Its simply a stylized version of “both sides”. That’s all

He knows what he’s doing.


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I'm assuming that we're still talking about the moral element and not the free country/rights element that's tangential to it. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

I would fully agree with you that somebody who is unvaccinated results in a much greater risk that the person who has the one-night stands you describe. I also think this is in some respects a more direct analogy than the others we've been discussing, though there's also a very large difference between an overt act such as this compared to refusing a medical procedure. Ultimately however, as a society we accept levels of risk resulting from people's behavior in some ways, and we don't accept it in others. That often has little to do with the probability that someone will be negatively impacted and/or the severity of that impact. There's no line you can draw and say that we behave consistently, in the realm of law or the realism of social norms and morals, in deference to a principle of 'above this risk level isn't tolerated, below it is ok'.

We choose some things to care about, and others not to. Degree of risk is only one factor, how attached we are to something, willingness to give it up, tradition, etc., all of these are involved. One possible way forward as a society would be to form such a line - but that would involve a very different society than the one we have.


*Sigh* No, it really isn't. I've been abundantly clear on this repeatedly. Bothsidesism is about assigning equal blame to whatever two sides you want to imagine. I'm not doing that, I haven't, and I hope I won't. I don't think the vaccinate and don't vaccinate sides are equally valid, which is why I chose to get vaccinated (second shot next week). I think we'd be better off if more people made that choice.

What I won't do is throw people under the bus who choose differently than me. I won't demonize the Other because they've come to a different conclusion. I won't assume they are less moral than I am, or stupider, or less empathetic to their fellow man. And I will stand up for people who are treated that way, and have their motivations unjustifiably maligned, particularly when I know I do worse things every single day than people who are choosing not to get vaccinated. I'm not going to get on my moral high horse and pretend otherwhise, simply because it's fashionable to do so these days. I understand why people are angry with unvaccinated people, at least in part. But this is just a reflection of our struggles to get along with our fellow humans on other issues. We can't progress as a society until we understand and accept that many people do not view life and assess the same facts the same way we do. People are very different, and that's ultimately a good thing.

Take climate change and the Covid vaccine. Your argument is that there is no difference between dramatically changing your life in order to achieve an extremely small benefit to getting a free shot readily available all over the country that will provide meaningful protection to you and to everyone you come in contact with. The two things aren't equal.

You could not be more wrong.

100% of car accidents are preventable. 100%.

risk increases when people become irresponsible. Drinking and driving, texting, speeding, not following rules of the road, ets...

The riskier your behavior, such as not masking and not vaccinating, the more of a hazard you become.

Theoretically, but not practically. You can have all well-trained drivers completely undistracted and you'd still have accidents, because drivers are people (most of them, for now) and people make mistakes, errors in judgement, etc. under even the best of conditions. A lot fewer of them of course, but not none.


That's actually not my argument. It wouldn't take a dramatic change to make a difference vis a vis climate change first of all. What it would take is a lot of people making a change of even small scale and even infinitessimal impacts will be very significant due to the time period involved in climate change. Similarly, one unvaccinated person doesn't nearly have the impact of a lot of unvaccinated people. If you have one unvaccinated person and all the people they know are vaccinated, you don't have much of a problem. The issue is reaching critical mass. In both cases, one person isn't going to affect much in the grand scheme, but groups of people affect quite a bit.

The other part of your statement, regarding the fact that the shot is free and readily available - baked into that is the assumption that getting the shot is an insignificant thing. I think this is where a big part of the divide is. Most of our society accepts getting a shot that most medical professionals recommend as being a benign thing, but some people decidedly don't and consider it a great invasion of their privacy, medical rights, bodily autonomy, etc. When we decide we don't care about that to the point where we go beyond merely saying they are wrong to calling them immoral or stupid for coming to a different conclusion is where I get off the bus.

exactly. Mistakes, errors in judgment, etc...all of which are preventable. 100% of car accidents are preventable...

Some people also like shooting guns into the air and find restrictions to be an invasion of their rights, but I find that immoral and stupid as well.

