The Money Mustache Community
Other => Off Topic => Topic started by: Financial.Velociraptor on July 19, 2021, 02:22:39 PM
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Google is failing me. How much will non-vaxxing by GOP reduce the population of voting age republicans?
I'm curious if the anti-vaxx propaganda in right wing media will be material to the size of red voting population in 2022. Best I can find is 1) Dems 2-3 times more likely to get vaxxed 2) 99.5% of people who have died of Covid recently were unvaxxed. Grim, but will this flip any districts?
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I don't know, but it would be ironic. All it would really take would be another variant that was decently contagious but more deadly. The medical profession is already exhausted and demoralized from what I can tell, which means they're less effective. Especially if their patients are spewing abuse at them. Doctors and nurses are human and I wouldn't be surprised if the quality of care was decreased (even unintentionally). Nor would I blame them.
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I don't know, but it would be ironic. All it would really take would be another variant that was decently contagious but more deadly. The medical profession is already exhausted and demoralized from what I can tell, which means they're less effective. Especially if their patients are spewing abuse at them. Doctors and nurses are human and I wouldn't be surprised if the quality of care was decreased (even unintentionally). Nor would I blame them.
I expect that many medical professionals will exit the field over the next year, as clearly they are not supported by many in the populations they serve. The rates of burnout are going to be astronomical.
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56% of Republican voters are 50 and over (https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/10/26/what-the-2020-electorate-looks-like-by-party-race-and-ethnicity-age-education-and-religion/ (https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/10/26/what-the-2020-electorate-looks-like-by-party-race-and-ethnicity-age-education-and-religion/)). 95% of deaths happen in those over 50, so we can pretty much ignore the under 40s (https://www.statista.com/statistics/1191568/reported-deaths-from-covid-by-age-us/ (https://www.statista.com/statistics/1191568/reported-deaths-from-covid-by-age-us/)). 30% of Republicans say that they won't get vaccinated (https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/558225-nearly-30-percent-of-republicans-say-they-wont-get-vaccinated-poll (https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/558225-nearly-30-percent-of-republicans-say-they-wont-get-vaccinated-poll))
So if we assume that the 30% is evenly distributed (it's probably not, likely older Republicans will get vaccinated at higher rates than younger) then roughly 17% of Republican voters are in the higher risk category.
Covid case fatality for over 50 year olds averages between 4.7 and 11.3% (https://www.statista.com/statistics/1105431/covid-case-fatality-rates-us-by-age-group/ (https://www.statista.com/statistics/1105431/covid-case-fatality-rates-us-by-age-group/)).
Of course, numbers are subject to change as newer mutations become prevalent but a reasonable ballpark estimate would be maybe between 0.8 - 1.9% of Republican voters die of stupidity induced covid. Given that modern day Republican control depends on gerrymandering, unbalanced senate representation, and a stacked supreme court - the dead seem quite unlikely to impact the party in any appreciable way.
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Cool now do the same for blacks and latinos.
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Cool now do the same for blacks and latinos.
I've read a lot about lagging vaccine rates in these communities, but can't find percentage stats for black/latino people who outright refuse to ever be vaccinated. This number is easily available for Republicans. If you can find me a number, I'll calculate it out for you though.
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Cool now do the same for blacks and latinos.
I've read a lot about lagging vaccine rates in these communities, but can't find percentage stats for black/latino people who outright refuse to ever be vaccinated. This number is easily available for Republicans. If you can find me a number, I'll calculate it out for you though.
Yeah I don't expect an exact number.
My point is that you guys shouldn't get too giddy about getting an electoral advantage out of this, because the picture is much, much more complicated.
1) groups don't die at the same rates
2) groups don't change their minds at the same rates
3) groups don't cluster in electoral districts at the same rates
4) groups don't vote at the same rates
5) groups don't lean to one side or another at the same rates
6) groups don't have the same propagation rates
...
and a million other factors
Which way will the balance tilt when the dust settles? I have no idea.
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I think that I can't find a race number because vaccine hesitancy by race doesn't appear to be as much of a concern as was initially thought it was going to be:
(https://www.kff.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/9627-Figure-1-7.08.21.png?resize=800,450)
https://www.kff.org/coronavirus-covid-19/issue-brief/latest-data-on-covid-19-vaccinations-race-ethnicity/ (https://www.kff.org/coronavirus-covid-19/issue-brief/latest-data-on-covid-19-vaccinations-race-ethnicity/)
To my knowledge, there's only one significant group of people who have stood up and proudly proclaimed that they don't want to be vaccinated - Republicans.
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My point is that you guys shouldn't get too giddy about getting an electoral advantage out of this,
It's interesting you mention getting "too giddy" about an electoral advantage while choosing to reply to the very person who stated "the dead seem quite unlikely to impact the party in any appreciable way". Which, it seems to me, is not exactly a very "giddy" expression and is specifically stating there is unlikely to be any advantage.
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I think that I can't find a race number because vaccine hesitancy by race doesn't appear to be as much of a concern as was initially thought it was going to be:
(https://www.kff.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/9627-Figure-1-7.08.21.png?resize=800,450)
https://www.kff.org/coronavirus-covid-19/issue-brief/latest-data-on-covid-19-vaccinations-race-ethnicity/ (https://www.kff.org/coronavirus-covid-19/issue-brief/latest-data-on-covid-19-vaccinations-race-ethnicity/)
To my knowledge, there's only one significant group of people who have stood up and proudly proclaimed that they don't want to be vaccinated - Republicans.
I think that the point is that the majority of COVID deaths in the US were pre-vaccine, and race has proven to be a massive factor in survival rate from COVID... at least it has shown to be a major factor in my community that I assume applies to the general population as well. So regardless of what vaccination rates of different race is now, we lost a disproportionate number of lives of POC pre vaccine.
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To my knowledge, there's only one significant group of people who have stood up and proudly proclaimed that they don't want to be vaccinated - Republicans.
Might I remind you of who was one of the most vocal vaccine skeptic in our community a few months ago?
https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/off-topic/who-exactly-are-the-covid-vaccine-skeptics/50/
Control + F for "Guitar"
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I think about this a fair bit. At the national level it hardly seems like it will help flip red states to blue for the senate or the electoral college.
At the state level I was a little surprised to see blue state governors (OR and WA specifically) trying desperately to save the the lives of people that wouldn't vote for them. I mean, good on them for being human about it, I guess. But I was still surprised.
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To my knowledge, there's only one significant group of people who have stood up and proudly proclaimed that they don't want to be vaccinated - Republicans.
Might I remind you of who was one of the most vocal vaccine skeptic in our community a few months ago?
https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/off-topic/who-exactly-are-the-covid-vaccine-skeptics/50/
Control + F for "Guitar"
Canadians don't get to vote in US elections anyways :p
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I've been in a couple of red states on my vacation and I noticed a lot more people wearing masks in the store than in my blue state with a high vaccination rate. I'm guessing Covid is just more prevalent here???
I know some people in my town who are only getting the vaccine because they need it to go to Europe/Canada/wherever. My mom lives in a republican area and some of her coworkers at the hospital won't get the vaccine, after seeing people gasping all winter. I don't get it.
I feel really bad for people who can't get the vaccine/have suppressed immune systems, etc.
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What botthers me more is the resources the anti-vaxxers are sucking up when they inevitably get sick. Double lung transplant for a 24 year old who wouldn't have need it if he'd just gotten the damn shots? How many others were on the list, in need of transplants, through no fault of their own?
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Cool now do the same for blacks and latinos.
I'm confused.
Do what for blacks and Latinos???
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Cool now do the same for blacks and latinos.
I'm confused.
Do what for blacks and Latinos???
Yeah, do what for us?
This Mexican-American got her vaccine doses ASAP. Ditto for everyone in the family except a couple of Gen Z cousins who think they're untouchable.
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To my knowledge, there's only one significant group of people who have stood up and proudly proclaimed that they don't want to be vaccinated - Republicans.
Might I remind you of who was one of the most vocal vaccine skeptic in our community a few months ago?
https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/off-topic/who-exactly-are-the-covid-vaccine-skeptics/50/
Control + F for "Guitar"
I haven't reread that thread (and I think I only read the first couple pages to begin with), but I see a difference between being a vaccine skeptic in December 2020 vs. July 2021. There were trials indicating the vaccine was safe and effective last December, but there wasn't the overwhelming amount of evidence there is now.
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Cool now do the same for blacks and latinos.
I'm confused.
Do what for blacks and Latinos???
Yeah, do what for us?
This seems like an enormous generalization. While anecdotal, the Latinix people I know were vaccinated as soon as possible.
It does appear a lot of white MAGA type of people in red states are shying away from the vaccine for purely political reasons and are sucking up expensive ventilator space like there's no tomorrow.
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Literally everyone* I know is vaccinated. It's not a very random sample.
* - except for children under 12
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Cool now do the same for blacks and latinos.
I'm confused.
Do what for blacks and Latinos???
Yeah, do what for us?
This seems like an enormous generalization. While anecdotal, the Latinix people I know were vaccinated as soon as possible.
It does appear a lot of white MAGA type of people in red states are shying away from the vaccine for purely political reasons and are sucking up expensive ventilator space like there's no tomorrow.
I still can't make sense of the actual statement of "Cool now do the same for the blacks and Latinos", do the same what?
I can't make sense of it and I'm surprised I was the first person who needed clarification. I've read the preceding posts a few times and cannot make sense of it.
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I read it to mean "do the same mathematical analysis".
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It does appear a lot of white MAGA type of people in red states are shying away from the vaccine for purely political reasons and are sucking up expensive ventilator space like there's no tomorrow.
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It's more than that. I am an ICU nurse in a rural republican county. We have seen an uptick in covid and I was getting pretty pissed at people who weren't getting their shots. I couldn't understand how the party of personal responsibility was refusing to get their shots. Plus I'm just plain TIRED.
Then it dawned on me- the two people I took care of yesterday with covid are very nice people but I would say they aren't the most intelligent. The first didn't get her vaccine because she was homebound and didn't think she needed to. Her family brought it home to her. And the second didn't see the need to get one. Covid isn't running rampant out here like it is in the cities. He didn't think it even exists. As an aside he didn't have Fox news on once in the 3 days I took care of him. :) The other segment of our population not getting vaccinated is the Amish because "it's Gods will" if I get it.
So I wonder if it's political or just the way people think. How educated they are. Where they live. I wonder if people in more populous blue states would be running out to get vaccinations if their covid numbers were low. Would they risk the side effects?
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To my knowledge, there's only one significant group of people who have stood up and proudly proclaimed that they don't want to be vaccinated - Republicans.
Might I remind you of who was one of the most vocal vaccine skeptic in our community a few months ago?
https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/off-topic/who-exactly-are-the-covid-vaccine-skeptics/50/
Control + F for "Guitar"
I did (and still do) have some concerns about the way the vaccines were rushed through testing without the usual longevity data being available. There are still unknowns regarding these vaccines in the long term. These fears aren't unfounded.
At no point did I indicate that I was unwilling to get vaccinated. When the first vaccine became available to me, I got it. This happened to be the Astra Zeneca vaccine. The AZ vaccine had a problem that wasn't found in early testing. I am under 50 - and the same public health experts are no longer recommending the vaccine to people in my age group due to safety concerns related to blood clots. Not enough testing had been done to catch this problem before distributing the vaccine.
Does that really make me a vaccine skeptic?
Do you see no difference between that and outright rejecting to be vaccinated because of political affiliation and vague fears of microchips/mind control?
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To my knowledge, there's only one significant group of people who have stood up and proudly proclaimed that they don't want to be vaccinated - Republicans.
Might I remind you of who was one of the most vocal vaccine skeptic in our community a few months ago?
https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/off-topic/who-exactly-are-the-covid-vaccine-skeptics/50/
Control + F for "Guitar"
I did (and still do) have some concerns about the way the vaccines were rushed through testing without the usual longevity data being available. There are still unknowns regarding these vaccines in the long term. These fears aren't unfounded.
At no point did I indicate that I was unwilling to get vaccinated. When the first vaccine became available to me, I got it. This happened to be the Astra Zeneca vaccine. The AZ vaccine had a problem that wasn't found in early testing. I am under 50 - and the same public health experts are no longer recommending the vaccine to people in my age group due to safety concerns related to blood clots. Not enough testing had been done to catch this problem before distributing the vaccine.
Does that really make me a vaccine skeptic?
Do you see no difference between that and outright rejecting to be vaccinated because of political affiliation and vague fears of microchips/mind control?
Yes, I felt that through the months leading up to vaccine rollout you were spreading uncertainty about the vaccine and a very vocal COVID vaccine skeptic on the forum due to the technology and the speed of approval. My point though is that now you are criticizing people who share concerns about the vaccine for legitimate reasons just like you felt your reasoning was legitimate months ago... throwing in the "microchip" part is proof that you are trying to make "REPUBLICANS" look silly when in reality the real reason many of them are hesitant to be vaccinated is for your exact reasons.
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Then it dawned on me- the two people I took care of yesterday with covid are very nice people but I would say they aren't the most intelligent. The first didn't get her vaccine because she was homebound and didn't think she needed to. Her family brought it home to her. And the second didn't see the need to get one. Covid isn't running rampant out here like it is in the cities. He didn't think it even exists. As an aside he didn't have Fox news on once in the 3 days I took care of him. :) The other segment of our population not getting vaccinated is the Amish because "it's Gods will" if I get it.
So I wonder if it's political or just the way people think. How educated they are. Where they live. I wonder if people in more populous blue states would be running out to get vaccinations if their covid numbers were low. Would they risk the side effects?
There is the religion factor as well. People here deciding not to get the vaccine because they have blended their politics and their religion. Some preachers here are actively discouraging people from getting the vaccine. And the preacher has more credibility than Biden by a country mile. I know one preacher who won't get it because his preacher association members won't get it but tells me that everyone ought to get the vaccine - but he won't. No logic there.
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To my knowledge, there's only one significant group of people who have stood up and proudly proclaimed that they don't want to be vaccinated - Republicans.
Might I remind you of who was one of the most vocal vaccine skeptic in our community a few months ago?
https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/off-topic/who-exactly-are-the-covid-vaccine-skeptics/50/
Control + F for "Guitar"
I did (and still do) have some concerns about the way the vaccines were rushed through testing without the usual longevity data being available. There are still unknowns regarding these vaccines in the long term. These fears aren't unfounded.
At no point did I indicate that I was unwilling to get vaccinated. When the first vaccine became available to me, I got it. This happened to be the Astra Zeneca vaccine. The AZ vaccine had a problem that wasn't found in early testing. I am under 50 - and the same public health experts are no longer recommending the vaccine to people in my age group due to safety concerns related to blood clots. Not enough testing had been done to catch this problem before distributing the vaccine.
Does that really make me a vaccine skeptic?
Do you see no difference between that and outright rejecting to be vaccinated because of political affiliation and vague fears of microchips/mind control?
Yes, I felt that through the months leading up to vaccine rollout you were spreading uncertainty about the vaccine and a very vocal COVID vaccine skeptic on the forum due to the technology and the speed of approval. My point though is that now you are criticizing people who share concerns about the vaccine for legitimate reasons just like you felt your reasoning was legitimate months ago... throwing in the "microchip" part is proof that you are trying to make "REPUBLICANS" look silly when in reality the real reason many of them are hesitant to be vaccinated is for your exact reasons.
That wasn't made up. I put in 'microchips' because (according to surveys - https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/310951-republicans-bill-gates-coronavirus-vaccines-microchips (https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/310951-republicans-bill-gates-coronavirus-vaccines-microchips)) 44% of Republicans believe that Bill Gates is using the covid vaccine to implant microchips into their bodies.
I also wasn't trying to 'spread uncertainty' about the vaccines in my posts. Your comments have made me go back through them to see what you were talking about. They seem to be pretty fair, and I was clear that my concern was the reduced testing time the vaccines had received . . . and that I'd feel much more comfortable after several more months of testing. I didn't tell people not to take the vaccine, or indicate that I wouldn't take it.
This has been developed and gone through trials and approval faster than any vaccine before in history. You are claiming that mRNA vaccines are safe in humans based upon theory. Before this month, no mRNA vaccine has ever been approved for use in humans.
My concern is related to the above facts. I work in QA. "Unprecedented speed", "never before tested", "reduced testing rigor", "extremely high development pressure", and "should be fine in theory" all raise warning flags for me.
Warning flags don't mean that a problem exists! It doesn't mean that the vaccine won't work! It doesn't mean that people shouldn't take the vaccine! But it makes me sincerely hope that nothing goes wrong with this.
My argument wasn't that mRNA vaccines are unsafe . . . it was that we don't really know much about their safety to be rolling this out to every human being on Earth. We think that they're safe, and all signs seem to be good so far.
I believe that everyone involved in developing this vaccine is doing everything they can to ensure it's safety. Risk for this vaccine is likely to be higher than one developed using the normal processes and under normal conditions. The significance of this added risk is not currently known - and it very well could amount nothing at all. That is my fervent hope.
And we had a discussion specifically about this earlier, where I mentioned that I'd feel a lot better after more testing time had taken place and safety was a bit better assured:
This is still the "too fast" argument though. You feel comfortable doing it after all those people, but let's say you are up for your chance next fall. That's only 18 months since COVID hit... still the fastest developed vaccine ever! Aren't we still waiting to see if there's "long term" side affects? I'm playing devil's advocate here, but I just don't see why "it was developed too fast" is a good argument if 10 months = not OK, but 18 months with lots already having taken it = SAFE .
There's no switch that turns on and says 'safe'.
The more people who are given the vaccine, the greater confidence we have that there are no weird edge/corner cases that were missed in development and early testing. The longer people have had the vaccine with no problems, the greater confidence we have that there are no long term effects.
18 months and many samples given out is much better than 10 on both fronts. Not perfect, but you're significantly increasing the test population and almost doubling the time we have to see weird problems appear.
Here we are, 18 months after the AZ vaccine was being given out to everyone . . . and we know that it causes fatal blood clots in younger people and shouldn't be given to people under 50. Something we didn't know before because of a lack of testing. Which is pretty much what I figured was likely to happen.
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I don't know, but it would be ironic. All it would really take would be another variant that was decently contagious but more deadly. The medical profession is already exhausted and demoralized from what I can tell, which means they're less effective. Especially if their patients are spewing abuse at them. Doctors and nurses are human and I wouldn't be surprised if the quality of care was decreased (even unintentionally). Nor would I blame them.
I expect that many medical professionals will exit the field over the next year, as clearly they are not supported by many in the populations they serve. The rates of burnout are going to be astronomical.
It's already starting. My primary care doctor has left the medical profession entirely, and there was another doctor in the same office who also left. They're also closing the office that is 10 minutes from me, my guess is they don't have the staffing to keep it open. The next closest office is about 20 minutes away without traffic.
The consequence is going to be a reduction in quality of care. Longer waits for appointments, fragmentation of care as people have to find new doctors, areas already dealing with a shortage of medical personnel are going to see that problem worsened, areas which were on the cusp of shortage problems are probably going to tip over. This will kill people. Maybe it won't be covid that kills them, but if someone isn't getting the preventative or the chronic condition care needed, that will cause deaths. And it will likely be the poor, the minorities, or the rural who take the hardest hits. Add in the fact that immigrants are likely to be used to try to fill the gaps, and you know there's a lot of people who will object to seeing a "brown doctor".
It won't be dramatic. I suspect it will add up over time.
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I read it to mean "do the same mathematical analysis".
Yes, I thought the meaning was pretty obvious from context to mean exactly this.
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Add in the fact that immigrants are likely to be used to try to fill the gaps, and you know there's a lot of people who will object to seeing a "brown doctor".
Half of my doctors are already brown, doesn't bother me. A lot of medical professionals are on the TN (https://www.immi-usa.com/tn-visa/) visa list. That means that the USA and Canada can easily recruit doctors, nurses, pharmacists, etc from Mexico. But what does that do to Mexico? Well, I'm not sure how easy it actually is when you have to get re-licenced in the USA.
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Google is failing me. How much will non-vaxxing by GOP reduce the population of voting age republicans?
I'm curious if the anti-vaxx propaganda in right wing media will be material to the size of red voting population in 2022. Best I can find is 1) Dems 2-3 times more likely to get vaxxed 2) 99.5% of people who have died of Covid recently were unvaxxed. Grim, but will this flip any districts?
It'll be offset, at least in your state, by all the R voters your own state reps are creating with their hilarious failure of a political stunt in DC.
Also in general, contemplating the deaths of republicans? Real classy. Luckily for them, I expect you'll be disappointed with the result. I suppose we'll see next year!
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Google is failing me. How much will non-vaxxing by GOP reduce the population of voting age republicans?
I'm curious if the anti-vaxx propaganda in right wing media will be material to the size of red voting population in 2022. Best I can find is 1) Dems 2-3 times more likely to get vaxxed 2) 99.5% of people who have died of Covid recently were unvaxxed. Grim, but will this flip any districts?
It'll be offset, at least in your state, by all the R voters your own state reps are creating with their hilarious failure of a political stunt in DC.
Will it? It is modeled after the Republican senators in Oregon (https://www.opb.org/article/2021/07/14/oregon-dems-and-republicans-see-texas-statehouse-walkout-quite-differently/). I don't remember that stunt creating a bunch of Democratic voters. With that said, all of it appears to be the further erosion of political norms, which doesn't bode well long term.
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So this seems relevant to this thread:
(https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=https%3A%2F%2Farc-anglerfish-washpost-prod-washpost%252Es3%252Eamazonaws%252Ecom%2Fpublic%2FV3QFILPG6FFL3ANJDPE3LESOGM%252Ejpg&w=992&h=558)
In at least some (largely Republican) areas, the daily infection rate is the highest it has been among the unvaccinated segment of the population, and it's on a scary-steep trajectory. ~250 new covid deaths each day is very low compared to the peak of the pandemic, but they are almost exclusively among the unvaccinated, and at this point (at least in the US) almost entirely preventable. I wouldn't be surprised (though very saddened) to see another 10k unvaccinated die before summer ends.
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Of course, numbers are subject to change as newer mutations become prevalent but a reasonable ballpark estimate would be maybe between 0.8 - 1.9% of Republican voters die of stupidity induced covid. Given that modern day Republican control depends on gerrymandering, unbalanced senate representation, and a stacked supreme court - the dead seem quite unlikely to impact the party in any appreciable way.
Gerrymandering is actually an interesting thing to look at here. The way you gain an advantage through gerrymandering is to create as many districts as possible where your party has a distinct (but small) advantage, while packing as many of the opposing party's voters as you can into districts that will then vote overwhelmingly for that party. The risk of doing this is that if a noticeable fraction of your party changes affiliation (or dies) between censuses then your safe 5-10 point leads can turn into very competitive districts indeed.
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Cool now do the same for blacks and latinos.
I'm confused.
Do what for blacks and Latinos???
Yeah, do what for us?
This seems like an enormous generalization. While anecdotal, the Latinix people I know were vaccinated as soon as possible.
It does appear a lot of white MAGA type of people in red states are shying away from the vaccine for purely political reasons and are sucking up expensive ventilator space like there's no tomorrow.
I still can't make sense of the actual statement of "Cool now do the same for the blacks and Latinos", do the same what?
I can't make sense of it and I'm surprised I was the first person who needed clarification. I've read the preceding posts a few times and cannot make sense of it.
I think the overall point was that both Blacks and Latinos have already died at higher rates throughout this pandemic, and are getting vaccinated at lower rates than other groups. And both groups tend to vote Democrat.
https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#vaccination-demographic
So while there may be a portion of Repubs that die due to vaccine hesitancy, Democrats have also (and will continue to) seen losses in their typical voters. Looking for political "winners" or "losers" seems pretty difficult and kind of pointless to me.
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I think the overall point was that both Blacks and Latinos have already died at higher rates throughout this pandemic, and are getting vaccinated at lower rates than other groups. And both groups tend to vote Democrat*.
https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#vaccination-demographic
The bolded part of your statement isn't true, or at least isn't true any more (though it once was). The data on the page you link to shows that a greater percentage of hispanic people in the US have now had both doses and about equal percentage of black people when compared to whites.
* There isn't a 'Democrat party' in the US, only a Democratic one. People don't vote 'Democrat', they vote 'Democratic'. 'Democrat party' has been used in place of the correct term as a mildly derogatory epithet since the 70s.
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I think the overall point was that both Blacks and Latinos have already died at higher rates throughout this pandemic, and are getting vaccinated at lower rates than other groups. And both groups tend to vote Democrat*.
https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#vaccination-demographic
* There isn't a 'Democrat party' in the US, only a Democratic one. People don't vote 'Democrat', they vote 'Democratic'. 'Democrat party' has been used in place of the correct term as a mildly derogatory epithet since the 70s.
This is getting pretty pedantic, but you started it, and I'm going to disagree, as a Democrat.
See, I say that I'm a "Democrat." Furthermore, the party actually owns Democrats.org (https://democrats.org). If you can have plural Democrats then surely you can have a singular Democrat. I can vote for a Democrat. In fact, I usually do.
EDITed to add: google image search for "vote democrat" (https://www.google.com/search?q=vote+Democrat&sxsrf=ALeKk01gAr0MG1ZVMXkpHmB5XIIGBMdiUQ:1626894781773&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwi-p7es7_TxAhXFpJ4KHWa-AhAQ_AUoAXoECAEQAw&biw=1707&bih=817).
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I think the overall point was that both Blacks and Latinos have already died at higher rates throughout this pandemic, and are getting vaccinated at lower rates than other groups. And both groups tend to vote Democrat*.
https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#vaccination-demographic
* There isn't a 'Democrat party' in the US, only a Democratic one. People don't vote 'Democrat', they vote 'Democratic'. 'Democrat party' has been used in place of the correct term as a mildly derogatory epithet since the 70s.
This is getting pretty pedantic, but you started it, and I'm going to disagree, as a Democrat.
See, I say that I'm a "Democrat." Furthermore, the party actually owns Democrats.org (https://democrats.org). If you can have plural Democrats then surely you can have a singular Democrat. I can vote for a Democrat. In fact, I usually do.
EDITed to add: google image search for "vote democrat" (https://www.google.com/search?q=vote+Democrat&sxsrf=ALeKk01gAr0MG1ZVMXkpHmB5XIIGBMdiUQ:1626894781773&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwi-p7es7_TxAhXFpJ4KHWa-AhAQ_AUoAXoECAEQAw&biw=1707&bih=817).
Democrat is a noun. Democratic is an adjective. You are a Democrat. You can vote for a Democrat. But it is the Democratic Party.
Voting Democratic is correct.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democrat_Party_(epithet)
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I think the overall point was that both Blacks and Latinos have already died at higher rates throughout this pandemic, and are getting vaccinated at lower rates than other groups. And both groups tend to vote Democrat*.
https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#vaccination-demographic
* There isn't a 'Democrat party' in the US, only a Democratic one. People don't vote 'Democrat', they vote 'Democratic'. 'Democrat party' has been used in place of the correct term as a mildly derogatory epithet since the 70s.
This is getting pretty pedantic, but you started it, and I'm going to disagree, as a Democrat.
See, I say that I'm a "Democrat." Furthermore, the party actually owns Democrats.org (https://democrats.org). If you can have plural Democrats then surely you can have a singular Democrat. I can vote for a Democrat. In fact, I usually do.
EDITed to add: google image search for "vote democrat" (https://www.google.com/search?q=vote+Democrat&sxsrf=ALeKk01gAr0MG1ZVMXkpHmB5XIIGBMdiUQ:1626894781773&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwi-p7es7_TxAhXFpJ4KHWa-AhAQ_AUoAXoECAEQAw&biw=1707&bih=817).
Democrat is a noun. Democratic is an adjective.
Using democrat as an adjective is the mildly derogative form that I was talking about. Talking about a particular Democrat or several Democrats is not.
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I think the overall point was that both Blacks and Latinos have already died at higher rates throughout this pandemic, and are getting vaccinated at lower rates than other groups. And both groups tend to vote Democrat*.
https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#vaccination-demographic
* There isn't a 'Democrat party' in the US, only a Democratic one. People don't vote 'Democrat', they vote 'Democratic'. 'Democrat party' has been used in place of the correct term as a mildly derogatory epithet since the 70s.
This is getting pretty pedantic, but you started it, and I'm going to disagree, as a Democrat.
See, I say that I'm a "Democrat." Furthermore, the party actually owns Democrats.org (https://democrats.org). If you can have plural Democrats then surely you can have a singular Democrat. I can vote for a Democrat. In fact, I usually do.
EDITed to add: google image search for "vote democrat" (https://www.google.com/search?q=vote+Democrat&sxsrf=ALeKk01gAr0MG1ZVMXkpHmB5XIIGBMdiUQ:1626894781773&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwi-p7es7_TxAhXFpJ4KHWa-AhAQ_AUoAXoECAEQAw&biw=1707&bih=817).
Democrat is a noun. Democratic is an adjective.
Indeed, Americans are bad at english.
Using democrat as an adjective is the mildly derogative form that I was talking about. Talking about a particular Democrat or several Democrats is not.
Which is why I can buy all (https://www.etsy.com/listing/630849497/vote-american-vote-democrat-bumper) these (https://www.zazzle.com/vote_democrat_bumper_sticker-128417745387352900) bumper stickers (https://www.cafepress.com/+,109062455)? So that I can be mildly derogatory to my own party members?
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I think the overall point was that both Blacks and Latinos have already died at higher rates throughout this pandemic, and are getting vaccinated at lower rates than other groups. And both groups tend to vote Democrat*.
https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#vaccination-demographic
* There isn't a 'Democrat party' in the US, only a Democratic one. People don't vote 'Democrat', they vote 'Democratic'. 'Democrat party' has been used in place of the correct term as a mildly derogatory epithet since the 70s.
This is getting pretty pedantic, but you started it, and I'm going to disagree, as a Democrat.
See, I say that I'm a "Democrat." Furthermore, the party actually owns Democrats.org (https://democrats.org). If you can have plural Democrats then surely you can have a singular Democrat. I can vote for a Democrat. In fact, I usually do.
EDITed to add: google image search for "vote democrat" (https://www.google.com/search?q=vote+Democrat&sxsrf=ALeKk01gAr0MG1ZVMXkpHmB5XIIGBMdiUQ:1626894781773&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwi-p7es7_TxAhXFpJ4KHWa-AhAQ_AUoAXoECAEQAw&biw=1707&bih=817).
Democrat is a noun. Democratic is an adjective. You are a Democrat. You can vote for a Democrat. But it is the Democratic Party.
Voting Democratic is correct.
I'm not disagreeing on the correct use of english.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democrat_Party_(epithet)
But Paper Chaser didn't write "Democrat Party". They wrote "vote Democrat." Like the bumper stickers that I posted links to above.
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This is some impressive bikeshedding we have here, even by Off-Topic standards.
Also, it's English, not english, you monster.
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I think the overall point was that both Blacks and Latinos have already died at higher rates throughout this pandemic, and are getting vaccinated at lower rates than other groups. And both groups tend to vote Democrat*.
https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#vaccination-demographic
* There isn't a 'Democrat party' in the US, only a Democratic one. People don't vote 'Democrat', they vote 'Democratic'. 'Democrat party' has been used in place of the correct term as a mildly derogatory epithet since the 70s.
This is getting pretty pedantic, but you started it, and I'm going to disagree, as a Democrat.
See, I say that I'm a "Democrat." Furthermore, the party actually owns Democrats.org (https://democrats.org). If you can have plural Democrats then surely you can have a singular Democrat. I can vote for a Democrat. In fact, I usually do.
EDITed to add: google image search for "vote democrat" (https://www.google.com/search?q=vote+Democrat&sxsrf=ALeKk01gAr0MG1ZVMXkpHmB5XIIGBMdiUQ:1626894781773&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwi-p7es7_TxAhXFpJ4KHWa-AhAQ_AUoAXoECAEQAw&biw=1707&bih=817).
Democrat is a noun. Democratic is an adjective.
Indeed, Americans are bad at English.
Using democrat as an adjective is the mildly derogative form that I was talking about. Talking about a particular Democrat or several Democrats is not.
Which is why I can buy all (https://www.etsy.com/listing/630849497/vote-american-vote-democrat-bumper) these (https://www.zazzle.com/vote_democrat_bumper_sticker-128417745387352900) bumper stickers (https://www.cafepress.com/+,109062455)? So that I can be mildly derogatory to my own party members?
Yes, those bumper stickers are mildly derogatory. Probably why you find them on websites like cafepress and zazzle - both of which appear to be websites that will randomly print anything - and not on an official Democratic Party website.
But Paper Chaser didn't write "Democrat Party". They wrote "vote Democrat." Like the bumper stickers that I posted links to above.
It's possible to vote for a Democrat, to vote Democratically, or to vote for a Democratic candidate. Any of those would be fine. The tendency to intentionally misuse 'Democrat' in place of 'Democratic' to describe the Democratic Party has a long standing history of being mildly offensive which is why I pointed it out.
To be fair, the grammar in the statement is pretty bad to begin with. It's not possible to Vote Republican, Vote Democratic, or Vote Democrat. They're all wrong. :P
I may have to have a rethink about the whole thing . . . as it turns out that holding Trump supporters to high grammar standards may be unfair: https://www.marketwatch.com/story/supporters-of-donald-trump-and-other-republicans-get-worst-grammar-grades-2015-10-07 (https://www.marketwatch.com/story/supporters-of-donald-trump-and-other-republicans-get-worst-grammar-grades-2015-10-07)
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Let's see if this works...
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Let's see if this works...
I actually got an attachment to work!
That screenshot is from the MPR "covid today" newsletter. Interestingly, in MN vax rates for black people are lower AND covid rates are higher even compared to unvaccinated white people. First Nations and Asian people are not seeing this increase which is interesting because usually First Nations have the biggest disparities.
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Yes, those bumper stickers are mildly derogatory. Probably why you find them on websites like cafepress and zazzle - both of which appear to be websites that will randomly print anything - and not on an official Democratic Party website.
Cool, I can't wait to buy them all and Vote Democrat!
EDITed to add a link to this derogatory article from The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jul/13/texas-governor-arrest-democrat-voting-restrictions-greg-abbott
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Let's see if this works...
I actually got an attachment to work!
That screenshot is from the MPR "covid today" newsletter. Interestingly, in MN vax rates for black people are lower AND covid rates are higher even compared to unvaccinated white people. First Nations and Asian people are not seeing this increase which is interesting because usually First Nations have the biggest disparities.
I'm guessing due to previous vaccine refusal history in the Somali community??? There was a measles outbreak a while back because for some reason people were going door to door telling Somali people not to vaccinate their children.
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This is some impressive bikeshedding we have here, even by Off-Topic standards.
Also, it's English, not english, you monster.
I've never heard the term "bike shedding" before. Thanks for teaching me a new word!
https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=bikeshedding
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This is some impressive bikeshedding we have here, even by Off-Topic standards.
Also, it's English, not english, you monster.
Okay, this made me laugh out loud. Thank you.
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Yes, those bumper stickers are mildly derogatory. Probably why you find them on websites like cafepress and zazzle - both of which appear to be websites that will randomly print anything - and not on an official Democratic Party website.
Cool, I can't wait to buy them all and Vote Democrat!
EDITed to add a link to this derogatory article from The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jul/13/texas-governor-arrest-democrat-voting-restrictions-greg-abbott
Well, that's an English newspaper, probably ignorant of the finer aspects of American cultural usages.
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I think the overall point was that both Blacks and Latinos have already died at higher rates throughout this pandemic, and are getting vaccinated at lower rates than other groups. And both groups tend to vote Democrat*.
https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#vaccination-demographic
The bolded part of your statement isn't true, or at least isn't true any more (though it once was). The data on the page you link to shows that a greater percentage of hispanic people in the US have now had both doses and about equal percentage of black people when compared to whites.
* There isn't a 'Democrat party' in the US, only a Democratic one. People don't vote 'Democrat', they vote 'Democratic'. 'Democrat party' has been used in place of the correct term as a mildly derogatory epithet since the 70s.
This level of pedantry is ridiculous. I didn't say there was a 'Democrat' party. I've never met an actual human that cared about 'Democrat' vs 'Democratic'. None of my liberal friends or family do, and none of my conservative friends or family use it as a slur. I'm not sure if the fact that a Canadian does seem to care, and feels it necessary to bust my balls over it on the internet, is sad or hilarious.
You're either way too invested in politics in a foreign nation, just following me around looking for petty little things to nitpick, or you're actively looking for things on the internet to be offended by and have chosen this for some reason. I'm not sure any of those things is a productive use of your time, but you do you.
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I think the overall point was that both Blacks and Latinos have already died at higher rates throughout this pandemic, and are getting vaccinated at lower rates than other groups. And both groups tend to vote Democrat*.
https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#vaccination-demographic
The bolded part of your statement isn't true, or at least isn't true any more (though it once was). The data on the page you link to shows that a greater percentage of hispanic people in the US have now had both doses and about equal percentage of black people when compared to whites.
* There isn't a 'Democrat party' in the US, only a Democratic one. People don't vote 'Democrat', they vote 'Democratic'. 'Democrat party' has been used in place of the correct term as a mildly derogatory epithet since the 70s.
This level of pedantry is ridiculous. I didn't say there was a 'Democrat' party. I've never met an actual human that cared about 'Democrat' vs 'Democratic'. None of my liberal friends or family do, and none of my conservative friends or family use it as a slur. I'm not sure if the fact that a Canadian does seem to care, and feels it necessary to bust my balls over it on the internet, is sad or hilarious.
You're either way too invested in politics in a foreign nation, just following me around looking for petty little things to nitpick, or you're actively looking for things on the internet to be offended by and have chosen this for some reason. I'm not sure any of those things is a productive use of your time, but you do you.
GuitarStv is just extremely feisty these days
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This level of pedantry is ridiculous. I didn't say there was a 'Democrat' party. I've never met an actual human that cared about 'Democrat' vs 'Democratic'. None of my liberal friends or family do, and none of my conservative friends or family use it as a slur. I'm not sure if the fact that a Canadian does seem to care, and feels it necessary to bust my balls over it on the internet, is sad or hilarious.
You're either way too invested in politics in a foreign nation, just following me around looking for petty little things to nitpick, or you're actively looking for things on the internet to be offended by and have chosen this for some reason. I'm not sure any of those things is a productive use of your time, but you do you.
I wasn't trying to be a dick and am not personally offended by your choice of words . . . the Democrat / Democratic thing is an easy mistake to make, one that I learned of recently when someone gently pointed it out to me because I had done the same. After researching it, I realized that it actually was a mild epithet (as well as incorrect usage of the word), so have stopped in deference to correct grammar.
What you do with this information is certainly up to you.
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...Here we are, 18 months after the AZ vaccine was being given out to everyone . . . and we know that it causes fatal blood clots in younger people and shouldn't be given to people under 50. Something we didn't know before because of a lack of testing. Which is pretty much what I figured was likely to happen.
Who is "we"? Clearly, the vaccination was not "given out to everyone" or we wouldn't be facing this huge resurgence.
Citations from legitimate medical/scientific sources, please.
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...Here we are, 18 months after the AZ vaccine was being given out to everyone . . . and we know that it causes fatal blood clots in younger people and shouldn't be given to people under 50. Something we didn't know before because of a lack of testing. Which is pretty much what I figured was likely to happen.
Who is "we"? Clearly, the vaccination was not "given out to everyone" or we wouldn't be facing this huge resurgence.
Citations from legitimate medical/scientific sources, please.
I was thinking of mass roll-out of vaccine to adults. Last I checked AZ had been given out to somewhere between 50 and 100 million people?
You're certainly right that this is not 'everyone'. You're wrong that a resurgence of Covid will be prevented by vaccination. Vaccination rates in the UK are pretty damned good:
[img size=150]https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/976/cpsprodpb/11262/production/_119424207_vaccine_doses_nation15jul-nc.png[/img]
But they're experiencing a resurgence of cases - because the vaccine doesn't seem to prevent infection. It improves the outcome of people who have been vaccinated and get infected - they're much less likely to die or be hospitalized.
My argument isn't that all humans have been vaccinated - it was that safety of a vaccine improves as increased testing is done. We know much more about the problems with AZ now that huge numbers of doses have been given out than we knew in December.
* Also, I made a typo in the quoted section - I had meant to type 'less than 18 months after'.
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...Here we are, 18 months after the AZ vaccine was being given out to everyone . . . and we know that it causes fatal blood clots in younger people and shouldn't be given to people under 50. Something we didn't know before because of a lack of testing. Which is pretty much what I figured was likely to happen.
Who is "we"? Clearly, the vaccination was not "given out to everyone" or we wouldn't be facing this huge resurgence.
Citations from legitimate medical/scientific sources, please.
I was thinking of mass roll-out of vaccine to adults. Last I checked AZ had been given out to somewhere between 50 and 100 million people?
You're certainly right that this is not 'everyone'. You're wrong that a resurgence of Covid will be prevented by vaccination. Vaccination rates in the UK are pretty damned good:
[img size=150]https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/976/cpsprodpb/11262/production/_119424207_vaccine_doses_nation15jul-nc.png[/img]
But they're experiencing a resurgence of cases - because the vaccine doesn't seem to prevent infection. It improves the outcome of people who have been vaccinated and get infected - they're much less likely to die or be hospitalized.
My argument isn't that all humans have been vaccinated - it was that safety of a vaccine improves as increased testing is done. We know much more about the problems with AZ now that huge numbers of doses have been given out than we knew in December.
* Also, I made a typo in the quoted section - I had meant to type 'less than 18 months after'.
Your link makes no sense. You might want to check it if you're trying to support your position.
In the US, the overwhelming majority (>90%) of new cases are among the unvaccinated.
And here you are with another completely off the wall quote, "The vaccine doesn't seem to prevent infection."
If you weren't a long time member, one might think you were just a troll.
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In the UK the cases are also mostly among the unvaccinated. In the UK and Canada the vaccines were given first to elderly and vulnerable and then moved down the age groups. A combination of being last in line and feeling fairly safe (since the worst cases were the elderly) means that lots of 18-35 are not yet vaccinated.
Anyone from the UK want to give more detail?
Also, the Delta variant is so much more contagious, and possibly that is because it causes a much larger viral load. So precautions that work for x# virus particles may be overwhelmed by 1000x# particles.
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...Here we are, 18 months after the AZ vaccine was being given out to everyone . . . and we know that it causes fatal blood clots in younger people and shouldn't be given to people under 50. Something we didn't know before because of a lack of testing. Which is pretty much what I figured was likely to happen.
Who is "we"? Clearly, the vaccination was not "given out to everyone" or we wouldn't be facing this huge resurgence.
Citations from legitimate medical/scientific sources, please.
I was thinking of mass roll-out of vaccine to adults. Last I checked AZ had been given out to somewhere between 50 and 100 million people?
You're certainly right that this is not 'everyone'. You're wrong that a resurgence of Covid will be prevented by vaccination. Vaccination rates in the UK are pretty damned good:
[img size=150]https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/976/cpsprodpb/11262/production/_119424207_vaccine_doses_nation15jul-nc.png[/img]
But they're experiencing a resurgence of cases - because the vaccine doesn't seem to prevent infection. It improves the outcome of people who have been vaccinated and get infected - they're much less likely to die or be hospitalized.
My argument isn't that all humans have been vaccinated - it was that safety of a vaccine improves as increased testing is done. We know much more about the problems with AZ now that huge numbers of doses have been given out than we knew in December.
* Also, I made a typo in the quoted section - I had meant to type 'less than 18 months after'.
Your link makes no sense. You might want to check it if you're trying to support your position.
