for a mission about getting a job while she's waiting for the temple to open up.  We talked about how many places require you to work on Sundays.  I remembered that back when I was a kid, not only was it easier to find places that would allow you to not work on Sundays, but it was more common for many businesses to be closed on Sundays.  But today, you're now considered a "Jesus Freak" if you insist on having Sundays off for religious reasons.
How easy was it for people to get work before?  How easy was it to pay for a mission because of that?  Today?  Not so much.
Pornography is a HUGE problem.  Back then, you could find it easy enough, but you'd have to look for it.  Today?  You practically trip over it everywhere you go.
Examples abound that it is simply tougher to be righteous in today's world.  Can you imagine if they were NOT as well prepared?  The attrition rates would be near 100%.
So, essentially, when you look at only one side of the equation, it is easy to jump to easy, simple, conclusions.  But without the whole equation, you may not be correct.

The most respected mental health organisation in Australia. It has a ton of high quality information on a very broad range of mental health issues. I suspect you will find much of value here.
https://www.blackdoginstitute.org.au/
 

Not much. It's pretty light.

https://youtu.be/IGgiasHFtw
Go 20 seconds in. 

For someone adamantly against conspiracies, you sure seem positive it's out there. 

I googled the death's in US by cause and found a JAMA study, linked below.  It is using preliminary data, but I found it interesting.  COVID is 3rd in cause of death for 2020 behind heavyweight killers heart disease and cancer.  Still the virus managed to rack up 10% of US kills.  I thought that was impressive.  I always feel pleased with myself if I score 10% of my teams points in basketball.
I do understand that there is a question among some about the veracity of cause of COVID death claims.  But in the "Understanding..." section, they say that at an analytical level, it appears that COVID deaths might actually be under-reported.
On a tangent, I also found it interesting that suicide deaths went down (4k) for the year.  I had assumed that they'd be up, thinking that the isolation would be harmful to those prone to it.  But unintential injuries increased (20k) and they think a lot of that is drug related.  So suicides are more than offset in that category.
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2778234
(This isn't really directed at you @Vort, just quoted you because the comment on "large" is what sparked my search  )

FTR, this is a screenshot @LDSGator texted me of the music he was playing on his way to the grocery store.
 

 
 

I’m not sure how to help. Just don’t do the same as me, and that is to try and sweep everything under the rug. I’ve had some real trials and struggles the last 40 years. I always pretended everything was fine, and I acted as though everything was fine, but deep inside of me, I was hurting and barely holding on. I had a break down over the issues about 10 years ago. It really frightened my husband. I finally opened up and started talking. My poor husband has become my sounding board, even though he is part of my problems (not all of them.) My struggles and trials haven’t gone away, but it helps that I don’t bottle it up inside of me. I would probably benefit from talking to a counselor, and I did have a few sessions with one, until it was no longer covered financially. Talking has helped me, but the specific trials I have will never be able to be resolved. I just need better coping skills in order to survive with some semblance of acceptance and happiness.

I get that we’re being given so much bad data that it’s easy to sink into a sort of nihilism.  That said, @Colirio—you sort of lose me when you suggest that a vaccine has to be 100% effective in every single individual who receives it.  No vaccine is 100% effective; pre-COVID, I think most educated people understood that.  That’s where this notion of “herd immunity” comes in.  If a person sets up a sort of unattainable straw man regarding what “effectiveness” has to look like, it makes me wonder whether the person is arguing from an unacknowledged predisposition that leads them to want the vaccine to be judged “ineffective”.  
If I may be a bit blunt:  Your most recent response also leads me to wonder whether you took the time to see what the data in @NeuroTypical’s graphs was really showing.  They don’t show declines in hospitalizations or deaths over time; they show who’s in the hospital now.  Who’s dying now.  And by a staggering proportion—it’s the unvaccinated.  
I don’t mean to suggest that the statistics are scripture.  Certainly with regard to ascertaining cause-of-death, there has been some slipperiness; some of it unintentional and some of it . . . not.  But it’s relatively easy to know whether a COVID victim has been vaccinated or not; this particular dataset is not particularly difficult to define or collate.  And FWIW:  my brother is the controller for a regional network of hospitals on the west coast.  He is strongly conservative and pretty disgusted at all the leftist milking and melodrama over COVID-19.  But he adamantly insists that the numbers being reported by his institution are being compiled and relayed in good faith.  The sort of conspiracy it would take to manipulate the sort of data NT has presented here and to keep it all secret would be absolutely monumental; and speaking as a government bureaucrat myself—we are neither smart enough nor competent enough to pull off something like that.  
FWIW, I also know a few in-the-trenches health care workers, including a couple who chose not to take the vaccine themselves.  They uniformly acknowledge that it is “effective” in the clinical sense of the word; they have simply taken the calculated risk that given their young ages and fit physical conditions, they would statistically be better off contracting COVID than getting a vaccine whose clinical test results are still coming in and whose side effects can be pretty rough.  That’s a fair position to take.  But if we’re looking at “hospital workers” as a source of scientific authority—we need to recognize that many of these folks are twentysomething recent college grads who (think they) aren’t particularly vulnerable to COVID, or support workers/CNAs/janitors/cafeteria workers who are often ethnic minorities and have the Tuskegee experiments or other general mistrust of “white” institutions fresh in their minds.  I’m not particularly interested in the scientific deductive reasoning of Bedpan Brittany.  But I am very interested in a recent poll indicating that 96% of practicing physicians have chosen to become fully vaccinated.  

The Follow Him podcast by Hank Smith and John Bytheway had a great two episode discussion with Barbara Gardner on section 84 that answered, or at least addressed, a lot of these questions.  
https://followhim.co/

I'm trying to figure out how this applies to the performance of Americans of African vs European descent?  Do African-Americans have an inherited culture of running more often and for longer distances?
I'm definitely no geneticist, but I have two sons that we've had to get some genetic tests done for.  My impression is that there is still a whole lot that we don't understand about how they work, particularly when multiple genes are involved.  I wonder about his conclusion that because they didn't find a genetic reason means that there isn't one.  I do agree that the other factors he talks about, MVA, etc, contribute to the improved athlete's performance.  I'm just not convinced we can write genetics out completely. 

That Melvin Lee dunk was during a college basketball game!!!! That was awesome!

When you are trying to show off:
 

@Anddenex I'll spare you having to watch the whole video and give you the cliff notes - no scientific evidence that black people have superior physical genetics, Ted talk researcher concludes Africans have the fastest running times due to the higher physical activity and conditioning that comes with it from living in Africa.
 
 

I feel like I should explain my choice of "ghost" to search   Looking at my post again, I can see that was probably a peculiar word to use.
I wanted something I knew would be in the Handbook as well as other places and my first thought was "Holy Ghost."  But then I thought, "what about just Holy?"  Third thought, I wonder if there's anything about ghost that doesn't refer to the Holy Ghost  

Yes, that was perfect. Thank you.
Sorry, I was looking for search capability once already on the Church's website vs via an outside search engine.
What you shared is a different cool trick I was unaware of though, so thank you also!

I went to the search function and typed in "Ghost."  A whole lot of items from all over popped up.   But right under the search bar, I have a horizontal list of sources I can choose to search from and handbook is one of the options.  I clicked that and it narrowed the list down considerably.  Is that what you're looking for?

I have a problem with my kids using my stuff.