They're shutting down elective surgeries at the three main hospital systems in the largest metro area in SC because none have enough room for COVID patients.

https://www.newsweek.com/blood-cente...ations-1620236

We were talking about segregation earlier. I guess we have to bring back blood segregation.

We're talking about one individual's contribution to harm. Someone does not need to die to be harmed, but also, one person can affect multiple others to varying degrees. They can be responsible for a ripple in infections that ultimately will damage someone, statistically speaking. This is where the risk to you and others comes in. An unvaxxed person is risking themselves, yes, but also others, because of how easily this spreads. The shot simply makes it harder for the virus to spread and less damaging if you get it. But the effects are not just limited to an individual.

The point about sweatshops, global warming ,etc., is that "it takes a village" to create the conditions that allow those things to flourish. Without the collective, those things don't exist. So it's not remotely comparable, and in fact, is almost the inverse of what we're talking about in terms of a single individual's ability to affect others simply by failing to take precautions to avoid spreading the virus to its maximum capability (unvaxxed, unmasked, etc.).

Here's the problem with that argument. The vast majority of these people are being totally inconsistent on this point. And in my experience, nearly every person who makes this argument isn't making a well-reasoned argument that has been consistent for decades, it's ALWAYS mixed in with a "Fuck you I won't do what you tell me!" anti-government, pro-right wing slant. Until the government mandates that you get the vaccine, it's not an invasion of anything. It's what a community of people who want to get their lives back to normal do for themselves, their family, their neighbors, and *gasp* people they don't know, don't like or will never meet.

These people don't bat an eyelash when they go in for a routine medical checkup and are told to get bloodwork drawn, or that they need a hep C or tetanus booster, but all of a sudden the government suggesting a vaccine for a pandemic that's been shown to be safe for 8 months is an invasion of their "bodily autonomy"? Give me an effing break! You can dress up your opposition to it in as many ways as you can Google for excuses, it just comes down to not caring about anyone but yourself.

So yeah, if someone believes the risk from the vaccine is greater than the risk of being unvaxxed and getting/spreading Covid, then they are terrible at risk assessment. And if they think their liberty is more important that other people's health, especially when they have not objected to similar intrusions on their liberty in practically every facet of their lives, then they deserve to be called out for it.

Stylized and slicker but the same


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Simple solution. No blood transfusion for you.

If we want to compare not getting vaxxed and not wearing masks to driving, the driver does not use the rules of the road. They drive drunk, they ignore stoplights, don't care about right of way, crosswalks, signaling, or driving the correct direction on a one-way street. It's "I'll drive where I like, when I like, how I like." People accept a certain level of risk when they drive, but not taking basic precautions such as following the best practices of driving raises the level of risk for everyone that you encounter.

then when they inevitably kill someone or damage their property it will be in the name of their freedom!

This is some of the dumbest shit I've ever read.

(Though insisting that not getting a shot is the same as driving is probably still the dumbest)

All of your points apply to vaccinations as well KSyrup. Without the collective, there's nobody to spready the virus to, and if the rest of the collective is vaccinated then an individual unvaccinated can't spread the virus widely. Someone doesn't have to die to be harmed by the other examples that have been brought forth also. Etc.

So what? People are inconsistent in general. I don't hold this at all to be a good thing, I think we're all better off when we examine what we believe and behave in principled ways, but there's many aspects of human life where we simply don't do that regularly.


I think you'd be surprised how many of them just plain don't do regular medical checkups etc, period, but the greater point is that when they do them, they choose whether or not to have a specific treatment and if they refuse a recommended treatment it's between them and their doctor and nobody else's business.

Just to add data to this so it doesn't degrade into anecdotal tit for tat, as of 2010 over a third of young adults (18-24) didn't visit the doctor at all in the past year. This declines over age naturally, but the overall % of the population 18+ that didn't visit the doctor at all is still 25%, and 35% of those under 18. There is a significant subset of the population that just doesn't regularly interact with the medical system.


Fully agree on this point, as I've said.


I don't think it's at all true that there are similar intrusions to their liberty in every facet of their lives. That's the missing link here.