In the US, the overwhelming majority (>90%) of new cases are among the unvaccinated.
And here you are with another completely off the wall quote, "The vaccine doesn't seem to prevent infection."
If you weren't a long time member, one might think you were just a troll.
Sorry, I tried to resize the picture but it didn't seem to work. I'd post the original for you but it's very large, you can use this link - https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/976/cpsprodpb/11262/production/_119424207_vaccine_doses_nation15jul-nc.png (https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/976/cpsprodpb/11262/production/_119424207_vaccine_doses_nation15jul-nc.png) or the original BBC article link here (https://www.bbc.com/news/health-55274833 (https://www.bbc.com/news/health-55274833)) to access it. As you can now see, vaccination rates in the UK are very good. 82-90% of people over 18 have their first shot, and 66 - 74% of them have had both shots. But they're having a huge surge in cases (around 50,000 a day last I checked).
Unvaccinated people are at much greater risk of both contracting covid and being in a hospital because of it. Vaccination certainly helps, but the data shows that it doesn't prevent infection. This is something that is not being explained to the public very well.
Here's a good summary of data we have for the original covid variant and it shows that somewhere between 1 in 10 to 1 in 3 people who are fully vaccinated with mRNA vaccines can still be infected with and carry covid (worse numbers for AZ). This data does not count the new variants which the evidence so far suggests the vaccines don't work quite as well on:
(https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20210715/781a3a1cb2c27e1e29f171425271e390.jpg)
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1000512/Vaccine_surveillance_report_-_week_27.pdf (https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1000512/Vaccine_surveillance_report_-_week_27.pdf)
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...Unvaccinated people are at much greater risk of both contracting covid and being in a hospital because of it. Vaccination certainly helps, but the data shows that it doesn't prevent infection.
So it knocks it down to something on the order of a bad cold or flu, but doesn't kill me? I'll take that every time. I'll also be at the front of the line for any booster shots that become available. If alternating types of vaccines proves effective, I'll do that, too.
The advantages of being an early adopter far outweigh the disadvantages of waiting and potentially dying in the interim. In the US, virtually anyone who wants a vaccine has reasonable access to it at no cost.
You can argue your perspective all you want, but our medical systems are being overwhelmed again. The first time, it wasn't really anybody's fault. This time it's by people who willfully chose not to get vaccinated. Look at the daily reports of people wishing they hadn't waited, or worse still their loved ones pleading with people to get their damn shots after their loved one has needlessly died.
It's hard to muster a lot of sympathy for them. I'll save mine for the medical providers. This is completely harsh, but if I ran the world, I'd decree anything but palliative care is no longer available to those who refuse to be vaccinated.
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...Here we are, 18 months after the AZ vaccine was being given out to everyone . . . and we know that it causes fatal blood clots in younger people and shouldn't be given to people under 50. Something we didn't know before because of a lack of testing. Which is pretty much what I figured was likely to happen.
Who is "we"? Clearly, the vaccination was not "given out to everyone" or we wouldn't be facing this huge resurgence.
Citations from legitimate medical/scientific sources, please.
Last I checked Ireland, Italy, and Germany have all either restricted or eliminated AZ usage in people under 60 because they decided that the risk/reward didn't pencil out. But part of that calculation would presumably be that there are other vaccines available for those people.
I'm not jumping up and down to get an AZ vaccine, thankfully I got one of those fancy new mRNA vaccines.
On a related note, taking an EUAed vaccine is accepting some unknown risk. But that unknown risk should logically be weighed against the known risk of contracting the pathogen. So it's a very solid risk compared to the possibility that something slipped through the phase 3 trials. In that light it seems foolhardy to me to not get vaccinated.
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Count me aa among the confused about what you are actually trying to say @GuitarStv
The data you cite indicates that these vaccines are among the most effective that have been developed, both at preventing serious illness but also at preventing infection altogether. It’s not a perfect vaccine, but we don’t have perfect vaccines for almost any disease.
As for messaging to the public, one of the chief concerns among the unvaccinated is that the vaccines are not safe and effective, and that their potential side effects are worse than the risk of the disease. Which is absolutely not the case. But you are suggesting that we further cast doubt on the effectiveness of the vaccines because a small fractions still get sick and a fraction of those wind up with severe symptoms? That seems like a dangerous track to go down
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...Here we are, 18 months after the AZ vaccine was being given out to everyone . . . and we know that it causes fatal blood clots in younger people and shouldn't be given to people under 50. Something we didn't know before because of a lack of testing. Which is pretty much what I figured was likely to happen.
Who is "we"? Clearly, the vaccination was not "given out to everyone" or we wouldn't be facing this huge resurgence.
Citations from legitimate medical/scientific sources, please.
Last I checked Ireland, Italy, and Germany have all either restricted or eliminated AZ usage in people under 60 because they decided that the risk/reward didn't pencil out. But part of that calculation would presumably be that there are other vaccines available for those people.
I'm not jumping up and down to get an AZ vaccine, thankfully I got one of those fancy new mRNA vaccines.
On a related note, taking an EUAed vaccine is accepting some unknown risk. But that unknown risk should logically be weighed against the known risk of contracting the pathogen. So it's a very solid risk compared to the possibility that something slipped through the phase 3 trials. In that light it seems foolhardy to me to not get vaccinated.
There's been a lot of posts on the forum mentioning side effects from the AZ vaccine. For balance, I would just like to point out that there are equally rare but also potentially fatal side effects from the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, in that case heart trouble in young men. They are still worth getting, though.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-57781637
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As for messaging to the public, one of the chief concerns among the unvaccinated is that the vaccines are not safe and effective, and that their potential side effects are worse than the risk of the disease. Which is absolutely not the case. But you are suggesting that we further cast doubt on the effectiveness of the vaccines because a small fractions still get sick and a fraction of those wind up with severe symptoms? That seems like a dangerous track to go down
Speaking of confusing messaging to the public I consider the fact that the USA hasn't fully approved any vaccine as problematic. Shouldn't the FDA have enough data for safety and efficacy to make that call at this point? New Zealand and Switzerland managed to: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/science/coronavirus-vaccine-tracker.html
Along those lines, if I was a vaccine skeptic living in Canada I'd be confused by the fact that the USA hasn't EUAed AZ but Canada has.
To be clear, I'm not arguing about the efficacy or safety of the vaccines, only the official public messaging thereof.
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As for messaging to the public, one of the chief concerns among the unvaccinated is that the vaccines are not safe and effective, and that their potential side effects are worse than the risk of the disease. Which is absolutely not the case. But you are suggesting that we further cast doubt on the effectiveness of the vaccines because a small fractions still get sick and a fraction of those wind up with severe symptoms? That seems like a dangerous track to go down
Speaking of confusing messaging to the public I consider the fact that the USA hasn't fully approved any vaccine as problematic. Shouldn't the FDA have enough data for safety and efficacy to make that call at this point? New Zealand and Switzerland managed to: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/science/coronavirus-vaccine-tracker.html
Along those lines, if I was a vaccine skeptic living in Canada I'd be confused by the fact that the USA hasn't EUAed AZ but Canada has.
To be clear, I'm not arguing about the efficacy or safety of the vaccines, only the official public messaging thereof.
Well, we are only 6 months into Biden's administration. The previous administration spent four years hobbling federal institutions like the CDC, FDA, and NIH, either by deliberate action or malign neglect.
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Well, we are only 6 months into Biden's administration. The previous administration spent four years hobbling federal institutions like the CDC, FDA, and NIH, either by deliberate action or malign neglect.
I'm not going to disagree with that. I happened to find these articles Forbes: Pfizer Doesn’t Expect Final Vaccine Approval Until 2022 (https://www.forbes.com/sites/graisondangor/2021/07/16/pfizer-vaccine-has-goal-of-january-fda-approval/) and Science: When will COVID-19 vaccines be fully approved—and does it matter whether they are? (https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2021/07/when-will-covid-19-vaccines-be-fully-approved-and-does-it-matter-if-they-are) which talk about the greater burden of proof and the fact that 30% of vaccine skeptics say that they are waiting for full approval.
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Well, we are only 6 months into Biden's administration. The previous administration spent four years hobbling federal institutions like the CDC, FDA, and NIH, either by deliberate action or malign neglect.
I'm not going to disagree with that. I happened to find these articles Forbes: Pfizer Doesn’t Expect Final Vaccine Approval Until 2022 (https://www.forbes.com/sites/graisondangor/2021/07/16/pfizer-vaccine-has-goal-of-january-fda-approval/) and Science: When will COVID-19 vaccines be fully approved—and does it matter whether they are? (https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2021/07/when-will-covid-19-vaccines-be-fully-approved-and-does-it-matter-if-they-are) which talk about the greater burden of proof and the fact that 30% of vaccine skeptics say that they are waiting for full approval.
To me this makes perfect sense.
The normal process for approving a vaccine takes several years, and involves following a cohort from clinical trials for quite some time. That's by design. But the process also recognizes there will be extreme circumstances (like a global epidemics/pandemics) when the immediate need is so compelling that there's a temporary short-cut. That's the EUA. They both work in tandem, but it doesn't make any sense to me to change the normal authorization process (which would undermine confidence in the review process), because that's exactly why we have EUA.
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...Unvaccinated people are at much greater risk of both contracting covid and being in a hospital because of it. Vaccination certainly helps, but the data shows that it doesn't prevent infection.
So it knocks it down to something on the order of a bad cold or flu, but doesn't kill me? I'll take that every time. I'll also be at the front of the line for any booster shots that become available. If alternating types of vaccines proves effective, I'll do that, too.
Yep. Me too. That was what I was saying. The evidence is overwhelmingly supporting taking the vaccine at this point.
The advantages of being an early adopter far outweigh the disadvantages of waiting and potentially dying in the interim. In the US, virtually anyone who wants a vaccine has reasonable access to it at no cost.
Yep. This is turning out to be the case. We had some evidence, but didn't really know if that would be true or not when we started vaccinating. Some rare side effects that killed a few people were missed along the way. Now that we know more about the vaccines we have a much better handle on how to prevent and react to these side effects.
You can argue your perspective all you want, but our medical systems are being overwhelmed again. The first time, it wasn't really anybody's fault. This time it's by people who willfully chose not to get vaccinated. Look at the daily reports of people wishing they hadn't waited, or worse still their loved ones pleading with people to get their damn shots after their loved one has needlessly died.
It's hard to muster a lot of sympathy for them. I'll save mine for the medical providers. This is completely harsh, but if I ran the world, I'd decree anything but palliative care is no longer available to those who refuse to be vaccinated.
I understand and sympathize with your frustration here. People should be vaccinated and certainly at this point there's no reason to drag your feet on this. Our certainty about the vaccine is only growing, and the new variants of covid are worse.
The reason that I mentioned getting covid after being vaccinated is because you can. You can definitely still get it and pass it on to others. The vaccine isn't a great prevention against getting infected. A lot of people seem to be unaware of this. Given the uncertainty about the new variants of Covid and all the unvaccinated children or those people with complications that prevent their being vaccinated that seems like something that we should still be making aware to others.
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It would be ironic if the Democrats won the midterm elections because so many Republicans died from stubbornness.
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The normal process for approving a vaccine takes several years, and involves following a cohort from clinical trials for quite some time.
I believe that the minimum time defined by the FDA is actually only six months. But normally it's the drug manufacturer that runs the trials and collects the data. I get that, but isn't that what the entire country is doing right now? Other than the manufacturing process control could we, arguably, say "yes, we have enough data to say that this is both safe and effective?"
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It's just incredibly sad that we are discussing deaths of the members of an opposing party in terms of political advantage. And I'm saying it as a dyed-in-the-wool Democrat.
Someone said that out politics is a Cold Civil War. Small consolation that is it cold, and we are not actively shooting each other. Although it feels that we are getting closer and closer to that point.
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It's just incredibly sad that we are discussing deaths of the members of an opposing party in terms of political advantage. And I'm saying it as a dyed-in-the-wool Democrat.
Keeping in mind that the GOP is standing in the way of meaningful climate change which already kills somewhere between 250K and 5M people per year, and keeping in mind that the GOP decided to play Russian roulette while the Democrats begged them not to, I would not say that it makes me incredibly sad. I'm not even a dyed-in-the-wool Democrat. More of a I'll vote for whatever candidate I think is best but the modern GOP is batshit crazy kinda guy. You are of course welcome to your own opinion.
But with that said as stated further up I don't think that it will lead to a meaningful political advantage.
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I'm not disputing the batshit crazy part. Nor the part where lifesaving equipment and resources were distributed as political favors during the first wave. Nor that a good chunk of 600,000 deaths could have been avoided with a bit more basic competence and attention to human life.
Still, we are so divided that if human-eating aliens invaded tomorrow, half the country would be pro-alien. And it cannot lead to anything good.
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Still, we are so divided that if human-eating aliens invaded tomorrow, half the country would be pro-alien. And it cannot lead to anything good.
I agree. But if the human eating aliens were carbon neutral it would be incredibly good for climate change. Just bad for humans.
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Still, we are so divided that if human-eating aliens invaded tomorrow, half the country would be pro-alien. And it cannot lead to anything good.
I agree. But if the human eating aliens were carbon neutral it would be incredibly good for climate change. Just bad for humans.
And really, it would only be bad for the humans who are being eaten. It's possible to argue that the surviving humans would be likely to benefit. :D
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AstraZeneca is getting some undeserved bad press here.
I’m from Australia, and we have had very few cases or deaths. We’re producing AstraZeneca, because our major vaccine producer was licensed to do so. We don’t have mRNA facilities but we’ve bought both Pfizer (currently receiving small quantities) and Moderna (due to start receiving it in about six weeks). Our rollout started with the very old and others most likely to get covid19 or give it to them, and we were gradually moving down the age groups.
At first, the AstraZeneca was for the elderly and Pfizer for the younger ones in the first tranche because it was easier to transport AstraZeneca as it doesn’t need to be as cold. Then the AstraZeneca blood clotting issue came. (Note that most contraceptive pills have a similar blood clotting issue that occurs 4 or 10 times as often, but it doesn’t stop anyone much from taking contraceptive pills). Because we had nobody dying from covid19 and zero cases in the country, and the blood clotting issue doesn’t occur as much in the elderly as in younger people, we only allowed AstraZeneca to be given to people over 60. After all, you don’t want more people to die than would otherwise.
Then the delta variant escaped quarantine, and seeded in Sydney, spread to NSW and to Victoria and South Australia and then Queensland (all Australian states - Sydney is in NSW) which all locked down to varying levels. Victoria and South Australia have managed to get it out of their communities (Victoria has done this twice, with completely separate outbreaks) and are no longer in lockdown, after two and one weeks and no deaths.
NSW hasn’t been able to control it, each day there are more cases than the previous day, and about half have been positive while in the community. Today they announced that everyone in NSW should get AstraZeneca - there’s plenty around. There is now more likelihood of dying if you’re young and unvaccinated. Putting this in context, there are still fewer than 300 cases a day, and there have been less than 10 deaths. Most of you seem to be in places where covid19 is much more rampant.
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Guitar Steve you said that vaccination does not prevent being infected, then said it poorly prevents infection. That's just not the case. For example Pfizer normally has a 93% protection against infection. While with the delta variant it's like 70, 80% protection against infection. 2nd, even if you do cat h covid, your symptoms and severity, likelihood of hospitalization, being on ventilator, death is significantly less. So please stop repeating untrue information about the vaccines.
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And as far as original question, it is not in good taste. And like others have mentioned the bulk of deaths occurred before vacvination. Urban, people who live closely together, also minorities who needed to continue to work jobs, were disproportionately impacted by Covid.
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56% of Republican voters are 50 and over (https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/10/26/what-the-2020-electorate-looks-like-by-party-race-and-ethnicity-age-education-and-religion/ (https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/10/26/what-the-2020-electorate-looks-like-by-party-race-and-ethnicity-age-education-and-religion/)). 95% of deaths happen in those over 50, so we can pretty much ignore the under 40s (https://www.statista.com/statistics/1191568/reported-deaths-from-covid-by-age-us/ (https://www.statista.com/statistics/1191568/reported-deaths-from-covid-by-age-us/)). 30% of Republicans say that they won't get vaccinated (https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/558225-nearly-30-percent-of-republicans-say-they-wont-get-vaccinated-poll (https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/558225-nearly-30-percent-of-republicans-say-they-wont-get-vaccinated-poll))
So if we assume that the 30% is evenly distributed (it's probably not, likely older Republicans will get vaccinated at higher rates than younger) then roughly 17% of Republican voters are in the higher risk category.
Covid case fatality for over 50 year olds averages between 4.7 and 11.3% (https://www.statista.com/statistics/1105431/covid-case-fatality-rates-us-by-age-group/ (https://www.statista.com/statistics/1105431/covid-case-fatality-rates-us-by-age-group/)).
Of course, numbers are subject to change as newer mutations become prevalent but a reasonable ballpark estimate would be maybe between 0.8 - 1.9% of Republican voters die of stupidity induced covid. Given that modern day Republican control depends on gerrymandering, unbalanced senate representation, and a stacked supreme court - the dead seem quite unlikely to impact the party in any appreciable way.
Two problems with this math.
- The data is old. The survey time period was February 12 to March 16, 2020. We have learned a lot about how to treat Covid in the last 16 months.
- You are apparently assuming that everyone who isn't vaccinated will get Covid and die at the fatality rates you quoted. Some have already had Covid and have built up a natural immunity. Even among those who haven't, much less than 100% of people will get infected.
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Guitar Steve you said that vaccination does not prevent being infected, then said it poorly prevents infection.
That's just not the case. For example Pfizer normally has a 93% protection against infection. While with the delta variant it's like 70, 80% protection against infection. 2nd, even if you do cat h covid, your symptoms and severity, likelihood of hospitalization, being on ventilator, death is significantly less. So please stop repeating untrue information about the vaccines.
I've posted the studies and data used to draw my conclusions. Could you highlight the areas of these documents that you believe are untrue or have been misinterpreted?
The "93% protection against infection" number that you're quoting for the alpha variant is given for symptomatic infection. As the studies I've posted clearly show, a much higher percentage of people become infected asymptomatically. Asymtomatic infection comes with lower personal health risks, but can still spread covid to others and is still allowing the virus to replicate and mutate further. My suspicion is that the real-world data will continue to show the infection protection will further decrease with the delta variant, but I haven't found good information on it yet. If you have some, I'd be interested in seeing it.
Given the increased virulence of the delta variant, there is no reason that anyone should be holding off on getting vaccinated. Being fully vaccinated does not prevent infection - that's simply not supported by the data. It greatly reduces the odds of severe sickness/hospitalization and it cuts the risk of serious infection in a significant way though - which is a huge benefit.
56% of Republican voters are 50 and over (https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/10/26/what-the-2020-electorate-looks-like-by-party-race-and-ethnicity-age-education-and-religion/ (https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/10/26/what-the-2020-electorate-looks-like-by-party-race-and-ethnicity-age-education-and-religion/)). 95% of deaths happen in those over 50, so we can pretty much ignore the under 40s (https://www.statista.com/statistics/1191568/reported-deaths-from-covid-by-age-us/ (https://www.statista.com/statistics/1191568/reported-deaths-from-covid-by-age-us/)). 30% of Republicans say that they won't get vaccinated (https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/558225-nearly-30-percent-of-republicans-say-they-wont-get-vaccinated-poll (https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/558225-nearly-30-percent-of-republicans-say-they-wont-get-vaccinated-poll))
So if we assume that the 30% is evenly distributed (it's probably not, likely older Republicans will get vaccinated at higher rates than younger) then roughly 17% of Republican voters are in the higher risk category.
Covid case fatality for over 50 year olds averages between 4.7 and 11.3% (https://www.statista.com/statistics/1105431/covid-case-fatality-rates-us-by-age-group/ (https://www.statista.com/statistics/1105431/covid-case-fatality-rates-us-by-age-group/)).
Of course, numbers are subject to change as newer mutations become prevalent but a reasonable ballpark estimate would be maybe between 0.8 - 1.9% of Republican voters die of stupidity induced covid. Given that modern day Republican control depends on gerrymandering, unbalanced senate representation, and a stacked supreme court - the dead seem quite unlikely to impact the party in any appreciable way.
Two problems with this math.
- The data is old. The survey time period was February 12 to March 16, 2020. We have learned a lot about how to treat Covid in the last 16 months.
- You are apparently assuming that everyone who isn't vaccinated will get Covid and die at the fatality rates you quoted. Some have already had Covid and have built up a natural immunity. Even among those who haven't, much less than 100% of people will get infected.
So you're saying a back of the envelope guesstimation wouldn't hold up in court? :P I agree!
The real world number would likely be less than my estimate, which was intended to cover a worst possible case scenario. If the worst case scenario won't cause an impact on elections, then it seems very unlikely that there will be any impact on the elections regardless of exact numbers at the end of the day, right?
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It's ironic that the anti-science party is killing its own voters with its idiocy, but the direct electoral impact won't be anything more than irony.
Even among the unvaccinated, only a certain percent will become infected, and then among those a relatively low percent actually die. By this I emphatically don't mean that it's low enough that it makes any damn sense to roll the dice by not being vaccinated. But I do mean that even under the most aggressive supportably actuarial assumptions, the percentage of Republican voters who will die from this is would be too small to be electorally significant.
Now, assuming sanity, any number of deaths resulting from refusing the vaccine for nonsensical reasons should cause a reappraisal of voting in accord with such nonsense. This, however, presupposes sanity. The evidence contrary to that presupposition is quite strong.
My question isn't how many current GOP voters die because they are unvaccinated, but whether that will have any impact on those close to them. If a husband/wife/father/mother/daughter/son/friend/coworker dies because s/he bought into the hype and refused vaccinations - would that influence opinion?
In retail there's a saying that every bad interaction results in at least three lost customers, because the original customer goes and tells his/her closest friends about it. Could it be the same for voters? IDK
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In retail there's a saying that every bad interaction results in at least three lost customers, because the original customer goes and tells his/her closest friends about it. Could it be the same for voters? IDK
In retail, people didn't tie their entire identity to a place where they shop. In politics, they do.
I mean, I'm sure there will be *some* impact - I just don't think it will be noticeable. And definitely smaller than the electoral impact of 600,000 who died so far, most for no fault of their own.
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In retail there's a saying that every bad interaction results in at least three lost customers, because the original customer goes and tells his/her closest friends about it. Could it be the same for voters? IDK
In retail, people didn't tie their entire identity to a place where they shop.
I'm not sure that's true for many. Brand fidelity is a very real and very powerful thing. People get outraged when athlete X switches from Company Y to Z. People tattoo corporate logos onto their body.
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It's ironic that the anti-science party is killing its own voters with its idiocy, but the direct electoral impact won't be anything more than irony.
Even among the unvaccinated, only a certain percent will become infected, and then among those a relatively low percent actually die. By this I emphatically don't mean that it's low enough that it makes any damn sense to roll the dice by not being vaccinated. But I do mean that even under the most aggressive supportably actuarial assumptions, the percentage of Republican voters who will die from this is would be too small to be electorally significant.
Now, assuming sanity, any number of deaths resulting from refusing the vaccine for nonsensical reasons should cause a reappraisal of voting in accord with such nonsense. This, however, presupposes sanity. The evidence contrary to that presupposition is quite strong.
My question isn't how many current GOP voters die because they are unvaccinated, but whether that will have any impact on those close to them. If a husband/wife/father/mother/daughter/son/friend/coworker dies because s/he bought into the hype and refused vaccinations - would that influence opinion?
In retail there's a saying that every bad interaction results in at least three lost customers, because the original customer goes and tells his/her closest friends about it. Could it be the same for voters? IDK
My friend has a coworker whose husband of 35 years died from covid and is refusing to get the vaccine because she "doesnt want to put that poison into her body".
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My friend has a coworker whose husband of 35 years died from covid and is refusing to get the vaccine because she "doesnt want to put that poison into her body".
At this point people 'choosing' not to get vaccinated is a voluntary self-cull from the population. Sadly their selfish choice is also putting others at risk.
My 16 year old caught covid in March, and it knocked him on his ass. He is an elite athlete and could hardly walk for a week. We've lost family members to COVID who got sick before the vaccines were possible. I didn't catch it from him because I'd already been vaccinated (front line health worker).
The last member of my family (12 year old) is getting his second shot next week.
Even the risks of the AZ vaccine are hugely overstated compared to the risks of COVID.
The fact that this is even a 'debate' at this point makes me despair for our species. On the upside, it seems to be a cull of the stupid and irrational. Maybe once all the wilfully ignorant have removed themselves from the electorate we can actually get something done about serious things like climate change.
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My friend has a coworker whose husband of 35 years died from covid and is refusing to get the vaccine because she "doesnt want to put that poison into her body".
At this point people 'choosing' not to get vaccinated is a voluntary self-cull from the population. Sadly their selfish choice is also putting others at risk.
My 16 year old caught covid in March, and it knocked him on his ass. He is an elite athlete and could hardly walk for a week. We've lost family members to COVID who got sick before the vaccines were possible. I didn't catch it from him because I'd already been vaccinated (front line health worker).
The last member of my family (12 year old) is getting his second shot next week.
Even the risks of the AZ vaccine are hugely overstated compared to the risks of COVID.
The fact that this is even a 'debate' at this point makes me despair for our species. On the upside, it seems to be a cull of the stupid and irrational. Maybe once all the wilfully ignorant have removed themselves from the electorate we can actually get something done about serious things like climate change.
This is far more the issue.
In my circles, the main people not getting vaccinated are young healthy people who aren't likely to die from Covid, but much more likely to keep spreading it and putting the more vulnerable populations at risk.
I don't worry too much about my anti-vaxx brother or his kid dying, although it's possible, I worry about my immunocompromised senior family member who had such a bad reaction to their first vaccine dose that they aren't allowed to have the second.
The death toll isn't going to meaningfully change the current electorate. What will be interesting is how this whole affair gets categorized by history and affects world politics moving forward for generations.
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Being fully vaccinated does not prevent infection - that's simply not supported by the data.
The table you posted above says the Pfizer vaccine is 70-90% effective at preventing infection after two doses. I naively interpret that statistic to mean that if you put 100 vaccinated individuals in situations where they would have been infected absent the vaccine, we should expect 10-30 of them to be infected after the vaccine, which would mean that the vaccine prevented 70-90 infections. Is my interpretation wrong?
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I have read that it prevents *symptomatic* infection in 70-90% of the vaccinated population. Some of those 70-90% will have asymptomatic infection and will be able to infect others.
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I have read that it prevents *symptomatic* infection in 70-90% of the vaccinated population. Some of those 70-90% will have asymptomatic infection and will be able to infect others.
The table I'm talking about (reposted below) makes a distinction between effectiveness preventing symptomatic disease and effectiveness preventing all infections.
The vaccines are more effective against preventing symptomatic infections than all infections. This makes sense to me. The vaccine isn't some force field that stops viruses from getting into your body. Sometimes they will get in. Vaccine does nothing about that. What it does do is make it more likely that your body will fight it off before it reproduces enough to be detectible (an asymptomatic infection). If an infection does get to that stage, the vaccine makes it more likely that your immune system will prevent it from reproducing enough to become a symptomatic infection. If it does become a symptomatic infection, the vaccine helps your body prevent it from reproducing enough to cause hospitalization or death. At no stage of this process is the vaccine 100% effective at preventing you from moving to the next stage, but the effects add up. That's why you see the effectiveness numbers increase as you move from less serious effects to more serious ones.
(https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20210715/781a3a1cb2c27e1e29f171425271e390.jpg)
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Being fully vaccinated does not prevent infection - that's simply not supported by the data.
The table you posted above says the Pfizer vaccine is 70-90% effective at preventing infection after two doses. I naively interpret that statistic to mean that if you put 100 vaccinated individuals in situations where they would have been infected absent the vaccine, we should expect 10-30 of them to be infected after the vaccine, which would mean that the vaccine prevented 70-90 infections. Is my interpretation wrong?
That's my reading of it too. Page 6 of the report discusses this:
With the Pfizer-BioNTech, estimates of effectiveness against
infection range from around 55 to 70%, with the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine they range
from around 60 to 70%. With 2 of 2 doses of either vaccine effectiveness
against infection is estimated at around 65 to 90%
(Bolding added by me.)
It's much better than not being vaccinated, but the vaccine doesn't prevent someone from being infected or transmitting the disease.
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It's much better than not being vaccinated, but the vaccine doesn't prevent someone from being infected or transmitting the disease.
I have to disagree with your phrasing. The vaccine is no guarantee that a particular someone won't be infected or transmit the disease, but the vaccine has certainly prevented a whole lot of someones from experiencing these outcomes.
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It's much better than not being vaccinated, but the vaccine doesn't prevent someone from being infected or transmitting the disease.
I have to disagree with your phrasing. The vaccine is no guarantee that a particular someone won't be infected or transmit the disease, but the vaccine has certainly prevented a whole lot of someones from experiencing these outcomes.
Sure, that works too.
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The consensus is that asymptomatically people can transmit the disease. This is known in particular, someone who is infected, not yet showing symptoms, and then develops the disease. We also know of asymptomatic carriers. It is certainly possible that vaccinated people who are exposed, fight off the disease, transmit the disease for some period of time, but it's really not known to what degree. Considering that the vaccine causes the body to mount a defense against the virus and reduce replication/viral load, and viral load is directly related to transmission r I would say that vaccines both: significantly reduce infection/active disease as well as transmission rates. The vaccine does both. I could be proven wrong, but that is my sense. Vaccines which had significantly lower protection rates (such as polio) compared to Covid vaccines are considered successful at reducing transmission at the population level. That said, CDC is going to issue that people in high or substantial infection areas, for everyone including vaccinated to go back to wearing masks. Because all measures (masks, distancing, vaccination status) are synergistically and complementary to reducing viral load.
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Re Astra-Zeneca, young women on hormonal birth control are at much higher risk of blood clots. Somehow that is an acceptable risk. But vaccination against a nasty disease isn't?
For the record, my 2 doses were both Pfizer, because that was what I was offered. I would have been equally open to Moderna and Pfizer.
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Re Astra-Zeneca, young women on hormonal birth control are at much higher risk of blood clots. Somehow that is an acceptable risk. But vaccination against a nasty disease isn't?
It really doesn't reflect well on us men that we accept the risk our partners are taking. I think there is a whole relevant thread around here somewhere...
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It's interesting how often the serious adverse side effects of the Astra-Zeneca vaccine get mentioned compared to the serious adverse side effects of Pfizer and Moderna (heart inflamation) when they seem to be roughly equivalent (ie extraordinarily rare in both cases). Is it just because the Astra-Zeneca side effects surfaced first, or is it vaccine nationalism in the USA?
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It's interesting how often the serious adverse side effects of the Astra-Zeneca vaccine get mentioned compared to the serious adverse side effects of Pfizer and Moderna (heart inflamation) when they seem to be roughly equivalent (ie extraordinarily rare in both cases). Is it just because the Astra-Zeneca side effects surfaced first, or is it vaccine nationalism in the USA?
I perceive this to be because 18 deaths were linked to blood clots with AZ back in April (https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2021/04/08/with-millions-vaccinated-rare-side-effects-of-jabs-are-emerging):
On April 7th both Britain’s health officials and the European Medicines Agency (EMA), which regulates drugs in the European Union, said there is strong evidence that AstraZeneca’s covid-19 vaccine may be linked with very rare blood clots, often in the brain or the abdomen. The EMA experts reached their conclusion based on a review of 86 reported cases, 18 of which were fatal.
...
The EMA’s data as of March 22nd suggested that the rate of brain clots in people under the age of 60 who had had AstraZeneca’s vaccine was one in 100,000—higher than would be expected normally. Precisely how much higher, though, is hard to tell. The rates of such rare and difficult-to-diagnose conditions vary a lot by country, age and sex. Estimates of the incidence of such brain clots have ranged from 0.22 to 1.57 cases per 100,000 people per year, and they are more common in younger people and women.
Is the incidence/fatality rate really that high for Pfizer and Moderna? I haven't seen side by side data. Also, AZ doesn't have EUA in the USA. Our government institutions literally haven't said that the risk/reward pans out.
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It's really sad that so many Americans are killing themselves for political reasons. Really sad. The idea that we'll go back to a lockdown in the USA is simply politically unfeasible by either party. The American public won't allow it. I hate to say it, but at this point we just have to let a lot of people get killed. They clearly do not want to save themselves, so nature will have to take its course. I wish this wouldn't happen, but "muh freedom" and all that.
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It's really sad that so many Americans are killing themselves for political reasons.
I've been watching this intently. The US, UK, and Australia are all (nominally) democratic. But in a democracy the will of the people is what ultimately matters. All legitimate right to govern comes from the will of the people. If the US, UK, and Australia were all willing to accept different death rates it doesn't necessarily make one of them more right or more wrong than the other, as long as the policies that they implemented ultimately reflected the will of the people.
To put it another way: if the US tried to institute an Australia style lockdown and it resulted in civil war, they wouldn't be better off than where they are now.
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If the US, UK, and Australia were all willing to accept different death rates it doesn't necessarily make one of them more right or more wrong than the other, as long as the policies that they implemented ultimately reflected the will of the people.
I would argue that people whose will is to accept relatively minor inconveniences to get lower death rate are more right.
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If the US, UK, and Australia were all willing to accept different death rates it doesn't necessarily make one of them more right or more wrong than the other, as long as the policies that they implemented ultimately reflected the will of the people.
I would argue that people whose will is to accept relatively minor inconveniences to get lower death rate are more right.
It's also not so simple as "the will of the people" dictating policy. The policy makers (+stakeholders) have a huge impact on the will of the people they represent. Democracy is not unidirectional.
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It's also not so simple as "the will of the people" dictating policy. The policy makers (+stakeholders) have a huge impact on the will of the people they represent. Democracy is not unidirectional.
Right. Also, there are two schools of thought about representative Democracy: one that sees elected officials as more or less mechanical converters of a will of the people into policy; the other states that it is elected officials' responsibility to use his or her best judgement even if it contradicts the will of the people (subject to checks and balances), and face their judgement for doing so at the next election.
In my mind, the first school is as impractical as direct Democracy. Especially when it comes to areas where information is not available to the public (national security), or highly specialized (public health).
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It's also not so simple as "the will of the people" dictating policy. The policy makers (+stakeholders) have a huge impact on the will of the people they represent. Democracy is not unidirectional.
Right. Also, there are two schools of thought about representative Democracy: one that sees elected officials as more or less mechanical converters of a will of the people into policy; the other states that it is elected officials' responsibility to use his or her best judgement even if it contradicts the will of the people (subject to checks and balances), and face their judgement for doing so at the next election.
In my mind, the first school is as impractical as direct Democracy.
And both completely miss the reality that the people in power and their affiliated stakeholders directly influence the will of the people, which is what I was saying in my post above. Whether the person actually carries out said will is only of marginal importance compared to the impact of generating that will in the first place.
Political will comes from somewhere, it is cultivated by the very entities elected to execute it.
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It's also not so simple as "the will of the people" dictating policy. The policy makers (+stakeholders) have a huge impact on the will of the people they represent. Democracy is not unidirectional.
Right. Also, there are two schools of thought about representative Democracy: one that sees elected officials as more or less mechanical converters of a will of the people into policy; the other states that it is elected officials' responsibility to use his or her best judgement even if it contradicts the will of the people (subject to checks and balances), and face their judgement for doing so at the next election.
In my mind, the first school is as impractical as direct Democracy.
And both completely miss the reality that the people in power and their affiliated stakeholders directly influence the will of the people, which is what I was saying in my post above. Whether the person actually carries out said will is only of marginal importance compared to the impact of generating that will in the first place.
Political will comes from somewhere, it is cultivated by the very entities elected to execute it.
Exactly. What if covid happened in the US during the 50s? I would say the vast majority of the public would follow social distancing, masking and vaccination rules. In fact feel proud and patriotic doing so.
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If the US, UK, and Australia were all willing to accept different death rates it doesn't necessarily make one of them more right or more wrong than the other, as long as the policies that they implemented ultimately reflected the will of the people.
I would argue that people whose will is to accept relatively minor inconveniences to get lower death rate are more right.
It's also not so simple as "the will of the people" dictating policy. The policy makers (+stakeholders) have a huge impact on the will of the people they represent. Democracy is not unidirectional.
I don't disagree. But again, the people supported and elected those leaders. The dog is indeed wagging the tail, but the tail also wags the dog, back and forth over and over again.
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If the US, UK, and Australia were all willing to accept different death rates it doesn't necessarily make one of them more right or more wrong than the other, as long as the policies that they implemented ultimately reflected the will of the people.
I would argue that people whose will is to accept relatively minor inconveniences to get lower death rate are more right.
It's also not so simple as "the will of the people" dictating policy. The policy makers (+stakeholders) have a huge impact on the will of the people they represent. Democracy is not unidirectional.
I don't disagree. But again, the people supported and elected those leaders. The dog is indeed wagging the tail, but the tail also wags the dog, back and forth over and over again.
Yeah, that's exactly what I mean by Democracy being bidirectional. Political will can't exist in a vacuum, there are always organizing forces fomenting it and influencing it. Political will is more cultivated than it is organic.
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Yeah, that's exactly what I mean by Democracy being bidirectional. Political will can't exist in a vacuum, there are always organizing forces fomenting it and influencing it. Political will is more cultivated than it is organic.
I guess that's where I disagree, at least in some cases. I don't think that the French Revolution was more cultivated than organic. I don't think that the Arab Spring was more cultivated than organic. I don't think that AOC winning was more cultivated than organic. I don't think that Donald Trump winning the GOP primary was more cultivated than organic. You are of course free to disagree.
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I don't think that Donald Trump winning the GOP primary was more cultivated than organic. You are of course free to disagree.
The soil that Donald Trump grew from simply didn't exist in the political landscape twenty or thirty years ago. Although I'm not sure that it was consciously done with Trump in mind, it was very carefully cultivated by policies and rhetoric that Republicans have been using over that period.
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I guess that's where I disagree, at least in some cases. I don't think that the French Revolution was more cultivated than organic. I don't think that the Arab Spring was more cultivated than organic. I don't think that AOC winning was more cultivated than organic. I don't think that Donald Trump winning the GOP primary was more cultivated than organic. You are of course free to disagree.
I think it's not so much about a candidate as it's about an officeholder. It is when you have a pulpit (and a budget, and a communications director) that the other direction really kicks in.
Plus, you have a whole ecosystem (friendly media, industries that see you as an ally, churches, unions, civic groups, etc) that constantly works on the other direction.
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Yeah, that's exactly what I mean by Democracy being bidirectional. Political will can't exist in a vacuum, there are always organizing forces fomenting it and influencing it. Political will is more cultivated than it is organic.
I guess that's where I disagree, at least in some cases. I don't think that the French Revolution was more cultivated than organic. I don't think that the Arab Spring was more cultivated than organic. I don't think that AOC winning was more cultivated than organic. I don't think that Donald Trump winning the GOP primary was more cultivated than organic. You are of course free to disagree.
I mentioned stakeholders.
Yes, I believe that political will is heavily cultivated by the multi billion dollar industries whose entire existence is to cultivate public will. Even grass roots movements are cultivation of public political will, by definition.
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I don't think that Donald Trump winning the GOP primary was more cultivated than organic. You are of course free to disagree.
The soil that Donald Trump grew from simply didn't exist in the political landscape twenty or thirty years ago. Although I'm not sure that it was consciously done with Trump in mind, it was very carefully cultivated by policies and rhetoric that Republicans have been using over that period.
The soil existed—see Goldwater 1964—but it wasn't really cultivated until Morning in America in 1980 and the Religious Right/Moral Majority movement of the 1980s-90s. Those really allowed the Evangelical Christian Dominionist party (sorry, the modern GOP) to get a stranglehold on so many state governments, leading to Republican gerrymandering of federal house districts.
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Yes, I believe that political will is heavily cultivated by the multi billion dollar industries whose entire existence is to cultivate public will.
I super agree with that in the modern day. Along those lines I would highly recommend Sheldon Sanford Wolin's writings on Inverted totalitarianism (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism), especially Democracy Incorporated: Managed Democracy and the Specter of Inverted Totalitarianism. Although his argument is more along the line that corporate america created a system of governance that benefits them. Along those lines, I think that Trump was an accident.
Even grass roots movements are cultivation of public political will, by definition.
Sure. But what could be a better representation of the will of the people than the shit that they got together to talk about for a long time?
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Yes, I believe that political will is heavily cultivated by the multi billion dollar industries whose entire existence is to cultivate public will.
I super agree with that in the modern day. Along those lines I would highly recommend Sheldon Sanford Wolin's writings on Inverted totalitarianism (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism), especially Democracy Incorporated: Managed Democracy and the Specter of Inverted Totalitarianism.
Even grass roots movements are cultivation of public political will, by definition.
Sure. But what could be a better representation of the will of the people than the shit that they got together to talk about for a long time?
That's why I said it's bidirectional.
Sure, the grassroots movement is the will of the people, but that will still needs to be cultivated, and once it starts getting traction, bigger entities always start playing a role in the cultivation. It never goes directly from a few people agreeing on things to a large political force with enough traction to change policy. There are many, many stakeholders along the way exerting forces, often massive economic forces.
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once it starts getting traction, bigger entities always start playing a role in the cultivation.
There's nothing that institutional players love more than to find a genuine early stage grassroots movement and throw some money and professional support at it. Four such events I saw with my own eyes.
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I don't think that Donald Trump winning the GOP primary was more cultivated than organic. You are of course free to disagree.
The soil that Donald Trump grew from simply didn't exist in the political landscape twenty or thirty years ago. Although I'm not sure that it was consciously done with Trump in mind, it was very carefully cultivated by policies and rhetoric that Republicans have been using over that period.
Indeed he did grow out of the soil of the time. But he arguably grew out of the tea party (https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/12/04/tea-party-trumpism-conservatives-populism/) which was itself a grassroots rebellion from within the party. The party establishment didn't want it, nor him. The party establishment didn't cultivate the tea party nor trumpism except to the extent that they tried to control it as best they could. They neither wanted nor asked for it, except to the extent that they sowed the soil - but not on purpose. Louis XVI helped lay the groundwork for the french revolution, but he sure didn't mean to.
EDITed for clarity.
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once it starts getting traction, bigger entities always start playing a role in the cultivation.
There's nothing that institutional players love more than to find a genuine early stage grassroots movement and throw some money and professional support at it. Four such events I saw with my own eyes.
Exactly.
My family has been involved in campaigns and politics for generations. I've seen it happen over and over and over and over again.
And it's not just politics. One of my roles in executive non profit roles is capitalizing on any significant gathering and marketing that to interested economic parties to generate funding for the interests of the group.
A classic example is the role that big tobacco played in early feminist grass roots movements.
Groups of people with shared beliefs are like fucking chum in the water for the sharks.
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The party establishment didn't cultivate the tea party nor trumpism except to the extent that they tried to control it as best they could. They neither wanted nor asked for it, except to the extent that they sowed the soil - but not on purpose.
This is why (I think) Malcat uses the word "cultivate". A grassroots movement cannot be started from the outside, it's the very definition of it. Tea Party wasn't started by the GOP of the time. But once it was born, almost immediately it got attention, money, and support from various major right-wing entities. In other words, cultivated. Not by party establishment, no - but we live in times of weak parties, and party establishment isn't as strong as it used to be. I would say that with the exception of evil genius of Mitch McConnell, GOP establishment is pretty powerless.
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The party establishment didn't cultivate the tea party nor trumpism except to the extent that they tried to control it as best they could. They neither wanted nor asked for it, except to the extent that they sowed the soil - but not on purpose.