No no no, we're talking about those PARTICIPATING. The "collective" in terms of the potential affected population always exists in either scenario. It's those who participate in the activity and who they affect that is the difference. One person can directly affect another person in the Covid scenario. But one person cannot make a material difference in global warming or keep a single child from being employed in a sweatshop. One person getting the vaccine can make a direct difference on a micro level. Yes, the more people who get vaccinated the greater the impact overall, but in your scenarios, it's ONLY that collective impact that will have any material affect. There's no micro level impact.

If I could take a shot to help both, I would. In a second. Even it had really bad side effects. Many people would. Not all. No year of my life have I been over the head harder with how many selfish shitheads there in the world. And I do try to mitigate my impact on both of those things with sacrifices that impact me about a billion times more than spending the 30 seconds to get a free shot. It's been so disheartening how little so many people are willing to do to help.

You just need to grasp that not everyone thinks like you, and that is ok. Once you reach that level of enlightenment you will find them tolerable, even may have affection for them /sarcasm

We can only someday hope to reach that level of enlightenment. This afternoon I'm going to meditate in a beautiful park to better connect with the concept of selfishness and how I can better help and sacrifice for those warriors brave enough to not be willing to lift a finger for anyone else. Lord knows it will always be our job to carry the load, as it has been since COVID started. I just need to meditate and better accept the idea that those are just our roles on this planet, and I should be thanking the selfish people for helping to keep that balance.

I just see those as not being impacted unless there is a societal critical mass involvement, versus "get the vaccine, drastically impact the chance you get Covid and spread it to the person next to you" impact.

That's not my post that you're quoting, Brian.

And that's all well and good when it's their diabetes or cholesterol, etc., that doesn't directly impact anyone else's health. But that's not the situation here. And similar to the other discussion of collective impacts, sure, there is a societal cost to all of the people who let their health go that we end up paying, but that's more financial in the end and doesn't directly impact someone else's health (although you could certainly make the case against smoking with kids...).


It's not the missing link. It's just that you disagree. And that's fine, but you're ignoring reality. No one is being forced to do anything by the government. So it's not actually an intrusion of liberty at all. It's simply choosing to put yourself before others. And that's exactly why those people are being called out for it.

I haven't gone to the doctor in a good long while. I did get the shots though when the county set up a vax site at the local community college. It had nothing to do at all with "interact[ing] with the medical system."

Good grief. Nobody has suggested they are 'brave warriors'. Nobody's even said they are above criticism - I've said I think they're wrong myself. How many times do I need to say it how many ways?

What I have also said is that it's not justified to presume their motivations and intelligence based on their opinions. To that end, here's some more inconvenient data; those who don't want the vaccine follow a U-pattern in terms of educational breakdown. It won't surprise many here that those who didn't get any education past high school are near the top in rates of refusal - but even a slightly greater percentage of PHds don't want the vaccine. It's not just the idiots who have come to that conclusion.

Thank you Kodos, I apologize for having the wrong person listed. Corrected now I hope.

You've been portraying yourself as some kind of enlightened justice warrior for standing up for the beleaguered and unfairly judged anti-vaxxers.

It's some galaxy brain stuff. That line of thinking means you can't judge the guy who downs a bottle of vodka and goes out cruising because it's fun. Or the grown man who wants to date a 12 year old because he's in love.

How dare we get on our high horse and look down on those people because it is fashionable.

I can't tell if it's just some weird-ass libertarian crap or a tribalistic defense because it's a right-winger being maligned.

It's just slick and synthetic "Both Sides" ism.... BS spins facts, conflates data, and makes insane comparisons on the guise of being intellectual, to whit, you can't know what a person's motivations are except their words (except we have video and audio evidence to the contrary) while ignoring the contrarian information we receive. SMH, it's just about deflection, distraction, and confusion under a guise. I see through it... we all do. You cannot be changed so what is the point? Literal data is shat upon, evidence ignored (video/audio of people undermining their stated curated motivations), and squirrel intentions. Ridiculous waste of time and absolutely contrived.

As an advanced degree holder working in a profession where everyone has an advanced degree, let e assure you that there are plenty of PhDs who are fucking idiots.