This is why (I think) Malcat uses the word "cultivate". A grassroots movement cannot be started from the outside, it's the very definition of it. Tea Party wasn't started by the GOP of the time. But once it was born, almost immediately it got attention, money, and support from various major right-wing entities. In other words, cultivated. Not by party establishment, no - but we live in times of weak parties, and party establishment isn't as strong as it used to be.
I guess. But I think that both John Boehner and many party elders would have rather just plucked the weed.
Though the Tea Party has had a large influence on the Republican Party, it has attracted major criticism by public figures within the Republican coalition as well. Then-Speaker of the House John Boehner particularly condemned many Tea Party-connected politicians for their behavior during the 2013 U.S. debt ceiling crisis. "I think they're misleading their followers," Boehner was publicly quoted as saying, "They're pushing our members in places where they don't want to be, and frankly I just think that they've lost all credibility." In the words of The Kansas City Star, Boehner "stamped out Tea Party resistance to extending the debt ceiling... worried that his party's prospects would be damaged by adherence to the Tea Party's preference for default".[45] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tea_Party_movement
But they couldn't pluck the weed, because it was the will of approximately 20% of republican voters to keep it going. They couldn't ignore that many of their constituents.
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It's interesting how often the serious adverse side effects of the Astra-Zeneca vaccine get mentioned compared to the serious adverse side effects of Pfizer and Moderna (heart inflamation) when they seem to be roughly equivalent (ie extraordinarily rare in both cases). Is it just because the Astra-Zeneca side effects surfaced first, or is it vaccine nationalism in the USA?
I perceive this to be because 18 deaths were linked to blood clots with AZ back in April (https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2021/04/08/with-millions-vaccinated-rare-side-effects-of-jabs-are-emerging):
On April 7th both Britain’s health officials and the European Medicines Agency (EMA), which regulates drugs in the European Union, said there is strong evidence that AstraZeneca’s covid-19 vaccine may be linked with very rare blood clots, often in the brain or the abdomen. The EMA experts reached their conclusion based on a review of 86 reported cases, 18 of which were fatal.
...
The EMA’s data as of March 22nd suggested that the rate of brain clots in people under the age of 60 who had had AstraZeneca’s vaccine was one in 100,000—higher than would be expected normally. Precisely how much higher, though, is hard to tell. The rates of such rare and difficult-to-diagnose conditions vary a lot by country, age and sex. Estimates of the incidence of such brain clots have ranged from 0.22 to 1.57 cases per 100,000 people per year, and they are more common in younger people and women.
Is the incidence/fatality rate really that high for Pfizer and Moderna? I haven't seen side by side data. Also, AZ doesn't have EUA in the USA. Our government institutions literally haven't said that the risk/reward pans out.
Sorry, but there are a lot of other reasons for AZ not to be certified. The risks appear not to be involved in the lack of certification. I’m trying to find the recent article about it, but firstly, from memory, the pharmaceutical companies involved have never gone through US accreditation for a vaccine before, and did a lot of beginners mistakes with their paperwork. Secondly, all the vaccines have been certified under emergency conditions - usually vaccines take a couple of years to get it. Thirdly, the USA never had AZ as one of the chief vaccines they were relying on, so they didn’t need to certify it in a hurry. Fourthly, in the case of the Australian AZ, our health system hasn’t asked either the EU or the USA to certify it, so they aren’t bothering to do so - they’ve probably got a lot of other emergency work at the moment. I’m sure there was more in the article, and I think it said that the risks were comparable.
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I guess. But I think that both John Boehner and many party elders would have rather just plucked the weed.
Again, weak parties. "Establishment" is a scary-sounding word, but it is rather powerless these days (on both sides). I mean, Trump pissed in the face of every prominent R Senator, and every one of them bent the knee and kissed the ring. Same with Tea Party and their backers, they totally rolled the party.
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Sorry, but there are a lot of other reasons for AZ not to be certified.
I was only replying to former player with regard to the perception of AZ in the USA.
Secondly, all the vaccines have been certified under emergency conditions - usually vaccines take a couple of years to get it.
I'm well aware, I never wrote anything to the contrary.
Thirdly, the USA never had AZ as one of the chief vaccines they were relying on, so they didn’t need to certify it in a hurry.
We ordered a bunch of AZ, Moderna, Pfizer, and J&J sight unseen. Then we EUAed them in the order that we got the data from the manufacturers from their phase 3 trials, AFAIK.
EDITed to add - "we" here meaning the USA. I would happily take an AZ jab. But I'd take a Sputnik V jab, and they don't let me make decisions on such things.
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Sorry, but there are a lot of other reasons for AZ not to be certified.
I was only replying to former player with regard to the perception of AZ in the USA.
Secondly, all the vaccines have been certified under emergency conditions - usually vaccines take a couple of years to get it.
I'm well aware, I never wrote anything to the contrary.
Thirdly, the USA never had AZ as one of the chief vaccines they were relying on, so they didn’t need to certify it in a hurry.
We ordered a bunch of AZ, Moderna, Pfizer, and J&J sight unseen. Then we EUAed them in the order that we got the data from the manufacturers from their phase 3 trials, AFAIK.
Thanks!
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I guess. But I think that both John Boehner and many party elders would have rather just plucked the weed.
Again, weak parties. "Establishment" is a scary-sounding word, but it is rather powerless these days (on both sides). I mean, Trump pissed in the face of every prominent R Senator, and every one of them bent the knee and kissed the ring. Same with Tea Party and their backers, they totally rolled the party.
I'm not disagreeing. But in my mind that just lends credence to my will of the people argument. If the party establishment couldn't keep itself from getting rolled, how much cultivating are they doing?
I guess that perhaps we could agree that some forces outside of the party were more than willing to cultivate the movement.
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I guess that perhaps we could agree that some forces outside of the party were more than willing to cultivate the movement.
Precisely. Party apparatus isn't the only entity that can do the cultivation.
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I guess. But I think that both John Boehner and many party elders would have rather just plucked the weed.
Again, weak parties. "Establishment" is a scary-sounding word, but it is rather powerless these days (on both sides). I mean, Trump pissed in the face of every prominent R Senator, and every one of them bent the knee and kissed the ring. Same with Tea Party and their backers, they totally rolled the party.
I'm not disagreeing. But in my mind that just lends credence to my will of the people argument. If the party establishment couldn't keep itself from getting rolled, how much cultivating are they doing?
I guess that perhaps we could agree that some forces outside of the party were more than willing to cultivate the movement.
Yeah, I specifically indicated "stakeholders" when I made my original point.
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Yeah, I specifically indicated "stakeholders" when I made my original point.
Indeed you did. One of the definitions I found on the internet for stakeholder is a person with an interest or concern in something, especially a business.
That's a broader definition of stakeholder than I'm used to, but I guess is entirely proper.
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Yeah, I specifically indicated "stakeholders" when I made my original point.
Indeed you did. One of the definitions I found on the internet for stakeholder is a person with an interest or concern in something, especially a business.
That's a broader definition of stakeholder than I'm used to, but I guess is entirely proper.
Yeah, I read an enormous amount of international policy documents. It's a very broad term.
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Seemed relevant:
https://news.yahoo.com/these-6-red-and-blue-states-tell-you-everything-you-need-to-know-about-where-delta-is-hitting-hardest-and-why-183835357.html
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I think Biden read this thread and got some ideas to prey on people who don’t take the vaccine.
He’s releasing COVID infected illegals into small republican leaning cities. Devious, but Brilliant political strategy :)
https://dfw.cbslocal.com/2021/07/28/la-joya-covid-migrants-whataburger/
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I don't think that Donald Trump winning the GOP primary was more cultivated than organic. You are of course free to disagree.
The soil that Donald Trump grew from simply didn't exist in the political landscape twenty or thirty years ago. Although I'm not sure that it was consciously done with Trump in mind, it was very carefully cultivated by policies and rhetoric that Republicans have been using over that period.
The soil existed—see Goldwater 1964—but it wasn't really cultivated until Morning in America in 1980 and the Religious Right/Moral Majority movement of the 1980s-90s. Those really allowed the Evangelical Christian Dominionist party (sorry, the modern GOP) to get a stranglehold on so many state governments, leading to Republican gerrymandering of federal house districts.
Thank you, @OtherJen. This sums it up accurately and perfectly.
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My question isn't how many current GOP voters die because they are unvaccinated, but whether that will have any impact on those close to them. If a husband/wife/father/mother/daughter/son/friend/coworker dies because s/he bought into the hype and refused vaccinations - would that influence opinion?
In retail there's a saying that every bad interaction results in at least three lost customers, because the original customer goes and tells his/her closest friends about it. Could it be the same for voters? IDK
Curious conversations with red state conservatives of late that we live among.
All of them are running off of so much rumor. One has a nurse friend state that their ICU had a significant number of people admitted with vaccine complications. I'm not hearing that from any media outlet? Another conservative friend related her doctor said not to get the vaccine if she wanted to later have children. They caught COVID naturally. Recovering. Third conservative friend carefully following FB rumors via church friends b/c "they" said something discouraging about vaccines or COVID.
Science and fact is harder to digest than rumors? Thanks conservative media and conservative leaders...
Positive news: local conservative media celebrity is on a ventilator and their family is working hard to get word out about the importance of getting the vaccine. Conservative coworker looked uncomfortable when I mentioned the celebrity was on a ventilator. Coworker subscribes to a list of religious reasons a person should not get the vaccine. Politics and religion are topics I generally avoid with coworker. I can't change their mind, might lead to long term awkwardness with someone I spend some portion of most work days with.
We'll be masking up again at the grocery store and hardware store. We're fully vaccinated. It was an enjoyable six weeks without... ;)
Thanks for letting me vent.
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My question isn't how many current GOP voters die because they are unvaccinated, but whether that will have any impact on those close to them. If a husband/wife/father/mother/daughter/son/friend/coworker dies because s/he bought into the hype and refused vaccinations - would that influence opinion?
In retail there's a saying that every bad interaction results in at least three lost customers, because the original customer goes and tells his/her closest friends about it. Could it be the same for voters? IDK
Curious conversations with red state conservatives of late that we live among.
All of them are running off of so much rumor. One has a nurse friend state that their ICU had a significant number of people admitted with vaccine complications. I'm not hearing that from any media outlet? Another conservative friend related her doctor said not to get the vaccine if she wanted to later have children. They caught COVID naturally. Recovering. Third conservative friend carefully following FB rumors via church friends b/c "they" said something discouraging about vaccines or COVID.
Science and fact is harder to digest than rumors? Thanks conservative media and conservative leaders...
Positive news: local conservative media celebrity is on a ventilator and their family is working hard to get word out about the importance of getting the vaccine. Conservative coworker looked uncomfortable when I mentioned the celebrity was on a ventilator. Coworker subscribes to a list of religious reasons a person should not get the vaccine. Politics and religion are topics I generally avoid with coworker. I can't change their mind, might lead to long term awkwardness with someone I spend some portion of most work days with.
We'll be masking up again at the grocery store and hardware store. We're fully vaccinated. It was an enjoyable six weeks without... ;)
Thanks for letting me vent.
Yep.
My anti-COVID-vaxxer cousin is an ER nurse at a major regional hospital (i.e., on the pandemic frontline). She's in her mid-20s and has been brainwashed by the conservative rumor mill into believing that the vaccine will make her infertile. Fortunately, her employer just imposed a vaccine requirement, so her choices are now to be vaccinated or fired.
I'm out of patience with anti-vaxxers. They want to reap the benefits of "herd immunity" but let the rest of us do the work. I agree with recent suggestions I've heard that insurance companies should refuse to cover COVID-related care for anyone who refused a vaccine and then had to be treated for COVID. The carrot (vaccine lotteries, freebies) isn't working. Maybe the stick will.
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My question isn't how many current GOP voters die because they are unvaccinated, but whether that will have any impact on those close to them. If a husband/wife/father/mother/daughter/son/friend/coworker dies because s/he bought into the hype and refused vaccinations - would that influence opinion?
In retail there's a saying that every bad interaction results in at least three lost customers, because the original customer goes and tells his/her closest friends about it. Could it be the same for voters? IDK
Curious conversations with red state conservatives of late that we live among.
All of them are running off of so much rumor. One has a nurse friend state that their ICU had a significant number of people admitted with vaccine complications. I'm not hearing that from any media outlet? Another conservative friend related her doctor said not to get the vaccine if she wanted to later have children. They caught COVID naturally. Recovering. Third conservative friend carefully following FB rumors via church friends b/c "they" said something discouraging about vaccines or COVID.
Science and fact is harder to digest than rumors? Thanks conservative media and conservative leaders...
Positive news: local conservative media celebrity is on a ventilator and their family is working hard to get word out about the importance of getting the vaccine. Conservative coworker looked uncomfortable when I mentioned the celebrity was on a ventilator. Coworker subscribes to a list of religious reasons a person should not get the vaccine. Politics and religion are topics I generally avoid with coworker. I can't change their mind, might lead to long term awkwardness with someone I spend some portion of most work days with.
We'll be masking up again at the grocery store and hardware store. We're fully vaccinated. It was an enjoyable six weeks without... ;)
Thanks for letting me vent.
Yep.
My anti-COVID-vaxxer cousin is an ER nurse at a major regional hospital (i.e., on the pandemic frontline). She's in her mid-20s and has been brainwashed by the conservative rumor mill into believing that the vaccine will make her infertile. Fortunately, her employer just imposed a vaccine requirement, so her choices are now to be vaccinated or fired.
I'm out of patience with anti-vaxxers. They want to reap the benefits of "herd immunity" but let the rest of us do the work. I agree with recent suggestions I've heard that insurance companies should refuse to cover COVID-related care for anyone who refused a vaccine and then had to be treated for COVID. The carrot (vaccine lotteries, freebies) isn't working. Maybe the stick will.
That's literally the plot to the show "Utopia".
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I think we're on our own in the Red States. No fact based political leadership. No political will to force vaccines and nothing short of a religious apocalypse would lead to another lockdown.
The GQP strategies seem to further indicate to me - pure speculation of course - that they are hell-bent on maintaining an underclass that can be taken advantage of from every angle.
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The GQP strategies seem to further indicate to me - pure speculation of course - that they are hell-bent on maintaining an underclass that can be taken advantage of from every angle.
Trump said "I love the poorly educated" while campaigning in 2016. He said the quiet part out loud. Why do you think the Right fights so hard against education funding, national healthcare, gun laws, increased minimum wage, access to family planning services, fact-based sex education, and other social services while attempting to blur the line between government and the church?
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You're spot on OtherJen.
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I think we're on our own in the Red States. No fact based political leadership. No political will to force vaccines and nothing short of a religious apocalypse would lead to another lockdown.
The GQP strategies seem to further indicate to me - pure speculation of course - that they are hell-bent on maintaining an underclass that can be taken advantage of from every angle.
It's just not a good idea to even live in Red States. There is no support whatsoever when trouble arises. It's much better living in Blue States where there is a social safety net. I had been thinking of moving to a LCOL area from where I live now but after living through the pandemic and everything that has been exposed by it, I think I'll just stay put instead.
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Speaking of red states: Arkansas Children's Hospital reports record high number of COVID-19 hospitalizations (KATV) (https://katv.com/news/local/arkansas-childrens-hospital-reports-record-high-for-covid-19-hospitalizations)
Arkansas Children's Hospital reported a record high number of COVID-19 hospitalizations Tuesday.
The hospital reportedly saw 24 patients admitted with the virus, officials said in a news release. That is the highest number the hospital has seen since the pandemic started.
Officials said of the 24 patients admitted, seven are in intensive care and four are on ventilators. None of the hospitalized patients have been fully vaccinated and more than half of the patients are eligible.
In other words, these severe illness and hospitalizations could have been prevented. Hopefully these kids all survive and don't end up with chronic health problems.
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I saw this article recently that reminded me of this thread: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/07/27/rate-new-infections-is-about-twice-high-red-counties-blue-counties/ (https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/07/27/rate-new-infections-is-about-twice-high-red-counties-blue-counties/)
In the past two weeks, there have been about 237,000 new coronavirus cases recorded in counties that voted for President Biden last year — and 388,000 in counties that voted for Donald Trump. Adjusted for population, there have been about 126 new cases per 100,000 residents of blue counties and 278 new cases per 100,000 residents of red ones.
And it looks like most states are seeing excess deaths of about .3%. Doing some napkin math that makes it look like covid deaths might swing about 0.1% in Democrats favor? Does that little matter?
Well in 2020 there were 3 R house seats that were won by less than that. So I think that likely explains some of the GOP panic we're seeing now. Losing reliable R voters in rural areas matters a lot.
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And it looks like most states are seeing excess deaths of about .3%. Doing some napkin math that makes it look like covid deaths might swing about 0.1% in Democrats favor? Does that little matter?
Well in 2020 there were 3 R house seats that were won by less than that. So I think that likely explains some of the GOP panic we're seeing now. Losing reliable R voters in rural areas matters a lot.
It matters in PA/WI/MI, but not in the states that are hardest hit now. And the impact is an order of magnitude smaller than when we were losing 3,000 people a day.
I hope that people waking up with a realization that they were lied to leads to some movement in D favor, but not holding my breath.
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And it looks like most states are seeing excess deaths of about .3%. Doing some napkin math that makes it look like covid deaths might swing about 0.1% in Democrats favor? Does that little matter?
Well in 2020 there were 3 R house seats that were won by less than that. So I think that likely explains some of the GOP panic we're seeing now. Losing reliable R voters in rural areas matters a lot.
It matters in PA/WI/MI, but not in the states that are hardest hit now. And the impact is an order of magnitude smaller than when we were losing 3,000 people a day.
I hope that people waking up with a realization that they were lied to leads to some movement in D favor, but not holding my breath.
One of the national reps from the Florida RNC is proclaiming that the vaccine is the mark of the beast. Seriously. He also bit his nails worriedly about the "Biden brown shirts" who are going door-to-door to check your vaccination papers (probably using the same list from Obama's gun collection squads). Either he's a fool or he thinks his fellow Republicans are.
On the alt-right sites, there are threads about how the vaccinated now have regrets about getting the vaccine. Because something-something bad side effects.
The good news is that, supposedly, some people are getting the vaccine secretly to avoid being ostracized by their family.
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"They are coming for you!" is one of the most common fear tactics among politicians, even when "they" is ill-defined and "coming for you" is completely BS.
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Either he's a fool or he thinks his fellow Republicans are.
People have a tendency to willingly accept and spread lies that help their "team". The term is, I think, "blue lies".
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/how-the-science-of-blue-lies-may-explain-trumps-support/
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Either he's a fool or he thinks his fellow Republicans are.
People have a tendency to willingly accept and spread lies that help their "team". The term is, I think, "blue lies".
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/how-the-science-of-blue-lies-may-explain-trumps-support/
Fascinating.
Whether they truly believe those falsehoods or not is debatable—and possibly irrelevant.
Who is "they" and is that true?
The teller can not believe the blue lie, obviously, but surely it's put out there to convince people. What's the point of using a blue lie to create an us-vs-them dichotomy if the blue lie is as fake as a 3 dollar bill?
Some guy actually shot up a pizzeria in DC to find a cannibal-pedophile-Satan worshipping sex ring so maybe the believability doesn't matter?
In short, it is white conservatives who must call out Trump’s lies if they are to be stopped.
Gulp. We're in trouble.
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Either he's a fool or he thinks his fellow Republicans are.
People have a tendency to willingly accept and spread lies that help their "team". The term is, I think, "blue lies".
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/how-the-science-of-blue-lies-may-explain-trumps-support/
https://slate.com/technology/2021/07/noble-lies-covid-fauci-cdc-masks.html
Indeed.
This chaotic, inconsistent, and knowingly false information coming from Fauci, et al, as noble as thier intentions may be, has given very, very fertile ground for distrust, conspiracies, and vaccine hesitancy to breed.
I think in the end, this will cost the democrats far more than it will the republicans. The republicans have a good position to aurgue from: They asked questions about the effectiveness of masks, lockdowns, etc. Democrats suppressed information, threatened facebook to help them supress information, destroyed small businesses with lockdowns... then their leadership violated these lockdowns. (See: Newsom, Lori Lightfoot, Cuomo, pelosi, etc). Add in that fauci seems to be lying about what he thinks about the effectiveness of masks... and may have even funded the Wuhan lab where Covid seems to have originated from. Then you have the campaign to suppress investigation of the lab-leak theory by supposed scientists...
I am a bit disappointed that the vaccine is turning out not to be as effective as original touted, but I got the vaccine that Trump paved the way for as soon as I could and have zero regrets. The difficult thing is that reduce vaccine effectiveness means a higher portion of the population needs to get it in order to get herd immunity...
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Either he's a fool or he thinks his fellow Republicans are.
People have a tendency to willingly accept and spread lies that help their "team". The term is, I think, "blue lies".
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/how-the-science-of-blue-lies-may-explain-trumps-support/
https://slate.com/technology/2021/07/noble-lies-covid-fauci-cdc-masks.html
Indeed.
Can you explain how Fauci's statements about masks were an example of blue lies?
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Interesting article on the pyschology of those 'conned':
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/08/vaccine-refusers-dont-want-blue-americas-respect/619627/ (https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/08/vaccine-refusers-dont-want-blue-americas-respect/619627/)
Cancel culture in Missouri!
Another fascinating article.
Having expressed doubts about COVID-19 vaccination or other pandemic mitigation likely makes Ivey and DeSantis more effective in persuading other conservatives: Their previous positions signify authenticity and in-group loyalty, making them more trustworthy, not less.
This begs the question: Were Ivey and deSantis in on the con, in order to get and maintain votes, or were they also bamboozled like some of the Kraken lawsuit team?
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https://slate.com/technology/2021/07/noble-lies-covid-fauci-cdc-masks.html
Indeed.
This chaotic, inconsistent, and knowingly false information coming from Fauci, et al, as noble as thier intentions may be, has given very, very fertile ground for distrust, conspiracies, and vaccine hesitancy to breed.
I think in the end, this will cost the democrats far more than it will the republicans.
You seem to imply that Fauci lied to politically help Democrats. If so, I want to point out that nothing in the article supports (or even suggests) that.
I'm as upset as anyone else with communications coming from CDC - but none of it was malicious, and none of it was partisan. And it was miles and miles closer to reality than stuff coming from Republicans, starting with repeated claims from political appointees that things were under control and "close to air tight" in the early stages of the pandemic, continuing with dogged resistance to any and all measures to contain the virus, and culminating with spreading anti-vax FUD.
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https://slate.com/technology/2021/07/noble-lies-covid-fauci-cdc-masks.html
Indeed.
This chaotic, inconsistent, and knowingly false information coming from Fauci, et al, as noble as thier intentions may be, has given very, very fertile ground for distrust, conspiracies, and vaccine hesitancy to breed.
I think in the end, this will cost the democrats far more than it will the republicans.
You seem to imply that Fauci lied to politically help Democrats. If so, I want to point out that nothing in the article supports (or even suggests) that.
I'm as upset as anyone else with communications coming from CDC - but none of it was malicious, and none of it was partisan. And it was miles and miles closer to reality than stuff coming from Republicans, starting with repeated claims from political appointees that things were under control and "close to air tight" in the early stages of the pandemic, continuing with dogged resistance to any and all measures to contain the virus, and culminating with spreading anti-vax FUD.
Fauci's flipflops and "lies" about masks is one thing, and was probably done with good intentions. I posted that link mainly to make the point about how all of the noise has given fertile ground for people to doubt what the CDC says. (Lies meaning he made statements about what people should do that were apparently contrary to what he actually thought about wearing masks. )
His lies and cageyness about what he thought of the possibility of the origin of the virus was 100% a political move.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jackbrewster/2021/06/16/heres-what-dr-fauci-has-said-about-covids-origins-and-the-lab-leak-theory/?sh=2df3e6d5a853
The communication from the CDC was absolutely partisan on a number of issues. One easy example was the who thing where teachers unions ignoring science and using our kids as human shields to get what they wanted. This crap from teachers unions has harmed a generation of students in ways they may never fully recover from. https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-05-04/cdc-emails-with-teachers-union-show-politics-still-trump-science
As for the anti-vax messaging: There are some moonbats who say its the mark of the beast and will give you infertile 5G laser eyes or whatever... sure. that's regrettable. I think it's intellectually dishonest to say anyone asking questions about the side effects, effectiveness, discrepancies in the VARES data are anti-vaxxers or whatever.
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I am a bit disappointed that the vaccine is turning out not to be as effective as original touted, but I got the vaccine that Trump paved the way for as soon as I could and have zero regrets. The difficult thing is that reduce vaccine effectiveness means a higher portion of the population needs to get it in order to get herd immunity...
Actually no. The vaccines are every bit as effective at preventing infection and preventing severe illness for the strains for which they were developed.. Remember that the vaccines were produced and went into clinical trials towards hte end of last year. Several received emergency use authorization some five months ago, long before the Delta variant was even detected. Work continues to develop future vaccines and boosters that will enhance protection against the Delta variant. Even so, our current vaccines are still damn good at preventing serious illness and infection - far more so than most vaccines we have ever developed.
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His lies and cageyness about what he thought of the possibility of the origin of the virus was 100% a political move.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jackbrewster/2021/06/16/heres-what-dr-fauci-has-said-about-covids-origins-and-the-lab-leak-theory/?sh=2df3e6d5a853
Once again I don't see anything in the article supporting your claim.
The communication from the CDC was absolutely partisan on a number of issues. One easy example was the who thing where teachers unions ignoring science and using our kids as human shields to get what they wanted. This crap from teachers unions has harmed a generation of students in ways they may never fully recover from.
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-05-04/cdc-emails-with-teachers-union-show-politics-still-trump-science
This does sound like the case, too common in the US, of people being regulated instead regulating the regulators. This is regrettable.
As for the anti-vax messaging: There are some moonbats who say its the mark of the beast and will give you infertile 5G laser eyes or whatever... sure. that's regrettable. I think it's intellectually dishonest to say anyone asking questions about the side effects, effectiveness, discrepancies in the VARES data are anti-vaxxers or whatever.
Anti-vax messaging is not the beginning of it. It started, for those wishing to forget, with claims that Covid was no big deal, that it has been successfully contained, with refusal to wear masks, refusal to accept any measures to contain the pandemic. All that was 100% politically motivated, 100x more egregious, and 100x more harmful than any messaging inconsistency coming from the CDC. I think that it is intellectually dishonest is to suggest that people who accepted every convenient lie coming their way - from Obama's birth certificate to Clinton being the leader of satanic pedophile ring - need any basis in reality to refuse vaccines. Sure, there are *some*, relatively few, who didn't buy into any of the previous BS and jumped on the anti-vax wagon now. I get that, it's not a completely uniform field, and *some* people do have legitimate concerns. But for the vast majority, it was a natural progression from one batshit crazy lie to another. Scroll up a bit - there is an article about people taking vaccine shots anonymously, to avoid being ostracized in their circles for being vaccinated. It is a statistical impossibility that people doing the ostracizing are driven by legitimate concerns.
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I am a bit disappointed that the vaccine is turning out not to be as effective as original touted, but I got the vaccine that Trump paved the way for as soon as I could and have zero regrets. The difficult thing is that reduce vaccine effectiveness means a higher portion of the population needs to get it in order to get herd immunity...
Actually no. The vaccines are every bit as effective at preventing infection and preventing severe illness for the strains for which they were developed.. Remember that the vaccines were produced and went into clinical trials towards hte end of last year. Several received emergency use authorization some five months ago, long before the Delta variant was even detected. Work continues to develop future vaccines and boosters that will enhance protection against the Delta variant. Even so, our current vaccines are still damn good at preventing serious illness and infection - far more so than most vaccines we have ever developed.
Fair point. And to be clear, I'll be getting any boosters that come out in the future. I still retain the right to be disappointed that getting the shot doesn't mean I can forget COVID is a thing.
His lies and cageyness about what he thought of the possibility of the origin of the virus was 100% a political move.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jackbrewster/2021/06/16/heres-what-dr-fauci-has-said-about-covids-origins-and-the-lab-leak-theory/?sh=2df3e6d5a853
Once again I don't see anything in the article supporting your claim.
One can only lead a horse to water.
The communication from the CDC was absolutely partisan on a number of issues. One easy example was the who thing where teachers unions ignoring science and using our kids as human shields to get what they wanted. This crap from teachers unions has harmed a generation of students in ways they may never fully recover from.
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-05-04/cdc-emails-with-teachers-union-show-politics-still-trump-science
This does sound like the case, too common in the US, of people being regulated instead regulating the regulators. This is regrettable.
As for the anti-vax messaging: There are some moonbats who say its the mark of the beast and will give you infertile 5G laser eyes or whatever... sure. that's regrettable. I think it's intellectually dishonest to say anyone asking questions about the side effects, effectiveness, discrepancies in the VARES data are anti-vaxxers or whatever.
Anti-vax messaging is not the beginning of it. It started, for those wishing to forget, with claims that Covid was no big deal, that it has been successfully contained, with refusal to wear masks, refusal to accept any measures to contain the pandemic. All that was 100% politically motivated, 100x more egregious, and 100x more harmful than any messaging inconsistency coming from the CDC. I think that it is intellectually dishonest is to suggest that people who accepted every convenient lie coming their way - from Obama's birth certificate to Clinton being the leader of satanic pedophile ring - need any basis in reality to refuse vaccines. Sure, there are *some*, relatively few, who didn't buy into any of the previous BS and jumped on the anti-vax wagon now. I get that, it's not a completely uniform field, and *some* people do have legitimate concerns. But for the vast majority, it was a natural progression from one batshit crazy lie to another. Scroll up a bit - there is an article about people taking vaccine shots anonymously, to avoid being ostracized in their circles for being vaccinated. It is a statistical impossibility that people doing the ostracizing are driven by legitimate concerns.
Excepting some of the really fringy people like Alex Jones, this all fits in the realm of reasonable people disagreeing about a virus we knew nothing about.
As for Batshit crazy lies? How many of them turned out not to be?
It was called a batshit crazy lie that the Wuhan lab was a probable source of this. Now that more likely than the animal origin.
It was called a batshit crazy lie that masks would be helpful. Then fauci changed his mind. Then he said two masks would work. Then it turns out he never really thought they would work. That's batshit crazy, even if not a lie per say.
It was called batshit crazy that Covid would have less than a 5% case fatality rate, yet it settled at something less than 1%
It was called batshit crazy to open schools, yet places that opened them had no statistical difference in covid spread.
My point is that the CDC and "scientists" have provably lied about this virus for political and other advantages, obliterating any credibility they had. Then when the CDC gets questioned or people don't blindly accept what they say, they get fired, banned from facebook, assaulted, shouted down... this just makes anyone with any tendency toward buying into conspiracy theories dig in further. So I will not judge those who isn't getting the shot because they don't trust what the CDC has said. Now, for the truly wacky ones like Alex Jones - he's a lunatic and is doing harm, and I condone none of that crap.
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Excepting some of the really fringy people like Alex Jones, this all fits in the realm of reasonable people disagreeing about a virus we knew nothing about.
Please, "inject some bleach and shine some light" and "I told my people 'slow down the testing'" side is in no position to call anything fringe. Alex Jones may have been in the WH, and no one would have noticed any difference.
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We know for certain that scientist ignored evidence for political reasons.
https://thehill.com/changing-america/well-being/prevention-cures/559050-harvard-scientist-says-trump-hatred-motivated
“Although Chan voiced her support for an investigation into the possibility of a lab leak in early 2020, she told NBC experts were careful not to lean too close to views linked to the former president.”
I’m sure politics doesn’t influence anything else these people do or say though…
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We know for certain that scientist ignored evidence for political reasons.
https://thehill.com/changing-america/well-being/prevention-cures/559050-harvard-scientist-says-trump-hatred-motivated
“Although Chan voiced her support for an investigation into the possibility of a lab leak in early 2020, she told NBC experts were careful not to lean too close to views linked to the former president.”
I’m sure politics doesn’t influence anything else these people do or say though…
Compare and contrast:
- person1 knew of the severity of the crisis well ahead of general knowledge, had means to act, and chose not to for political reasons (there is audio recording and records galore). As a result, hundreds of thousands died, and economic impact is incalculable
- person 2 did not want to call for investigation, which has no practical impact on anybody
You aim your ire at person 2.
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Two things about the claims about the origin of the virus make no sense to me:
1) The Trump administration pushed that idea while in power for a solid year, yet couldn’t do more than make accusations. What’s different now that we expect a different result?
2) what does the origin fundamentally change? We still had an absolutely atrocious initial response, and now vaccine holdouts seem to be prolonging the economic and mortal toll.
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Excepting some of the really fringy people like Alex Jones, this all fits in the realm of reasonable people disagreeing about a virus we knew nothing about.
Please, "inject some bleach and shine some light" and "I told my people 'slow down the testing'" side is in no position to call anything fringe. Alex Jones may have been in the WH, and no one would have noticed any difference.
Two things about the claims about the origin of the virus make no sense to me:
1) The Trump administration pushed that idea while in power for a solid year, yet couldn’t do more than make accusations. What’s different now that we expect a different result?
2) what does the origin fundamentally change? We still had an absolutely atrocious initial response, and now vaccine holdouts seem to be prolonging the economic and mortal toll.
You're kidding, right?
He pushes that idea, the "Scientists" issue that paper saying its not possible for it to be a lab leak, the media freaks out and calls anyone a racist who pushes it; facebook bans anyone to mentions it... it wasn't really investigated when there would have been evidence to find. Now, over a year later, the CCP has had plenty of time to clean up any evidence.
It matters because China should be held accountable for it. It matters so we can head off the next one. It matters because this kind of dishonesty by the "scientists" we're supposed to trust is FUELING the anti-vaxxers here. It is moving people who otherwise could be persuaded to get the vaccine, to be hesitant. It is a non-trivial factor.
Don't get me wrong, trump should have used different messaging. He could have encouraged people to do simple things that would have worked... he would have had the credibility at that point to talk about whether some lockdown policies were actually helpful or not... etc. But that's not Trump, and that's why we chose the other incoherent old creep to be president.
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No, I’m not kidding, and I don’t find your answers very compelling, nor do I understand what you mean by “scientists” (in quotation marks)
Trump had the full weight of the executive branch, and we know SoS Pompeo was tasked with verifying that the virus was “made in a Chinese lab” (not originated, as is being retroactively claimed). The opposition sends directly in line with the messaging, but I don’t thing we can seriously say it wasn’t considered given the resources put behind it. Ultimately we have fallen into an argument where the lack of clear evidence now somehow supports a scenario where a lack of evidence could not confirm earlier.
I’m also not sure what “hold China accountable” is supposed to mean. I get the human desire to make someone else pay, but I don’t see why or hire China would in this case. If that were a reality there seems to be a strong case against the US -currently and in the recent past - for allowing the spread at great harm and huge economic cost.
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No, I’m not kidding, and I don’t find your answers very compelling, nor do I understand what you mean by “scientists” (in quotation marks)
Trump had the full weight of the executive branch, and we know SoS Pompeo was tasked with verifying that the virus was “made in a Chinese lab” (not originated, as is being retroactively claimed). The opposition sends directly in line with the messaging, but I don’t thing we can seriously say it wasn’t considered given the resources put behind it. Ultimately we have fallen into an argument where the lack of clear evidence now somehow supports a scenario where a lack of evidence could not confirm earlier.
I’m also not sure what “hold China accountable” is supposed to mean. I get the human desire to make someone else pay, but I don’t see why or hire China would in this case. If that were a reality there seems to be a strong case against the US -currently and in the recent past - for allowing the spread at great harm and huge economic cost.
“Made in Chinese lab” is what gain of function research is all about. Meaning there carelessness is likely directly responsible for killing millions.
Your blaming the victim here… The US is at fault for spreading the virus the Chinese manufactured in a lab. They create the poison we create the cure but it’s are fault?
Trump downplayed the the lethality early on no questions about it. But he was right and the WHO was WRONG. orange man bad?
https://www.factcheck.org/2020/03/trump-and-the-coronavirus-death-rate/
“The dispute began March 3 when the head of the WHO announced that the mortality rate for the new coronavirus was 3.4%, which was higher than previously believed and made it far more deadly than the seasonal flu.”
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Trump downplayed the the lethality early on no questions about it. But he was right and the WHO was WRONG. orange man bad?
https://www.factcheck.org/2020/03/trump-and-the-coronavirus-death-rate/
“The dispute began March 3 when the head of the WHO announced that the mortality rate for the new coronavirus was 3.4%, which was higher than previously believed and made it far more deadly than the seasonal flu.”
See, that is a nice example of certain biases in statistics.
The first results of the death rate were about 2% from China and the first outbreaks.
Then the virus spread to new groups - like old people - and the rate climbed. Hospitals swamped.
With extensive precautions especially for vulnerable people (like old people) and first results in treatment, the rate got down again.
Now, with even better knowledge, free hospitals (more or less) and wide vaccination (which results in younger people being the main group of infected) the death rate is down to 0,5%.
And that all does not even take in account the ability to test or infections without symptoms.
Was the WHO wrong? Maybe. They took a pessimistic guesstimate. But Trump did not even take an optimitic one, but simply a wish.
And as far as I deadly stuff goes, I am certainly more happy with overestimating the risk by factor 5 than underestimating it by 5.
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Trump downplayed the the lethality early on no questions about it. But he was right and the WHO was WRONG. orange man bad?
https://www.factcheck.org/2020/03/trump-and-the-coronavirus-death-rate/
“The dispute began March 3 when the head of the WHO announced that the mortality rate for the new coronavirus was 3.4%, which was higher than previously believed and made it far more deadly than the seasonal flu.”
See, that is a nice example of certain biases in statistics.
The first results of the death rate were about 2% from China and the first outbreaks.
Then the virus spread to new groups - like old people - and the rate climbed. Hospitals swamped.
With extensive precautions especially for vulnerable people (like old people) and first results in treatment, the rate got down again.
Now, with even better knowledge, free hospitals (more or less) and wide vaccination (which results in younger people being the main group of infected) the death rate is down to 0,5%.
And that all does not even take in account the ability to test or infections without symptoms.
Was the WHO wrong? Maybe. They took a pessimistic guesstimate. But Trump did not even take an optimitic one, but simply a wish.
And as far as I deadly stuff goes, I am certainly more happy with overestimating the risk by factor 5 than underestimating it by 5.
Exactly. Things change in a fast-moving situation.
That quote is from March 2020. Italy's current death rate, as of 8/5, is 2.9% (deaths/cases, per worldometer). It was higher in the beginning of covid, before they instituted lockdowns.
Does the "political reasons" argument really hold up anyway when delta is the current topic of the CDC and the media? Everyone has pandemic fatigue. Doesn't delta hurt Biden and the economy? Did the CDC switch sides from Democratic to Republican after the election? Is the entire world now working against Biden?
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Trump downplayed the the lethality early on no questions about it. But he was right and the WHO was WRONG. orange man bad?
https://www.factcheck.org/2020/03/trump-and-the-coronavirus-death-rate/
“The dispute began March 3 when the head of the WHO announced that the mortality rate for the new coronavirus was 3.4%, which was higher than previously believed and made it far more deadly than the seasonal flu.”
See, that is a nice example of certain biases in statistics.
The first results of the death rate were about 2% from China and the first outbreaks.
Then the virus spread to new groups - like old people - and the rate climbed. Hospitals swamped.
With extensive precautions especially for vulnerable people (like old people) and first results in treatment, the rate got down again.
Now, with even better knowledge, free hospitals (more or less) and wide vaccination (which results in younger people being the main group of infected) the death rate is down to 0,5%.
And that all does not even take in account the ability to test or infections without symptoms.
Was the WHO wrong? Maybe. They took a pessimistic guesstimate. But Trump did not even take an optimitic one, but simply a wish.
And as far as I deadly stuff goes, I am certainly more happy with overestimating the risk by factor 5 than underestimating it by 5.
Exactly. Things change in a fast-moving situation.
That quote is from March 2020. Italy's current death rate, as of 8/5, is 2.9% (deaths/cases, per worldometer). It was higher in the beginning of covid, before they instituted lockdowns.
Does the "political reasons" argument really hold up anyway when Delta is the current topic of the CDC and the media? Everyone has pandemic fatigue. Doesn't Delta hurt Biden and the economy? Did the CDC switch sides from Democratic to Republican after the election? Is the entire world now working against Biden?
Feckless and illogical lockdowns and precautions, continued violations of said precautions, a low deathrate, and continued efforts to suppress discussion and get people canceled for not towing the CDC's line... cooercing people into getting the shot, but then saying you have to wear a mask again without really explaining why... then things like Cuomo's "show me your papers, mein herr!" will absolutely work against Biden and democrats, hence my original point that this is all going to cost democrats far more than republicans in future elections.
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Does the "political reasons" argument really hold up anyway when Delta is the current topic of the CDC and the media? Everyone has pandemic fatigue. Doesn't Delta hurt Biden and the economy? Did the CDC switch sides from Democratic to Republican after the election? Is the entire world now working against Biden?
Feckless and illogical lockdowns and precautions, continued violations of said precautions, a low deathrate, and continued efforts to suppress discussion and get people canceled for not towing the CDC's line... cooercing people into getting the shot, but then saying you have to wear a mask again without really explaining why... then things like Cuomo's "show me your papers, mein herr!" will absolutely work against Biden and democrats, hence my original point that this is all going to cost democrats far more than republicans in future elections.
So...the CDC is now working against the Democratic party. Ok, glad we got that solved.
But seriously, I doubt it will. Look at the federal shutdowns. The Republicans got the blame but it didn't affect the elections.
Georgia and Arizona are now purple states and won't go back to being reliable red states. The majority of votes are already cast.
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This thread was obviously sewn with an acceptance of the stance that you argue things from the political party you side with. I think it's unfortunate, because no-one can claim the high ground if they start "on one side" and then throw mud and pick apart little individual things. Politics will be what they are, and most are on the mindset that you have to win. But we need a serious side of pragmatism if we ever want a glimmer of hope that we might, as humans, win against a pandemic and the changes it will impose upon our lives regardless of our political beliefs.
What does wearing a mask do? If you're infected, it decreases the spread of the virus to the air immediately surrounding you. We've very recently learned that with variants such as Delta, even the vaccinated can have a lot of virus in the moisture of your nasal passages, and that means that even if you never really get sick, there's a possibility that the virus can get spread to the air immediately surrounding you. Masks decrease this.
Are you completely safe once you're vaccinated? No. While information particularly about the newest strains are always evolving, the vaccine greatly reduces incidence of hospitalization and death. It likely decreases infection, and it may shorten the time that you might asymptomatically (or pre-symptomatically) spread the virus due to the viral load in nasal passages.
Should you be meeting indoors with groups of 10 or more? Hanging out in bars and restaurants? Probably not. Of course it's hard on small businesses if people stop going out and spending money in the same ways. But some of us would like the pandemic to end. That means different things to different people, but to minimize the spread of mutations, it seems like we should be looking to choose safer options for how we live our lives until those charts have gone down for a while and then move sideways at a very low place on the graph. A combination of vaccination happening too little and too late in densely populated areas has been a great cultivation for mutations, and now we have versions of the virus with better skill sets to spread. So what should you do instead? How about going back to ordering food for pickup and hanging out outdoors and maintaining distance between the people you're around!