If Brian actually believed any of that shit he would happily bask in all the individual opinions being expressed here, rather than continually grinding them into dust. Brian's respect for opinions only extends to hypothetical people that are invented to counter whatever someone/anyone else is talking about.

That might be a separate way of looking at this. When you say moron or idiot what do you mean? The research I'm familiar with says that someone of low intelligence isn't capable of reaching that level. This is why, for example, the military has a minimum intelligence required because below a certain level you can't be reliably trained to perform even basic tasks competently.

How would you measurably define someone as an idiot? Maybe people in this thread are calling their fellow citizens idiot and moron and mean something different by it than a person of low intelligence, or define intelligence in different ways than I'm familiar with.

Not at all. I've been very clear about the distinction I'm making. It's not that opinions can't be criticized. They can and should be, and I take no umbrage with those who have criticized me - btw, it's absolutely hilarious that you take me to task when basically the whole board is aligned against me on this issue, and say that I am the one grinding the opinions of others into dust. What I object to is going beyond that to the personal attacks.


As previously mentioned, it's not possible for me to be 'defending the right' on this issue because it's not just right-wingers. Latest version of the poll previously discussed came out a couple weeks ago, and guess what? The numbers haven't moved much. Almost half of the unvaccinated are not Republicans. Over 40% of those who say they're definitely not getting the vaccine aren't. Two-thirds aren't everyone's favorite group to punch in the face, white evangelicals. Etc.

Ironically, if I were to take the approach of 'stop picking on the right' and chose this as my issue to do it with, people would be very justified in accusing me of distorting facts/data, because a large part of the people I am defending aren't on the right.

I'm far more concerned about the impact on society. When this pandemic has come and gone and whatever status quo settles in has occurred, there will still be other issues. There always are. There will always, always, always be a minority that bucks the view of the majority. How we treat that minority says more about what us as a society than the issues which cause the division.

Someone who refuses to take 5 minutes out of their day to virtually eliminate a danger of severe illness, and to protect those around them, is a moron.

Easy starting point for me. The longer we go the simpler this is.

They're in the same category as people who think they drive better drunk. Also morons. I'm not interested in validating any of their opinions or presuming that they have just the best intentions at heart and that I'm not allowed to question that. They all fucking suck.

So moron then = people who make decisions that we detest. Under that definition, I'd agree that the unvaccinated are morons. Of course, I'd have to loop a non-trivial set of people that I've had the pleasure to know, and some amount of the posters on this board, into that group as well. I'd also have to call myself one, as I've done a number of things in my life I detest. I'd be more impressed as I think about this, to be able to name people who haven't been morons at one point or another.

Not even close to my definition, which was very narrow.

I stand corrected. Would it be an accurate statement of your point then that those who aren't vaccinated and/or drive drunk are morons, and all people who don't do those things aren't?

Anyone have the number for Goalpost Movers, Inc?

SI

I now personally know 4 anti-vaccers, anti-maskers that are very sick right now with Covid. One I am really worried about is in his 70's. I talked to his son last week who has it as well, and he gave me the "we are going to be fine. It's just a flu." I talked to his wife today, and they are both bedridden and they are afraid the dad is going to have to go the hospital if he doesn't improve. *sigh*

I've seen a bunch of these memes lately (one of the Beatles + Yoko with Yoko labeled the Delta Variant), but I thought this one was clever.

my fall plans the delta variant pic.twitter.com/CnHIRoA8QV

— Loudwire (@Loudwire) August 19, 2021

This is going well.

That's about double from when I posted a few days ago. 5600 on Tuesday.

I met up with a friend yesterday who is very anti-mask in school. He and his wife go to the BOE meetings, etc...When I asked him about what is happening in TX and Fla and why he thinks it won't happen here he really didn't have an answer.

It amazes me how people can't see whats happening in other school districts and still want to send the kids unmasked.

I have a friend in Florida who says all her Trumper friends are taking Ivermectin to either fight COVID or prevent it. That's right, people are wary of sticking themselves with needles full of "experimental vaccines" but are perfectly willing to take anti-parasitic dog medicine. You really can't fix this level of stupid.

The g
Trump acolyte I posted about a couple of days ago who is leading the takeover of the SC GOP died from Covid this morning.

At least he died the way he lived, as a fucking idiot.

South Carolina Tea Party Leader Succumbs To Covid-19 - FITSNews

I'm still shocked that some of these political leaders really are unvaxxed. I just figure that they all get secretly vaxxed while still riding the political wave of saying that they are unvaxxed.

But some of them really do seem to be getting high on their own supply and actually literally refusing to get vaxxed themselves.

Amazing.

They're blaming the hospitals and encouraging their followers to avoid hospitals at all costs.

I concur.

I hope they heed that advice.

I certainly hope so. They'll only get more sick if they go to the hospital.

His Facebook page is pretty detailed about his physical decline, how it was "hell on earth", the struggle for every breath, the mental struggles, etc. He didn't hide that stuff. But even through all that, he never told anyone they should get vaccinated, never second-guessed his decision not to. He kept telling everyone that all he needed was their prayers. He also posted a photo of a nurse holding a sign that said, "573 Days Face to Face With Covid Patients While Unvaccinated, Never got Covid, I have an immune system." His followers all promised him, over and over again, that all he needed was to keep faith in the Lord and he'd be home soon. (They lied).

One sure way to stay off a ventilator is staying out of the buildings that have them.

Given their faith, "home" had a double meaning. "He's in a better place now." It's win-win!

The real way to look at that was that god ignored all their prayers and that he was not deemed worth saving.

A few people pointed out the absurdity and worshiping God but hating the rules of the universe he presumably created (science), but, those weren't received well.

The back and forth is actually fascinating. Some hilarious and deserved mockery, some trying to reason with them, but all who respond are holding the line - vaccines are bad. (Still looking for that part of Jesus' teachings).

It doesn't matter how many beloved people around them die. They will never get past these ideas.

If COVID is here to stay, if we have more variants, and if vaccines remain largely effective, we could eventually have a noticeable societal and demographic shift in this country based on the types of people who chose death and ventilators and owning the libs over a vaccine. That could be the silver lining of all this. The black death plague lead to the Renaissance after all.

The last 30 years has been an "interesting" (read: scary) time to watch the split of what I call "carnival barkers" vs "true believers" in the GOP.* The carnival barkers are the ones who know better but try to sell that populist fury and make an uneasy coalition with power being the obvious endgame while the true believers actually, you know, think society is better with these changes being made. Back in the 90s, it was clear that Newt and Lott controlled what few ideologues were actually in the party. They were able to harness the Norquist wing of "shrink the government so it can be drowned in a bathtub sort" to loot the treasury and pretended to cater to the discrimination wing of the Religious Right (it's not that they weren't discriminatory themselves - they just didn't care - whatever got them the most power). Then it was the Bush years with tax cuts for the rich (popular as it always nets you the most power), handouts to military contractors, and discrimination towards brown folks. Again, power was the sole end. Even though it ultimately failed, they even tried immigration reform because they didn't want a voting block that swung 90% against them for generations. But, then, around 2010, the Tea Party** started popping up and some of those folks actually believed the literature - a large portion actually believed the fairy tales instead of just selling them to the masses. You saw how Boehner struggled to keep them in line. Trumpism amplified it and gave that true believer group a form to coalesce around and now he's created zealots of his own. I couldn't tell you what percentage are "true believers" at this point, but it doesn't take half to completely overwhelm a party because they have the conviction of their beliefs and the carnival barkers will just tap out.

*Yes, the left has a little of this, too, but there have never been more than about a half dozen "true believers". Like right now - at the "peak" of their powers, it's Bernie, "the squad", Cori Bush, and who else? Meanwhile, the Dems kneecap candidates from their left flank most every chance they get. That's why this both-sides-ism about the "radicals taking over both parties" has always been cheap, partisan crap every time it's leveled. It's also why I look very askance at anyone leveling that claim as the analysis is biased and/or downright stupid and that may extend to those making that claim. Never mind that the "far left" in the US looks like the center in Europe, ostensibly peer countries, while the "far right" in the US looks like the center of many regressive regimes we claim to oppose so this argument falls apart on that level, too.