Is the vaccine worse than the disease? Yes and no. For some people, they can be infected with little or no symptoms, while for some people, the vaccine knocks you on your ass for a day or two, and it's really miserable. I don't think we've had any (morally questionable) studies to determine if it's the same people. I imagine if the vaccine sucked, the disease likely sucked worse! But I don't have science on my side, for good reason. And yes, taking the vaccine is making something 100% happen vs the maybe 10.8% (so far, confirmed cases only) chance of catching COVID-19 in the U.S. (Which means up to 90% are still excellent vessels to help spread and mutate the virus, unless you've already got one of the vaccines helping you build up your body's natural anti-body defense system.) And yet, it's one of the best tools we have to reduce hospitalization, death, and infection spread. If you can, talk to the chemists who developed the vaccine, and find out their motivations for making a vaccine! For sure, they are paid to do a job, but they are also excited to be a part of helping humans fight viruses. They don't care if it helps a political cause (or at least, it's not remotely their primary motivator), and they would really prefer neither side use it as a political tool. For individuals, the choice to vaccinate or not should be pretty simple. It might save your life, and it might save others' lives, and in reducing the overall spread and mutation, it should also help us get back to "normal" freedom and autonomy and gatherings and not having to wear masks so much. Shut out all the other noise.
Have politicians and agencies contributed to this being a shit-show? Does that make any difference to the virus? The virus thanks all of you.
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Does the "political reasons" argument really hold up anyway when Delta is the current topic of the CDC and the media? Everyone has pandemic fatigue. Doesn't Delta hurt Biden and the economy? Did the CDC switch sides from Democratic to Republican after the election? Is the entire world now working against Biden?
Feckless and illogical lockdowns and precautions, continued violations of said precautions, a low deathrate, and continued efforts to suppress discussion and get people canceled for not towing the CDC's line... cooercing people into getting the shot, but then saying you have to wear a mask again without really explaining why... then things like Cuomo's "show me your papers, mein herr!" will absolutely work against Biden and democrats, hence my original point that this is all going to cost democrats far more than republicans in future elections.
So...the CDC is now working against the Democratic party. Ok, glad we got that solved.
But seriously, I doubt it will. Look at the federal shutdowns. The Republicans got the blame but it didn't affect the elections.
Georgia and Arizona are now purple states and won't go back to being reliable red states. The majority of votes are already cast.
'
It's entirely possible that the pandemic has turned my brain to spiders, but I don't remember a federal shutdown. I thought it was always left up to the states, and in my state the governor left it up to local municipalities.
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Does the "political reasons" argument really hold up anyway when Delta is the current topic of the CDC and the media? Everyone has pandemic fatigue. Doesn't Delta hurt Biden and the economy? Did the CDC switch sides from Democratic to Republican after the election? Is the entire world now working against Biden?
Feckless and illogical lockdowns and precautions, continued violations of said precautions, a low deathrate, and continued efforts to suppress discussion and get people canceled for not towing the CDC's line... cooercing people into getting the shot, but then saying you have to wear a mask again without really explaining why... then things like Cuomo's "show me your papers, mein herr!" will absolutely work against Biden and democrats, hence my original point that this is all going to cost democrats far more than republicans in future elections.
So...the CDC is now working against the Democratic party. Ok, glad we got that solved.
But seriously, I doubt it will. Look at the federal shutdowns. The Republicans got the blame but it didn't affect the elections.
Georgia and Arizona are now purple states and won't go back to being reliable red states. The majority of votes are already cast.
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It's entirely possible that the pandemic has turned my brain to spiders, but I don't remember a federal shutdown. I thought it was always left up to the states, and in my state the governor left it up to local municipalities.
You're right but I was thinking about the past, years ago, when the federal shutdowns happened and the national parks were closed. I remember thinking, "Damn those Republicans! The voters will make them pay for ruining summer vacations." It didn't happen. Any anger was short-lived and most of the votes were already cast.
It takes a REAL fuckup, with specific intent, to swing voters. Kansas, thanks to Brownback and his tax experiement, is an example. Making educated guesses and policies during a pandemic is not in the same league.
tl;dr What seems as malfeasance by some is not seen as malfeasance by others.
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getting the shot, but then saying you have to wear a mask again without really explaining why...
I thought by now, after more than a year and thousands of times it has been said, everyone should know that A) a vaccination does not totally prevent you from getting the virus and not from spreading it and B) a mask reduces both risks.
There, explained. Can we now shut up about the idiocy of not wearing a mask in an ongoing pandemic of a quite deadly virus?
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getting the shot, but then saying you have to wear a mask again without really explaining why...
I thought by now, after more than a year and thousands of times it has been said, everyone should know that A) a vaccination does not totally prevent you from getting the virus and not from spreading it and B) a mask reduces both risks.
There, explained. Can we now shut up about the idiocy of not wearing a mask in an ongoing pandemic of a quite deadly virus?
No, humans are going to human. Humans won't shut up about ghosts or creationism, they aren't going to shut up about having to wear a mask for an indefinite period of time after being vaccinated. Especially if their government told them that the end of the pandemic was just around the corner. I'm not disagreeing with the mask guidance, but I am disagreeing with your understanding of human behavior. For just one example, check out this video on the Trans-Siberian Railway shot last month: Traveling the Trans-Siberian in the 3rd class train // Russian platzkart (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZl-icu3NV4). Most of these humans have decided that they can't be bothered with masks.
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getting the shot, but then saying you have to wear a mask again without really explaining why...
I thought by now, after more than a year and thousands of times it has been said, everyone should know that A) a vaccination does not totally prevent you from getting the virus and not from spreading it and B) a mask reduces both risks.
There, explained. Can we now shut up about the idiocy of not wearing a mask in an ongoing pandemic of a quite deadly virus?
No, humans are going to human. Humans won't shut up about ghosts or creationism, they aren't going to shut up about having to wear a mask for an indefinite period of time after being vaccinated. Especially if their government told them that the end of the pandemic was just around the corner. I'm not disagreeing with the mask guidance, but I am disagreeing with your understanding of human behavior. For just one example, check out this video on the Trans-Siberian Railway shot last month: Traveling the Trans-Siberian in the 3rd class train // Russian platzkart (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZl-icu3NV4). Most of these humans have decided that they can't be bothered with masks.
I frequently watch travel videos when I'm relaxing, and from what I've seen nobody seems to care about masks in more countries than not. That being said I would chock more of it up to culture than human nature, since from what I've seen it varies a lot from country to country.
And on the subject of human nature, it's kind of sad that there's not much money to be made in people wearing masks because then all the humans you're talking would be inundated with ads to wear one. Human nature is something that can be channeled when there's a drive to do it.
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Vaccines have been available to everyone 12+ in the U.S. for many months now. When will it be up to each individual to determine their own risks (extremely low if vaccinated) for themselves again? If someone is truly afraid for their life, they can now purchase a fitted N95 or P95 mask or respirator without potentially taking PPE from a medical professional / first responder that needs it more and completely protect themselves regardless of what anyone around them decides what to do. The "I wear a mask to protect you and you wear one to protect me" was because people were told to wear cloth face protection in the early timeline of Covid and is absolute bullshit now... completely protect yourself if you don't feel like taking the risk as a vaccinated or unvaccinated person.
The goal is to prevent people from over running our healthcare system and/or dying. We now have a vaccine that will essentially protect you from both, and a non-shortage of proper PPE if you choose to wear it (because as stated, we all know that the vaccine is not 100% now). Everyone who ends up in a hospital or dies at this point it's completely on them and they knowingly took that risk for themselves, regardless of what everyone around them decided to do.
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Vaccines have been available to everyone 12+ in the U.S. for many months now. When will it be up to each individual to determine their own risks (extremely low if vaccinated) for themselves again? If someone is truly afraid for their life, they can now purchase a fitted N95 or P95 mask or respirator without potentially taking PPE from a medical professional / first responder that needs it more and completely protect themselves regardless of what anyone around them decides what to do. The "I wear a mask to protect you and you wear one to protect me" was because people were told to wear cloth face protection in the early timeline of Covid and is absolute bullshit now... completely protect yourself if you don't feel like taking the risk as a vaccinated or unvaccinated person.
The goal is to prevent people from over running our healthcare system and/or dying. We now have a vaccine that will essentially protect you from both, and a non-shortage of proper PPE if you choose to wear it (because as stated, we all know that the vaccine is not 100% now). Everyone who ends up in a hospital or dies at this point it's completely on them and they knowingly took that risk for themselves, regardless of what everyone around them decided to do.
What about the people who die from something else because their local hospital was overwhelmed with these unvaccinated hospitalizations? We are still at that point in many areas of the US.
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Vaccines have been available to everyone 12+ in the U.S. for many months now. When will it be up to each individual to determine their own risks (extremely low if vaccinated) for themselves again? If someone is truly afraid for their life, they can now purchase a fitted N95 or P95 mask or respirator without potentially taking PPE from a medical professional / first responder that needs it more and completely protect themselves regardless of what anyone around them decides what to do. The "I wear a mask to protect you and you wear one to protect me" was because people were told to wear cloth face protection in the early timeline of Covid and is absolute bullshit now... completely protect yourself if you don't feel like taking the risk as a vaccinated or unvaccinated person.
The goal is to prevent people from over running our healthcare system and/or dying. We now have a vaccine that will essentially protect you from both, and a non-shortage of proper PPE if you choose to wear it (because as stated, we all know that the vaccine is not 100% now). Everyone who ends up in a hospital or dies at this point it's completely on them and they knowingly took that risk for themselves, regardless of what everyone around them decided to do.
What about the people who die from something else because their local hospital was overwhelmed with these unvaccinated hospitalizations? We are still at that point in many areas of the US.
Is this actually happening in any measurable way in areas of the US? Or are you just creating a hypothetical scenario that you would like me to consider?
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Vaccines have been available to everyone 12+ in the U.S. for many months now. When will it be up to each individual to determine their own risks (extremely low if vaccinated) for themselves again? If someone is truly afraid for their life, they can now purchase a fitted N95 or P95 mask or respirator without potentially taking PPE from a medical professional / first responder that needs it more and completely protect themselves regardless of what anyone around them decides what to do. The "I wear a mask to protect you and you wear one to protect me" was because people were told to wear cloth face protection in the early timeline of Covid and is absolute bullshit now... completely protect yourself if you don't feel like taking the risk as a vaccinated or unvaccinated person.
The goal is to prevent people from over running our healthcare system and/or dying. We now have a vaccine that will essentially protect you from both, and a non-shortage of proper PPE if you choose to wear it (because as stated, we all know that the vaccine is not 100% now). Everyone who ends up in a hospital or dies at this point it's completely on them and they knowingly took that risk for themselves, regardless of what everyone around them decided to do.
What about the people who die from something else because their local hospital was overwhelmed with these unvaccinated hospitalizations? We are still at that point in many areas of the US.
Is this actually happening in any measurable way in areas of the US? Or are you just creating a hypothetical scenario that you would like me to consider?
Well, I do know that hospitals are full, I don't know if we can attribute any deaths to that fact this week. But it isn't good for the overall efficiency of our health system.
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Is this actually happening in any measurable way in areas of the US? Or are you just creating a hypothetical scenario that you would like me to consider?
This article discusses two studies of overcrowding in hostpials. One UK based and one regarding American VA care.
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2021/03/18/974861952/lessons-from-the-covid-19-crisis-overcrowding-hospitals-cost-lives (https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2021/03/18/974861952/lessons-from-the-covid-19-crisis-overcrowding-hospitals-cost-lives)
The upshot appears to be that when hospitals are overcrowded, ICU patients (across all ages and demographics) die at a much higher rate than normal.
"We normally don't think about outcomes based on how many other people are sick," says Dr. Lewis Rubinson, chief medical officer at Morristown Medical Center, who wrote an editorial accompanying the JAMA study. "This reinforces that one of the best ways to improve survival is to reduce the overall pace of people coming into the ICU."
The study measured the mortality rate of more than 8,500 veterans at 88 VA hospitals between March and November.
As ICU demand increased, the mortality rate went up — a trend that was consistent at different times in the pandemic.
"You have a finite set of resources that you can only slice into so small a piece before patients' care is going to be relatively compromised," says Mateen. "In the U.K., we've always known that quality of care starts to take a nosedive when you get above [85% occupancy]."
If hospital occupancy is extremely high it would seem very likely that people (who don't have covid) are dying because of it.
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It could also be that we saw a higher mortality rate because it was well documented that people avoided and waited way longer to get "that thing" checked out during covid due to fear of going to the doctor or emergency room.
I think that that precautions the US took before the vaccine were acceptable and made a lot of sense (masking, shutting down non-essential work, etc.) , but my opinion above is based on going forward in a post vaccine and PPE shortage future. People now have the opportunity to dramatically reduce their chance of needing a hospital or dying (even if they are a increasingly common breakthru case) by receiving a readily available vaccine and those who want to be sure not to contract Covid regardless of those around them have the opportunity to wear readily available proper PPE.
I don't believe we will ever see the very rare cases of hospitals having to turn away care due to overrunning again as the vast majority of highest risk & elderly are now vaccinated (and 600,000+ have unfortunately died, but that needs to be an actual factor), a good chunk of the medium risk population has either been vaccinated or already had Covid most likely providing some sort of protection from future hospitalization and/or death, and the lowest age group of vaccination percent are also hands down the lowest risk of needing a hospital or dying in the first place.
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getting the shot, but then saying you have to wear a mask again without really explaining why...
I thought by now, after more than a year and thousands of times it has been said, everyone should know that A) a vaccination does not totally prevent you from getting the virus and not from spreading it and B) a mask reduces both risks.
There, explained. Can we now shut up about the idiocy of not wearing a mask in an ongoing pandemic of a quite deadly virus?
No, humans are going to human. Humans won't shut up about ghosts or creationism, they aren't going to shut up about having to wear a mask for an indefinite period of time after being vaccinated. Especially if their government told them that the end of the pandemic was just around the corner. I'm not disagreeing with the mask guidance, but I am disagreeing with your understanding of human behavior. For just one example, check out this video on the Trans-Siberian Railway shot last month: Traveling the Trans-Siberian in the 3rd class train // Russian platzkart (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZl-icu3NV4). Most of these humans have decided that they can't be bothered with masks.
I showed no "understanding of human behavior". I simply stated in a terse way that "nobody said why you should continue wearing a mask" is a lie. A downright "alternative fact", because you have to be blind and deaf to not have heard or read that explanation a few dozen times.
In the case of Russia (much like the Reps in the US) this is the result of the government telling that there is no problem. Nothing to see, go on. (Very typical of autocracies in a crisis.)
You can see this even in Africa. Some governments opted to say there is no virus, unofficially officially because they didn't have the health care capacities anyway.
In those states the epidemic spread a lot more agressive than in countries directly across the border (although afaik no country could get it under control eventually).
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getting the shot, but then saying you have to wear a mask again without really explaining why...
I thought by now, after more than a year and thousands of times it has been said, everyone should know that A) a vaccination does not totally prevent you from getting the virus and not from spreading it and B) a mask reduces both risks.
There, explained. Can we now shut up about the idiocy of not wearing a mask in an ongoing pandemic of a quite deadly virus?
No, humans are going to human. Humans won't shut up about ghosts or creationism, they aren't going to shut up about having to wear a mask for an indefinite period of time after being vaccinated. Especially if their government told them that the end of the pandemic was just around the corner. I'm not disagreeing with the mask guidance, but I am disagreeing with your understanding of human behavior. For just one example, check out this video on the Trans-Siberian Railway shot last month: Traveling the Trans-Siberian in the 3rd class train // Russian platzkart (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZl-icu3NV4). Most of these humans have decided that they can't be bothered with masks.
I showed no "understanding of human behavior". I simply stated in a terse way that "nobody said why you should continue wearing a mask" is a lie. A downright "alternative fact", because you have to be blind and deaf to not have heard or read a few dozen explanations at this time.
Fix for you.
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I can attest that locally, certain surgical cases are being postponed (not all electives outright shut down like earlier in the pandemic) because we need to keep those vents free for respiratory failure patients. We are at the same overcrowding in the hospital that we had in the latter half of last year, but the difference is that the vaccine is here now when it wasn’t then, even though everyone is spouting off about how it should be better because the old had sick have already died. That isn’t how this works. COVID doesn’t care who you are. If you are unvaccinated and haven’t been infected yet, you are simply lucky… for now. These cases don’t have to be happening.
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I showed no "understanding of human behavior". I simply stated in a terse way that "nobody said why you should continue wearing a mask" is a lie. A downright "alternative fact", because you have to be blind and deaf to not have heard or read a few dozen explanations at this time.
Fix for you.
Care to enumerate some of these "few dozen" explanations? Here's my list:
1) A mask will block many of the respiratory droplets that you would otherwise spew into the air, reducing the probability that you will infect other people if you happen to be COVID-positive.
Like...that's it. That's the reason. I'm genuinely curious what these other dozens of reasons you've heard are.
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In the case of Russia (much like the Reps in the US) this is the result of the government telling that there is no problem. Nothing to see, go on. (Very typical of autocracies in a crisis.)
Can confirm. My relatives in Russia are convinced that Covid there is under control even as they say, in the next sentence, that people they know are dropping like flies. Same with forest fires - they are all in the US, even as they complain about the smoke.
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I can attest that locally, certain surgical cases are being postponed (not all electives outright shut down like earlier in the pandemic) because we need to keep those vents free for respiratory failure patients. We are at the same overcrowding in the hospital that we had in the latter half of last year, but the difference is that the vaccine is here now when it wasn’t then, even though everyone is spouting off about how it should be better because the old had sick have already died. That isn’t how this works. COVID doesn’t care who you are. If you are unvaccinated and haven’t been infected yet, you are simply lucky… for now. These cases don’t have to be happening.
At what point will the hospitals stop keeping ventilators "on hold" for the willingly unvaxxed, when there are other needs for them? It has to happen sometime, I would think. What other illness/condition gets this kind of preferential treatment? The longer the pandemic goes on and the more people who are vaccinated, the less tolerance there will be for this, when the majority's needs are coming secondary to the minority's. If the unvaxxed are willing to take a chance on getting the virus, then they have to be willing to take a chance on getting treated.
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Vaccines have been available to everyone 12+ in the U.S. for many months now. When will it be up to each individual to determine their own risks (extremely low if vaccinated) for themselves again? If someone is truly afraid for their life, they can now purchase a fitted N95 or P95 mask or respirator without potentially taking PPE from a medical professional / first responder that needs it more and completely protect themselves regardless of what anyone around them decides what to do. The "I wear a mask to protect you and you wear one to protect me" was because people were told to wear cloth face protection in the early timeline of Covid and is absolute bullshit now... completely protect yourself if you don't feel like taking the risk as a vaccinated or unvaccinated person.
The goal is to prevent people from over running our healthcare system and/or dying. We now have a vaccine that will essentially protect you from both, and a non-shortage of proper PPE if you choose to wear it (because as stated, we all know that the vaccine is not 100% now). Everyone who ends up in a hospital or dies at this point it's completely on them and they knowingly took that risk for themselves, regardless of what everyone around them decided to do.
In the US it seems to me that point is when the vaccines are fully approved and no longer under the emergency use authorization. Assuming you don't have a medical issue that makes vaccination too risky the EUA is really the last credible excuse for not getting vaccinated other than "I don't want to and the government can't make me" (which I think is a stupid but valid choice). Once those approvals happen if you choose to continue rolling the dice that's entirely on you. Society has done it's job and we're no longer obligated to hobble ourselves trying to protect people who won't protect themselves as long as we can do enough to avoid completely overwhelming the medical system in hotspot areas.
The only way out of this is herd immunity, either through vaccination or post infection antibodies. If you don't want free access to the former then fine, let's get cracking on the latter.
(Note: I am a bit cranky this Monday morning, not sure I fully stand by that last line)
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At what point will the hospitals stop keeping ventilators "on hold" for the willingly unvaxxed, when there are other needs for them? It has to happen sometime, I would think. What other illness/condition gets this kind of preferential treatment? The longer the pandemic goes on and the more people who are vaccinated, the less tolerance there will be for this, when the majority's needs are coming secondary to the minority's. If the unvaxxed are willing to take a chance on getting the virus, then they have to be willing to take a chance on getting treated.
That point does not exist. Healthcare isn’t only for people who deserve it and that is not up for debate.
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At what point will the hospitals stop keeping ventilators "on hold" for the willingly unvaxxed, when there are other needs for them? It has to happen sometime, I would think. What other illness/condition gets this kind of preferential treatment? The longer the pandemic goes on and the more people who are vaccinated, the less tolerance there will be for this, when the majority's needs are coming secondary to the minority's. If the unvaxxed are willing to take a chance on getting the virus, then they have to be willing to take a chance on getting treated.
That point does not exist. Healthcare isn’t only for people who deserve it and that is not up for debate.
This. Doctors treat patients based on need, not life-choices. Drug addicts, heavy smokers, the obese all qualify for care. In triage the severity of need is the only factor, not who “deserves” it more.
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I showed no "understanding of human behavior". I simply stated in a terse way that "nobody said why you should continue wearing a mask" is a lie. A downright "alternative fact", because you have to be blind and deaf to not have heard or read a few dozen explanations at this time.
Fix for you.
Care to enumerate some of these "few dozen" explanations? Here's my list:
1) A mask will block many of the respiratory droplets that you would otherwise spew into the air, reducing the probability that you will infect other people if you happen to be COVID-positive.
Like...that's it. That's the reason. I'm genuinely curious what these other dozens of reasons you've heard are.
Dozens is an exaggeration. But here's a few samples: If I get the vaccine, can I stop masking or not? How many masks do I need, 2? 3? Do I need an N95 or will a cloth one work? Different day, different answer.
I direct you back to this. Fauci has demonstrated he is willing to lie to achieve his ends. so he is a less than credible source anymore. Doesn't matter that he means well, and it doesn't make someone an uneducated anti science idiot to question what he says... infact not questioning him at this point I think makes you more of a dolt than anything.
https://slate.com/technology/2021/07/noble-lies-covid-fauci-cdc-masks.html
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… are you unclear about how evidence based science works? As we learn more, the recommendations evolve.
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I showed no "understanding of human behavior". I simply stated in a terse way that "nobody said why you should continue wearing a mask" is a lie. A downright "alternative fact", because you have to be blind and deaf to not have heard or read a few dozen explanations at this time.
Fix for you.
Care to enumerate some of these "few dozen" explanations? Here's my list:
1) A mask will block many of the respiratory droplets that you would otherwise spew into the air, reducing the probability that you will infect other people if you happen to be COVID-positive.
Like...that's it. That's the reason. I'm genuinely curious what these other dozens of reasons you've heard are.
Dozens is an exaggeration. But here's a few samples: If I get the vaccine, can I stop masking or not? How many masks do I need, 2? 3? Do I need an N95 or will a cloth one work? Different day, different answer.
I’m not sure where your confusion lies with the above, or how the guidance lead to your confusion.
Being fully vaccinated greatly reduces but does not eliminate your risk. I have not ever seen any official source claim 100% immunity, only nearly that from death against the original variants. Ergo, mags continue to provide additional protection at stopping the spread. Whether it’s necessary depends on where you are and who you are interacting with.
Two mags provides better protection over 1. We learned that months ago. Do you need to wear two, again that depends on circumstances.
N95 masks have always offered a higher degree of protection over both masks, but those in turn offer more protection than nothing at all. It seems only availability has been the issue. Again, how has this message changed from day to day?
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Dozens is an exaggeration. But here's a few samples: If I get the vaccine, can I stop masking or not? How many masks do I need, 2? 3? Do I need an N95 or will a cloth one work? Different day, different answer.
When I see this kind odd line of distraction from the core issue of how can any one individual make their best effort to contribute to reducing the spread of a highly contagious, often harmful, and sometimes deadly pathogen I wonder what the issue is. It could be a huge disinterest in the physics involved. To try to simplify, once more, wearing any mask can help to reduce some of the aerosols containing the pathogen (which means reduced chance of transmission). Everything else is open for scientific research for optimization. N95 is most likely going to do a better job than cloth, and two is probably better than one. But one of any mask (covering mouth and nostrils) is better than none. And it's a ridiculously small inconvenience when compared to the alternatives.
Vaccination never claimed 100% efficacy, even against infection and transmission, but the evidence so far has always shown that it massively reduces it. That being said, the newer variants are, well, newer, and so less time has been available as a resource to use in researching how individuals with the vaccine respond to that variant. There is already evidence that infection and transmission are possible if not altogether likely when a vaccinated individual is exposed to the delta variant. Wearing a mask will, once again, reduce the chance of transmission.
New information isn't a particularly confusing concept, though. Especially with something that changes rapidly, and can be difficult to put through the scientific process quickly, morally, and with reproducible results. Using new information to just throw up your hands and not try means you prefer to be selfish, lazy or defiant rather than contribute to the welfare of your fellow humans. Is that acceptable? Well, everyone has their own moral code.
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Neither anti-mask, nor anti-vaxx arguments arose from good faith, fact-bases reasoning. Thus, no amount of good faith, fact-based reasoning can assuage them. Anti-maskers will start wearing masks when people they respect start wearing masks, and that's not you, me, or Fauci.
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Neither anti-mask, nor anti-vaxx arguments arose from good faith, fact-bases reasoning. Thus, no amount of good faith, fact-based reasoning can assuage them. Anti-maskers will start wearing masks when people they respect start wearing masks, and that's not you, me, or Fauci.
I'm anti mask after vax, and I believe I use fact-based reasoning to get there.
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If I get the vaccine, can I stop masking or not?
Depends on the conditions. Vaccinated people are less likely to be carriers than non-vaccinated people, so the benefit of mask-wearing is going to be comparatively less if you're vaccinated. The question is where should we put the line between "worth it" and "not worth it"?
Previously the CDC recommended mask wearing only for unvaccinated people, because the number of cases was on the decline and the probability of vaccinated people transmitting the disease was very low. Multiply the small probability of exposure by the small probability of infection and vaccinated people wearing masks wasn't thought to be a very effective countermeasure.
Conditions have changed. More people have COVID (increasing the probability that you'll have been exposed), and new variants are thought to be more resistant to the vaccine (increasing the probability that you'll be infected if you were exposed). That pushes vaccinated mask-wearing into "worth it" territory.
How many masks do I need, 2? 3? Do I need an N95 or will a cloth one work? Different day, different answer.
Again, depends on conditions. N95 is better than multiple cloth masks which is better than a single cloth mask which is better than nothing. How much better depends on how likely you are to be infected in the first place, which depends on your local conditions. The more cases there are and the more transmissible the virus is, the more of a difference it will make to wear a better mask.
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Neither anti-mask, nor anti-vaxx arguments arose from good faith, fact-bases reasoning. Thus, no amount of good faith, fact-based reasoning can assuage them. Anti-maskers will start wearing masks when people they respect start wearing masks, and that's not you, me, or Fauci.
I'm anti mask after vax, and I believe I use fact-based reasoning to get there.
Here’s why the masks are back: the chances that you will get a breakthrough case as a vaccinated person has a lot to do with how much virus you get exposed to. Now that we have another peak and so few takers for the vaccine, your potential “dose” is pretty high now and you (yes you!) are again at higher risk because of those refusing the vaccine. We get more people vaccinate? The masks go away again.
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Neither anti-mask, nor anti-vaxx arguments arose from good faith, fact-bases reasoning. Thus, no amount of good faith, fact-based reasoning can assuage them. Anti-maskers will start wearing masks when people they respect start wearing masks, and that's not you, me, or Fauci.
I'm anti mask after vax, and I believe I use fact-based reasoning to get there.
Here’s why the masks are back: the chances that you will get a breakthrough case as a vaccinated person has a lot to do with how much virus you get exposed to. Now that we have another peak and so few takers for the vaccine, your potential “dose” is pretty high now and you (yes you!) are again at higher risk because of those refusing the vaccine. We get more people vaccinate? The masks go away again.
People are also missing that the more this virus spreads and mutates, the more likely that the vaccines most of us have taken *will be worthless against new variants*.
Early variants didn't seem to be all that transmissible once you were vaccinated. However, the delta variant is several times more transmissible AND vaccinated people carry as much of the viral load as unvaccinated people. By masking we reduce transmission and reduce the number of future variants we have to deal with.
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Also true, but the problem of mutation is also fixed by vaccination since that’s a crime of opportunity. Fewer potential hosts and less hospitable too make fewer chances for mutation.
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getting the shot, but then saying you have to wear a mask again without really explaining why...
I thought by now, after more than a year and thousands of times it has been said, everyone should know that A) a vaccination does not totally prevent you from getting the virus and not from spreading it and B) a mask reduces both risks.
There, explained. Can we now shut up about the idiocy of not wearing a mask in an ongoing pandemic of a quite deadly virus?
No, humans are going to human. Humans won't shut up about ghosts or creationism, they aren't going to shut up about having to wear a mask for an indefinite period of time after being vaccinated. Especially if their government told them that the end of the pandemic was just around the corner. I'm not disagreeing with the mask guidance, but I am disagreeing with your understanding of human behavior. For just one example, check out this video on the Trans-Siberian Railway shot last month: Traveling the Trans-Siberian in the 3rd class train // Russian platzkart (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZl-icu3NV4). Most of these humans have decided that they can't be bothered with masks.
I showed no "understanding of human behavior".
I never wrote that. I wrote that I disagreed with your understanding. To be specific I was replying to your statement of "[c]an we now shut up about the idiocy of not wearing a mask in an ongoing pandemic of a quite deadly virus?"
To which I honestly believe the answer to be "no."
In the case of Russia (much like the Reps in the US) this is the result of the government telling that there is no problem. Nothing to see, go on. (Very typical of autocracies in a crisis.)
While I certainly believe that both the US and Russia could have done a better job at controlling the outbreak they both developed vaccines ASAP. Russia was actually one of the first countries to start vaccinating their population with a vaccine that by all accounts is both safe (https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(21)00191-4/fulltext) and effective (https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-01813-2). I do not personally believe that is the action of a country that doesn't care about the pandemic.
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In the case of Russia (much like the Reps in the US) this is the result of the government telling that there is no problem. Nothing to see, go on. (Very typical of autocracies in a crisis.)
Can confirm. My relatives in Russia are convinced that Covid there is under control even as they say, in the next sentence, that people they know are dropping like flies. Same with forest fires - they are all in the US, even as they complain about the smoke.
I'm curious if you happen to have a read on whether Russia's low vaccination rate stems from lack of supply, lack of access, or general vaccine hesitancy? The above link I posted says hesitancy, but I'm still curious.
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I'm curious if you happen to have a read on whether Russia's low vaccination rate stems from lack of supply, lack of access, or general vaccine hesitancy? The above link I posted says hesitancy, but I'm still curious.
From what I hear, 100% hesitancy - or, rather, lack of interest. Where my relatives are, vaccines were never rationed. There were vaccination stations in shopping centers since spring - no lines, come and get it. It was a point of pride for them to point that out while we waited for our turn.
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At what point will the hospitals stop keeping ventilators "on hold" for the willingly unvaxxed, when there are other needs for them? It has to happen sometime, I would think. What other illness/condition gets this kind of preferential treatment? The longer the pandemic goes on and the more people who are vaccinated, the less tolerance there will be for this, when the majority's needs are coming secondary to the minority's. If the unvaxxed are willing to take a chance on getting the virus, then they have to be willing to take a chance on getting treated.
That point does not exist. Healthcare isn’t only for people who deserve it and that is not up for debate.
This. Doctors treat patients based on need, not life-choices. Drug addicts, heavy smokers, the obese all qualify for care. In triage the severity of need is the only factor, not who “deserves” it more.
That's not what I was saying. It's not about who deserves it, it's about what's available. Will hospitals indefinitely leave ventilators (and whatever else is needed for Covid), sitting idle waiting for patients that may or may not come, while others who do need it now continue to wait? That is happening now, isn't it? Surgeries are being cancelled (some called "elective" when they are cancer surgeries) to keep vents free for incoming Covid patients. Who have not necessarily arrived yet, but are expected to. Am I understanding this wrong? If patients are being cancelled individually because there is someone in greater immediate need taking up the equipment, that's one thing. But it's another if all electives etc are cancelled at a given hospital in anticipation of Covid need. And I believe that that is what has happened, at least at some hospitals.
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I’m not sure what you mean? Hospital operations take expected caseloads into account when allocating resources. You can’t have every vent in the hospital tied up. People will still receive resources based on urgency of need for care and suitability of alternative methods of care. What is happening is that lower priority cases are numbed back so that every single vent isn’t tied up. Nowhere are there ORs with tumbleweeds rolling through them and crickets from the admissions coordinators. Patients who are currently ill may deteriorate and then what do you do when you code them? Bag them forever? Send the to another hospital? What about when all the nearby hospitals are near capacity or even on diversion? What do you do then? Postponing an ortho surgery or whatever (my own was postponed last summer) is the logic step here. Regardless, vaccination status will not factor into who gets care.
I specifically said it wasn’t a complete shutdown in my post, so I know that isn’t the misunderstanding.
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So what with Delta variant seemingly being a lot more infective and delta also using vaccinated people quite sucessfully to propagate, I think it's over that we could dream of getting rid of this virus.
At the same time immunity still seems to go down after a certain time (but of course, for lack of time, we still can't say for sure how long and how much).
I got my second shot on saturday and was completely floored sunday, bad monday and today is "a bit fever but mostly okay".
As far as I read and heard experience from relatives, that is about average.
Will that mean that we will have to get a shot each year, with one third of the people being downed for two or three days every year? That would be... very uncomfortable. And maybe lead to people not getting the vaccine anymore?
Will the virus become so widespread that you are basically infected all the time, don't have symptoms most of the tiime because your immune system handles it, and a few dozen people (mostly weakened ones) per million will just die of it every year, like it is with the flu?
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I got my second shot on saturday and was completely floored sunday, bad monday and today is "a bit fever but mostly okay".
As far as I read and heard experience from relatives, that is about average.
Will that mean that we will have to get a shot each year, with one third of the people being downed for two or three days every year? That would be... very uncomfortable. And maybe lead to people not getting the vaccine anymore?
That's an interesting question.
Feeling sick after getting one of these shots is very common. My wife had powerful headaches for eight days after getting her first shot - a bunch of tests were done, and our doctor believes it was a reaction to the shot. I was surprised how bad the shot made me feel, with something like the flu shot I don't feel any difference at all. Does anyone know about the likelihood of there being significant side effects for booster shots going forward?
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I got my second shot on saturday and was completely floored sunday, bad monday and today is "a bit fever but mostly okay".
As far as I read and heard experience from relatives, that is about average.
Will that mean that we will have to get a shot each year, with one third of the people being downed for two or three days every year? That would be... very uncomfortable. And maybe lead to people not getting the vaccine anymore?
That's an interesting question.
Feeling sick after getting one of these shots is very common. My wife had powerful headaches for eight days after getting her first shot - a bunch of tests were done, and our doctor believes it was a reaction to the shot. I was surprised how bad the shot made me feel, with something like the flu shot I don't feel any difference at all. Does anyone know about the likelihood of there being significant side effects for booster shots going forward?
I would guess that it will just get incorporated into the annual flu shot, the way H1N1 was. And we all know that the rate of people who get their annual flu shot is already very low.
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I got my second shot on saturday and was completely floored sunday, bad monday and today is "a bit fever but mostly okay".
As far as I read and heard experience from relatives, that is about average.
Will that mean that we will have to get a shot each year, with one third of the people being downed for two or three days every year? That would be... very uncomfortable. And maybe lead to people not getting the vaccine anymore?
That's an interesting question.
Feeling sick after getting one of these shots is very common. My wife had powerful headaches for eight days after getting her first shot - a bunch of tests were done, and our doctor believes it was a reaction to the shot. I was surprised how bad the shot made me feel, with something like the flu shot I don't feel any difference at all. Does anyone know about the likelihood of there being significant side effects for booster shots going forward?
I would guess that it will just get incorporated into the annual flu shot, the way H1N1 was. And we all know that the rate of people who get their annual flu shot is already very low.
I get my flu shot every year (except 2020 - didn't seem necessary as I wasn't around any people) and have never needed to take a day off work after getting the shot. It's hard to imagine that more people will get the flu shot if it continues to do that.
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I got my second shot on saturday and was completely floored sunday, bad monday and today is "a bit fever but mostly okay".
As far as I read and heard experience from relatives, that is about average.
Will that mean that we will have to get a shot each year, with one third of the people being downed for two or three days every year? That would be... very uncomfortable. And maybe lead to people not getting the vaccine anymore?
That's an interesting question.
Feeling sick after getting one of these shots is very common. My wife had powerful headaches for eight days after getting her first shot - a bunch of tests were done, and our doctor believes it was a reaction to the shot. I was surprised how bad the shot made me feel, with something like the flu shot I don't feel any difference at all. Does anyone know about the likelihood of there being significant side effects for booster shots going forward?
I would guess that it will just get incorporated into the annual flu shot, the way H1N1 was. And we all know that the rate of people who get their annual flu shot is already very low.
Except that H1N1 is a flu. We certainly do have multi vaccines, such as MMR, but this is the first I have heard of combining flu and COVID, especially given that there are COVID specific ant vac campaigns.
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I got my second shot on saturday and was completely floored sunday, bad monday and today is "a bit fever but mostly okay".
As far as I read and heard experience from relatives, that is about average.
Will that mean that we will have to get a shot each year, with one third of the people being downed for two or three days every year? That would be... very uncomfortable. And maybe lead to people not getting the vaccine anymore?
That's an interesting question.
Feeling sick after getting one of these shots is very common. My wife had powerful headaches for eight days after getting her first shot - a bunch of tests were done, and our doctor believes it was a reaction to the shot. I was surprised how bad the shot made me feel, with something like the flu shot I don't feel any difference at all. Does anyone know about the likelihood of there being significant side effects for booster shots going forward?
I would guess that it will just get incorporated into the annual flu shot, the way H1N1 was. And we all know that the rate of people who get their annual flu shot is already very low.
I get my flu shot every year (except 2020 - didn't seem necessary as I wasn't around any people) and have never needed to take a day off work after getting the shot. It's hard to imagine that more people will get the flu shot if it continues to do that.
Another anecdote: I get very ill after my annual flu shot, and it's never stopped me from getting it.
My point was that even though the regular flu shot rarely makes people ill the way it does for me, the uptake is still abysmally poor. So yes, if the covid vaccine continues to cause ongoing illness in a lot of people, it may deter some of them from getting it, but people are already bad at getting annual flu shots anyway.
Maybe the side effects from the vaccine will level off over time, maybe they won't. Maybe the virus will chill out over time in severity like H1N1 did, and maybe it won't.
At the end of the day, it will all come down to level of motivation vs inconvenience of getting a shot. If the virus remains high in morbidity and mortality, more people will continue getting boosters, if it doesn't fewer people will. Whatever happens, there will be some sort of equilibrium in the end, the same way there was after H1N1.
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Stop coddling the morons. Apply pressure and the long hard stick of the modern nation state until they cave.
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Stop coddling the morons. Apply pressure and the long hard stick of the modern nation state until they cave.
Your authoritarian is showing.
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Stop coddling the morons. Apply pressure and the long hard stick of the modern nation state until they cave.
Your authoritarian is showing.
You don't have to force them, just make it a requirement to do anything in society. If they want to go back to being hunter gatherers in the woods, good luck have fun. Kinda like we force people to wear clothes in public.
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Stop coddling the morons. Apply pressure and the long hard stick of the modern nation state until they cave.
Your authoritarian is showing.
You don't have to force them, just make it a requirement to do anything in society. If they want to go back to being hunter gatherers in the woods, good luck have fun. Kinda like we force people to wear clothes in public.
Force people to wear clothes! I don't know... sounds like we should equivocate that with fascism to scare people into voting for lower taxes for rich people.
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[ftp][/ftp]
Stop coddling the morons. Apply pressure and the long hard stick of the modern nation state until they cave.
Your authoritarian is showing.
You don't have to force them, just make it a requirement to do anything in society. If they want to go back to being hunter gatherers in the woods, good luck have fun. Kinda like we force people to wear clothes in public.
Force people to wear clothes! I don't know... sounds like we should equivocate that with fascism to scare people into voting for lower taxes for rich people.
No shirts. No shoes. No freedom.
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Stop coddling the morons. Apply pressure and the long hard stick of the modern nation state until they cave.
Your authoritarian is showing.
You don't have to force them, just make it a requirement to do anything in society. If they want to go back to being hunter gatherers in the woods, good luck have fun. Kinda like we force people to wear clothes in public.
Not where I live (https://www.bendsource.com/bend/naked-in-nature/Content?oid=10334422). Of course you can't go into a restaurant naked. Which may have been your point.
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Stop coddling the morons. Apply pressure and the long hard stick of the modern nation state until they cave.
Your authoritarian is showing.
You don't have to force them, just make it a requirement to do anything in society. If they want to go back to being hunter gatherers in the woods, good luck have fun. Kinda like we force people to wear clothes in public.
My anti-vaxxer friend is sort of planning exactly that. Going to go off-grid remotely if the government tries to take away her freedom of choice. But she's willing to give up the freedom to have a job, running water, electricity, convenient food and all the amenities of modern life. That's quite the trade-off. Of course, the gov't won't have to do such a thing, because individual businesses will do it instead.
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Stop coddling the morons. Apply pressure and the long hard stick of the modern nation state until they cave.
Your authoritarian is showing.
You don't have to force them, just make it a requirement to do anything in society. If they want to go back to being hunter gatherers in the woods, good luck have fun. Kinda like we force people to wear clothes in public.
My anti-vaxxer friend is sort of planning exactly that. Going to go off-grid remotely if the government tries to take away her freedom of choice. But she's willing to give up the freedom to have a job, running water, electricity, convenient food and all the amenities of modern life. That's quite the trade-off. Of course, the gov't won't have to do such a thing, because individual businesses will do it instead.
I wonder how many people will follow through on this kind of thing, or if it will end up like all the people who said they would move to Canada if Trump won.
Most people can barely bring themselves to leave a job they hate, much less totally upend their entire lives.
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Almost none of them will. Take away their paychecks and their toys and they will cave.
Call their bluff. Offer extremely narrow exceptions, then just do it. Fire the transit employees. Fire the nurses. Fire the teachers. They will all cave if the political leaders show that they are serious.
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I just saw something this morning that Florida now has more COVID deaths that DeSantis' margin of victory. I'm sure not everyone who had died voted for him but as the number of deaths creeps up there you gotta wonder.
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Almost none of them will. Take away their paychecks and their toys and they will cave.
Call their bluff. Offer extremely narrow exceptions, then just do it. Fire the transit employees. Fire the nurses. Fire the teachers. They will all cave if the political leaders show that they are serious.
Private employers are already doing this. Seems fair to me. People have the choice whether to keep their jobs or find other employment.
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Where did people get this notion that the Constitution and our Founding Fathers gave them the right to do whatever the F__ they want. This seems to be a pervasive belief, particularly in some conservative and libertarian circles.
There is no Right enshrined in the constitution so absolute that reasonable limitations cannot be placed upon it, and we have 240 years of case law and legislation to prove it.
THe people who shout “…but Freedom!” Seem to be the ones who understand our government the least.
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Almost none of them will. Take away their paychecks and their toys and they will cave.
Call their bluff. Offer extremely narrow exceptions, then just do it. Fire the transit employees. Fire the nurses. Fire the teachers. They will all cave if the political leaders show that they are serious.
Private employers are already doing this. Seems fair to me. People have the choice whether to keep their jobs or find other employment.
Yes, a couple private employers are flexing their muscles. They're mostly the prestigious, white collar institutions. The vast, vast majority of employers are on the fence because they don't want to be the first people to defend lawsuits, it's easier to let someone else take the heat and take half measures.
The public sector needs to take charge and show the way instead of cowing to their unions. Yes, easier said than done.
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Almost none of them will. Take away their paychecks and their toys and they will cave.
Call their bluff. Offer extremely narrow exceptions, then just do it. Fire the transit employees. Fire the nurses. Fire the teachers. They will all cave if the political leaders show that they are serious.
Private employers are already doing this. Seems fair to me. People have the choice whether to keep their jobs or find other employment.
Yes, a couple private employers are flexing their muscles. They're mostly the prestigious, white collar institutions. The vast, vast majority of employers are on the fence because they don't want to be the first people to defend lawsuits, it's easier to let someone else take the heat and take half measures.
The public sector needs to take charge and show the way instead of cowing to their unions. Yes, easier said than done.
It's starting to happen. I saw that Washington DC is mandating all public sector workers to be vaccinated. My public alma mater is doing the same for students, faculty, and staff. The US armed forces just issued a COVID vaccine mandate.
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Stop coddling the morons. Apply pressure and the long hard stick of the modern nation state until they cave.
Your authoritarian is showing.
You don't have to force them, just make it a requirement to do anything in society. If they want to go back to being hunter gatherers in the woods, good luck have fun. Kinda like we force people to wear clothes in public.
My anti-vaxxer friend is sort of planning exactly that. Going to go off-grid remotely if the government tries to take away her freedom of choice. But she's willing to give up the freedom to have a job, running water, electricity, convenient food and all the amenities of modern life. That's quite the trade-off. Of course, the gov't won't have to do such a thing, because individual businesses will do it instead.
I wonder how many people will follow through on this kind of thing, or if it will end up like all the people who said they would move to Canada if Trump won.
Most people can barely bring themselves to leave a job they hate, much less totally upend their entire lives.
That’s exactly what I said to her.
This is someone who makes her living on a computer, has to have the indoor temperature at 22C year round, uses 2 full bathtubs of water a day and has no gardening, building or survival skills at all. She wouldn’t make it more than a few days on her own and no community of like minded people would want her because she has nothing to offer them. Not to mention that she’s pushing 60, is in poor physical shape and has next to no savings or assets. But the plan seems reasonable to her, which tells you a lot about her judgment right there.
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Stop coddling the morons. Apply pressure and the long hard stick of the modern nation state until they cave.
Your authoritarian is showing.
You don't have to force them, just make it a requirement to do anything in society. If they want to go back to being hunter gatherers in the woods, good luck have fun. Kinda like we force people to wear clothes in public.
My anti-vaxxer friend is sort of planning exactly that. Going to go off-grid remotely if the government tries to take away her freedom of choice. But she's willing to give up the freedom to have a job, running water, electricity, convenient food and all the amenities of modern life. That's quite the trade-off. Of course, the gov't won't have to do such a thing, because individual businesses will do it instead.
I wonder how many people will follow through on this kind of thing, or if it will end up like all the people who said they would move to Canada if Trump won.
Most people can barely bring themselves to leave a job they hate, much less totally upend their entire lives.
That’s exactly what I said to her.
This is someone who makes her living on a computer, has to have the indoor temperature at 22C year round, uses 2 full bathtubs of water a day and has no gardening, building or survival skills at all. She wouldn’t make it more than a few days on her own and no community of like minded people would want her because she has nothing to offer them. Not to mention that she’s pushing 60, is in poor physical shape and has next to no savings or assets. But the plan seems reasonable to her, which tells you a lot about her judgment right there.
I'm really starting to worry about people.
What kind of distress and mistrust must these people exist in to end up this way? It's horrible.
The more of these stories I hear, the more I keep contemplating how unstable these people must feel, how dangerous and scary the world must seem to them.
This is what a constant diet of fear does to people.
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I'm really starting to worry about people.
What kind of distress and mistrust must these people exist in to end up this way? It's horrible.
The more of these stories I hear, the more I keep contemplating how unstable these people must feel, how dangerous and scary the world must seem to them.
This is what a constant diet of fear does to people.
I agree, but I also don't believe it to be new. In particular, I had a left leaning professor in college tell me with a straight face that he didn't believe the numbers in the FBI Unified Crime Report because he thought that the US Government was intentionally hiding firearms deaths from the public.
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I got my second shot on saturday and was completely floored sunday, bad monday and today is "a bit fever but mostly okay".
As far as I read and heard experience from relatives, that is about average.
Will that mean that we will have to get a shot each year, with one third of the people being downed for two or three days every year? That would be... very uncomfortable. And maybe lead to people not getting the vaccine anymore?
That's an interesting question.
Feeling sick after getting one of these shots is very common. My wife had powerful headaches for eight days after getting her first shot - a bunch of tests were done, and our doctor believes it was a reaction to the shot. I was surprised how bad the shot made me feel, with something like the flu shot I don't feel any difference at all. Does anyone know about the likelihood of there being significant side effects for booster shots going forward?
The people in my circle that have had covid infection seem to have had much less reaction to the vaccines than those who have not had covid. So perhaps some exposure (either through natural infection or prior vaccination) will reduce the negative side effects of any future vaccination. That seems like the whole point really. Prior exposure to the virus leads to lessened reactions to future exposure.
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I'm really starting to worry about people.
What kind of distress and mistrust must these people exist in to end up this way? It's horrible.
The more of these stories I hear, the more I keep contemplating how unstable these people must feel, how dangerous and scary the world must seem to them.
This is what a constant diet of fear does to people.
I agree, but I also don't believe it to be new. In particular, I had a left leaning professor in college tell me with a straight face that he didn't believe the numbers in the FBI Unified Crime Report because he thought that the US Government was intentionally hiding firearms deaths from the public.
No, of course the phenomenon isn't new, but we're seeing it on a rather large scale right now, especially in the US.
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I'm really starting to worry about people.
What kind of distress and mistrust must these people exist in to end up this way? It's horrible.
The more of these stories I hear, the more I keep contemplating how unstable these people must feel, how dangerous and scary the world must seem to them.
This is what a constant diet of fear does to people.
I agree, but I also don't believe it to be new. In particular, I had a left leaning professor in college tell me with a straight face that he didn't believe the numbers in the FBI Unified Crime Report because he thought that the US Government was intentionally hiding firearms deaths from the public.
No, of course the phenomenon isn't new, but we're seeing it on a rather large scale right now, especially in the US.
Forty-plus years of right-wing evangelical anti-science brainwashing will do that: https://theconversation.com/how-the-religious-right-shaped-american-politics-6-essential-reads-89005 (https://theconversation.com/how-the-religious-right-shaped-american-politics-6-essential-reads-89005), https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2020/6/2/the-power-worshippers-a-look-inside-the-american-religious-right (https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2020/6/2/the-power-worshippers-a-look-inside-the-american-religious-right), https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2020/10/what-caused-the-u-s-anti-science-trend/ (https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2020/10/what-caused-the-u-s-anti-science-trend/)
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Where did people get this notion that the Constitution and our Founding Fathers gave them the right to do whatever the F__ they want. This seems to be a pervasive belief, particularly in some conservative and libertarian circles.
There is no Right enshrined in the constitution so absolute that reasonable limitations cannot be placed upon it, and we have 240 years of case law and legislation to prove it.
THe people who shout “…but Freedom!” Seem to be the ones who understand our government the least.
Where does the notion originate? From the the people and the moral ideologies that birthed the founding fathers - especially and importantly Locke (although many others are invoked in the dicourse). The modern invocation of the Constitution/rights is a mild perversion of Locke's philosophy on an individual's (shit who am I kidding - a white man's) right to property, religious freedom, etc.
The extrapolation between Locke and the Constitution is drawn through the actions of the revolution and more or less has precipitated as the notion that because our country was founded in direct opposition to the Crown and to establish the rights of the individual white man to do as he sees fit, his government only exists in the most idealistic sense to provide his individual property and liberty protection from enemies.
This narrow and selective interpretation of the genesis of the Constitution and the United States as we know it today allows for a platform from which individual liberty is greater than anything other than God himself. Taking that view allows one to selectively ignore and sweep under the rug any moral conundrums and ideological inconsistencies that would perverse the view that the individual white man and personal property is anything other than the highest good.
Now, I'm glossing over way too much, and I'm probably making one or two generalizations that I shouldn't, but some of the people I graduated with spent 8 years studying this exact interpretation of the birth of our nation and I only took the minimum required courses on the topic. For reference, I went to an incredibly conservative college and have very mixed feelings about spending time there.
I also want to provide a post-commentary that I do think there is plenty of food for thought in Locke and many of his ideas ain't all that bad, but again, he and what his thoughts led to are the moral foundation that the "But my rights" argument is built from.
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I also want to provide a post-commentary that I do think there is plenty of food for thought in Locke and many of his ideas ain't all that bad, but again, he and what his thoughts led to are the moral foundation that the "But my rights" argument is built from.
Why Canadians and Americans have different world views:
“We have no absolute rights among us. The rights of each man, in our state of society, end precisely at the point where they encroach upon the rights of others.” - Sir Wilfrid Laurier
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I'm really starting to worry about people.
What kind of distress and mistrust must these people exist in to end up this way? It's horrible.
The more of these stories I hear, the more I keep contemplating how unstable these people must feel, how dangerous and scary the world must seem to them.
This is what a constant diet of fear does to people.
I agree, but I also don't believe it to be new. In particular, I had a left leaning professor in college tell me with a straight face that he didn't believe the numbers in the FBI Unified Crime Report because he thought that the US Government was intentionally hiding firearms deaths from the public.
No, of course the phenomenon isn't new, but we're seeing it on a rather large scale right now, especially in the US.
Forty-plus years of right-wing evangelical anti-science brainwashing will do that: https://theconversation.com/how-the-religious-right-shaped-american-politics-6-essential-reads-89005 (https://theconversation.com/how-the-religious-right-shaped-american-politics-6-essential-reads-89005), https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2020/6/2/the-power-worshippers-a-look-inside-the-american-religious-right (https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2020/6/2/the-power-worshippers-a-look-inside-the-american-religious-right), https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2020/10/what-caused-the-u-s-anti-science-trend/ (https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2020/10/what-caused-the-u-s-anti-science-trend/)
Yep, it's amazing the fear some of these people live in. Driving through Trump country and seeing the Trump flags paired with signs like "This home is protected by the Good Lord & Guns", or ugly high fences around houses with blinds closed and security camera signs to "Beware", or banners that "Black Guns Matter".
They're fed so much fear and hate from many sources.
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I'm really starting to worry about people.
What kind of distress and mistrust must these people exist in to end up this way? It's horrible.
The more of these stories I hear, the more I keep contemplating how unstable these people must feel, how dangerous and scary the world must seem to them.
This is what a constant diet of fear does to people.
I agree, but I also don't believe it to be new. In particular, I had a left leaning professor in college tell me with a straight face that he didn't believe the numbers in the FBI Unified Crime Report because he thought that the US Government was intentionally hiding firearms deaths from the public.
No, of course the phenomenon isn't new, but we're seeing it on a rather large scale right now, especially in the US.
Forty-plus years of right-wing evangelical anti-science brainwashing will do that: https://theconversation.com/how-the-religious-right-shaped-american-politics-6-essential-reads-89005 (https://theconversation.com/how-the-religious-right-shaped-american-politics-6-essential-reads-89005), https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2020/6/2/the-power-worshippers-a-look-inside-the-american-religious-right (https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2020/6/2/the-power-worshippers-a-look-inside-the-american-religious-right), https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2020/10/what-caused-the-u-s-anti-science-trend/ (https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2020/10/what-caused-the-u-s-anti-science-trend/)
Yep, it's amazing the fear some of these people live in. Driving through Trump country and seeing the Trump flags paired with signs like "This home is protected by the Good Lord & Guns", or ugly high fences around houses with blinds closed and security camera signs to "Beware", or banners that "Black Guns Matter".
They're fed so much fear and hate from many sources.
Yep. We drove through some of the red part of the state earlier this week en route to a lovely and well-maintained state park. Lots of signage about Jesus, guns, and Trump 2024. According to several flags, we can go fuck ourselves because we voted for Biden (good Christian values and family-friendly language). Needless to say, we didn't spend much money outside of the park; when we did, it was in the left-wing-leaning city about 30 min. away.
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I just saw something this morning that Florida now has more COVID deaths that DeSantis' margin of victory. I'm sure not everyone who had died voted for him but as the number of deaths creeps up there you gotta wonder.
A disproportional share of dead are Black and Latino.
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I'm really starting to worry about people.
What kind of distress and mistrust must these people exist in to end up this way? It's horrible.
The more of these stories I hear, the more I keep contemplating how unstable these people must feel, how dangerous and scary the world must seem to them.
This is what a constant diet of fear does to people.
I cannot find that article now, but I saw results of a poll that indicate that one of the best predictors of a Trump vote is a positive answer to this question:
"I often contemplate starting the society over after a major cataclysm".
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I cannot find that article now, but I saw results of a poll that indicate that one of the best predictors of a Trump vote is a positive answer to this question:
"I often contemplate starting the society over after a major cataclysm".
That's funny, because that is nearly the same as what everyone (not far right) in the rest of the world thought when he got elected.
Luckily he was even less competent than imagined.
Similar things happen here with the Greens. Just today I answered those "The Greens want to forbid us everything. No SUVs! No flights to the other side of the world! Super high taxes for the poor!" with the mention that just last week there was a study (and not the only one) that showed that the Greens proposed changes would actually lower taxes for poor people a bit.
(Of course I also mentioned that poor people cannot afford to fly or drive a SUV, but that always gets ignored.)
And the response was: And on what website did you get your brainwash?
That person did not even consider it could be true. Btw. the brainwashing website was the Institute of the Economy (or whatever the translation would be). As you might guess from the name not exactly the most leftist-green institute there is.
And of course, the parties that would increase the tax burden on poor people the most are those right wing parties that person will likely vote for. As is was the last time.
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Similar things happen here with the Greens.
I have to say, observing from afar, I'm pleasantly surprised with the German Greens. They appear to be less ideological, more practical, and more responsible than most of their counterparts on other countries - without sacrificing their main goals. I hope they continue getting traction.
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I'm really starting to worry about people.
What kind of distress and mistrust must these people exist in to end up this way? It's horrible.
The more of these stories I hear, the more I keep contemplating how unstable these people must feel, how dangerous and scary the world must seem to them.
This is what a constant diet of fear does to people.
I agree, but I also don't believe it to be new. In particular, I had a left leaning professor in college tell me with a straight face that he didn't believe the numbers in the FBI Unified Crime Report because he thought that the US Government was intentionally hiding firearms deaths from the public.
No, of course the phenomenon isn't new, but we're seeing it on a rather large scale right now, especially in the US.
Forty-plus years of right-wing evangelical anti-science brainwashing will do that: https://theconversation.com/how-the-religious-right-shaped-american-politics-6-essential-reads-89005 (https://theconversation.com/how-the-religious-right-shaped-american-politics-6-essential-reads-89005), https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2020/6/2/the-power-worshippers-a-look-inside-the-american-religious-right (https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2020/6/2/the-power-worshippers-a-look-inside-the-american-religious-right), https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2020/10/what-caused-the-u-s-anti-science-trend/ (https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2020/10/what-caused-the-u-s-anti-science-trend/)
Yep, it's amazing the fear some of these people live in. Driving through Trump country and seeing the Trump flags paired with signs like "This home is protected by the Good Lord & Guns", or ugly high fences around houses with blinds closed and security camera signs to "Beware", or banners that "Black Guns Matter".
They're fed so much fear and hate from many sources.
There's some irony there. Living in fear of an unknown criminal element but being so worried about a face mask projecting fear that they refuse.
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Stop coddling the morons. Apply pressure and the long hard stick of the modern nation state until they cave.
Your authoritarian is showing.
You don't have to force them, just make it a requirement to do anything in society. If they want to go back to being hunter gatherers in the woods, good luck have fun. Kinda like we force people to wear clothes in public.
My anti-vaxxer friend is sort of planning exactly that. Going to go off-grid remotely if the government tries to take away her freedom of choice. But she's willing to give up the freedom to have a job, running water, electricity, convenient food and all the amenities of modern life. That's quite the trade-off. Of course, the gov't won't have to do such a thing, because individual businesses will do it instead.
I thought this was the purpose of Alaska. A place for people like your friend.
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I'm really starting to worry about people.
What kind of distress and mistrust must these people exist in to end up this way? It's horrible.
The more of these stories I hear, the more I keep contemplating how unstable these people must feel, how dangerous and scary the world must seem to them.
This is what a constant diet of fear does to people.
I agree, but I also don't believe it to be new. In particular, I had a left leaning professor in college tell me with a straight face that he didn't believe the numbers in the FBI Unified Crime Report because he thought that the US Government was intentionally hiding firearms deaths from the public.
No, of course the phenomenon isn't new, but we're seeing it on a rather large scale right now, especially in the US.
Forty-plus years of right-wing evangelical anti-science brainwashing will do that: https://theconversation.com/how-the-religious-right-shaped-american-politics-6-essential-reads-89005 (https://theconversation.com/how-the-religious-right-shaped-american-politics-6-essential-reads-89005), https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2020/6/2/the-power-worshippers-a-look-inside-the-american-religious-right (https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2020/6/2/the-power-worshippers-a-look-inside-the-american-religious-right), https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2020/10/what-caused-the-u-s-anti-science-trend/ (https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2020/10/what-caused-the-u-s-anti-science-trend/)
Yep, it's amazing the fear some of these people live in. Driving through Trump country and seeing the Trump flags paired with signs like "This home is protected by the Good Lord & Guns", or ugly high fences around houses with blinds closed and security camera signs to "Beware", or banners that "Black Guns Matter".
They're fed so much fear and hate from many sources.
Part of the problem is relying on God for protection and deliverance from crisis can be unreliable in 2021...
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I got my second shot on saturday and was completely floored sunday, bad monday and today is "a bit fever but mostly okay".
As far as I read and heard experience from relatives, that is about average.
Will that mean that we will have to get a shot each year, with one third of the people being downed for two or three days every year? That would be... very uncomfortable. And maybe lead to people not getting the vaccine anymore?
That's an interesting question.
Feeling sick after getting one of these shots is very common. My wife had powerful headaches for eight days after getting her first shot - a bunch of tests were done, and our doctor believes it was a reaction to the shot. I was surprised how bad the shot made me feel, with something like the flu shot I don't feel any difference at all. Does anyone know about the likelihood of there being significant side effects for booster shots going forward?
The people in my circle that have had covid infection seem to have had much less reaction to the vaccines than those who have not had covid. So perhaps some exposure (either through natural infection or prior vaccination) will reduce the negative side effects of any future vaccination. That seems like the whole point really. Prior exposure to the virus leads to lessened reactions to future exposure.
That's odd - I'd heard the opposite. Those who'd had Covid had a worse reaction to the vaccine, leading many to be wary to get the vax. The theory being that their system recognized and reacted to it.
Anecdotally, I haven't heard of vax side effects lasting more than a day. Some had little to no effects, most had a sore arm, some had sleepiness and/or flu-like symptoms, fewer had a fever and/or headache issues. But everyone felt back to normal the next morning. Any side effects were stronger with the second dose.
My boss and I got our vaccinations the same day/place/type. She got hers after working early, I scheduled mine before going in to work the late shift. Both had a sore arm but nothing more (mine took 6 hours to develop). Second shot, same schedule, but we both planned to have the weekend off to recuperate, if needed. I had the same sore arm, no more. DH and I went on a hike the next day. Boss spent her birthday sleeping off fever and chills, and then it lifted completely. She said as miserable as she felt, it's still preferable to getting Covid. She has a cousin fighting long covid, and it's significantly impacting her future (both are young, no kids yet).
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I don’t think there’s a hard and fast rule to the experience people who’ve had infection get from the vaccine. Some have a big reaction some have nothing.
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My fitness freak friend who was on a ventilator from covid in March 2020 had a horrible reaction to the vaccine in March 2021. However, the vaccine seemed to reset her system and a lot of her long covid symptoms went away after being vaccinated.
I haven't had covid (to my knowledge). My first Moderna shot made my arm hurt for 2 days, but I was otherwise fine. The 2nd shot was a doozie... I had covid arm, fever, chills, horrible headache, vomiting, dry heaves. 3 crappy days but well worth it since I now feel protected instead of fearful. I swear they put something in the vaccine that makes you feel invincible.
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My fitness freak friend who was on a ventilator from covid in March 2020 had a horrible reaction to the vaccine in March 2021. However, the vaccine seemed to reset her system and a lot of her long covid symptoms went away after being vaccinated.
I haven't had covid (to my knowledge). My first Moderna shot made my arm hurt for 2 days, but I was otherwise fine. The 2nd shot was a doozie... I had covid arm, fever, chills, horrible headache, vomiting, dry heaves. 3 crappy days but well worth it since I now feel protected instead of fearful. I swear they put something in the vaccine that makes you feel invincible.
Anecdotally Moderna seems to be the worst for side effects, but the preliminary results from a Mayo Clinic study suggest it may give better protection against delta than the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine.
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My fitness freak friend who was on a ventilator from covid in March 2020 had a horrible reaction to the vaccine in March 2021. However, the vaccine seemed to reset her system and a lot of her long covid symptoms went away after being vaccinated.
I haven't had covid (to my knowledge). My first Moderna shot made my arm hurt for 2 days, but I was otherwise fine. The 2nd shot was a doozie... I had covid arm, fever, chills, horrible headache, vomiting, dry heaves. 3 crappy days but well worth it since I now feel protected instead of fearful. I swear they put something in the vaccine that makes you feel invincible.
I also have a friend who was a long-hauler who had her long-term symptoms go away after she was vaccinated. Oh, and actually I know a guy whose sense of taste went away when he got Covid, and it came back after he got vaccinated.
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Anecdotally, I haven't heard of vax side effects lasting more than a day. Some had little to no effects, most had a sore arm, some had sleepiness and/or flu-like symptoms, fewer had a fever and/or headache issues. But everyone felt back to normal the next morning. Any side effects were stronger with the second dose.
Anecdotally, I had severe head spins starting about 18 hours after the vaccine that lasted 5 days. And by severe, I mean could hardly walk around my house for falling over. I also had a sore arm that lasted about a day but I get that after every vaccine.
Not a problem though, actually quite enjoyable and reminded me of what "a friend" ;-) told me about their younger days taking some party enhancement substances.
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Anecdotally, I haven't heard of vax side effects lasting more than a day. Some had little to no effects, most had a sore arm, some had sleepiness and/or flu-like symptoms, fewer had a fever and/or headache issues. But everyone felt back to normal the next morning. Any side effects were stronger with the second dose.
In an odd reversal, my reaction was to the first dose. Tiniest fever, chills, and strong fatigue for a few hours. No reaction to the second.
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My fitness freak friend who was on a ventilator from covid in March 2020 had a horrible reaction to the vaccine in March 2021. However, the vaccine seemed to reset her system and a lot of her long covid symptoms went away after being vaccinated.
I haven't had covid (to my knowledge). My first Moderna shot made my arm hurt for 2 days, but I was otherwise fine. The 2nd shot was a doozie... I had covid arm, fever, chills, horrible headache, vomiting, dry heaves. 3 crappy days but well worth it since I now feel protected instead of fearful. I swear they put something in the vaccine that makes you feel invincible.
Anecdotally Moderna seems to be the worst for side effects, but the preliminary results from a Mayo Clinic study suggest it may give better protection against delta than the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine.
Now that "reset" is an interesting thing. Would be nice if that worked on at least a few people.
I also had Moderna. And it does seem to be the most effective from all I read, so I won't complain about two bad days.
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Anecdotally, I haven't heard of vax side effects lasting more than a day. Some had little to no effects, most had a sore arm, some had sleepiness and/or flu-like symptoms, fewer had a fever and/or headache issues. But everyone felt back to normal the next morning. Any side effects were stronger with the second dose.
In an odd reversal, my reaction was to the first dose. Tiniest fever, chills, and strong fatigue for a few hours. No reaction to the second.
Did you have COVID that you know of?
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Anecdotally, I haven't heard of vax side effects lasting more than a day. Some had little to no effects, most had a sore arm, some had sleepiness and/or flu-like symptoms, fewer had a fever and/or headache issues. But everyone felt back to normal the next morning. Any side effects were stronger with the second dose.
In an odd reversal, my reaction was to the first dose. Tiniest fever, chills, and strong fatigue for a few hours. No reaction to the second.
Did you have COVID that you know of?
No. My wife and I were tested once in November when she got the sniffles and we checked for safety because she was in early pregnancy. Now you're making me wonder! Haha. I haven't been sick since the pandemic started but I know there are plenty of asymptomatic cases out there. Hmm.
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Anecdotally, I haven't heard of vax side effects lasting more than a day. Some had little to no effects, most had a sore arm, some had sleepiness and/or flu-like symptoms, fewer had a fever and/or headache issues. But everyone felt back to normal the next morning. Any side effects were stronger with the second dose.
Anecdotally, I had severe head spins starting about 18 hours after the vaccine that lasted 5 days. And by severe, I mean could hardly walk around my house for falling over. I also had a sore arm that lasted about a day but I get that after every vaccine.
Not a problem though, actually quite enjoyable and reminded me of what "a friend" ;-) told me about their younger days taking some party enhancement substances.
Five days? Wow - that does not sound fun to me!
I'm curious - did the effects taper off over time, or just stop? Everyone has told me any tiredness/fever/chills/etc just lifted like magic, and they felt fully normal the next day.
All I got was a sore arm, which actually surprised me. I never feel soreness from vaccinations that others complain about. I'm kind of glad I got SOME reaction, though, to know something was active - when you hear about stories like the anti-vax nurse who replaced the vaccine with saline when giving shots. My 91 yo dad had no reaction to the J&J shot; he wonders how much protection he has.
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Anecdotally, I haven't heard of vax side effects lasting more than a day. Some had little to no effects, most had a sore arm, some had sleepiness and/or flu-like symptoms, fewer had a fever and/or headache issues. But everyone felt back to normal the next morning. Any side effects were stronger with the second dose.
Anecdotally, I had severe head spins starting about 18 hours after the vaccine that lasted 5 days. And by severe, I mean could hardly walk around my house for falling over. I also had a sore arm that lasted about a day but I get that after every vaccine.
Not a problem though, actually quite enjoyable and reminded me of what "a friend" ;-) told me about their younger days taking some party enhancement substances.
Five days? Wow - that does not sound fun to me!
I'm curious - did the effects taper off over time, or just stop? Everyone has told me any tiredness/fever/chills/etc just lifted like magic, and they felt fully normal the next day.
All I got was a sore arm, which actually surprised me. I never feel soreness from vaccinations that others complain about. I'm kind of glad I got SOME reaction, though, to know something was active - when you hear about stories like the anti-vax nurse who replaced the vaccine with saline when giving shots. My 91 yo dad had no reaction to the J&J shot; he wonders how much protection he has.
I *always* get horribly sick with vaccines and I had virtually no reaction to either of my shots, one was Pfizer and the other moderna.
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Anecdotally, I haven't heard of vax side effects lasting more than a day. Some had little to no effects, most had a sore arm, some had sleepiness and/or flu-like symptoms, fewer had a fever and/or headache issues. But everyone felt back to normal the next morning. Any side effects were stronger with the second dose.
Anecdotally, I had severe head spins starting about 18 hours after the vaccine that lasted 5 days. And by severe, I mean could hardly walk around my house for falling over. I also had a sore arm that lasted about a day but I get that after every vaccine.
Not a problem though, actually quite enjoyable and reminded me of what "a friend" ;-) told me about their younger days taking some party enhancement substances.
Five days? Wow - that does not sound fun to me!
I'm curious - did the effects taper off over time, or just stop? Everyone has told me any tiredness/fever/chills/etc just lifted like magic, and they felt fully normal the next day.
All I got was a sore arm, which actually surprised me. I never feel soreness from vaccinations that others complain about. I'm kind of glad I got SOME reaction, though, to know something was active - when you hear about stories like the anti-vax nurse who replaced the vaccine with saline when giving shots. My 91 yo dad had no reaction to the J&J shot; he wonders how much protection he has.
I *always* get horribly sick with vaccines and I had virtually no reaction to either of my shots, one was Pfizer and the other moderna.
Conversely, I never get sick from vaccinations (other than sore arm) and got extremely sick after my second Moderna shot. Totally 100% worth it.
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Anecdotally, I haven't heard of vax side effects lasting more than a day. Some had little to no effects, most had a sore arm, some had sleepiness and/or flu-like symptoms, fewer had a fever and/or headache issues. But everyone felt back to normal the next morning. Any side effects were stronger with the second dose.
Anecdotally, I had severe head spins starting about 18 hours after the vaccine that lasted 5 days. And by severe, I mean could hardly walk around my house for falling over. I also had a sore arm that lasted about a day but I get that after every vaccine.
Not a problem though, actually quite enjoyable and reminded me of what "a friend" ;-) told me about their younger days taking some party enhancement substances.
Five days? Wow - that does not sound fun to me!
I'm curious - did the effects taper off over time, or just stop? Everyone has told me any tiredness/fever/chills/etc just lifted like magic, and they felt fully normal the next day.
All I got was a sore arm, which actually surprised me. I never feel soreness from vaccinations that others complain about. I'm kind of glad I got SOME reaction, though, to know something was active - when you hear about stories like the anti-vax nurse who replaced the vaccine with saline when giving shots. My 91 yo dad had no reaction to the J&J shot; he wonders how much protection he has.
I *always* get horribly sick with vaccines and I had virtually no reaction to either of my shots, one was Pfizer and the other moderna.
Conversely, I never get sick from vaccinations (other than sore arm) and got extremely sick after my second Moderna shot. Totally 100% worth it.
Same. I did not even know that some people felt sick after vaccinations because I never did. That was until I got my 2nd Moderna...
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Anecdotally, I haven't heard of vax side effects lasting more than a day. Some had little to no effects, most had a sore arm, some had sleepiness and/or flu-like symptoms, fewer had a fever and/or headache issues. But everyone felt back to normal the next morning. Any side effects were stronger with the second dose.
Anecdotally, I had severe head spins starting about 18 hours after the vaccine that lasted 5 days. And by severe, I mean could hardly walk around my house for falling over. I also had a sore arm that lasted about a day but I get that after every vaccine.
Not a problem though, actually quite enjoyable and reminded me of what "a friend" ;-) told me about their younger days taking some party enhancement substances.
Five days? Wow - that does not sound fun to me!
I'm curious - did the effects taper off over time, or just stop? Everyone has told me any tiredness/fever/chills/etc just lifted like magic, and they felt fully normal the next day.
All I got was a sore arm, which actually surprised me. I never feel soreness from vaccinations that others complain about. I'm kind of glad I got SOME reaction, though, to know something was active - when you hear about stories like the anti-vax nurse who replaced the vaccine with saline when giving shots. My 91 yo dad had no reaction to the J&J shot; he wonders how much protection he has.
I *always* get horribly sick with vaccines and I had virtually no reaction to either of my shots, one was Pfizer and the other moderna.
Conversely, I never get sick from vaccinations (other than sore arm) and got extremely sick after my second Moderna shot. Totally 100% worth it.
Same. I did not even know that some people felt sick after vaccinations because I never did. That was until I got my 2nd Moderna...
Me also. Never felt bad from any vaccine before, but I felt very sick the day after getting my first AZ shot. My wife had some pretty debilitating migraines for a week and a half after getting it. The Pfizer shot was no big deal though.
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I'm curious - did the effects taper off over time, or just stop? Everyone has told me any tiredness/fever/chills/etc just lifted like magic, and they felt fully normal the next day.
The head spins became less frequent starting at about day 3. However, they did not become less severe. So I guess they sort of tapered off and sort of didn't taper off depending on how one wants to define it. Then on day 6, I woke up and didn't have head spins anymore.
Still totally worth it to know I am somewhat protected, at least from severe Covid.
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Also same. I don't remember reacting to flu shots, tetanus boosters, the meningitis vaccine, or other vaxes received during adulthood. I had a 101⁰F fever for 24 hours after the second Moderna dose.
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Same here. I tend to get a sore arm after most vaccines, but the COVID vaccine gave me that plus a mild fever and fatigue for the next day.
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Anecdotally, I haven't heard of vax side effects lasting more than a day. Some had little to no effects, most had a sore arm, some had sleepiness and/or flu-like symptoms, fewer had a fever and/or headache issues. But everyone felt back to normal the next morning. Any side effects were stronger with the second dose.
Anecdotally, I had severe head spins starting about 18 hours after the vaccine that lasted 5 days. And by severe, I mean could hardly walk around my house for falling over. I also had a sore arm that lasted about a day but I get that after every vaccine.
Not a problem though, actually quite enjoyable and reminded me of what "a friend" ;-) told me about their younger days taking some party enhancement substances.
Five days? Wow - that does not sound fun to me!
I'm curious - did the effects taper off over time, or just stop? Everyone has told me any tiredness/fever/chills/etc just lifted like magic, and they felt fully normal the next day.
All I got was a sore arm, which actually surprised me. I never feel soreness from vaccinations that others complain about. I'm kind of glad I got SOME reaction, though, to know something was active - when you hear about stories like the anti-vax nurse who replaced the vaccine with saline when giving shots. My 91 yo dad had no reaction to the J&J shot; he wonders how much protection he has.
I *always* get horribly sick with vaccines and I had virtually no reaction to either of my shots, one was Pfizer and the other moderna.
Conversely, I never get sick from vaccinations (other than sore arm) and got extremely sick after my second Moderna shot. Totally 100% worth it.
Same. I did not even know that some people felt sick after vaccinations because I never did. That was until I got my 2nd Moderna...
Me also. Never felt bad from any vaccine before, but I felt very sick the day after getting my first AZ shot. My wife had some pretty debilitating migraines for a week and a half after getting it. The Pfizer shot was no big deal though.
Just by comparison a friend of mine had bad headaches for a few weeks when she got COVID last fall.
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Anecdotally, a friend's wife is still having debilitating migraines from a relatively mild case of covid she had last December. My 4 days of headaches from the vaccine was a walk in the park.
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My fitness freak friend who was on a ventilator from covid in March 2020 had a horrible reaction to the vaccine in March 2021. However, the vaccine seemed to reset her system and a lot of her long covid symptoms went away after being vaccinated.
I haven't had covid (to my knowledge). My first Moderna shot made my arm hurt for 2 days, but I was otherwise fine. The 2nd shot was a doozie... I had covid arm, fever, chills, horrible headache, vomiting, dry heaves. 3 crappy days but well worth it since I now feel protected instead of fearful. I swear they put something in the vaccine that makes you feel invincible.
This is interesting, your comment about feeling invincible. in 2019? I got my 2nd shingles shot and man that laid me up (flu like symptoms of fever of 103, chills, shaking, body and skin aches for 2, 3 days. In contrast the reaction of both (phizer) shots was minimal. I did take a nap the day after each time, feeling a little tired, under the weather but that was it. And yes! Especially when I got my first shot I literally had a sense of, elation. I assumed it was just my body taking a huge sigh of relief from anxiety, but it was awesome and felt real.
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Almost none of them will. Take away their paychecks and their toys and they will cave.
Call their bluff. Offer extremely narrow exceptions, then just do it. Fire the transit employees. Fire the nurses. Fire the teachers. They will all cave if the political leaders show that they are serious.
Private employers are already doing this. Seems fair to me. People have the choice whether to keep their jobs or find other employment.
Yes, a couple private employers are flexing their muscles. They're mostly the prestigious, white collar institutions. The vast, vast majority of employers are on the fence because they don't want to be the first people to defend lawsuits, it's easier to let someone else take the heat and take half measures.
The public sector needs to take charge and show the way instead of cowing to their unions. Yes, easier said than done.
What is actually happening here in Florida's Delta Epicenter,
is that everyone who chose not to get vaccinated is becoming infected by Delta - one-by-one.
Like dominoes falling.
Anecdotally, of course, that is what is happening at Mr. R's workplace. I think they may have four anti-vaxxers left in the entire company.
One is currently in the hospital on oxygen. His wife got the shot because she had to for her work so there is that at least.
Mr. R's boss had a bad case of it and is still battling after-effects and fatigue.
The company just goes with whatever CDC guidelines are in effect.
The grim reaper is busy here in Florida.
Just like in the first round our Gov DeSantis is doing everything he can to obscure the facts and falsify the numbers.
Yet, Mr. R. tells me most people have stopped wearing masks unless it is required - right now banks and grocery stores all do their own thing.
Two weeks ago the banks had mask requirements...
I stopped going anywhere - once again. Just hoping it will be over soon. It took 90 days for the UK to get past Delta - maybe we can too.
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It won't go away, you can forget it. The virus will be endemic in a few month. Even ful vaccinated people can tramsmit it quite often, but they also often don't feel anything (and are infectous 2 days before they get smyptoms).
And people are fed up everyhwere. No chance for a really hard lockdown (only shopping) for at least a month, which is what would be needed.
The upshot is hopefully that the 1/3000 chance to kill fully vaccinated people might go away if you are infected on a more or less constant basis. Just an especially dangerous flu with a few people per million dead every year.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LhXpveTXDaY
What if some of their influential leadership dies?
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A couple former coworkers, guys I fought alongside, were screaming at another coworker on Facebook after he remarked that the Pfizer vaccine got FDA approval. Dude literally shouted "Liberal Sheep and their agenda!" Um, President Trump tried to take credit for funding that vaccine last year and is recommending vaccines this week. While the "sheep" are listening to the CDC and FDA, Republicans in Alabama and Mississippi are eating literal horse pills instead because Fox News told them to.
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A couple former coworkers, guys I fought alongside, were screaming at another coworker on Facebook after he remarked that the Pfizer vaccine got FDA approval. Dude literally shouted "Liberal Sheep and their agenda!" Um, President Trump tried to take credit for funding that vaccine last year and is recommending vaccines this week. While the "sheep" are listening to the CDC and FDA, Republicans in Alabama and Mississippi are eating literal horse pills instead because Fox News told them to.
I was just thinking about this. How did the vaccine become a liberal plot? As you mentioned, it was funded under Trump and he took credit. Did this start to happen only when Biden won? Is it more anti-science?
Related, some pharmacists are refusing to fulfill ivermectin prescriptions. Ironically, pharmacists only have that right because of Republicans and women's contraceptives.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LhXpveTXDaY
What if some of their influential leadership dies?
I came here to post about this. I don't know how big of a deal Valentine was among conservatives outside of TN, but he was fairly beloved here. I used to listen to his show pretty regularly (stopped in 2016 when he decided to abandon common sense and jumped on the Trump train).
As much as I'd like to think that his family's pleas will encourage people to get vaccinated, we're not dealing with people who think rationally. I'm sure that most of them will continue to think that it's a hoax or that the risks associated with the vaccine are greater than the risk of getting covid and being severely affected by it (as Phil did).
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LhXpveTXDaY
What if some of their influential leadership dies?
I came here to post about this. I don't know how big of a deal Valentine was among conservatives outside of TN, but he was fairly beloved here. I used to listen to his show pretty regularly (stopped in 2016 when he decided to abandon common sense and jumped on the Trump train).
As much as I'd like to think that his family's pleas will encourage people to get vaccinated, we're not dealing with people who think rationally. I'm sure that most of them will continue to think that it's a hoax or that the risks associated with the vaccine are greater than the risk of getting covid and being severely affected by it (as Phil did).
That’s very depressing; it suggests that there is no way to reach these people. His poor family must feel like they’re screaming into the void.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LhXpveTXDaY
What if some of their influential leadership dies?
I came here to post about this. I don't know how big of a deal Valentine was among conservatives outside of TN, but he was fairly beloved here. I used to listen to his show pretty regularly (stopped in 2016 when he decided to abandon common sense and jumped on the Trump train).
As much as I'd like to think that his family's pleas will encourage people to get vaccinated, we're not dealing with people who think rationally. I'm sure that most of them will continue to think that it's a hoax or that the risks associated with the vaccine are greater than the risk of getting covid and being severely affected by it (as Phil did).
That’s very depressing; it suggests that there is no way to reach these people. His poor family must feel like they’re screaming into the void.
"There are none so blind as those that will not see"
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LhXpveTXDaY
What if some of their influential leadership dies?
I came here to post about this. I don't know how big of a deal Valentine was among conservatives outside of TN, but he was fairly beloved here. I used to listen to his show pretty regularly (stopped in 2016 when he decided to abandon common sense and jumped on the Trump train).
As much as I'd like to think that his family's pleas will encourage people to get vaccinated, we're not dealing with people who think rationally. I'm sure that most of them will continue to think that it's a hoax or that the risks associated with the vaccine are greater than the risk of getting covid and being severely affected by it (as Phil did).
That’s very depressing; it suggests that there is no way to reach these people. His poor family must feel like they’re screaming into the void.
"There are none so blind as those that will not see"
And so many of them claim to be "bible-believing Christians."
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LhXpveTXDaY
What if some of their influential leadership dies?
I came here to post about this. I don't know how big of a deal Valentine was among conservatives outside of TN, but he was fairly beloved here. I used to listen to his show pretty regularly (stopped in 2016 when he decided to abandon common sense and jumped on the Trump train).
As much as I'd like to think that his family's pleas will encourage people to get vaccinated, we're not dealing with people who think rationally. I'm sure that most of them will continue to think that it's a hoax or that the risks associated with the vaccine are greater than the risk of getting covid and being severely affected by it (as Phil did).
Plus, Trump himself encouraged people to get vaccinated and he got booed.
https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2021/08/22/trump-alabama-rally-vaccine-crowd-boos-sot-ip-vpx.cnn
There are a lot of people for whom the only hope is themselves. Just like addicts have to WANT to change, so do the anti-vaxxers. I just wish we could isolate the whole lot so that kids and those who can't be vaccinated aren't collateral damage.
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A couple former coworkers, guys I fought alongside, were screaming at another coworker on Facebook after he remarked that the Pfizer vaccine got FDA approval. Dude literally shouted "Liberal Sheep and their agenda!" Um, President Trump tried to take credit for funding that vaccine last year and is recommending vaccines this week. While the "sheep" are listening to the CDC and FDA, Republicans in Alabama and Mississippi are eating literal horse pills instead because Fox News told them to.
I was just thinking about this. How did the vaccine become a liberal plot? As you mentioned, it was funded under Trump and he took credit. Did this start to happen only when Biden won? Is it more anti-science?
To be fair, there was TONS of vocal hesitancy and criticism from the Left regarding the vaccine throughout the election season that magically shifted once Biden won. You can read an entire thread on this this forum about how the approval is happening too fast , MRNA technology is too new, can't trust Trump, etc. Maybe that shift just happened to coincide with enough time passing and persons tested with the vaccine to change the viewpoint, but I think it was a highly political "Trump can't get the vaccine win" opinion that was held by many.
https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/off-topic/who-exactly-are-the-covid-vaccine-skeptics/msg2743818/#msg2743818
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A couple former coworkers, guys I fought alongside, were screaming at another coworker on Facebook after he remarked that the Pfizer vaccine got FDA approval. Dude literally shouted "Liberal Sheep and their agenda!" Um, President Trump tried to take credit for funding that vaccine last year and is recommending vaccines this week. While the "sheep" are listening to the CDC and FDA, Republicans in Alabama and Mississippi are eating literal horse pills instead because Fox News told them to.
I was just thinking about this. How did the vaccine become a liberal plot? As you mentioned, it was funded under Trump and he took credit. Did this start to happen only when Biden won? Is it more anti-science?