**I always had a hard time figuring out Paul Ryan. I'm pretty sure he was a carnival barker but if you told me that P90X meathead slept with a copy of Atlas Shrugged on his nightstand where the Bible is supposed to be, I wouldn't be shocked.


SI

A co-worker posted this in our company all-hands today after it was announced that we would require proof of vaccine for employees and guests to enter one of our buildings:


Got to love facebook doctors...

So how resistant to covid are people who have gotten covid once already? How do they compare to people who have gotten vaccinated? Have there been any studies?

I have a general stance to not get sucked into the typical ad nauseam deflections. I've been there and done that since 2016.

It's easy enough to google and find any number of articles that speak on this topic. However, the response will be that it proves nothing followed up by more questions on needing to prove that those scientists are in fact correct.

Not sure if this answers the question. I think it's basically vaccination does protect more. But I do think there is "significant" protection from those that recovered after catching Covid.

I want to know a breakdown between infected, had to go to hospital/ventilator, died.

https://www.usnews.com/news/health-n...from-infection

I saw an article that summarized the findings so far as being people who had Covid previously probably had a decent amount of protection up to 8 months out but after that, they really didn't have much more protection than an unvaxxed person. I think it was in relation to Rand Paul's comments about having Covid and not needing the vaccine, although he got it early on so he was well over a year out from having it.

There was a study that came out today that 94% of adults in England had some kind of antibodies, either through previous infection or the vaccine or both. Makes you wonder if herd immunity is even a thing on the table anymore.

I have seen several doctors say that it's not, based on the experience of some smaller countries who have had major success with vaccine adoption and still are not able to prevent a ramp up of cases this time around.

This all becomes more of an issue once the vaccine is approved for all age groups and we get our outreach fully ramped up. Right now, the unvaxxed are a mix of can't get it (i.e. under 12), won't get it (MAGA), and haven't yet gotten it (people who want it but have logistical hurdles toward getting it).

It's about keeping waves small and mostly relegated to non-serious illness. Especially this upcoming winter you'll have very different outlooks based on vaccine coverage (+ to some degrees prior infection). At some point cases will cease being a measure. Countries like Iceland (whose cases are closer to the no of infected than anywhere else i would say, they test loads) or even many mainland european ones will be fine this winter already i think. (Most non-german speaking western/northern/southern countries will have over 90% of adults vaccinated by fall), as will Northeastern states in the US i would wager.

Maybe very flat ones in summer from here on out (well, especially after all kids and vaxx refusers had it ...). Delta simply fucked any chance at not having flu-like waves during winter. How high they get will depend on how fast the virus adapts (still looking good, actually. Still not nearly a Influenza situation) and how good the vaccines get and can be adjusted (again, better than anything ever worked against Influenza and easier to adjust what with it not needing to be cultivated). And of course how high uptake of refresher shots are among people 60+ especially year on year or maybe every 2,3 years could be enough.

On the other hand, try to imagine what Florida would look like without their actually decent vaccine uptake. Over half of ICU patients have Covid. 16700 in hospital. Would not want to have any serious health issue there as it is, but without vaccines this would look South America bad, complete with people not even getting treatment.

So we basically need enough of the unvaccinated people to die so the overall impact of COVID on society can be mitigated.

Well, get infected once, at the least. It's just not going to be magic beans eternal protection either and as it varies person to person it would still be best if many get rrefresher shots, especially since eventually even fewer will actually know if they had Covid or sth else.*
Which again will be easier to juggle with global vaccination efforts soonish i hope with a couple more candidates and manufacturers close to being ready, like Novavax and even another mRNA with Curevac who have promising data on a new delta-adjusted vaccine.

* Which is another elephant in the room come winter. Remember that mitigation measures of Covid utterly stifled a load of other less transmissible viruses and bacteria across the globe. Which is why many countries actually had less patients with "any respiratory/infectious disease" (but since Covid is such a bitch to treat still had issues more pronounced than normal years).