To be fair, there was TONS of vocal hesitancy and criticism from the Left regarding the vaccine throughout the election season that magically shifted once Biden won. You can read an entire thread on this this forum about how the approval is happening too fast , MRNA technology is too new, can't trust Trump, etc. Maybe that shift just happened to coincide with enough time passing and persons tested with the vaccine to change the viewpoint, but I think it was a highly political "Trump can't get the vaccine win" opinion that was held by many.
https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/off-topic/who-exactly-are-the-covid-vaccine-skeptics/msg2743818/#msg2743818
?? You were the OP and created that thread and poll. In the poll, "hodge podge" and "not politically affiliated" were the leading choices. You can decide it's from "TDS" but this poll, from our left-leaning forum, is pretty clear.
Regardless, that doesn't answer my question.
Thinking back, the vaccine hesitancy was active from the right even during Trump, given their desire to find some other way to cure covid. Remember bleach and UV lights up the bum? Hydroxy?
Is it anti-big pharma? And is that related to opiods or just an anti-corporation streak?
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To be fair, there was TONS of vocal hesitancy and criticism from the Left regarding the vaccine throughout the election season that magically shifted once Biden won. You can read an entire thread on this this forum about how the approval is happening too fast , MRNA technology is too new, can't trust Trump, etc. Maybe that shift just happened to coincide with enough time passing and persons tested with the vaccine to change the viewpoint, but I think it was a highly political "Trump can't get the vaccine win" opinion that was held by many.
https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/off-topic/who-exactly-are-the-covid-vaccine-skeptics/msg2743818/#msg2743818
there was TONS of vocal hesitancy and criticism from the Left
From your own poll, it was mostly from the right, other than a general "wait and see" attitude being popular on the brand new (seeming) mRNA vaccine technology.
magically shifted once Biden won
Going to need some evidence for this. Seems like once the vaccine became widely available, the precedent of "long-term effects of vaccines being evident within 8 weeks" time period had passed, and lots of people that were waiting "magically" finished their waiting period.
I think it was a highly political
OK. It's OK to think things that don't have evidence, despite your own more obvious and logical explanation of time passing while lots of health care workers and high risk individuals got vaccinated with very low incidence of complication.
What makes sense is that everyone found mRNA vaccines to be a new unknown that we don't have the scientific education to understand, or past experiences to rely on. But when some scientific evidence/consensus started to accumulate, we trusted it, and we got the vaccine.
It's much more troubling to wonder about people that are still worried about the vaccine some nine months into the vaccine rollouts. That's worth looking at the cause and effect there. Why were their fears prolonged and amplified despite all the contrary evidence?
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A couple former coworkers, guys I fought alongside, were screaming at another coworker on Facebook after he remarked that the Pfizer vaccine got FDA approval. Dude literally shouted "Liberal Sheep and their agenda!" Um, President Trump tried to take credit for funding that vaccine last year and is recommending vaccines this week. While the "sheep" are listening to the CDC and FDA, Republicans in Alabama and Mississippi are eating literal horse pills instead because Fox News told them to.
I was just thinking about this. How did the vaccine become a liberal plot? As you mentioned, it was funded under Trump and he took credit. Did this start to happen only when Biden won? Is it more anti-science?
To be fair, there was TONS of vocal hesitancy and criticism from the Left regarding the vaccine throughout the election season that magically shifted once Biden won. You can read an entire thread on this this forum about how the approval is happening too fast , MRNA technology is too new, can't trust Trump, etc. Maybe that shift just happened to coincide with enough time passing and persons tested with the vaccine to change the viewpoint, but I think it was a highly political "Trump can't get the vaccine win" opinion that was held by many.
https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/off-topic/who-exactly-are-the-covid-vaccine-skeptics/msg2743818/#msg2743818
Any anti-vaxers on the left that I know started to really understand the necessity of this vaccine once the winter wave came through, and we were having 3,000 people dying per day for all of January. Most of them quickly understood the risk/reward tradeoff and decided to back the vaccine or at the very least, shut up about it. Liberal anti-vax usually don't deny the effectiveness of vaccines, they usually talk about certain side effects (autism, heavy metals, etc). So it makes a lot of sense that at the peak of covid deaths, the risk/reward profile flipped in a lot of people's minds.
You also saw a lot of older conservative types at the same time who would be anti-vax now basically have to reason backwards why it was reasonable for them to get it in Dec/Jan/Feb. Any of them that decided to delay have basically fallen into stronger and stronger mental blocks that stop them from vaccinating. (I know a very sad number of over 70's that still have refused to get the vaccine, all conservative). You're also more likely to hear more conspiracy theory type stuff from these people from the vaccine is actually killing people, it doesn't actually work, government experiment, or MUH FREEDUM. But even the conservative ones don't care that this was made on Trump's watch. Unless you want to claim that even conservatives don't want to give Trump a vaccine win?
You can still find a few elite anti-vax types like Hollywood stars that I think are counting on their money to keep them safe and receive the best treatments. Either they secretly got it anyways and just want to project a certain persona, or are confused about the amount of medical care they think they can buy during peak hospital utilization.
I don't think you can put liberal and conservative anti-vax in the same bucket, nor do I think it's correct to reduce it down to simply "anti-Trump" sentiment. They have different motivations and reasons for their respective beliefs.
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You also saw a lot of older conservative types at the same time who would be anti-vax now basically have to reason backwards why it was reasonable for them to get it in Dec/Jan/Feb. Any of them that decided to delay have basically fallen into stronger and stronger mental blocks that stop them from vaccinating. (I know a very sad number of over 70's that still have refused to get the vaccine, all conservative). You're also more likely to hear more conspiracy theory type stuff from these people from the vaccine is actually killing people, it doesn't actually work, government experiment, or MUH FREEDUM. But even the conservative ones don't care that this was made on Trump's watch. Unless you want to claim that even conservatives don't want to give Trump a vaccine win?
As an anecdote, my mom is sorta antivax. She was quite hesitant about getting the vaccine before it was actually available. However, she had her 2 daughters talking like of course she and dad would be getting the vaccine when they could, and of course they would be getting it when they could, oh and btw you can't go anywhere, even the the grocery store and once she's been vaccinated, she can relax some. And then my sister did all the legwork of finding vax appts for them.
She's still sorta antivax. But she got vaccinated. The downsides of NOT being vaccinated were enough to push her past the hesitancy. And then they had mild/no side effects, which will make it easier when it's time for her to get a booster. "well mom, you got the 1st two shots with no problems, why do you think this will be any different?"
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My in-laws have been different degrees of anti-vax.
MIL worked in healthcare for years and was hesitant about how rushed the vaccine was. She ended up getting the vaccine because she didn't want to risk getting covid and passing it to her grandchildren.
I don't know how anti-vax my FIL is, but I know that MIL asked us not to tell him that she got vaccinated.
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Re: liberal anti-vaxxers... in my field of view, there are two cohorts:
- yoga, crystal healing, marijuana crowd: lots of magical thinking overall, and general distrust of medical science, including vaccines.
- mainstream left: did not trust Trump's Administration to do an honest job. Expected him to interfere with the approval process for political gain. Those concerns did, indeed, disappear with the Biden's victory. I have to admit, confirmation bias played a big role in selection of stories suggesting shortcuts taken with the development and approval.
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Re: liberal anti-vaxxers... in my field of view, there are two cohorts:
- yoga, crystal healing, marijuana crowd: lots of magical thinking overall, and general distrust of medical science, including vaccines.
- mainstream left, who did not trust Trump's Administration to do an honest job, and not interfere with the approval process for political gain. Those concerns did, indeed, disappear with the Biden's victory. I have to admit, confirmation bias played a big role in selection of stories suggesting shortcuts taken with the development and approval.
On the second part, I can't speak to the "shortcuts" question. I certainly didn't worry about that from the scientists themselves. But given the Trump administration's history of lying, selecting incompetent/untrained people for high-level positions, etc., I was a bit wary of claims coming out of his White House about vaccine progress. That's not "partisan," per se, as I certainly cannot imagine ever having had those concerns from any other Republican administration in my lifetime. That's specific to Trump's.
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Re: liberal anti-vaxxers... in my field of view, there are two cohorts:
- yoga, crystal healing, marijuana crowd: lots of magical thinking overall, and general distrust of medical science, including vaccines.
- mainstream left: did not trust Trump's Administration to do an honest job. Expected him to interfere with the approval process for political gain. Those concerns did, indeed, disappear with the Biden's victory. I have to admit, confirmation bias played a big role in selection of stories suggesting shortcuts taken with the development and approval.
Also the rest of the worlds health orgs, like Canada, approved the use of the vaccines around that time as well so I expect that provided more comfort that it was legit. If Canada, the EU, etc. had all been not approving it I doubt people in the USA would have got on board as well.
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Re: liberal anti-vaxxers... in my field of view, there are two cohorts:
- yoga, crystal healing, marijuana crowd: lots of magical thinking overall, and general distrust of medical science, including vaccines.
- mainstream left: did not trust Trump's Administration to do an honest job. Expected him to interfere with the approval process for political gain. Those concerns did, indeed, disappear with the Biden's victory. I have to admit, confirmation bias played a big role in selection of stories suggesting shortcuts taken with the development and approval.
Also the rest of the worlds health orgs, like Canada, approved the use of the vaccines around that time as well so I expect that provided more comfort that it was legit. If Canada, the EU, etc. had all been not approving it I doubt people in the USA would have got on board as well.
Very much so. Those approvals went a long way to managing my concerns, because who knows what Trump would have lied about. I trusted Canada and the UK's health agencies far more than the CDC for a while, simply because of Trump and what he might have been doing.
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I was very reluctant to take the vaccine because of the politicizing of the CDC. But I took it when it was my turn because everything I read said the risk of dying or chronic illness was far worse than any risk the vaccine posed. I took all of my childhood shots...and tetanus boosters as an adult. I haven't ever had a flu shot, but I will start taking those (and shingles, etc) routinely.
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I saw an interesting interview with Richard Thaler, an author of the book "Nudge." He was asked about persuading non-vaxxers to change to agree to being vaccinated.
In his opinion he thinks that making life harder/more inconvenient for those people is a big motivator. As an example, (IIRC) the National Basketball Association does not require its players to be vaccinated; however, the non-vaxxed players cannot travel on the team plane with their vaccinated teammates, they cannot stay in the same hotel as their vaccinated teammates, and the non-vaxxed have to agree to be tested for Covid-19 twice a week. There may be additional restrictions which I can't recall at the moment.
I don't know for sure, but I bet that after a few weeks of this, many of the un-vaccinated players will finally agree to get the vaccine just to rejoin their team in normal life.
Similarly, if airlines and other public transport requires proof of vaccination, that will be another incentive if you really need and want to travel. If concerts and other public events require vaccination, that's another incentive. If parents require the grandparents and other relatives to be vaccinated before they allow visits with their young children, that's another incentive. Maybe your employer requires proof of vaccination in order to continue to be employed, that's another incentive.
Pretty soon, your stubbornness about getting vaccinated will isolate you more and more. We'll see if this strategy works.
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@LaineyAZ I agree. Making something mandatory creates a pushback. Giving people choices gives people an off-ramp. You are not losing face by doing what you are told, you are making this choice yourself.
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I certainly hope this strategy works (making life inconvenient), but so far my parents have decided that not getting vaccinated is more important to them than seeing their children and grandchildren.
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Unfortunately, I don't think that many of these anti-vaxxers can distinguish between the government mandating something and a private business requiring it to use their service. It's all "taking away our freedoms" to them.
I certainly hope this strategy works (making life inconvenient), but so far my parents have decided that not getting vaccinated is more important to them than seeing their children and grandchildren.
I'm so sorry to hear that.
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I'd argue it is the non-vaxxers who are taking away the freedoms of the rest of us b/c we can't safely move about, work and play.
But of course we live in opposite land these days when words and reality are at odds much of the time.
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I certainly hope this strategy works (making life inconvenient), but so far my parents have decided that not getting vaccinated is more important to them than seeing their children and grandchildren.
I'm very sorry that they have so clearly showed you what they value. You may want to find a copy of the book about emotionally immature parents, it might help a little. There's a thread about it in the Welcome section I believe.
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I certainly hope this strategy works (making life inconvenient), but so far my parents have decided that not getting vaccinated is more important to them than seeing their children and grandchildren.
Then too bad for your parents. I was not only fully Covid vaccinated before my first visit to my new grand daughter, I got the TDAP booster so I wasn't at risk of giving her pertussis (whooping cough). Not that I am a likely carrier, but still, parents (and grandparents) protect the children.
Back in the heavy smoking days there were a lot of unhappy grandparents because their children wouldn't let them smoke in the house when they were visiting. Too bad, the grandchildrens' health has priority.
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Thanks, all. I know I'm not the only person dealing with this right now. It doesn't make it better, but some of us have sort of an informal support group going through text messaging etc.
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My father-in-law believes that the FDA approval on the vaccines was little more than a rubber stamp, and that they still aren't safe. Meanwhile, the father of his other son-in-law is hospitalized with pneumonia brought on by covid, and a popular talk radio host in the area (that FIL listened to daily) just died from covid.
This man has a high IQ and is an engineer. I don't know where his ability to reason disappeared to in 2016, but watching his decline in the last five years has been disappointing.
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I was always uneasy with the name of the topic, and today I decided to check data.
Lo and behold:
For example, in the District of Columbia, Black people have received 43% of vaccinations, while they make up 56% of cases, 71% of deaths, and 46% of the total population.
...
in California, 30% of vaccinations have gone to Hispanic people, while they account for 63% of cases, 48% of deaths, and 40% of the total population in the state.
In most states (and all battleground states), among Black residents, the share of deaths is higher than the share of the population.
Things are better with Latinos - share of deaths smaller than the share of population, except in CA, NY, and TX.
From https://www.kff.org/coronavirus-covid-19/issue-brief/latest-data-on-covid-19-vaccinations-race-ethnicity/
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My father-in-law believes that the FDA approval on the vaccines was little more than a rubber stamp, and that they still aren't safe. Meanwhile, the father of his other son-in-law is hospitalized with pneumonia brought on by covid, and a popular talk radio host in the area (that FIL listened to daily) just died from covid.
This man has a high IQ and is an engineer. I don't know where his ability to reason disappeared to in 2016, but watching his decline in the last five years has been disappointing.
The pandemic of misinformation is even worse than the actual pandemic. There are just so many people that have been herded off into an information bubble that's like some sort of weird alternate reality.
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BTW, IQ or education have nothing to do with it. Highly educated people are not immune to confirmation bias - in fact, they (we) are better at confirmation bias. Freakonomics had a great episode on that, unrelated to the pandemic.
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The pandemic of misinformation is even worse than the actual pandemic. There are just so many people that have been herded off into an information bubble that's like some sort of weird alternate reality.
There are a dishearteningly high number of people who have bought into misinformation so heartily that they refuse to even test. Today alone I have had 5 people in my ER who are seeking treatment for raging Covid symptoms but refuse to be tested for Covid at all. In addition to not being counted among the Covid stats, the people are certainly not isolating or taking precautions otherwise. And of course we know they aren’t going to get a vaccine for an illness they won’t even be tested for.
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There are a dishearteningly high number of people who have bought into misinformation so heartily that they refuse to even test. Today alone I have had 5 people in my ER who are seeking treatment for raging Covid symptoms but refuse to be tested for Covid at all. In addition to not being counted among the Covid stats, the people are certainly not isolating or taking precautions otherwise. And of course we know they aren’t going to get a vaccine for an illness they won’t even be tested for.
Yikes! Can they honestly refuse to be tested for COVID if they show up in the ER? That's ridiculous.
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They can refuse anything
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So if you then say "we are going to give you the treatments we give to covid patients" do they refuse those treatments too? I bet not.
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You mean like regeneron and remdesivir? We wouldn’t do that without a positive test
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The pandemic of misinformation is even worse than the actual pandemic. There are just so many people that have been herded off into an information bubble that's like some sort of weird alternate reality.
There are a dishearteningly high number of people who have bought into misinformation so heartily that they refuse to even test. Today alone I have had 5 people in my ER who are seeking treatment for raging Covid symptoms but refuse to be tested for Covid at all. In addition to not being counted among the Covid stats, the people are certainly not isolating or taking precautions otherwise. And of course we know they aren’t going to get a vaccine for an illness they won’t even be tested for.
I'm so sorry that you have to put up with this bullshit. I hope they at least have the decency not to ask for the meds that you can't give them without a positive test.
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Well that’s why this is my last week. I’m quitting!
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As you should...I'm surprised we haven't seen a mass exodus of healthcare workers in the US.
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Well that’s why this is my last week. I’m quitting!
I don't blame you at all. I hope whatever comes next for you involves a lot fewer ungrateful assholes.
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As you should...I'm surprised we haven't seen a mass exodus of healthcare workers in the US.
We're already seeing it. There's an increasing staffing crisis in healthcare workers in Canada. The alarm bells are ringing very, very loudly.
I can't imagine it's better in the US.
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As you should...I'm surprised we haven't seen a mass exodus of healthcare workers in the US.
We're already seeing it. There's an increasing staffing crisis in healthcare workers in Canada. The alarm bells are ringing very, very loudly.
I can't imagine it's better in the US.
Large numbers of healthcare workers are retiring or switching to outpatient to avoid covidiots (defined by me as people who don’t believe that covid is a significant health threat to their given demographic, and refuse basic low-risk precautions because of conspiracy theories from Facebook rather than listening to experts). My hospital is partially exempt from taking covid patients and even we’re having problems retaining because many nurses work at other hospitals too and are burnt out. I remember in this forum a certain person said that “well it’s what we signed up for”, but turns out it isn’t a draft and healthcare workers have other options. So have fun laying in that ER gurney for 2 days, courtesy of your local covid deniers.
Even with the partial exemption we have two units with covid patients. Just waiting for the next set of emergency transfers because there’s literally nowhere else to send someone…
Speaking of which, what happened to that one person who was convinced we were being “hysterical” when warning about potential consequences of the pandemic?
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I’m moving to an outpatient role. Not even truly patient facing because I’m doing occupational health. The pay cut is significant and I will still be affected by Covid in that we will have employee Covid cases, but I can’t WAIT to go. The wellness courses I’m holding in September are smoking cessation and pre-conception wellness. Doesn’t that sound too good to be true??
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As you should...I'm surprised we haven't seen a mass exodus of healthcare workers in the US.
We're already seeing it. There's an increasing staffing crisis in healthcare workers in Canada. The alarm bells are ringing very, very loudly.
I can't imagine it's better in the US.
There were issues with this before covid...
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@ender are you implying I that the issues remain unchanged, and that burnout and PTSD are not accelerating this… exponentially?
I want to say for the record, that there had never been a shortage of HCW, there has only been a shortage of fair wages and fair working conditions.
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@ender are you implying I that the issues remain unchanged, and that burnout and PTSD are not accelerating this… exponentially?
I want to say for the record, that there had never been a shortage of HCW, there has only been a shortage of fair wages and fair working conditions.
No, I just mean that areas of the USA were facing shortages of folks in various medical fields even pre-covid and all indicators suggested longer term gaps in the number of folks needed.
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A nurse in London makes about one third to one half of what a nurse makes in New York or San Francisco. Roughly equivalent cost of living.
Import the nurses from overseas and flood the market, problem solved.
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A nurse in London makes about one third to one half of what a nurse makes in New York or San Francisco. Roughly equivalent cost of living.
Import the nurses from overseas and flood the market, problem solved.
Lol, if money was the only factor, those London nurses would already be here. Our crappy medical insurance system, Covidiots, and insane work hours make that a non starter. Make the US a better country and then maybe they'd consider it.
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As you should...I'm surprised we haven't seen a mass exodus of healthcare workers in the US.
We're already seeing it. There's an increasing staffing crisis in healthcare workers in Canada. The alarm bells are ringing very, very loudly.
I can't imagine it's better in the US.
There were issues with this before covid...
Here in Canada too.
Covid has just turned it up to 11. We went from a staffing shortage to literally not even being able to pay enough to get some positions filled. It's no longer "this is an imminent crisis" it's now "this is a crisis with no solution"
I'm also wondering if post covid there will be a drop in enrolment for some medical professions.
There has already been a steady decline in enrolment in certain programs, especially those that lead to traditionally female, poorly compensated, junior medical roles. Post covid, I can't imagine many parents encouraging their child to pursue these careers.
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A nurse in London makes about one third to one half of what a nurse makes in New York or San Francisco. Roughly equivalent cost of living.
Import the nurses from overseas and flood the market, problem solved.
Lol, if money was the only factor, those London nurses would already be here. Our crappy medical insurance system, Covidiots, and insane work hours make that a non starter. Make the US a better country and then maybe they'd consider it.
London, historically at least, has imported nursing staff from eastern Europe. The USA could do that too (or from the Philippines). But that only solves the problem for the USA. Not Poland and the Philippines.
But yes, the USA could do a much better job importing skilled foreign labour. Eg, why can't a UK licenced physician practice in the USA without redoing all of med-school?
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A nurse in London makes about one third to one half of what a nurse makes in New York or San Francisco. Roughly equivalent cost of living.
Import the nurses from overseas and flood the market, problem solved.
Lol, if money was the only factor, those London nurses would already be here. Our crappy medical insurance system, Covidiots, and insane work hours make that a non starter. Make the US a better country and then maybe they'd consider it.
London, historically at least, has imported nursing staff from eastern Europe. The USA could do that too (or from the Philippines). But that only solves the problem for the USA. Not Poland and the Philippines.
But yes, the USA could do a much better job importing skilled foreign labour. Eg, why can't a UK licenced physician practice in the USA without redoing all of med-school?
They can...most choose not to due to above-mentioned structural issues. One of my colleagues is having an interesting time adjusting to said issues after moving from the UK.
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They can...most choose not to due to above-mentioned structural issues. One of my colleagues is having an interesting time adjusting to said issues after moving from the UK.
Interesting. Every US MD I've ever talked to said that it was super hard going that direction over the pond. I'd be curious to know what their credentials were in the UK and how they transferred. Keeping in mind that most physicians in the UK have something like five years of college and a MB ChB (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bachelor_of_Medicine,_Bachelor_of_Surgery).
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A nurse in London makes about one third to one half of what a nurse makes in New York or San Francisco. Roughly equivalent cost of living.
Import the nurses from overseas and flood the market, problem solved.
Lol, if money was the only factor, those London nurses would already be here. Our crappy medical insurance system, Covidiots, and insane work hours make that a non starter. Make the US a better country and then maybe they'd consider it.
London, historically at least, has imported nursing staff from eastern Europe. The USA could do that too (or from the Philippines). But that only solves the problem for the USA. Not Poland and the Philippines.
But yes, the USA could do a much better job importing skilled foreign labour. Eg, why can't a UK licenced physician practice in the USA without redoing all of med-school?
That's a far more complex question than just immigration policy.
I get what you are saying regarding importing skilled labour, but the issues behind that specific example of MD credentialing and equivalency are an absolute beast.
Suffice to say, it's not a great example for illustrating immigration issues because the licensing bodies that govern who can practice as a doctor are NOT government organizations. Doctors are self governed, especially when it comes to licensing.
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A nurse in London makes about one third to one half of what a nurse makes in New York or San Francisco. Roughly equivalent cost of living.
Import the nurses from overseas and flood the market, problem solved.
Lol, if money was the only factor, those London nurses would already be here. Our crappy medical insurance system, Covidiots, and insane work hours make that a non starter. Make the US a better country and then maybe they'd consider it.
No, they don't come here because the medical world has a iron lock on occupational licensing and the immigration laws make it very difficult/expensive.
Both of these things are a policy choice.
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The Herman Cain Award subreddit is just overflowing with publicly declared anti-vaxxers dying, like by the hour it seems. It's just shocking how many people are kicking the bucket right now.
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That's a far more complex question than just immigration policy.
I get what you are saying regarding importing skilled labour, but the issues behind that specific example of MD credentialing and equivalency are an absolute beast.
Suffice to say, it's not a great example for illustrating immigration issues because the licensing bodies that govern who can practice as a doctor are NOT government organizations. Doctors are self governed, especially when it comes to licensing.
Well, it's both. Because a nurse with a job offer and a sufficiently high salary in the EU can get a blue card (https://visaguide.world/europe/eu-blue-card/). I'm not aware of an equivalent PR track visa in the USA.
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They can...most choose not to due to above-mentioned structural issues. One of my colleagues is having an interesting time adjusting to said issues after moving from the UK.
Interesting. Every US MD I've ever talked to said that it was super hard going that direction over the pond. I'd be curious to know what their credentials were in the UK and how they transferred. Keeping in mind that most physicians in the UK have something like five years of college and a MB ChB (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bachelor_of_Medicine,_Bachelor_of_Surgery).
this colleague’s training was in the UK. If there is a position, the hospital can sponsor their visa. The accreditation is done post-hoc on the assumption they will pass the medical licensing exams in the US. Its not easy, but is doable if one has a visa. But again, physicians from Europe are not falling over themselves to come join our fiasco of a healthcare system. I am sure our behavior as a society is not encouraging them to reconsider.
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There are a dishearteningly high number of people who have bought into misinformation so heartily that they refuse to even test. Today alone I have had 5 people in my ER who are seeking treatment for raging Covid symptoms but refuse to be tested for Covid at all. In addition to not being counted among the Covid stats, the people are certainly not isolating or taking precautions otherwise. And of course we know they aren’t going to get a vaccine for an illness they won’t even be tested for.
So if you then say "we are going to give you the treatments we give to covid patients" do they refuse those treatments too? I bet not.
You mean like regeneron and remdesivir? We wouldn’t do that without a positive test
I'm a bit taken aback by this, on both the medical providers and the patients' part.
Do you explain to the patients that you think they've got covid but without a positive test won't give them what you think is the right treatment? Could you say "this is the right treatment for what you've got" and ask them to consent to it without explaining that it's the treatment for covid? Or "covid treatment is right for you, do you consent to it?" What does a patient say then? Do you give any treatment or just turn them away?
And what are the medical ethics? I would have thought it was pretty common to treat someone, or at least start treating someone, based on diagnosis from symptoms? And early on tests for covid weren't widely available so treatment in those cases would be based on diagnosis not tests, why would this situation be ethically different?
I mean, I get and entirely sympathise with "no test, no treatment, goodbye" but I'm having trouble with the ethics of it. And if it's a matter of rationing scarce resources that might be justifiable except that giving someone less than optimal treatment seems likely to use up more resources rather than less, such as making them more likely to need inpatient or ICU care, unless you are going to refuse treatment altogether.
Such a mess, all of it, and so unnecessary. I entirely understand not wanting to deal with it any more.
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That's a far more complex question than just immigration policy.
I get what you are saying regarding importing skilled labour, but the issues behind that specific example of MD credentialing and equivalency are an absolute beast.
Suffice to say, it's not a great example for illustrating immigration issues because the licensing bodies that govern who can practice as a doctor are NOT government organizations. Doctors are self governed, especially when it comes to licensing.
Well, it's both. Because a nurse with a job offer and a sufficiently high salary in the EU can get a blue card (https://visaguide.world/europe/eu-blue-card/). I'm not aware of an equivalent PR track visa in the USA.
I was specifically just referring to the example of doctors.
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@former player i think I’m not processing your post correctly, so I apologize if that’s so.
Sure we can (and do, when they don’t literally walk out at the mere suggestion that they might have Covid) give people something for their headache or something for a cough or maybe some fluids if they are dehydrated, but the treatments that are for Covid can’t be given on supposition, regeneron for example is still EUA and not all of Covid patient qualify for it. If case positivity is 20% then that’s 4 out of 5 people who DONT have it. If you’re talking about early on when there were no tests, all we had was supportive care then anyway, so the point was moot.
And yes, of course we try to educate about why we want to test. But it pretty much never helps when they are so deeply bought into the misinformation and conspiracy theories that they are refusing to be tested while actively sick.
No one is refusing anyone care and I never implied that we were.
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There are a dishearteningly high number of people who have bought into misinformation so heartily that they refuse to even test. Today alone I have had 5 people in my ER who are seeking treatment for raging Covid symptoms but refuse to be tested for Covid at all. In addition to not being counted among the Covid stats, the people are certainly not isolating or taking precautions otherwise. And of course we know they aren’t going to get a vaccine for an illness they won’t even be tested for.
So if you then say "we are going to give you the treatments we give to covid patients" do they refuse those treatments too? I bet not.
You mean like regeneron and remdesivir? We wouldn’t do that without a positive test
I'm a bit taken aback by this, on both the medical providers and the patients' part.
Do you explain to the patients that you think they've got covid but without a positive test won't give them what you think is the right treatment? Could you say "this is the right treatment for what you've got" and ask them to consent to it without explaining that it's the treatment for covid? Or "covid treatment is right for you, do you consent to it?" What does a patient say then? Do you give any treatment or just turn them away?
And what are the medical ethics? I would have thought it was pretty common to treat someone, or at least start treating someone, based on diagnosis from symptoms? And early on tests for covid weren't widely available so treatment in those cases would be based on diagnosis not tests, why would this situation be ethically different?
I mean, I get and entirely sympathise with "no test, no treatment, goodbye" but I'm having trouble with the ethics of it. And if it's a matter of rationing scarce resources that might be justifiable except that giving someone less than optimal treatment seems likely to use up more resources rather than less, such as making them more likely to need inpatient or ICU care, unless you are going to refuse treatment altogether.
Such a mess, all of it, and so unnecessary. I entirely understand not wanting to deal with it any more.
It seems like it would be a bad idea, from a medical ethics standpoint (and also a clinical standpoint), to give someone a not widely available and not fully approved treatment with very narrow indications for symptoms without a positive test. Lots of things can cause pneumonia, for example, and Regeneron would be useless against all of them except COVID pneumonia.
If someone showed up at the clinic with a lump in their breast, you'd refer them to radiology for imaging tests, perform a biopsy, and run genetic tests before prescribing further treatment. They would be within their rights to refuse any of those tests, and therefore it would not be ethical to prescribe tamoxifen without knowing that you're actually dealing with an estrogen receptor-positive breast cancer and not a benign cyst.
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LOL. Illinois just issued an order. There's a lot of people scrambling to get appointments. I'm sure there's also a lot of people screaming, but who will end up getting the vaccine because getting weekly tests is inconvenient/uncomfortable.
Best part is - a bunch of people at my job aren't vaccinated. Mostly inertia/lack of urgency. We audit school districts. The order applies to us. At least one person is now getting vaccinated (haven't heard from the others yet, but I'm guessing a bunch more will be too).
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The Herman Cain Award subreddit is just overflowing with publicly declared anti-vaxxers dying, like by the hour it seems. It's just shocking how many people are kicking the bucket right now.
On my way home from a family gettogether where I heard of deaths and severe illness in distant relatives, I started thinking about what form the transition to endemicity of the virus could take. I live in Jacksonville and things are really bad here in the unvaccinated population. That probably colors my thoughts more negative than the issue deserves. In any case, here is what I wrote down when I got home. I think there is a possibility that the unvaccinated are going to be absolutely screwed as vaccination rates are going up:
I am slowly becoming more and more supicious that Delta is more virulent than previous variants.
Generally, transmissible pathogens do not do well in terms of becoming endemic if their virulence is excessive, but this is not always true, particularly with zoonotic diseases. But now we have a large population of vaccinated people in whom the virus can circulate with minimal mortality.
Maybe this has removed the brake on virulence similar to what is seen in zoonotic diseases like Ebola. In other words, the vaccinated are to the unvaccinated what bats are to humans in areas where Ebola is endemic.
Combine this with the close contact of this population with the susceptible, unvaccinated population and one comes up with the, not at all desirable, situation that ever more lethal variants could freely circulate exterminating over time the unvaccinated adult population. (immunity conveyed via infection in adults doe not appear to be protective in the long run, whereas children are probably more likely to develop robust immunity from infection)
I now can imagine the entering of the endemic stage to be accompanied by a massive die-off of the unlucky unvaccinated population.
What I am saying here is not more than basic evolutionary biology: The apparent decrease over time in virulence of a successful endemic pathogen is not necessarily mediated by a change of the pathogen but also by a major mortality event in the host population selecting for resistant varieties and resulting in an apparent decrease in virulence.
The depopulation of the Americas by infectious diseases after contact with Europeans comes to mind, but there are many other examples, particularly in plant diseases (Dutch elm disease and others).
Well, food for thought, nothing more.
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@former player i think I’m not processing your post correctly, so I apologize if that’s so.
Sure we can (and do, when they don’t literally walk out at the mere suggestion that they might have Covid) give people something for their headache or something for a cough or maybe some fluids if they are dehydrated, but the treatments that are for Covid can’t be given on supposition, regeneron for example is still EUA and not all of Covid patient qualify for it. If case positivity is 20% then that’s 4 out of 5 people who DONT have it. If you’re talking about early on when there were no tests, all we had was supportive care then anyway, so the point was moot.
And yes, of course we try to educate about why we want to test. But it pretty much never helps when they are so deeply bought into the misinformation and conspiracy theories that they are refusing to be tested while actively sick.
No one is refusing anyone care and I never implied that we were.
So I guess that if a covid-denier (shorthand for "has covid, won't have test") came in needing supportive treatment it would be given but dexamethasone wouldn't? Meaning that they had less chance of recovery and might also take up more resources in the form of in-patient care? I've seen reports of people in intensive care and on the way to intubation and death still refusing to believe in covid, but I guess I thought they would still have been getting the full treatment on the basis not necessarily that it was the covid treatment but that it was "the appropriate treatment for your unnamed condition".
The "walking wounded", wanting help but not covid help I can completely understand turning away with symptomatic relief only. At this point covid denial is pretty much a cult and health care providers can't be expected to do more than state what they think is wrong, they can't possibly be responsible for de-programming the cult members.
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@former player i think I’m not processing your post correctly, so I apologize if that’s so.
Sure we can (and do, when they don’t literally walk out at the mere suggestion that they might have Covid) give people something for their headache or something for a cough or maybe some fluids if they are dehydrated, but the treatments that are for Covid can’t be given on supposition, regeneron for example is still EUA and not all of Covid patient qualify for it. If case positivity is 20% then that’s 4 out of 5 people who DONT have it. If you’re talking about early on when there were no tests, all we had was supportive care then anyway, so the point was moot.
And yes, of course we try to educate about why we want to test. But it pretty much never helps when they are so deeply bought into the misinformation and conspiracy theories that they are refusing to be tested while actively sick.
No one is refusing anyone care and I never implied that we were.
So I guess that if a covid-denier (shorthand for "has covid, won't have test") came in needing supportive treatment it would be given but dexamethasone wouldn't? Meaning that they had less chance of recovery and might also take up more resources in the form of in-patient care? I've seen reports of people in intensive care and on the way to intubation and death still refusing to believe in covid, but I guess I thought they would still have been getting the full treatment on the basis not necessarily that it was the covid treatment but that it was "the appropriate treatment for your unnamed condition".
The "walking wounded", wanting help but not covid help I can completely understand turning away with symptomatic relief only. At this point covid denial is pretty much a cult and health care providers can't be expected to do more than state what they think is wrong, they can't possibly be responsible for de-programming the cult members.
How would you prove that someone has COVID without a positive test? It seems that medical professionals would be opening themselves up for lawsuits for prescribing wrong treatments.
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@former player if the treatment is the most correct for the patient’s symptoms, sure. But you can’t give drugs willy nilly based on supposition, since it does NOT help everyone with the symptom set. The symptom constellation could be many things.
Think about antibiotics, it is not best practice to give antibiotics unless there is evidence of bacterial infection. Even then, not all antibiotics are created equal and don’t reach certain tissues in the same way, even if the bacteria in a Petri dish might be technically susceptible.
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I've seen reports of people in intensive care and on the way to intubation and death still refusing to believe in covid, but I guess I thought they would still have been getting the full treatment on the basis not necessarily that it was the covid treatment but that it was "the appropriate treatment for your unnamed condition".
Almost certainly would they have received the appropriate treatment.
Administering treatments with the appropriate risk benefit ratio without having a specific diagnosis is called empiric treatment. In the critical care setting this approach is actually the rule not the exception. Unless the patient has refused a particular intervention appropriate treatments will be provided. Depending on the particular intervention refused, admission to the ICU might be denied.
Another rather common situation in the pre-antiretroviral era of HIV was the patient admitted with typical complications of advanced AIDS but without having had an HIV test, either because of refusal to be tested or because of being a new presentation. We treated all of these patients empirically unless specific treatments were refused.
Highly specific therapies for mild disease with nonspecific symptoms in limited supply, such as MAB therapy for the prevention of severe COVID, are an entirely different thing. There a diagnosis would have to be made prior to treatment unless disease prevalence is extremely high (like 95% of patients walking through that door during the last 2 weeks with these symptoms had COVID). The prevalence at which such a treatment would be administered empirically also depends on the characteristics of the specific test. As no test is ideal, there is a disease prevalence above which performing the test is not indicated anymore due to unacceptably high false negative rates.
This situation has not been encountered in any of the MAB treatment centers (AFAIK).
As one can see, patient factors, disease factors, community factors, economic factors, resource limitations, treatment risks and benefits, test characteristics, and informed consent issues have all to be considered.
The decision making is thus somewhat complex in many situations and cannot be satisfactorily discussed in a general way.
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Jumping back to the thread topic, I just saw this posted by Neil deGrasse Tyson:
"In case anyone is curious…
Right now in the USA, every ten days, more than 8,000 (unvaccinated) Republican voters are dying of COVID-19. That’s 5X the rate for Democrats."
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Jumping back to the thread topic, I just saw this posted by Neil deGrasse Tyson:
"In case anyone is curious…
Right now in the USA, every ten days, more than 8,000 (unvaccinated) Republican voters are dying of COVID-19. That’s 5X the rate for Democrats."
Did he explain how he got this number?
Even if true, because of the deaths in Alabama and Missouri and Lousiana, it won't change any future elections there. It might matter in Florida where DeSantis barely won.
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Jumping back to the thread topic, I just saw this posted by Neil deGrasse Tyson:
"In case anyone is curious…
Right now in the USA, every ten days, more than 8,000 (unvaccinated) Republican voters are dying of COVID-19. That’s 5X the rate for Democrats."
Did he cite a source for that?
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Jumping back to the thread topic, I just saw this posted by Neil deGrasse Tyson:
"In case anyone is curious…
Right now in the USA, every ten days, more than 8,000 (unvaccinated) Republican voters are dying of COVID-19. That’s 5X the rate for Democrats."
Did he explain how he got this number?
Even if true, because of the deaths in Alabama and Missouri and Lousiana, it won't change any future elections there. It might matter in Florida where DeSantis barely won.
We're in Seattle and I just had an appointment with a surgeon who performs mostly elective surgeries. He said the hospitals here are a nightmare right now and they're not filled with local people, but ones that are being brought in from the rural parts of the state because their small systems don't have the capacity. You can guess how those rural areas vote. This is the story all across the country right now.
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Jumping back to the thread topic, I just saw this posted by Neil deGrasse Tyson:
"In case anyone is curious…
Right now in the USA, every ten days, more than 8,000 (unvaccinated) Republican voters are dying of COVID-19. That’s 5X the rate for Democrats."
Did he explain how he got this number?
Even if true, because of the deaths in Alabama and Missouri and Lousiana, it won't change any future elections there. It might matter in Florida where DeSantis barely won.
I braved the hellsite of Twitter to see if he did--nope. I would like to see where he is pulling those very specific numbers from if it isn't his derrière.
And I say that as someone whose opinion is that logically R deaths should be outweighing D deaths based on political opposition to public health measures. But to move from an opinion to a fact, show me the data!
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Jumping back to the thread topic, I just saw this posted by Neil deGrasse Tyson:
"In case anyone is curious…
Right now in the USA, every ten days, more than 8,000 (unvaccinated) Republican voters are dying of COVID-19. That’s 5X the rate for Democrats."
Did he explain how he got this number?
Even if true, because of the deaths in Alabama and Missouri and Lousiana, it won't change any future elections there. It might matter in Florida where DeSantis barely won.
And in Warnock's re-election in Georgia, and in the 20 or so house seats that were won or lost with by a <2% margin.
It wouldn't make or break any election by itself, but the people dying are mostly in their 50's. Those are people who should've been reliable GOP voters for the next 3 decades. So it doesn't move the needle too much, but it is a permanent loss and any election that comes within a few thousand votes, especially in the South, one will have to wonder if the GOP pushing vaccination more might have changed the outcome.
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The Herman Cain Award subreddit is just overflowing with publicly declared anti-vaxxers dying, like by the hour it seems. It's just shocking how many people are kicking the bucket right now.
On my way home from a family gettogether where I heard of deaths and severe illness in distant relatives, I started thinking about what form the transition to endemicity of the virus could take. I live in Jacksonville and things are really bad here in the unvaccinated population. That probably colors my thoughts more negative than the issue deserves. In any case, here is what I wrote down when I got home. I think there is a possibility that the unvaccinated are going to be absolutely screwed as vaccination rates are going up:
I am slowly becoming more and more supicious that Delta is more virulent than previous variants.
Generally, transmissible pathogens do not do well in terms of becoming endemic if their virulence is excessive, but this is not always true, particularly with zoonotic diseases. But now we have a large population of vaccinated people in whom the virus can circulate with minimal mortality.
Maybe this has removed the brake on virulence similar to what is seen in zoonotic diseases like Ebola. In other words, the vaccinated are to the unvaccinated what bats are to humans in areas where Ebola is endemic.
Combine this with the close contact of this population with the susceptible, unvaccinated population and one comes up with the, not at all desirable, situation that ever more lethal variants could freely circulate exterminating over time the unvaccinated adult population. (immunity conveyed via infection in adults doe not appear to be protective in the long run, whereas children are probably more likely to develop robust immunity from infection)
I now can imagine the entering of the endemic stage to be accompanied by a massive die-off of the unlucky unvaccinated population.
What I am saying here is not more than basic evolutionary biology: The apparent decrease over time in virulence of a successful endemic pathogen is not necessarily mediated by a change of the pathogen but also by a major mortality event in the host population selecting for resistant varieties and resulting in an apparent decrease in virulence.
The depopulation of the Americas by infectious diseases after contact with Europeans comes to mind, but there are many other examples, particularly in plant diseases (Dutch elm disease and others).
Well, food for thought, nothing more.
I read an interesting article just a couple days ago that a new variant has been uncovered, one labelled C.1.2 (that would mean something to a virologist). It is the most highly mutated variant yet, and shares many of the same mutations that the Delta variant does. We'll have to see whether it's as transmissible or deadly, etc. with time. Interestingly, this latest variant has evolved to needing only half as many iterations as the original strain to mutate again. So the speed of mutation from that variant forward is doublly fast. How many attempts at mutation does it need to find one that hurts us more? that evades vaccines? We're leaving the door open for a very bad outcome.
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Jumping back to the thread topic, I just saw this posted by Neil deGrasse Tyson:
"In case anyone is curious…
Right now in the USA, every ten days, more than 8,000 (unvaccinated) Republican voters are dying of COVID-19. That’s 5X the rate for Democrats."
Did he explain how he got this number?
Even if true, because of the deaths in Alabama and Missouri and Lousiana, it won't change any future elections there. It might matter in Florida where DeSantis barely won.
I braved the hellsite of Twitter to see if he did--nope. I would like to see where he is pulling those very specific numbers from if it isn't his derrière.
And I say that as someone whose opinion is that logically R deaths should be outweighing D deaths based on political opposition to public health measures. But to move from an opinion to a fact, show me the data!
I feel like at the same time logically D deaths outweighed the R deaths, pre-vaccine, based on a higher percentage of COVID cases in larger cities (early pandemic NYC, for instance, or COVID "heat maps" looking like population density maps pre vaccine) as well as pointed out multiple times in this thread the discrepancy in case rates and deaths throughout minorities. What did we lose, 500k of the 650k pre vaccine? Of course, that's not what this thread is about, which is about the deaths of non-vaxxing individuals, but I say it as a reality check for all the gross political hand wringing in this thread.