If enough of those start spreading again you automatically have less capacity to work with. Enter a big Covid wave on top ... There's a bunch of complicated and frankly not well understood interplay between different bugs as well (get 1 and you are semi-protected from others for a certain amount of time due to immune cells being on alert), so no one really knows how it will shake out over time. Maybe it'll be similar overall levels as pre-pamdemic, only with Covid new to the Mix taking shares out of others. Or maybe it'll mean that long term a certain amount more people will get seriously ill and die every winter than did pre-pamdemic. But maybe we'll also get lucky and it will be less as people are a bit more aware in how to navigate things (even some decent percentage staying home more when slightly sick or masking at doctors offices will work wonders on bugs that don't spread as well as SarsCov2 does)

I will seriously consider masking during the winter even if we somehow accidentally manage to get Covid under control again before then. Not a single person I know had so much as a cold this past year, not to mention I actually didn't mind wearing a mask in the cold.

Same for me in public transport or waiting rooms of various sorts at least, some stores et al likely as well. At work we'll be splitting work from home and office anyway, so "stay the *** home when you think you might become sick" is fully understood to be the norm.

Obviously there's more situations it would help, but at some point you gotta find a medium. But yeah, no reason shit like commuting to work or sitting around waiting somewhere should not be done. Doctors offices should be mandators as well, looking back just strikes me as bloody stupid this wasn't a thing before. I mean, come in with a bruised ankle, go home with a bug. Awesome ...

So I guess those of us who can’t get the vaccine need to die off too in your scenario. Sweet.

Because of the anti-vaxxers, yup. They're certainly OK with taking innocent people, including children, with them.

Awesome. I look forward to dying so you can continue to feel morally superior then.

COVID-19 - Wuhan Coronavirus (a non-political thread, see pg. 36 #1778)
 

Fwiw I don’t want anyone dying


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You don't need to die for me to feel morally superior to anti-vaxxers. They're the ones trying to kill you.

It's almost as if people make a distinction between those who /can't/ do something and those who /won't/ do something.

As an aside: I've also noticed how much handwringing and "won't someone think of the children" that folks make about people they couldn't give two whits about they day before, so long as it helps them make their point.

SI

Part of the reason I'm getting more and more grumpy about this is I feel like I'm being thrown back into last year in terms of isolation and life disruption. Those aren't as big a deals as the kids on ventilators and innocent people dying. But just in the last few weeks, a friend who was going to fly back to visit cancelled, the senior dog rescue we work with cancelled their annual get-together, a group camping trip that would have involved drinking lots of beer on a river with people I haven't seen in a long time got cancelled, and though it's not definite, I'm pretty sure a planned Vegas trip with the friends I used to go there with every year isn't happening either. Last year there was a least kind of novelty to historically-new circumstances - contrived yard meet-ups and awkward alcohol-fueled zoom trivia nights. Now, I feel like we're just kind of indefinitely stuck in this morass. And we don't have the hope of the vaccine to look forward to anymore.

Yeah, I am along the same lines. I certainly hadn't convinced myself covid was over, but I am realizing that I had subconsciously convinced myself that we were perpetually a couple weeks or months away from being over & all of this new wave in the last week or two has crushed that wishful thinking with reality.

Yup. The tragedy is, of course, the sickness and death.

But there is still major life disruption for everyone.

Maybe this gets misunderstood a bit b/c liberals are for safety measures which can make it seem like we are pro-lockdown. But We hate the life disruption caused by the virus and want it to go away. That's why we support anti-virus measures.

But it cannot go away b/c 40% of the country wants to own the libs, so they are keeping the virus around indefinitely.

So, yeah. A large group of people successfully owned me. They intentionally tried to make my life a lot worse, and they succeeded. They live in my head rent free. They are making me cry liberal tears (when I think of my unvaxxed kid starting school Monday or when I see kids on ventilators).

They have done what they set out to do.

And I feel that it is reasonable for me to be furious beyond the point of reason with people who tried to hurt me and succeeded.

This is what I've read as well, based not just on this but on what has happened with breakthrough infections etc. That's why I think it'll get somewhat better but this is going to be around, a la influenza, indefinitely pretty much. I don't think there's a high likelihood it days out with the amount of global spread, mutation, etc. Even if we got to higher levels of vaccination here, there's no way that happens on the global scale.