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Jumping back to the thread topic, I just saw this posted by Neil deGrasse Tyson:
"In case anyone is curious…
Right now in the USA, every ten days, more than 8,000 (unvaccinated) Republican voters are dying of COVID-19. That’s 5X the rate for Democrats."
Did he explain how he got this number?
Even if true, because of the deaths in Alabama and Missouri and Lousiana, it won't change any future elections there. It might matter in Florida where DeSantis barely won.
I braved the hellsite of Twitter to see if he did--nope. I would like to see where he is pulling those very specific numbers from if it isn't his derrière.
And I say that as someone whose opinion is that logically R deaths should be outweighing D deaths based on political opposition to public health measures. But to move from an opinion to a fact, show me the data!
I feel like at the same time logically D deaths outweighed the R deaths, pre-vaccine, based on a higher percentage of COVID cases in larger cities (early pandemic NYC, for instance, or COVID "heat maps" looking like population density maps pre vaccine) as well as pointed out multiple times in this thread the discrepancy in case rates and deaths throughout minorities. What did we lose, 500k of the 650k pre vaccine? Of course, that's not what this thread is about, which is about the deaths of non-vaxxing individuals, but I say it as a reality check for all the gross political hand wringing in this thread.
That may be, but also remember that that initial wild type was far more deadly to people 65+. And even in New York City the Biden-Trump vote was 70-30, but among 65+ it was closer to 50-50. I would agree those waves likely took out more D's than R's, but due to age, it may be more balanced than you expect. Whereas now the deaths are almost exclusively anti-vax / vaxed 80+ which is absolutely going to lean R no matter where you are. I don't know about Tyson's 80/20 ratio, but it wouldn't surprise me if that were close to true.
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Jumping back to the thread topic, I just saw this posted by Neil deGrasse Tyson:
"In case anyone is curious…
Right now in the USA, every ten days, more than 8,000 (unvaccinated) Republican voters are dying of COVID-19. That’s 5X the rate for Democrats."
Did he explain how he got this number?
Even if true, because of the deaths in Alabama and Missouri and Lousiana, it won't change any future elections there. It might matter in Florida where DeSantis barely won.
I braved the hellsite of Twitter to see if he did--nope. I would like to see where he is pulling those very specific numbers from if it isn't his derrière.
Neil deGrasse Tyson is famously anti-science so he probably made it up.
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That may be, but also remember that that initial wild type was far more deadly to people 65+. And even in New York City the Biden-Trump vote was 70-30, but among 65+ it was closer to 50-50. I would agree those waves likely took out more D's than R's, but due to age, it may be more balanced than you expect. Whereas now the deaths are almost exclusively anti-vax / vaxed 80+ which is absolutely going to lean R no matter where you are. I don't know about Tyson's 80/20 ratio, but it wouldn't surprise me if that were close to true.
Also keep in mind that the initial wave hit Black communities especially hard, and they are still vaccinated at a lower rate (although catching up). In almost all states, Black Americans' share of covid deaths is higher than their share of population. And older Black voters are the most reliable Dem contingent.
https://www.kff.org/coronavirus-covid-19/issue-brief/latest-data-on-covid-19-vaccinations-race-ethnicity/
Latinos fare better, probably due to skewing younger.
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That may be, but also remember that that initial wild type was far more deadly to people 65+. And even in New York City the Biden-Trump vote was 70-30, but among 65+ it was closer to 50-50. I would agree those waves likely took out more D's than R's, but due to age, it may be more balanced than you expect. Whereas now the deaths are almost exclusively anti-vax / vaxed 80+ which is absolutely going to lean R no matter where you are. I don't know about Tyson's 80/20 ratio, but it wouldn't surprise me if that were close to true.
Also keep in mind that the initial wave hit Black communities especially hard, and they are still vaccinated at a lower rate (although catching up). In almost all states, Black Americans' share of covid deaths is higher than their share of population. And older Black voters are the most reliable Dem contingent.
https://www.kff.org/coronavirus-covid-19/issue-brief/latest-data-on-covid-19-vaccinations-race-ethnicity/
Latinos fare better, probably due to skewing younger.
Interestingly, not in Texas, where the Lt Gov tried to blame the covid surge on black, urban, Democrats.
Black residents in Texas accounted for 16.4 percent of the state’s cases and 10.2 percent of deaths as of Aug. 13. Black people make up about 13 percent of the state’s population, according to census data.
Also, raw numbers count in voting, not percentages. E.g., 5% of 12 is fewer than 2% of 61.
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Jumping back to the thread topic, I just saw this posted by Neil deGrasse Tyson:
"In case anyone is curious…
Right now in the USA, every ten days, more than 8,000 (unvaccinated) Republican voters are dying of COVID-19. That’s 5X the rate for Democrats."
Did he explain how he got this number?
Even if true, because of the deaths in Alabama and Missouri and Lousiana, it won't change any future elections there. It might matter in Florida where DeSantis barely won.
I braved the hellsite of Twitter to see if he did--nope. I would like to see where he is pulling those very specific numbers from if it isn't his derrière.
Neil deGrasse Tyson is famously anti-science so he probably made it up.
Last night I saw somewhere on reddit a response attributed to him on this. It was basically combining the stats that 1) 1000 unvaccinated people a day are dying, and 2) that 25% of Republicans were unvaccinated vs. 5% of Democrats.
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You can't just look at national demographics because not every state has been hit the same. The major outbreaks early on were in NYC and Louisiana whose black populations are about 25% and 32%.
This doesn't look like it has anything to do with anything except that blacks communities tend to live in city/city urban places at higher rates. When we know that early covid deaths were in very specific localities, it doesn't make any sense to compare that to national demographics or even sometimes to state demographics.
You can look at heat maps of covid in NYC now and the hot spots basically line up with the Trump-Biden voter exit polls.
https://gothamist.com/news/coronavirus-statistics-tracking-epidemic-new-york
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/upshot/2020-election-map.html
Will this swing any elections? Only if it's really really close. Another difference between then and now: the early deaths were among old voters. Voters that weren't going to be around in 10-15 years anyways. The anti-vaxers dying now could have gone on another 30-40 years. When talking about voter demographics, this killed off a lot of old reliable D voters in NYC, but now it's killing the young (relatively) reliable R voter.
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This doesn't look like it has anything to do with anything except that blacks communities tend to live in city/city urban places at higher rates. When we know that early covid deaths were in very specific localities, it doesn't make any sense to compare that to national demographics or even sometimes to state demographics.
That - and also higher level of co-morbidities, more pollution, worse water, worse access to healthcare. There is general mistrust of medical establishment, too, as a result of Tuskegee experiment and J&J talc powder scandal.
In perpetually close states like Wisconsin (20K vote difference in '20, 23K in '16), Covid deaths may very well swing elections. I would expect it to hurt Rs in WI, though, since early deaths are already baked into the 20K D vote advantage, and the state as a whole is pretty white.
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The Herman Cain Award subreddit is just overflowing with publicly declared anti-vaxxers dying, like by the hour it seems. It's just shocking how many people are kicking the bucket right now.
On my way home from a family gettogether where I heard of deaths and severe illness in distant relatives, I started thinking about what form the transition to endemicity of the virus could take. I live in Jacksonville and things are really bad here in the unvaccinated population. That probably colors my thoughts more negative than the issue deserves. In any case, here is what I wrote down when I got home. I think there is a possibility that the unvaccinated are going to be absolutely screwed as vaccination rates are going up:
I am slowly becoming more and more supicious that Delta is more virulent than previous variants.
Generally, transmissible pathogens do not do well in terms of becoming endemic if their virulence is excessive, but this is not always true, particularly with zoonotic diseases. But now we have a large population of vaccinated people in whom the virus can circulate with minimal mortality.
Maybe this has removed the brake on virulence similar to what is seen in zoonotic diseases like Ebola. In other words, the vaccinated are to the unvaccinated what bats are to humans in areas where Ebola is endemic.
Combine this with the close contact of this population with the susceptible, unvaccinated population and one comes up with the, not at all desirable, situation that ever more lethal variants could freely circulate exterminating over time the unvaccinated adult population. (immunity conveyed via infection in adults doe not appear to be protective in the long run, whereas children are probably more likely to develop robust immunity from infection)
I now can imagine the entering of the endemic stage to be accompanied by a massive die-off of the unlucky unvaccinated population.
What I am saying here is not more than basic evolutionary biology: The apparent decrease over time in virulence of a successful endemic pathogen is not necessarily mediated by a change of the pathogen but also by a major mortality event in the host population selecting for resistant varieties and resulting in an apparent decrease in virulence.
The depopulation of the Americas by infectious diseases after contact with Europeans comes to mind, but there are many other examples, particularly in plant diseases (Dutch elm disease and others).
Well, food for thought, nothing more.
I read an interesting article just a couple days ago that a new variant has been uncovered, one labelled C.1.2 (that would mean something to a virologist). It is the most highly mutated variant yet, and shares many of the same mutations that the Delta variant does. We'll have to see whether it's as transmissible or deadly, etc. with time. Interestingly, this latest variant has evolved to needing only half as many iterations as the original strain to mutate again. So the speed of mutation from that variant forward is doublly fast. How many attempts at mutation does it need to find one that hurts us more? that evades vaccines? We're leaving the door open for a very bad outcome.
The good news is that natural immunity from infection has now rather convincingly been shown to be at least as good as immunity from vaccination with the Pfizer/Biontech vaccine.
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.08.24.21262415v1
-
The Herman Cain Award subreddit is just overflowing with publicly declared anti-vaxxers dying, like by the hour it seems. It's just shocking how many people are kicking the bucket right now.
On my way home from a family gettogether where I heard of deaths and severe illness in distant relatives, I started thinking about what form the transition to endemicity of the virus could take. I live in Jacksonville and things are really bad here in the unvaccinated population. That probably colors my thoughts more negative than the issue deserves. In any case, here is what I wrote down when I got home. I think there is a possibility that the unvaccinated are going to be absolutely screwed as vaccination rates are going up:
I am slowly becoming more and more supicious that Delta is more virulent than previous variants.
Generally, transmissible pathogens do not do well in terms of becoming endemic if their virulence is excessive, but this is not always true, particularly with zoonotic diseases. But now we have a large population of vaccinated people in whom the virus can circulate with minimal mortality.
Maybe this has removed the brake on virulence similar to what is seen in zoonotic diseases like Ebola. In other words, the vaccinated are to the unvaccinated what bats are to humans in areas where Ebola is endemic.
Combine this with the close contact of this population with the susceptible, unvaccinated population and one comes up with the, not at all desirable, situation that ever more lethal variants could freely circulate exterminating over time the unvaccinated adult population. (immunity conveyed via infection in adults doe not appear to be protective in the long run, whereas children are probably more likely to develop robust immunity from infection)
I now can imagine the entering of the endemic stage to be accompanied by a massive die-off of the unlucky unvaccinated population.
What I am saying here is not more than basic evolutionary biology: The apparent decrease over time in virulence of a successful endemic pathogen is not necessarily mediated by a change of the pathogen but also by a major mortality event in the host population selecting for resistant varieties and resulting in an apparent decrease in virulence.
The depopulation of the Americas by infectious diseases after contact with Europeans comes to mind, but there are many other examples, particularly in plant diseases (Dutch elm disease and others).
Well, food for thought, nothing more.
I read an interesting article just a couple days ago that a new variant has been uncovered, one labelled C.1.2 (that would mean something to a virologist). It is the most highly mutated variant yet, and shares many of the same mutations that the Delta variant does. We'll have to see whether it's as transmissible or deadly, etc. with time. Interestingly, this latest variant has evolved to needing only half as many iterations as the original strain to mutate again. So the speed of mutation from that variant forward is doublly fast. How many attempts at mutation does it need to find one that hurts us more? that evades vaccines? We're leaving the door open for a very bad outcome.
The good news is that natural immunity from infection has now rather convincingly been shown to be at least as good as immunity from vaccination with the Pfizer/Biontech vaccine.
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.08.24.21262415v1
First, that article is a preprint that has not yet been peer reviewed. Second, there are a lot of flaws in their methodology from what I can gather. (Read the comments.)
Releasing preprints has been a particularly problematic aspect of this pandemic. Especially as they are so open to misunderstanding, misinterpretation, and even willful misrepresentation by the science illiterate and would-be profiteers.
-
The Herman Cain Award subreddit is just overflowing with publicly declared anti-vaxxers dying, like by the hour it seems. It's just shocking how many people are kicking the bucket right now.
On my way home from a family gettogether where I heard of deaths and severe illness in distant relatives, I started thinking about what form the transition to endemicity of the virus could take. I live in Jacksonville and things are really bad here in the unvaccinated population. That probably colors my thoughts more negative than the issue deserves. In any case, here is what I wrote down when I got home. I think there is a possibility that the unvaccinated are going to be absolutely screwed as vaccination rates are going up:
I am slowly becoming more and more supicious that Delta is more virulent than previous variants.
Generally, transmissible pathogens do not do well in terms of becoming endemic if their virulence is excessive, but this is not always true, particularly with zoonotic diseases. But now we have a large population of vaccinated people in whom the virus can circulate with minimal mortality.
Maybe this has removed the brake on virulence similar to what is seen in zoonotic diseases like Ebola. In other words, the vaccinated are to the unvaccinated what bats are to humans in areas where Ebola is endemic.
Combine this with the close contact of this population with the susceptible, unvaccinated population and one comes up with the, not at all desirable, situation that ever more lethal variants could freely circulate exterminating over time the unvaccinated adult population. (immunity conveyed via infection in adults doe not appear to be protective in the long run, whereas children are probably more likely to develop robust immunity from infection)
I now can imagine the entering of the endemic stage to be accompanied by a massive die-off of the unlucky unvaccinated population.
What I am saying here is not more than basic evolutionary biology: The apparent decrease over time in virulence of a successful endemic pathogen is not necessarily mediated by a change of the pathogen but also by a major mortality event in the host population selecting for resistant varieties and resulting in an apparent decrease in virulence.
The depopulation of the Americas by infectious diseases after contact with Europeans comes to mind, but there are many other examples, particularly in plant diseases (Dutch elm disease and others).
Well, food for thought, nothing more.
I read an interesting article just a couple days ago that a new variant has been uncovered, one labelled C.1.2 (that would mean something to a virologist). It is the most highly mutated variant yet, and shares many of the same mutations that the Delta variant does. We'll have to see whether it's as transmissible or deadly, etc. with time. Interestingly, this latest variant has evolved to needing only half as many iterations as the original strain to mutate again. So the speed of mutation from that variant forward is doublly fast. How many attempts at mutation does it need to find one that hurts us more? that evades vaccines? We're leaving the door open for a very bad outcome.
The good news is that natural immunity from infection has now rather convincingly been shown to be at least as good as immunity from vaccination with the Pfizer/Biontech vaccine.
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.08.24.21262415v1
First, that article is a preprint that has not yet been peer reviewed. Second, there are a lot of flaws in their methodology from what I can gather. (Read the comments.)
Releasing preprints has been a particularly problematic aspect of this pandemic. Especially as they are so open to misunderstanding, misinterpretation, and even willful misrepresentation by the science illiterate and would-be profiteers.
I hear you but I can´t help the illiterate and they cannot be protected from this in any reasonable way.
I have reviewed quite a number of papers and I can report, unless outright fabrication is discovered, that this study moves my needle from possible equivalence of prior infection with vaccination from possibly (as there is mechanistic biological plausibility) to most likely equivalence and possibly superiority of prior infection in conveying immunity to symptomatic reinfection (I emphasize symptomatic) when compared to the effects of the Pfizer/Biontech vaccine.
The real meat of the study is found in the very low rates of symptomatic reinfection in all groups (hence the wide CI´s of the OR´s despite the large number of subjects). The finding that the the odds of symptomatic reinfection are in favor of natural immunity is only the icing on the cake as the risk of symptomatic reinfection was less than 0.1% 1%. That translates into less than 10 per 100 in both groups, making the difference between the groups for all practical purposes irrelevant.
The difference between the groups is what the comments are going on about, but this is at this point an interesting but academic discussion.
Of course, observational studies have serious limitations but we will never see RCT´s investigating this issue.
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<snip stuff from above>
I hear you but I can´t help the illiterate and they cannot be protected from this in any reasonable way.
I have reviewed quite a number of papers and I can report, unless outright fabrication is discovered, that this study moves my needle from possible equivalence of prior infection with vaccination from possibly (as there is mechanistic biological plausibility) to most likely equivalence and possibly superiority of prior infection in conveying immunity to symptomatic reinfection (I emphasize symptomatic) when compared to the effects of the Pfizer/Biontech vaccine.
The real meat of the study is found in the very low rates of symptomatic reinfection in all groups (hence the wide CI´s of the OR´s despite the large number of subjects). The finding that the the odds of symptomatic reinfection are in favor of natural immunity is only the icing on the cake as the risk of symptomatic reinfection was less than 0.1%. That translates into less than 10 per 1000 in both groups, making the difference between the groups for all practical purposes irrelevant.
The difference between the groups is what the comments are going on about, but this is at this point an interesting but academic discussion.
Of course, observational studies have serious limitations but we will never see RCT´s investigating this issue.
I appreciate that you know your stuff, but I think we need @nippycrisp in here to translate medical to regular folk english.
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I appreciate that you know your stuff, but I think we need @nippycrisp in here to translate medical to regular folk english.
OR - odds ratio
CI - confidence intervals
RCT -randomized controlled trial
sorry about that
In plain English: If this paper is not totally fabricated, it shows that the risk of mild to moderate COVID after vaccination with Pfizer/Biontech and/or previous coronavirus infection is somewhere around 0.1 percent.
That means that 10 or less inividuals out of a thousand are going to become ill after having survived any one of these events. Even if one of the three is really much better in terms of relative risk, the absolute risk of catching the disease again is very low for all three.
So for practical purposes, the risk is really low for all of them.
The real issue for the individual is still the relative risk between suffering COVID vs taking the vaccine.
The paper is not about that.
From an epidemiological, or public health, point of view, this is very good news, however.
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Here’s my concern with natural infection immunity alone: it’s more unpredictable in both strength and duration. People with natural infection still need to get vaccinated. There is a fair amount of data that suggests this the the most robust immunity.
Admittedly, I’ve got a very different sample for anecdata than many people do, but I’ve known more second infections than breakthrough infections. A couple unfortunate bastards have has second infections that are ALSO breakthrough infections. Those people should not play the lottery, as the saying goes.
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Agree, these new data do not change any recommendations.
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Vanderbilt Health decided to start sharing some stats from their hospitals on weekly covid hospitalizations. This is for the seven days ending 8/28:
Total hospitalized
Unvaccinated: 156
Vaccinated: 30
Total in ICU:
Unvaccinated: 33
Vaccinated: 6
Total Ventilated:
Unvaccinated: 9
Vaccinated: 1
They also add that the majority of vaccinated have underlying immune compromise
A guitarist in the church band passed away this week from covid. I hope that the pastor will discuss it and urge people to get vaccinated this Sunday.
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Maybe this has removed the brake on virulence similar to what is seen in zoonotic diseases like Ebola. In other words, the vaccinated are to the unvaccinated what bats are to humans in areas where Ebola is endemic.
The vaccinated are eating the unvaccinated? You need to read up and reassess your analogy there
https://www.bbc.com/news/health-29604204
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Large numbers of healthcare workers are retiring or switching to outpatient to avoid covidiots (defined by me as people who don’t believe that covid is a significant health threat to their given demographic, and refuse basic low-risk precautions because of conspiracy theories from Facebook rather than listening to experts). My hospital is partially exempt from taking covid patients and even we’re having problems retaining because many nurses work at other hospitals too and are burnt out. I remember in this forum a certain person said that “well it’s what we signed up for”, but turns out it isn’t a draft and healthcare workers have other options. So have fun laying in that ER gurney for 2 days, courtesy of your local covid deniers.
Even with the partial exemption we have two units with covid patients. Just waiting for the next set of emergency transfers because there’s literally nowhere else to send someone…
Speaking of which, what happened to that one person who was convinced we were being “hysterical” when warning about potential consequences of the pandemic?
Staffing at my hospital was abhorrent BEFORE the pandemic. Nurses on most of the units were taking more patients than what the patient's needs dictated. "oh this patient is a 1:2? well we'll give you 3 of those today". This was by design. The growth of bean counters and the relative lack of growth of care / support roles had already destroyed the profession. Add in COVID, furlough people, subject them to conditions where their PPE was terrible, and combine that with an already simmering staffing crisis and you've got a multi faceted crisis now. Then add in emergency traveling responder pay, where nurses were making $7 - 10k a week doing assignments in NY and CA, and you've created a vacuum where it literally pays to leave. RNs at my hospital make $26 an hour, excluding shift differentials etc. No bonus pay for CCRN. They are hiring travelers at $117 per hour. What incentive is there to stay when your hospital devalues you so much that they'll hire people who have to be trained and babysat and they're paying them 450% of what you're making? Now the hospital pays a $25 / hr bonus for any extra shift you pick up. It still doesn't even come close to what travelers make, but at least its helping staff receive compensation without having to leave their family to travel, and its incentivizing them to work a 4th shift a week, which is helping to cover the staffing shortages.
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AAAAAND of course, administration is just wringing their hands over it. I sat in on the meeting where they were all baffled about why they couldn't fill traveling roles at $117 per hour. Its because every other hospital in the country is offering this to their travelers too. And nurses use travelers message boards / forums and can easily vet a place before they sign on. So they search for "fuzzy math hospital" in City, State and everyone who responds tells them what a shit show it is. But corporate bean counters (whose job seems to entirely rely upon making staff chant their culture of excellence rules at all meetings, after just having told nursing staff that safe staffing ratios don't apply today) can't see that they've fostered a culture of gas lighting and treating people like garbage. They just keep repeating their corporate mission and counting those beans...
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Maybe this has removed the brake on virulence similar to what is seen in zoonotic diseases like Ebola. In other words, the vaccinated are to the unvaccinated what bats are to humans in areas where Ebola is endemic.
The vaccinated are eating the unvaccinated? You need to read up and reassess your analogy there
https://www.bbc.com/news/health-29604204
Actually, the unvaccinated eating the vaccinated...
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Neil deGrasse Tyson is famously anti-science so he probably made it up.
I think that needs a trustworthy citation as badly as Tyson's initial tweet.
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Vanderbilt Health decided to start sharing some stats from their hospitals on weekly covid hospitalizations. This is for the seven days ending 8/28:
Total hospitalized
Unvaccinated: 156
Vaccinated: 30
Total in ICU:
Unvaccinated: 33
Vaccinated: 6
Total Ventilated:
Unvaccinated: 9
Vaccinated: 1
They also add that the majority of vaccinated have underlying immune compromise
A guitarist in the church band passed away this week from covid. I hope that the pastor will discuss it and urge people to get vaccinated this Sunday.
Fewer than 100 ICU beds are left in the entire state.
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Maybe this has removed the brake on virulence similar to what is seen in zoonotic diseases like Ebola. In other words, the vaccinated are to the unvaccinated what bats are to humans in areas where Ebola is endemic.
The vaccinated are eating the unvaccinated? You need to read up and reassess your analogy there
https://www.bbc.com/news/health-29604204
Actually, the unvaccinated eating the vaccinated...
So the unvaccinated (people) are eating the vaccinated (bats who are infected) and getting sick is what you're saying. Still doesn't fit.
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Liberty University (a conservative, religious Virginia school) had more covid cases than four leading public schools in the state combined, each of them with larger student population.
https://wset.com/news/coronavirus/liberty-university-has-more-covid-19-cases-than-four-larger-virginia-campuses-combined
I hope it doesn't lead to deaths, especially among people who need jobs there - but gosh, they try so hard...
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The Herman Cain Award subreddit is just overflowing with publicly declared anti-vaxxers dying, like by the hour it seems. It's just shocking how many people are kicking the bucket right now.
On my way home from a family gettogether where I heard of deaths and severe illness in distant relatives, I started thinking about what form the transition to endemicity of the virus could take. I live in Jacksonville and things are really bad here in the unvaccinated population. That probably colors my thoughts more negative than the issue deserves. In any case, here is what I wrote down when I got home. I think there is a possibility that the unvaccinated are going to be absolutely screwed as vaccination rates are going up:
I am slowly becoming more and more supicious that Delta is more virulent than previous variants.
Generally, transmissible pathogens do not do well in terms of becoming endemic if their virulence is excessive, but this is not always true, particularly with zoonotic diseases. But now we have a large population of vaccinated people in whom the virus can circulate with minimal mortality.
Maybe this has removed the brake on virulence similar to what is seen in zoonotic diseases like Ebola. In other words, the vaccinated are to the unvaccinated what bats are to humans in areas where Ebola is endemic.
Combine this with the close contact of this population with the susceptible, unvaccinated population and one comes up with the, not at all desirable, situation that ever more lethal variants could freely circulate exterminating over time the unvaccinated adult population. (immunity conveyed via infection in adults doe not appear to be protective in the long run, whereas children are probably more likely to develop robust immunity from infection)
I now can imagine the entering of the endemic stage to be accompanied by a massive die-off of the unlucky unvaccinated population.
What I am saying here is not more than basic evolutionary biology: The apparent decrease over time in virulence of a successful endemic pathogen is not necessarily mediated by a change of the pathogen but also by a major mortality event in the host population selecting for resistant varieties and resulting in an apparent decrease in virulence.
The depopulation of the Americas by infectious diseases after contact with Europeans comes to mind, but there are many other examples, particularly in plant diseases (Dutch elm disease and others).
Well, food for thought, nothing more.
I read an interesting article just a couple days ago that a new variant has been uncovered, one labelled C.1.2 (that would mean something to a virologist). It is the most highly mutated variant yet, and shares many of the same mutations that the Delta variant does. We'll have to see whether it's as transmissible or deadly, etc. with time. Interestingly, this latest variant has evolved to needing only half as many iterations as the original strain to mutate again. So the speed of mutation from that variant forward is doublly fast. How many attempts at mutation does it need to find one that hurts us more? that evades vaccines? We're leaving the door open for a very bad outcome.
The good news is that natural immunity from infection has now rather convincingly been shown to be at least as good as immunity from vaccination with the Pfizer/Biontech vaccine.
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.08.24.21262415v1
First, that article is a preprint that has not yet been peer reviewed. Second, there are a lot of flaws in their methodology from what I can gather. (Read the comments.)
Releasing preprints has been a particularly problematic aspect of this pandemic. Especially as they are so open to misunderstanding, misinterpretation, and even willful misrepresentation by the science illiterate and would-be profiteers.
I hear you but I can´t help the illiterate and they cannot be protected from this in any reasonable way.
I have reviewed quite a number of papers and I can report, unless outright fabrication is discovered, that this study moves my needle from possible equivalence of prior infection with vaccination from possibly (as there is mechanistic biological plausibility) to most likely equivalence and possibly superiority of prior infection in conveying immunity to symptomatic reinfection (I emphasize symptomatic) when compared to the effects of the Pfizer/Biontech vaccine.
The real meat of the study is found in the very low rates of symptomatic reinfection in all groups (hence the wide CI´s of the OR´s despite the large number of subjects). The finding that the the odds of symptomatic reinfection are in favor of natural immunity is only the icing on the cake as the risk of symptomatic reinfection was less than 0.1%. That translates into less than 10 per 1000 in both groups, making the difference between the groups for all practical purposes irrelevant.
The difference between the groups is what the comments are going on about, but this is at this point an interesting but academic discussion.
Of course, observational studies have serious limitations but we will never see RCT´s investigating this issue.
The CDC's research suggests something else, however, does it not?
https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7032e1.htm
-
The Herman Cain Award subreddit is just overflowing with publicly declared anti-vaxxers dying, like by the hour it seems. It's just shocking how many people are kicking the bucket right now.
On my way home from a family gettogether where I heard of deaths and severe illness in distant relatives, I started thinking about what form the transition to endemicity of the virus could take. I live in Jacksonville and things are really bad here in the unvaccinated population. That probably colors my thoughts more negative than the issue deserves. In any case, here is what I wrote down when I got home. I think there is a possibility that the unvaccinated are going to be absolutely screwed as vaccination rates are going up:
I am slowly becoming more and more supicious that Delta is more virulent than previous variants.
Generally, transmissible pathogens do not do well in terms of becoming endemic if their virulence is excessive, but this is not always true, particularly with zoonotic diseases. But now we have a large population of vaccinated people in whom the virus can circulate with minimal mortality.
Maybe this has removed the brake on virulence similar to what is seen in zoonotic diseases like Ebola. In other words, the vaccinated are to the unvaccinated what bats are to humans in areas where Ebola is endemic.
Combine this with the close contact of this population with the susceptible, unvaccinated population and one comes up with the, not at all desirable, situation that ever more lethal variants could freely circulate exterminating over time the unvaccinated adult population. (immunity conveyed via infection in adults doe not appear to be protective in the long run, whereas children are probably more likely to develop robust immunity from infection)
I now can imagine the entering of the endemic stage to be accompanied by a massive die-off of the unlucky unvaccinated population.
What I am saying here is not more than basic evolutionary biology: The apparent decrease over time in virulence of a successful endemic pathogen is not necessarily mediated by a change of the pathogen but also by a major mortality event in the host population selecting for resistant varieties and resulting in an apparent decrease in virulence.
The depopulation of the Americas by infectious diseases after contact with Europeans comes to mind, but there are many other examples, particularly in plant diseases (Dutch elm disease and others).
Well, food for thought, nothing more.
I read an interesting article just a couple days ago that a new variant has been uncovered, one labelled C.1.2 (that would mean something to a virologist). It is the most highly mutated variant yet, and shares many of the same mutations that the Delta variant does. We'll have to see whether it's as transmissible or deadly, etc. with time. Interestingly, this latest variant has evolved to needing only half as many iterations as the original strain to mutate again. So the speed of mutation from that variant forward is doublly fast. How many attempts at mutation does it need to find one that hurts us more? that evades vaccines? We're leaving the door open for a very bad outcome.
The good news is that natural immunity from infection has now rather convincingly been shown to be at least as good as immunity from vaccination with the Pfizer/Biontech vaccine.
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.08.24.21262415v1
First, that article is a preprint that has not yet been peer reviewed. Second, there are a lot of flaws in their methodology from what I can gather. (Read the comments.)
Releasing preprints has been a particularly problematic aspect of this pandemic. Especially as they are so open to misunderstanding, misinterpretation, and even willful misrepresentation by the science illiterate and would-be profiteers.
I hear you but I can´t help the illiterate and they cannot be protected from this in any reasonable way.
I have reviewed quite a number of papers and I can report, unless outright fabrication is discovered, that this study moves my needle from possible equivalence of prior infection with vaccination from possibly (as there is mechanistic biological plausibility) to most likely equivalence and possibly superiority of prior infection in conveying immunity to symptomatic reinfection (I emphasize symptomatic) when compared to the effects of the Pfizer/Biontech vaccine.
The real meat of the study is found in the very low rates of symptomatic reinfection in all groups (hence the wide CI´s of the OR´s despite the large number of subjects). The finding that the the odds of symptomatic reinfection are in favor of natural immunity is only the icing on the cake as the risk of symptomatic reinfection was less than 0.1%. That translates into less than 10 per 1000 in both groups, making the difference between the groups for all practical purposes irrelevant.
The difference between the groups is what the comments are going on about, but this is at this point an interesting but academic discussion.
Of course, observational studies have serious limitations but we will never see RCT´s investigating this issue.
The CDC's research suggests something else, however, does it not?
https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7032e1.htm
The CDC study does not address absolute risk. This is a problem because the practical implications of the results will be unclear. If absolute risk is already greatly reduced from the vaccination or first infection, differences between breakthrough and reinfection rates may not be very important even if the odds ratios look impressive.
By the way, reporting odds ratios/relative risk and omitting absolute risk is an exceedingly common trick to make results appear more dramatic than they really are.
Let´s say that a researcher finds that eating an apple a day reduces the risk for stomach cancer 5 fold and a journalist picks this up and writes a piece about this without also reporting the baseline incidence of 7 per 100000 per year, people will be very impressed. But the absolute risk went from 0.00007 down to 0.000014 per year, not exactly an earth shattering result and certainly not enough to start eating 365 apples a year.
In addition, when it comes to observational studies, such small differences are really nothing but statistical noise. A lot of the "studies" in the nutritional sciences come up with such nonsense.
The othe problem is that the CDC study is a study of lab results and not of disease. At this point, I am not interested that much in infection per se but in infection resulting in disease. We know that the coronavirus will continue to circulate and the most important question currently is how much disease the virus will cause during the transition to the endemic stage.
-
<snip stuff from above>
I hear you but I can´t help the illiterate and they cannot be protected from this in any reasonable way.
I have reviewed quite a number of papers and I can report, unless outright fabrication is discovered, that this study moves my needle from possible equivalence of prior infection with vaccination from possibly (as there is mechanistic biological plausibility) to most likely equivalence and possibly superiority of prior infection in conveying immunity to symptomatic reinfection (I emphasize symptomatic) when compared to the effects of the Pfizer/Biontech vaccine.
The real meat of the study is found in the very low rates of symptomatic reinfection in all groups (hence the wide CI´s of the OR´s despite the large number of subjects). The finding that the the odds of symptomatic reinfection are in favor of natural immunity is only the icing on the cake as the risk of symptomatic reinfection was less than 0.1%. That translates into less than 10 per 1000 in both groups, making the difference between the groups for all practical purposes irrelevant.
The difference between the groups is what the comments are going on about, but this is at this point an interesting but academic discussion.
Of course, observational studies have serious limitations but we will never see RCT´s investigating this issue.
I appreciate that you know your stuff, but I think we need @nippycrisp in here to translate medical to regular folk english.
It's (by data analysis standards) a pretty simple retrospective study with some serious design issues. The commenters on the preprint who clearly have technical acumen (and not the positional morons) are doing a great job of enumerating them, and also pointing out why it's dangerous to put out information before it's properly vetted by experts (again, some of whom are prowling in the comments section).
A quick skim also makes it clear this was put together pretty fast, without much contemplation time. For example, the methods section says they used two multivariate analyses, then lists three. That's likely not a typo - if you note the date ranges for analysis they consider, it seems like they were running new models in short order and just added one in without making adjustments. It could be considered cherry picking data, but putting that aside, there are other implications. This little mistake might seem like a tiny, insignificant error, but it's not, for two reasons: first, the authors' timetable leaves no time for informal review BEFORE the paper was sent out. Not best practices - had they, some of the obvious issues being pointed out would have been caught. This haste could be forgiven, but for the fact that there are no actionable outcomes discussed. It smells like some data crunchers did some work, saw an effect, and tried to rush things out without considering all (or even most) of the angles.
What this paper looks like when (or if) it's accepted for publication will likely be different from what you're seeing today.
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What this paper looks like when (or if) it's accepted for publication will likely be different from what you're seeing today.
Very different indeed. I actually made a computational an error when calculating the symptomatic infection rate in the cohorts during the observation period. It is telling that I had to dig for the raw numbers and do the calculations myself. The rate is about 1.0% or less, not 0.1%. I does not change my opinion.
edit: Looked at my notes to edit my original post and found that I calculated correctly. It was just a typo.
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Maybe this has removed the brake on virulence similar to what is seen in zoonotic diseases like Ebola. In other words, the vaccinated are to the unvaccinated what bats are to humans in areas where Ebola is endemic.
The vaccinated are eating the unvaccinated? You need to read up and reassess your analogy there
https://www.bbc.com/news/health-29604204
Actually, the unvaccinated eating the vaccinated...
So the unvaccinated (people) are eating the vaccinated (bats who are infected) and getting sick is what you're saying. Still doesn't fit.
Maybe I am being a bit too dense here. But from a biological point of view, eating and being eaten are just forms of close contact, albeit unidirectional in their epidemiological consequence.
Therefore, in this particular context, it must be the vaccinated that are being eaten. Proposition of an effect on the remaining, that is the not yet eaten, population of thevaccinated would likely be met with some valid criticism as this particular type of close contact generally precludes transmission back to the susceptible population.
In any case, in other zoonoses involving bats, eating each other is not a feature. So feel free to substitute Rabies or Marburg virus for Ebola as examples for extremely virulent pathogens circulating in unaffected zoonotic reservoir organisms (bats and other animals).
So, vaccination of a substantial part of the population could conceivable create an analogous situation to such zoonoses, if the vaccine provides protection from disease but not protection from infection and transmission of the pathogen.
Thus the vaccinated population could function as a reservoir for highly virulent variants and be playing a role similar to zoonotic reservoirs in other serious diseases.
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I was confused at first but yeah I think the analogy is too acrobatic to be a useful one
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How about unvaccinated are a dried-out forest and the vaccinated are cars dragging a broken bumper? the sparks aren't bothering us but sure are a problem for the forest!
Or we're just that guy with matches...I guess that implies intent.
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How about unvaccinated are a dried-out forest and the vaccinated are cars dragging a broken bumper? the sparks aren't bothering us but sure are a problem for the forest!
There we go!
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Here is a link to an article in The Guardian with a calculator to compute deaths over time for different scenarios.
The calculator is essentially an illustration of the effective reproduction number, R, is a value that takes into account the susceptibility of the population.
Population susceptibility is affected greatly by effectiveness of vaccination and strength and duration of naturally acquired immunity.
With no natural immunity and a committed pool of unvaccinated, population susceptibility would only decline via attrition through death, whereas very strong naturally acquired immunity decreases population susceptibility through infection alone (in the absence of mitigation attempts). The calculator assumes the latter and that is likely an appropriate assumption considering the low rate of reinfection reported in the paper from Israel discussed above.
The calculator might be useful in the context of this thread:
https://tinyurl.com/yet6z45s
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Well, this is good news:
https://www.fda.gov/news-events/press-announcements/fda-approves-first-covid-19-vaccine (https://www.fda.gov/news-events/press-announcements/fda-approves-first-covid-19-vaccine)
The FDA has fully approved the pfizer vaccine.
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Well, this is good news:
https://www.fda.gov/news-events/press-announcements/fda-approves-first-covid-19-vaccine (https://www.fda.gov/news-events/press-announcements/fda-approves-first-covid-19-vaccine)
The FDA has fully approved the pfizer vaccine.
That was 12 days ago!
By now, we should see the huge surge in vaccinations.
https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#vaccination-trends
(https://c.tenor.com/u1V_-f-jXmcAAAAC/malreynolds-firefly.gif)
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Well, this is good news:
https://www.fda.gov/news-events/press-announcements/fda-approves-first-covid-19-vaccine (https://www.fda.gov/news-events/press-announcements/fda-approves-first-covid-19-vaccine)
The FDA has fully approved the pfizer vaccine.
That was 12 days ago!
By now, we should see the huge surge in vaccinations.
https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#vaccination-trends
(https://c.tenor.com/u1V_-f-jXmcAAAAC/malreynolds-firefly.gif)
No, because the doses out there were made before approval, so they're still not approved.
(NOT what I think... just a thread I saw on FB that I tried to set straight.)
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Well, this is good news:
https://www.fda.gov/news-events/press-announcements/fda-approves-first-covid-19-vaccine (https://www.fda.gov/news-events/press-announcements/fda-approves-first-covid-19-vaccine)
The FDA has fully approved the pfizer vaccine.
That was 12 days ago!
By now, we should see the huge surge in vaccinations.
https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#vaccination-trends
(https://c.tenor.com/u1V_-f-jXmcAAAAC/malreynolds-firefly.gif)
No, because the doses out there were made before approval, so they're still not approved.
(NOT what I think... just a thread I saw on FB that I tried to set straight.)
Seriously? What the actual fuck?
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Seriously? What the actual fuck?
Given that a decent share of people in the US would rather die a gruesome and painful death, but not admit that the hated libs were right - this is a rather mild and harmless example.
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I have a cold I got from my son after his school started. It’s not from covid, and normally I’m irritated by being sick. Now I’m thankful that it’s mild and I just have to lay in bed for a day or so, based on other parents’ experience with this.
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Actual conversation with a dump truck driver who works for my excavator, who's most talented operator (Alan) was out for two weeks with covid (Alan told me last winter he would not get the vax)
"How's Alan, back at work?
"Yeah, he was really sick, he said it was bad "
"Did you get the shot yet?"
"Me? Naw."
"What? You work with a guy who just got it and was sick as a dog, and you're not not going to get vaccinated?"
"I dunno. My girlfriend works at the hospital, she had to get it, she could bring the covid home to me I guess "
"Shit, man, go get the vaccine!"
"Yeah, I dunno" shrugs shoulders.
Hopefully he figures it out.
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The saddest part of all this....the narrative is the unvaccinated are white republicans (who are often the loudest)
The data says it's minorities
https://www.kff.org/coronavirus-covid-19/issue-brief/latest-data-on-covid-19-vaccinations-race-ethnicity/
Try again, add all of the racial minorities together and they are more vaccinated as a group than whites.
To all the people who keep trying to make this about race: please stop. Blacks are not somehow all one big monolith of people who are all vaccine hesitant. The current covid wave is not being caused by minorities.
The largest cohort of people not getting vaccinated are the almost 25% of GOP members who say that they will never get vaccinated. That is the biggest, loudest, and most infectious group out there. Not the 10% of blacks (who already make up only about 15% of the country) who are vaccine hesitant.
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@FIPurpose - Can you expand on what data set I'm misinterpreting?
Nationwide: White = 61% of population and 58% received one vaccine dose. Vaccine gap is 5%, or 95% proportional vaccination. (58% divided by 61%)
Black: 12% of population, 10% received one dose. 83% proportional vaccination.
This data is especially straightforward in states with large urban minority populations. Georgia, 26% vaccinated, 32% of the population, and unfortunately 35% of total deaths.
Michigan, 13% of the population, 23% of deaths (only 10% vaccinated)
Washington DC: 46% of population, 71% of deaths. 43% vaccinated.
By raw numbers, that 5% difference in the white population is more unvaccinated people, given that 61% of the United States is Caucasian.
My bet would be that if you tried to digest why the numbers are happening the way they are:
1. African-Americans live in poorer conditions: smaller houses, multi-generational houses, lower access to good food and water
2. They are more likely to have less access to better medical care (probably a big contributor to why they have a higher death rate)
3. More likely that African-Americans feel that they cannot take a day or 2 off to handle the vaccine side-effects.
4. African-Americans are more heavily concetrated in states that have been doing a bad job in distributing vaccines (and we know that these states don't try particularly hard in certain localities)
But also, you need to think about what percentage of the state itself is vaccinated when comparing these rates. Is this a state that is 70% vaxed or still <50%? If the remaining 40% of people left to get vaccinated in a state are the most vaccine hesitant/agnostic/unwilling then how much of that remaining number are from certain demographics?
The largest polled demographic left unvaccinated by far are anti-vax, MAGA people.
But even looking at your numbers such as Georgia:
51% of the state has received at least 1 dose:
of that 51%:
26% - Black
9% - Hispanic
7% - Asian
54% - White
So the percent of the total population still unvaccinated left in the state of Georgia:
19% - Black
5% - Hispanic
<1% - Asian
30% - White
And Georgia has a far higher black population than most states. My guess is if you looked at other states statistics, the difference would be even starker. Georgia should do all it can to vaccinate all groups of people still remaining, but the number of unvaccinated whites still outnumbers urban minority populations. (though there's about 4% missing in the data above, so not sure how to categorize the 'other' group and that's also why the numbers above may not line up exactly).