I know the country isn't there yet, but we are eventually going to need to have the conversation unless something really surprising happens about what levels of COVID we are willing to accept permanently.

Once vaccines and boosters are available to everyone who wants them.

Still optimistic we'll get to an acceptable "new normal" next summer for the western world and most of the world.

Covid will continue to exist. We'll get annual boosters. Covid deaths will still exceed regular influenza. New and better therapeutics will be available. Basically more infections than we would like but people (and rest of world) will make the calculus the reduced mortality % is acceptable level for a new normal and move on.

I can't believe the distrust in science and government is so strong that instead of a vaccine, people are taking a parasiticide given to animals. It's mind-boggling. It's stuff like this that makes it hard to believe we'll ever recover from the tailspin we're in. It can't get any better and can only get worse, right?

My wife spoke to a patient today that wanted a test because, "I got my shots, but my daughter wants me to take the medicine Trump took".

I don't even know what the hell that means.

I can't believe some of the efforts my scientifically minded friends are going through to try and prove that the virus is 'blown way out of proportion' and 'not a big deal' and 'meant to keep us fearful'.

2nd most official COVID cases in a day in SC since they started counting.

I'm sure this is totally normal. Nothing to see here. Where should we all mail our apologies to DeSantis?

The city of Orlando is asking residents to reduce water consumption IMMEDIATELY. Liquid oxygen used to treat water is being diverted to the hospitals to treat COVID patients. They believe if water consumption doesn’t change, water treatment could hit a critical point in a week.

— Dave Puglisi (@DavePuglisiTV) August 20, 2021

Yeah, this little sliver of people that believe in science-adjacent conspiracies but not actual science are thee most baffling. "I don't trust the doctors, scientists and corporations that are making medicine FOR PEOPLE, but surely the ones working on animals are legit". Doctors or scientists actually working in directly related fields can't be trusted or believed, but lunatics with vaguely scientific/medical credentials in unrelated disciplines are assumed to be 100% correct, for exactly the same reasons.

How unfair. He's set things up so you can go to a library and die in peace and quiet.

So have we reached the nadir of the Abyss?

The language of “we all need to pull together on this” is so weird. The whole point, I thought, of anti-vax, anti-mask policies was to eliminate the idea that we live in shared community. But if some people are going to make sacrifices for the benefit of others anyway, then why not just have people vax & mask in the first place?

Some good news, the U.S. reported 1 million reported vaccinations yesterday for he first time in about 2 months. They had gotten down to a low of about 325k vaccinations in a day a few weeks ago. Some of that is probably people getting third doses, but there are also a lot of people responding to the news and getting vaccinated.

Mississippi made a press release warning people saying that 70% of the calls posion control is getting is from people ingesting the animal de-wormer. My wife says they have been notified to warn people that it causes blindness. But you know, both sides and stuff. I am sure they are just misunderstood.

Sent from my SM-G996U using Tapatalk

Covid approves of the Green Day show I am currently at.

I'm late to the party in response, but a fairly well connected physician shared that unlike other diseases, such as measles, having COVID doesn't really give you much protection from catching it again. You're less likely to catch it again for a month or so, but that is it.

I say well connected because he also talked about boosters for immune compromised in the near future and likely everyone by the end of the year a week or so ahead of the media.

Fox News is promoting the de-wormer tonight as a therapeutic.

These are just great side by side

Biologist to Tucker: If Ivermectin proven effective against COVID, it moots vaccine push | Fox News

https://abcnews.go.com/US/mississipp...ry?id=79569021

I just can't understand a person that thinks the vaccine is unsafe, but horse dewormer is safe.

You just have to make better choices.

Article on this on the BBC website this morning

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-58270098

If I was single, no one dependent on me etc. I wouldn't mind being "trapped" in covid free Tonga for 18 months. All I need is basic board & lodging though, internet access etc.

But I don't understand why she hasn't be repatriated back to UK by now (I can understand China not wanting her back yet). It sounds like she isn't trying hard enough.

Nice problem to have being "stuck".

https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/b...nga/index.html