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There’s a group deliberately mischaracterizing both the extent of the covid epidemic and the vaccination side effects, and that group is not poor minorities.
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There’s a group deliberately mischaracterizing both the extent of the covid epidemic and the vaccination side effects, and that group is not poor minorities.
Well, Nicki Minaj is definitely not poor but is a minority and is tweeting anti-vax info to her 22 million followers. So I guess you are still right on the last part of your statement.
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I’m still baffled by that one. How does she bot realize her cousin has an STD and is trying to play it off?
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There’s a group deliberately mischaracterizing both the extent of the covid epidemic and the vaccination side effects, and that group is not poor minorities.
Well, Nicki Minaj is definitely not poor but is a minority and is tweeting anti-vax info to her 22 million followers. So I guess you are still right on the last part of your statement.
Ok, sure. Everyone I know personally (I can think of a dozen off the top of my head) who is refusing to take the vaccine is white, except for one Hispanic person. Almost all are white evangelical Christians (10/12). All except one is a Trump voter. As a group, it is very much true that white Republicans/evangelicals are spreading loads of misinformation. Yes, there are some exceptions. And yeah, maybe I just know a lot of white evangelical Republicans, but I live in Connecticut. They're in the minority here.
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BIL posts daily about how masks/vaccines don't work. What he is really saying is that they aren't 100% effective, but you will never convince him that is precisely why it is important that their use be widespread. It just means they don't work and anyone who masks or vaccinates is just an idiot.
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AstraZeneca is getting some undeserved bad press here.
I’m from Australia, and ...
NSW hasn’t been able to control it, each day there are more cases than the previous day, and about half have been positive while in the community. Today they announced that everyone in NSW should get AstraZeneca - there’s plenty around. There is now more likelihood of dying if you’re young and unvaccinated. Putting this in context, there are still fewer than 300 cases a day, and there have been less than 10 deaths. Most of you seem to be in places where covid19 is much more rampant.
My parents live in Hays county, an exurban country in central Texas located 30 miles Southwest of Austin, Texas. They had ten deaths last week. This is in a county with 100,000 residents.
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Re: race and ethnicity of unvaccinated... It doesn't make sense to bundle all minorities together, the average socioeconomic status is so vastly different. Like, Asians are vaccinated either at or above their share of population in every state. Black Americans are at or below their share of the population in almost every state, the highest gap being 6 percentage points in Georgia. I don't have data to back it up, but I recall that the gap was wider last time I checked the page (it is updated).
White people's vaccination rate is all over the place, from 7 percentage points above their share in NY to 12 below (TN). PA also stands out, 8 below. Same with Hispanics - from -13 (!) in AZ to +5 in FL, but undervaccinated more often than not, and to a larger degree. Again, last time I checked, Latinos were farthest behind on average, but also catching up the fastest.
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I’m still baffled by that one. How does she bot realize her cousin has an STD and is trying to play it off?
Easy there mr. disinformation.
It's her cousin's FRIEND.
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I’m still baffled by that one. How does she bot realize her cousin has an STD and is trying to play it off?
Easy there mr. disinformation.
It's her cousin's FRIEND.
My microchip made me do it
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I’m still baffled by that one. How does she bot realize her cousin has an STD and is trying to play it off?
Easy there mr. disinformation.
It's her cousin's FRIEND.
My microchip made me do it
I'm a big fan of my microchip . . . with Bill Gates voice in my head I never feel lonely anymore!
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What kind of lizard dog you turn into? I got bearded dragon. Mainstream exotic.
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What kind of lizard dog you turn into? I got bearded dragon. Mainstream exotic.
I gradually turned into a cockroach and got stuck in my bedroom unable to go to work. My sister had to take care of me, but was really grossed out by my disgusting bug body. My father was a total dick about it too.
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Lol what a dumb-o-crat
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Lol what a dumb-o-crat
I'm in Canada, here we're called "Fiberals"
...cuz we tell fibs...get it??? Clever eh??
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What kind of lizard dog you turn into? I got bearded dragon. Mainstream exotic.
I gradually turned into a cockroach and got stuck in my bedroom unable to go to work. My sister had to take care of me, but was really grossed out by my disgusting bug body. My father was a total dick about it too.
Sounds almost . . . Kafkaesque?
:P
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Lol what a dumb-o-crat
I'm in Canada, here we're called "Fiberals"
...cuz we tell fibs...get it??? Clever eh??
Even your insults are more polite. Here we’re called Nazis. Then they have to put the BIPAP back on or get intubated. Then we’re not called anything.
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Idaho has authorized triage for hospitals in the state due to overwhelming covid admissions. They’re also short on portable oxygen tanks, so even sending patients home with oxygen to die will be a difficult decision, despite the triage authorization. Most hospitals are not at that point except for ICU care. Since survival is fairly poor in patients requiring intubation for the current variant, they’ll likely take a back seat to other conditions with better predicted outcomes.
Based on admission and icu availability, I think West Virginia will be next. My friends there corroborate this based on drastic uptick in cases. Good news is that the other southeast states are seeing new infections and hospitalizations drop sharply as the front moves north. Deaths will take a while, but overall good sign that we’ve weathered this surge. I think this is due to true herd immunity since no mitigation measures were taken in these states. Literally just let it burn through.
We’ll have to see what happens with flu this year since anti-vax death cults are a thing now and a non-insignificant portion of the obese population in these states just took a big hit to their lungs.
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There’s a group deliberately mischaracterizing both the extent of the covid epidemic and the vaccination side effects, and that group is not poor minorities.
Well, Nicki Minaj is definitely not poor but is a minority and is tweeting anti-vax info to her 22 million followers. So I guess you are still right on the last part of your statement.
Ok, sure. Everyone I know personally (I can think of a dozen off the top of my head) who is refusing to take the vaccine is white, except for one Hispanic person. Almost all are white evangelical Christians (10/12). All except one is a Trump voter. As a group, it is very much true that white Republicans/evangelicals are spreading loads of misinformation. Yes, there are some exceptions. And yeah, maybe I just know a lot of white evangelical Republicans, but I live in Connecticut. They're in the minority here.
But how many Black people do you know well enough to hear their vaccine status? I'm in the NY metro area and of my local friends, it's mostly younger Black people with a poorer background who have not received shots. They are not obnoxious or aggressive about it, just "hesistant" but so much inertia (yes I have been nagging) despite some being obese or having other health issues. Basically not worried enough to get their shots, like millenials of other ethnicities. Typing this led me to look into the median age of different ethnicities/races in the US and indeed Black Americans are much younger on average. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/07/30/most-common-age-among-us-racial-ethnic-groups/
I'm happy to say that the older "church ladies" have all gotten their shots and are very smug about it too.
One Trumpy white friend, and one white friend who earns her living as a natural health guru, also have declined the vaccine for themselves and their teen children, again without posting about it (or else they hid their antivax posts from me on social media, wise choice).
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There’s a group deliberately mischaracterizing both the extent of the covid epidemic and the vaccination side effects, and that group is not poor minorities.
Well, Nicki Minaj is definitely not poor but is a minority and is tweeting anti-vax info to her 22 million followers. So I guess you are still right on the last part of your statement.
Ok, sure. Everyone I know personally (I can think of a dozen off the top of my head) who is refusing to take the vaccine is white, except for one Hispanic person. Almost all are white evangelical Christians (10/12). All except one is a Trump voter. As a group, it is very much true that white Republicans/evangelicals are spreading loads of misinformation. Yes, there are some exceptions. And yeah, maybe I just know a lot of white evangelical Republicans, but I live in Connecticut. They're in the minority here.
But how many Black people do you know well enough to hear their vaccine status? I'm in the NY metro area and of my local friends, it's mostly younger Black people with a poorer background who have not received shots. They are not obnoxious or aggressive about it, just "hesistant" but so much inertia (yes I have been nagging) despite some being obese or having other health issues. Basically not worried enough to get their shots, like millenials of other ethnicities. Typing this led me to look into the median age of different ethnicities/races in the US and indeed Black Americans are much younger on average. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/07/30/most-common-age-among-us-racial-ethnic-groups/
I'm happy to say that the older "church ladies" have all gotten their shots and are very smug about it too.
One Trumpy white friend, and one white friend who earns her living as a natural health guru, also have declined the vaccine for themselves and their teen children, again without posting about it (or else they hid their antivax posts from me on social media, wise choice).
There are fewer Black people in my social circle than white people or Latinas, but my Black friends are all vaccinated. Most are professionals and/or in the medical field and around my age.
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There’s a group deliberately mischaracterizing both the extent of the covid epidemic and the vaccination side effects, and that group is not poor minorities.
Well, Nicki Minaj is definitely not poor but is a minority and is tweeting anti-vax info to her 22 million followers. So I guess you are still right on the last part of your statement.
Ok, sure. Everyone I know personally (I can think of a dozen off the top of my head) who is refusing to take the vaccine is white, except for one Hispanic person. Almost all are white evangelical Christians (10/12). All except one is a Trump voter. As a group, it is very much true that white Republicans/evangelicals are spreading loads of misinformation. Yes, there are some exceptions. And yeah, maybe I just know a lot of white evangelical Republicans, but I live in Connecticut. They're in the minority here.
But how many Black people do you know well enough to hear their vaccine status? I'm in the NY metro area and of my local friends, it's mostly younger Black people with a poorer background who have not received shots. They are not obnoxious or aggressive about it, just "hesistant" but so much inertia (yes I have been nagging) despite some being obese or having other health issues. Basically not worried enough to get their shots, like millenials of other ethnicities. Typing this led me to look into the median age of different ethnicities/races in the US and indeed Black Americans are much younger on average. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/07/30/most-common-age-among-us-racial-ethnic-groups/
I'm happy to say that the older "church ladies" have all gotten their shots and are very smug about it too.
One Trumpy white friend, and one white friend who earns her living as a natural health guru, also have declined the vaccine for themselves and their teen children, again without posting about it (or else they hid their antivax posts from me on social media, wise choice).
There are fewer Black people in my social circle than white people or Latinas, but my Black friends are all vaccinated. Most are professionals and/or in the medical field and around my age.
538 did some good number crunching a couple months ago on the anti-vax groups . . .
(https://fivethirtyeight.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/mejia.VACCINE-POLLS.0813-3-DESKTOP.png?w=1024)
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/unvaccinated-america-in-5-charts/ (https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/unvaccinated-america-in-5-charts/)
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There’s a group deliberately mischaracterizing both the extent of the covid epidemic and the vaccination side effects, and that group is not poor minorities.
Well, Nicki Minaj is definitely not poor but is a minority and is tweeting anti-vax info to her 22 million followers. So I guess you are still right on the last part of your statement.
Ok, sure. Everyone I know personally (I can think of a dozen off the top of my head) who is refusing to take the vaccine is white, except for one Hispanic person. Almost all are white evangelical Christians (10/12). All except one is a Trump voter. As a group, it is very much true that white Republicans/evangelicals are spreading loads of misinformation. Yes, there are some exceptions. And yeah, maybe I just know a lot of white evangelical Republicans, but I live in Connecticut. They're in the minority here.
But how many Black people do you know well enough to hear their vaccine status? I'm in the NY metro area and of my local friends, it's mostly younger Black people with a poorer background who have not received shots. They are not obnoxious or aggressive about it, just "hesistant" but so much inertia (yes I have been nagging) despite some being obese or having other health issues. Basically not worried enough to get their shots, like millenials of other ethnicities. Typing this led me to look into the median age of different ethnicities/races in the US and indeed Black Americans are much younger on average. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/07/30/most-common-age-among-us-racial-ethnic-groups/
I'm happy to say that the older "church ladies" have all gotten their shots and are very smug about it too.
One Trumpy white friend, and one white friend who earns her living as a natural health guru, also have declined the vaccine for themselves and their teen children, again without posting about it (or else they hid their antivax posts from me on social media, wise choice).
There are fewer Black people in my social circle than white people or Latinas, but my Black friends are all vaccinated. Most are professionals and/or in the medical field and around my age.
538 did some good number crunching a couple months ago on the anti-vax groups . . .
(https://fivethirtyeight.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/mejia.VACCINE-POLLS.0813-3-DESKTOP.png?w=1024)
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/unvaccinated-america-in-5-charts/ (https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/unvaccinated-america-in-5-charts/)
Nicki Minaj aside (I assume she's a minority and probably rich otherwise wouldn't have 22 million followers on social media?), I guess the data bears me out.
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Uh oh, y'all, they've caught on to us! Some Breitbart guy, John Nolte, has figured out that it's a vast leftwing conspiracy to TELL everybody to get vaccinated, knowing that conservatives wouldn't and that we could, in that way, use reverse psychology to finally kill them off!
The organized left is deliberately putting unvaccinated Trump supporters in an impossible position where they can either NOT get a life-saving vaccine or CAN feel like cucks caving to the ugliest, smuggest bullies in the world.
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2021/09/18/nolte-anti-vaxxers-hype-benign-transmission-numbers-as-proof-vax-doesnt-work/
In a country where elections are decided on razor-thin margins, does it not benefit one side if their opponents simply drop dead?
Quoted in lots of pieces, but I haven't been able to link to original.
Rabbit-hole: Is my search algorithm so biased that it won't return conservative results to me even when I put the author's name, the source and a quote from the article? I only get results to center or left news sites that are quoting him. Jesus, our world really sucks right now.
Back on topic: If this is what gives these holdouts permission to get vaccinated and end this fucking neverending pandemic and stop being a burden on us and our hospitals, so be it. Fine, just tell everyone you guys FINALLY figured out us liberals were using reverse psychology to prevent you from getting vaccinated and now that you know just how evil we are, you are gonna get vaccinated just to piss us off. I'll take it.
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Uh oh, y'all, they've caught on to us! Some Breitbart guy, John Nolte, has figured out that it's a vast leftwing conspiracy to TELL everybody to get vaccinated, knowing that conservatives wouldn't and that we could, in that way, use reverse psychology to finally kill them off!
The organized left is deliberately putting unvaccinated Trump supporters in an impossible position where they can either NOT get a life-saving vaccine or CAN feel like cucks caving to the ugliest, smuggest bullies in the world.
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2021/09/18/nolte-anti-vaxxers-hype-benign-transmission-numbers-as-proof-vax-doesnt-work/
In a country where elections are decided on razor-thin margins, does it not benefit one side if their opponents simply drop dead?
Quoted in lots of pieces, but I haven't been able to link to original.
Rabbit-hole: Is my search algorithm so biased that it won't return conservative results to me even when I put the author's name, the source and a quote from the article? I only get results to center or left news sites that are quoting him. Jesus, our world really sucks right now.
Back on topic: If this is what gives these holdouts permission to get vaccinated and end this fucking neverending pandemic and stop being a burden on us and our hospitals, so be it. Fine, just tell everyone you guys FINALLY figured out us liberals were using reverse psychology to prevent you from getting vaccinated and now that you know just how evil we are, you are gonna get vaccinated just to piss us off. I'll take it.
Seriously, whatever they need to tell themselves to get the fucking shots in their fucking arms before our medical system collapses due to overload and staff burnout. Being called an ugly, smug bully doesn't faze me.
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Yeah, that Breitbart article is something. "Look what you made us do - you made us kill ourselves!"
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Seriously, the amount of partisanship though. There is no possibility that the conservative party leadership was wrong or stupid, so it must somehow be the left's fault that R's are refusing the vaccines based on party lines. Mindboggling. Very consistent with the party of personal responsibility--it's your fault we are lemmings!
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A study came out in Oregon recently. It found that Rural Oregonians would be significantly more likely to get the shot if our governor would quit moralizing those who were hesitant. In response, she said "Na, I'm going to keep saying what I've been saying."
Takeaways:
-Democrat politicians don't really care about vaccination rates. They care about power and politics. (further re-enforced by some redistricting shenanigans happening right now. #Tinamandering
-Rural Oregonians care more about defying their governor than like, living. They like to call people who got the shot "sheep," but I've seen sheep kick and fight me when I was trying to cut a rope off it's neck that was strangling it... so who's the sheep?
It was, however, effective for a couple people to point this out: "Kate brown literally wants you to die... she wants to keep moralizing at you, knowing it will make you less likely to get the shot. Defy her actual plan and get the shot, and live to vote against her and that hack Fagan another day!"
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It was, however, effective for a couple people to point this out: "Kate brown literally wants you to die... she wants to keep moralizing at you, knowing it will make you less likely to get the shot. Defy her actual plan and get the shot, and live to vote against her and that hack Fagan another day!"
If that works, it's awesome. Shots in arms. I'm left-of-center and want the US not to get back to a 9/11-number of COVID deaths per day (we're currently at a 9/11 death number every 1.5 days) or end up with tens of millions more people with long-term disability due to COVID. If far-right wingers think they're sticking it to people like me by getting vaxxed, I'm completely fine with that. If they live in precinct 6 in my city, I'll be happy to give them ballots in November because it means they fucking survived to cast another vote for mayor (unlike our previous mayor, who died of COVID in December).
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A study came out in Oregon recently. It found that Rural Oregonians would be significantly more likely to get the shot if our governor would quit moralizing those who were hesitant. In response, she said "Na, I'm going to keep saying what I've been saying."
Takeaways:
-Democrat politicians don't really care about vaccination rates. They care about power and politics. (further re-enforced by some redistricting shenanigans happening right now. #Tinamandering
-Rural Oregonians care more about defying their governor than like, living. They like to call people who got the shot "sheep," but I've seen sheep kick and fight me when I was trying to cut a rope off it's neck that was strangling it... so who's the sheep?
It was, however, effective for a couple people to point this out: "Kate brown literally wants you to die... she wants to keep moralizing at you, knowing it will make you less likely to get the shot. Defy her actual plan and get the shot, and live to vote against her and that hack Fagan another day!"
Yeah... I don't believe the people who answered this poll. This was like those large number of people saying "It doesn't have FDA approval yet!" And then moved the goal post once it was. This is just one more goal post that anti-vaxers are using. They're not even bothering to fill in the hole the posts sit in. They're just kind of keeping it stable ready to move it to the next one.
"Well, if you'd just stop moralizing about, I'd get vaxed!"
"Ok, I'll stop. So are you going to go get it?"
"Nope! *insert some other lame excuse here*"
This is unfortunately the direction the country is being forced in. GOP states have gerrymandered themselves majorities in states where they get a minority of the votes and are poised to take the House potentially with a minority vote as well. Dem held states are being forced to fight back at this. This has to be fixed at the federal level to fix state gerrymandering. (My vote is for multi-seat districts)
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A study came out in Oregon recently. It found that Rural Oregonians would be significantly more likely to get the shot if our governor would quit moralizing those who were hesitant. In response, she said "Na, I'm going to keep saying what I've been saying."
Takeaways:
-Democrat politicians don't really care about vaccination rates. They care about power and politics. (further re-enforced by some redistricting shenanigans happening right now. #Tinamandering
As a pretty far left Oregon Democrat that voted for Kate Brown, I'm going to say that they probably care about both vaccination rates and political power.
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a) people who refuse to take life-saving measures and explains it by someone else being smug or patronizing are, most likely, lying.
b) 99% of the responsibility is on the right-wingers spreading anti-vax BS. 1% is on Dems not calibrating the message exactly right.
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99% of the responsibility is on the right-wingers spreading anti-vax BS
Do you remember when there were left wing anti-vaxers? Well, there still are, they just don't have a political bully pulpit. But I've interacted with more than one of them in the last year.
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Do you remember when there were left wing anti-vaxers? Well, there still are, they just don't have a political bully pulpit. But I've interacted with more than one of them in the last year.
Anti-vaxxer w/o a megaphone is pretty much harmless. That they exist or not is a purely academic question. But conservative radio hosts (some of whom got Herman Cain awards) and Tucker Carsons of the world - they kill people by the hundreds.
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Do you remember when there were left wing anti-vaxers? Well, there still are, they just don't have a political bully pulpit. But I've interacted with more than one of them in the last year.
Anti-vaxxer w/o a megaphone is pretty much harmless. That they exist or not is a purely academic question. But conservative radio hosts (some of whom got Herman Cain awards) and Tucker Carsons of the world - they kill people by the hundreds.
Fair enough, I don't know any left-wing anti-vax radio show hosts. But then again I don't know any left wing radio show hosts...
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Do you remember when there were left wing anti-vaxers? Well, there still are, they just don't have a political bully pulpit. But I've interacted with more than one of them in the last year.
Anti-vaxxer w/o a megaphone is pretty much harmless. That they exist or not is a purely academic question. But conservative radio hosts (some of whom got Herman Cain awards) and Tucker Carsons of the world - they kill people by the hundreds.
Fair enough, I don't know any left-wing anti-vax radio show hosts. But then again I don't know any left wing radio show hosts...
I think we're up to 5 big-market right-wing radio hosts who died of COVID this summer after spouting violent anti-vax rhetoric on their airwaves; Bob Enyart was the fifth, earlier this month. If I weren't an atheist, I might think that their god was pissed off.
I haven't heard that any NPR (America's socialist left wing mouthpiece) hosts have even been hospitalized with it.
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I think we're up to 5 big-market right-wing radio hosts who died of COVID this summer after spouting violent anti-vax rhetoric on their airwaves; Bob Enyart was the fifth, earlier this month. If I weren't an atheist, I might think that their god was pissed off.
I haven't heard that any NPR (America's socialist left wing mouthpiece) hosts have even been hospitalized with it.
NPR is barely left of center (https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/npr/). If there was a left wing equivalent to the right wing radio it would be demanding that we march in the street to cease seize the means of production. Seriously, is there anything approximating radically left wing radio?
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Seriously, is there anything approximating radically left wing radio?
I realise it's been pointed out before but it bears repeating....
There isn't anything of any significance approximating radically left wing anything in the USA.
AOC is about as close as you get and she would be considered pretty stock standard left wing in any other country.
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Seriously, is there anything approximating radically left wing radio?
I realise it's been pointed out before but it bears repeating....
There isn't anything of any significance approximating radically left wing anything in the USA.
AOC is about as close as you get and she would be considered pretty stock standard left wing in any other country.
I think that MMT and the jobs guarantee in the Green New Deal does actually make her pretty radically left wing, and I say that as a card carrying member of the SNP (https://www.snp.org/) which at least Wikipedia labels a social democracy (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scottish_National_Party) party. So, as far as I'm concerned AOC is further left than the SNP.
But there is only one of her.
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NPR is barely left of center (https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/npr/). If there was a left wing equivalent to the right wing radio it would be demanding that we march in the street to cease the means of production. Seriously, is there anything approximating radically left wing radio?
Perhaps some podcasts, such as ones by Robert Evans, and the like? However, extreme left is a much less cohesive message, with very different takes by different people and groups. Plus podcasts have much less concentrated and less devoted audiences than local right wing radio.
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I think we're up to 5 big-market right-wing radio hosts who died of COVID this summer after spouting violent anti-vax rhetoric on their airwaves; Bob Enyart was the fifth, earlier this month. If I weren't an atheist, I might think that their god was pissed off.
I haven't heard that any NPR (America's socialist left wing mouthpiece) hosts have even been hospitalized with it.
NPR is barely left of center (https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/npr/). If there was a left wing equivalent to the right wing radio it would be demanding that we march in the street to cease the means of production. Seriously, is there anything approximating radically left wing radio?
I agree, but I see angry right-wing complaints about how NPR and PBS are left-wing socialist propaganda at least weekly on social media, so I figured I’d offer them up for comparison. And no, there isn’t anything far left-wing. I doubt such an effort would last long before all involved were doxxed and harassed into silence.
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A study came out in Oregon recently. It found that Rural Oregonians would be significantly more likely to get the shot if our governor would quit moralizing those who were hesitant. In response, she said "Na, I'm going to keep saying what I've been saying."
Takeaways:
-Democrat politicians don't really care about vaccination rates. They care about power and politics. (further re-enforced by some redistricting shenanigans happening right now. #Tinamandering
-Rural Oregonians care more about defying their governor than like, living. They like to call people who got the shot "sheep," but I've seen sheep kick and fight me when I was trying to cut a rope off it's neck that was strangling it... so who's the sheep?
It was, however, effective for a couple people to point this out: "Kate brown literally wants you to die... she wants to keep moralizing at you, knowing it will make you less likely to get the shot. Defy her actual plan and get the shot, and live to vote against her and that hack Fagan another day!"
Could you provide a link to the study? I'm interested in how the questions were posed. Were you referring to the study I discuss below?
An OHSU study (not peer-reviewed) https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3886032 (https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3886032) found that un-vaccinated Oregonians had distrust of political figures (governor, president) and all news sources in roughly equal amounts (~70%). To simplify things, I divided their categories of "Little or no trust" into "Distrust" while grouping "some trust" and "Moderate or Total Trust" into "Trust".
Interestingly, the news source most trusted by unvaccinated respondents (some, moderate or total) was NPR (38%), followed by President Biden (32%), then Fox news (30%), then network news (29%). Of these, only Fox news does not strongly promote vaccination. For vaccinated, the most trusted was Biden and NPR, then local papers, then network news. Interestingly, Biden had the strongest moderate or total trust amongst all respondents (14% of unvaccinated and 46% of vaccinated). Distrust of Fox news was similar between vaccinated and unvaccinated (67% and 70%).
The least trusted source amongst unvaccinated was MSNBC (24%). The governor was trusted by 26% of respondents, same as talk radio.
Interestingly, unvaccinated respondents trust their friends and family members as much as their doctors (70, 67 and 69%, respectively). Luckily, 82% distrusted social media news stories and 67% distrusted their friends' social media posts.
Looking at differences in trust between unvaccinated and vaccinated, the unvaccinated were much less likely to trust the CDC (54% vs 87%), county health departments (55% vs 87%), state health department (54% vs 87%), their doctor (69% vs 96%), their religious leaders (45% vs 69%), their family, their friends, and social media. The smallest differential was in friends' social media accounts (67% vs 59%). The largest differential was their doctor (31% vs 4%).
When asked what institutions they trust in general, the only ones the majority trusted were local businesses and their church. The federal government and national companies were trusted the least (30%). Conversely, vaccinated in general trusted most institutions, but the federal government the least (62%).
So I'd say the unvaccinated are generally distrustful by nature and especially of people they have not directly interacted with.
Regarding concerns about vaccination in particular:
Concerns about side effects, speed of development and lack of concern of the effects of COVID-19 on them personally were the main reasons for hesitancy. Fear of needles and fear of infection from the vaccine were the other major ones.
Regarding factors that may convince hesitant people:
40% said there was nothing that could convince them. For those who could be, major factors were more time to see what happens and more information on the vaccine. The poll did not ask what specific information was needed, but likely side effects and efficacy were the main questions based on the other data.
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Another recent survey from the Pew research foundation (https://www.pewresearch.org/science/2021/09/15/majority-in-u-s-says-public-health-benefits-of-covid-19-restrictions-worth-the-costs-even-as-large-shares-also-see-downsides/) that was well done had interesting findings.
First, the methodology is important: the vast majority of respondents were recruited agnostic of COVID-19 (both in time of recruitment and reason for recruitment). The response rate was high (93%).
Vaccine rates were similar between men and women (surprising since death and hospitalization rates are 1.5-2x higher amongst men).
Asians were far more likely to have at least one vaccine dose (94% vs 76% Hispanic, 72% White and 70% Black).
Vaccine rates were related to age (86% of those 65 or older, 66% of 18-29yo) and finishing college education (81-89% vs 66-69%). Not surprisingly this translated to income level. The single biggest differences in mutable categories were Christian sect (82% of all Catholics, 73% of White non-Evangelical, and 70% of Black Protestant) and party affiliation (86% of Dem/lean Dem vs 60% of Rep/lean Rep). Though differences in vaccination rate were noted in all categories when sub-divided by party affiliation, 77% of post-graduate educated Republicans and 80% of 65+ Republicans were vaccinated.
In general, non-vaccinated people were more confused by the information given on vaccines (70% vs 50%), thought that public health officials were hiding information (80% vs 44%), and thought there was lack of data on serious side effects from the vaccines (81 vs 54%). These were clearly dependent on level of education (with post-graduates an outlier to college graduates or non-graduates).
Most striking was % agreeing to various non-vaccination measures:
Interestingly, 23% of non-vaccinated agreed that vaccines were the best way to protect Americans, 56% agreed to require masks on public transit/planes/etc, 67% agreed to restricting international travel, and 49%
agreed to avoiding large gatherings. The majority of Republicans supported all of these measures (including vaccination - 60% were vaccinated).
What to make of all this data? My interpretation is:
1) A subset of unvaccinated people can change their mind given sufficient time and a very clear explanation of the risks associated with vaccines. They agree with non-vaccination measures due to the very low risk. This opinion change will be mostly through friends and family who get vaccinated and end up fine, since other sources are highly distrusted.
2) A subset will not change their mind regardless of data presentation and others' efforts. They do not view the pandemic as a serious threat, and are unwilling to take even basic measures to mitigate it.
It's incumbent on us as as society to figure out who's in what category, and put our energies into convincing those in the first one.
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[...]
Interestingly, unvaccinated respondents trust their friends and family members as much as their doctors (70, 67 and 69%, respectively).
Luckily, 82% distrusted social media news stories and 67% distrusted their friends' social media posts.
[...]
So I'd say the unvaccinated are generally distrustful by nature and especially of people they have not directly interacted with.
It's a few years since I looked at Facebook but I'm finding a reported gap of nearly 50% in these figures difficult to believe. As I recall Facebook presents a screen where everything is pretty much jumbled up and a post from a friend or family member and a "news" story are next to each other in similar formats. Do most readers of Facebook really discriminate that clearly when scrolling through?
And do these people believe a news story that comes up in a friend or family member's timeline or not? If someone says "saw this news story about vaccines not being safe" what does the poll receiver believe about that? "I believe my friend when they post about their day but not when they post about vaccines?" Really?
I think by now most people have heard that there are problems with social media news feeds and will spout the line that they don't believe them but they still see them and it's hard not to be affected by something seen so often. There's are billion dollar advertising businesses built on our being affected by things seen so often.
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A study came out in Oregon recently. It found that Rural Oregonians would be significantly more likely to get the shot if our governor would quit moralizing those who were hesitant. In response, she said "Na, I'm going to keep saying what I've been saying."
Takeaways:
-Democrat politicians don't really care about vaccination rates. They care about power and politics. (further re-enforced by some redistricting shenanigans happening right now. #Tinamandering
As a pretty far left Oregon Democrat that voted for Kate Brown, I'm going to say that they probably care about both vaccination rates and political power.
I completely sympathize with people who just cynically throw their hands up and declare that all politicians "simply are seeking power."
But once a politician is granted public trust, there are moments when that politician can damage our public. In the case of COVID, poor public policy can cause people physical harm and death. In the case of other issues, poor policy weakens the institutions on which our liberty and self-government rest.
And some politicians expose themselves as being willing to trade a lot of damage to these in exchange for increasing their own power. We need to identify such politicians and criticize them relentlessly until their power is given to others.
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NPR is barely left of center (https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/npr/). If there was a left wing equivalent to the right wing radio it would be demanding that we march in the street to cease the means of production. Seriously, is there anything approximating radically left wing radio?
Perhaps some podcasts, such as ones by Robert Evans, and the like? However, extreme left is a much less cohesive message, with very different takes by different people and groups. Plus podcasts have much less concentrated and less devoted audiences than local right wing radio.
Yeah, you have lefty YouTubers like David Pakman, Kyle Kulinski, The Majority Report, TYT, etc are probably the closest you can get. But a big difference between the left and right here is that the right is paying giant think-tanks that then disseminate talking points to all of their major platforms and speakers. That's at least partially why you hear the exact same phrases every week coming out of the mouths of Sean Hannity, Ben Shapiro, Praeger, Levin, etc. They are all getting the exact same talking points and they all cover the exact same stories and apply the exact same spin.
The left shows however care deeply about being ideologically pure and making sure you understand the nuances of their opinions and don't mind debating each other. They're political opinions are more cohesive than right-wing radio's reactionary takes, but it leaves the left-wing a bit neutered politically because they don't have this large army of left commentators all beating the same drum to more effectively drive a bloc of listeners to the polls. You just have a fuzzy collection of commentators that more or less align politically behind someone like Bernie or AOC, but you'd also hear them disagreeing out loud with these same politicians in certain facets. (Which might leave a listener of multiple lefty programs confused or frustrated at the very left figures left YouTube is trying to promote)
For example, the last election, you would hear on right-wing radio about how Biden would be the end of our country, and that he would bring in a new era a socialism. But on left YouTube, it was more like "Yeah, Biden obviously isn't that great of a pick. But he's the better of the 2 choices." One is obviously more effective at driving votes than the other, but one is also more obviously hyperbolic drivel.
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A study came out in Oregon recently. It found that Rural Oregonians would be significantly more likely to get the shot if our governor would quit moralizing those who were hesitant. In response, she said "Na, I'm going to keep saying what I've been saying."
Takeaways:
-Democrat politicians don't really care about vaccination rates. They care about power and politics. (further re-enforced by some redistricting shenanigans happening right now. #Tinamandering
As a pretty far left Oregon Democrat that voted for Kate Brown, I'm going to say that they probably care about both vaccination rates and political power.
I completely sympathize with people who just cynically throw their hands up and declare that all politicians "simply are seeking power."
But once a politician is granted public trust, there are moments when that politician can damage our public. In the case of COVID, poor public policy can cause people physical harm and death. In the case of other issues, poor policy weakens the institutions on which our liberty and self-government rest.
And some politicians expose themselves as being willing to trade a lot of damage to these in exchange for increasing their own power. We need to identify such politicians and criticize them relentlessly until their power is given to others.
Are you talking about the Governor of Oregon here? What should she do, pretend to be an anti-vaxxer nut in order to reverse psychology trick rural conservatives into getting the vaccine? At some point the party of personal responsibility needs to take some personal responsibility.
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A study came out in Oregon recently. It found that Rural Oregonians would be significantly more likely to get the shot if our governor would quit moralizing those who were hesitant. In response, she said "Na, I'm going to keep saying what I've been saying."
Can you provide the study you're referring to here? I haven't been able to find it.
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A study came out in Oregon recently. It found that Rural Oregonians would be significantly more likely to get the shot if our governor would quit moralizing those who were hesitant. In response, she said "Na, I'm going to keep saying what I've been saying."
Can you provide the study you're referring to here? I haven't been able to find it.
It's behind a paywall, but here it is:
https://www.oregonlive.com/politics/2021/07/researchers-urge-gov-kate-brown-to-stop-promoting-vaccines-saying-she-is-the-least-trusted-messenger-for-hesitant-oregonians.html
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Here is the text:
Gov. Kate Brown should stop urging Oregonians to get vaccinated against COVID-19 because she is the “least trusted” figure for unvaccinated individuals and could be undercutting the state’s efforts to reach herd immunity, according to new survey results released Tuesday.
In recommendations for how the state could further boost vaccinations, researchers at the University of Oregon’s Institute for Policy Research and Engagement were blunt: “less Gov. Brown.”
“Gov. Brown is a polarizing figure for unvaccinated individuals,” wrote Benjamin Clark and Robert Parker, respectively the co-executive director and the director of strategy and technical solutions at the institute. “We would recommend that (the governor) defer being the primary messenger to unvaccinated Oregonians.”
Brown made Oregon’s COVID-19 response the focal point of her governorship over the last year and she has urged people to get shots in weekly pandemic-focused online media briefings. In May, she announced the state would offer a $1 million lottery and other prizes for vaccinated Oregonians and last week, Brown held a photo op with the winner.
The survey, which included 686 Oregonians and took place from late May through the end of June, found that unvaccinated Oregonians’ own doctors are the most trusted messengers, followed by family and friends. Clark and Parker recommended that state and local government agencies do more to help medical providers do outreach to patients on vaccines and they also suggested those governments produce guides for the general public on “how to talk to your unvaccinated friends and family about getting vaccinated.”
The governor is a Democrat and the University of Oregon researchers noted that 41% of Republican survey respondents said they were unvaccinated and 48% of non-affiliated voters who answered the survey said they were unvaccinated. In contrast, only 13% of Democrats who participated in the survey said they were still unvaccinated.
Brown declined through a spokesperson to respond to the findings. The spokesperson, deputy communications director Charles Boyle, indicated the governor will not change her messaging or other work regarding COVID-19 vaccinations.
Five of the researchers’ other recommendations also focused on getting information to a wary or misinformed public, including that vaccines are free and that unvaccinated people make up the bulk of those still getting sick and hospitalized with COVID-19.
They also suggested health agencies apply research on effective messaging when trying to educate the public and enhance those efforts by going to door-to-door -- resource-intensive work that they said could be the only option for additional conversions.
But the university’s first recommendation was far less nuanced. Instead of winning hearts and minds with data, the researchers suggested health officials offer $100 cash.
Such an incentive, their research found, could convince one in five of those who say they won’t get vaccinated, and one in three who say they might.
“This is the most accessible and most direct path to Yes for these individuals,” they wrote.
Unvaccinated survey respondents said a $100 bill or cash card would be twice as persuasive as a $1 million lottery to get them to get their shot.
Clark and Parker said the state could better tailor its financial incentives to get the most bang for the buck. They noted Oregon is starting to pay $100 incentives to state workers vaccinated by the end of July, although approximately 80% of public workers in the state are already vaccinated. In contrast, less than 50% of self-employed Oregonians are vaccinated and nearly 70% of employees at family-owned businesses remain unvaccinated, they wrote.
-- Hillary Borrud; hborrud@Oregonian.com; @hborrud
-- Fedor Zarkhin
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A study came out in Oregon recently. It found that Rural Oregonians would be significantly more likely to get the shot if our governor would quit moralizing those who were hesitant. In response, she said "Na, I'm going to keep saying what I've been saying."
Takeaways:
-Democrat politicians don't really care about vaccination rates. They care about power and politics. (further re-enforced by some redistricting shenanigans happening right now. #Tinamandering
As a pretty far left Oregon Democrat that voted for Kate Brown, I'm going to say that they probably care about both vaccination rates and political power.
I completely sympathize with people who just cynically throw their hands up and declare that all politicians "simply are seeking power."
But once a politician is granted public trust, there are moments when that politician can damage our public. In the case of COVID, poor public policy can cause people physical harm and death. In the case of other issues, poor policy weakens the institutions on which our liberty and self-government rest.
And some politicians expose themselves as being willing to trade a lot of damage to these in exchange for increasing their own power. We need to identify such politicians and criticize them relentlessly until their power is given to others.
Are you talking about the Governor of Oregon here? What should she do, pretend to be an anti-vaxxer nut in order to reverse psychology trick rural conservatives into getting the vaccine? At some point the party of personal responsibility needs to take some personal responsibility.
Right???
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Here is the text:
Gov. Kate Brown should stop urging Oregonians to get vaccinated against COVID-19 because she is the “least trusted” figure for unvaccinated individuals and could be undercutting the state’s efforts to reach herd immunity, according to new survey results released Tuesday.
In recommendations for how the state could further boost vaccinations, researchers at the University of Oregon’s Institute for Policy Research and Engagement were blunt: “less Gov. Brown.”
“Gov. Brown is a polarizing figure for unvaccinated individuals,” wrote Benjamin Clark and Robert Parker, respectively the co-executive director and the director of strategy and technical solutions at the institute. “We would recommend that (the governor) defer being the primary messenger to unvaccinated Oregonians.”
Brown made Oregon’s COVID-19 response the focal point of her governorship over the last year and she has urged people to get shots in weekly pandemic-focused online media briefings. In May, she announced the state would offer a $1 million lottery and other prizes for vaccinated Oregonians and last week, Brown held a photo op with the winner.
The survey, which included 686 Oregonians and took place from late May through the end of June, found that unvaccinated Oregonians’ own doctors are the most trusted messengers, followed by family and friends. Clark and Parker recommended that state and local government agencies do more to help medical providers do outreach to patients on vaccines and they also suggested those governments produce guides for the general public on “how to talk to your unvaccinated friends and family about getting vaccinated.”
The governor is a Democrat and the University of Oregon researchers noted that 41% of Republican survey respondents said they were unvaccinated and 48% of non-affiliated voters who answered the survey said they were unvaccinated. In contrast, only 13% of Democrats who participated in the survey said they were still unvaccinated.
Brown declined through a spokesperson to respond to the findings. The spokesperson, deputy communications director Charles Boyle, indicated the governor will not change her messaging or other work regarding COVID-19 vaccinations.
Five of the researchers’ other recommendations also focused on getting information to a wary or misinformed public, including that vaccines are free and that unvaccinated people make up the bulk of those still getting sick and hospitalized with COVID-19.
They also suggested health agencies apply research on effective messaging when trying to educate the public and enhance those efforts by going to door-to-door -- resource-intensive work that they said could be the only option for additional conversions.
But the university’s first recommendation was far less nuanced. Instead of winning hearts and minds with data, the researchers suggested health officials offer $100 cash.
Such an incentive, their research found, could convince one in five of those who say they won’t get vaccinated, and one in three who say they might.
“This is the most accessible and most direct path to Yes for these individuals,” they wrote.
Unvaccinated survey respondents said a $100 bill or cash card would be twice as persuasive as a $1 million lottery to get them to get their shot.
Clark and Parker said the state could better tailor its financial incentives to get the most bang for the buck. They noted Oregon is starting to pay $100 incentives to state workers vaccinated by the end of July, although approximately 80% of public workers in the state are already vaccinated. In contrast, less than 50% of self-employed Oregonians are vaccinated and nearly 70% of employees at family-owned businesses remain unvaccinated, they wrote.
-- Hillary Borrud; hborrud@Oregonian.com; @hborrud
-- Fedor Zarkhin
Here is the full study: https://poseidon01.ssrn.com/delivery.php?ID=910024021106116092094103078109099126039006020032019035067003090010126081094065074007039055026029057040105066025117117094068087119055089076076126103098069084069010022053043024097117006123066065114117102093086014114068093000021122127086002097096086081&EXT=pdf&INDEX=TRUE (https://poseidon01.ssrn.com/delivery.php?ID=910024021106116092094103078109099126039006020032019035067003090010126081094065074007039055026029057040105066025117117094068087119055089076076126103098069084069010022053043024097117006123066065114117102093086014114068093000021122127086002097096086081&EXT=pdf&INDEX=TRUE)
If that link doesn't work, you can try here: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3886032 (https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3886032)
The study didn't say anything at all about "moralizing". It has three recommendations to increase vaccination rates:
Recommendation 1:
More Cash Incentives
A $100 cash or debit card incentive appears to be the most straightforward way to encourage the unvaccinated to change their minds. While this incentive may only provide a nudge to a fifth of those with no plans to vaccinate—this is the most accessible and most direct path to Yes for these individuals. For people in the ‘may’ vaccinate camp, this incentive would make up to one third more likely to vaccinate. Governor Brown, OHA, and others should find ways to implement such a program across the state (and emulate a successful effort seen in the Portland metro area).
Recommendation 2:
Less Gov. Brown
For unvaccinated Oregonians, Gov. Brown is the least trusted figure for information on COVID-19. We would recommend not using the governor as a spokesperson for messaging around vaccination moving forward. Instead, we need to make trusted doctors and healthcare providers the
messengers. However, many of these practices are small and underresourced, particularly in rural parts
of the state. OHA and local public health agencies need to strategically support these providers with
materials that are not branded by the state or local agency (as they are also not trusted by the unvaccinated)— but rather by the provider. While most medical providers are already doing outreach to their patients, additional work is needed to increase support to these providers and their messaging. State and local officials should provide financial and human capital supportive measures to help medical practices in outreach work beyond information.
Recommendation 3:
Free Vaccination Info
Despite informational campaigns to assure people the vaccine is free, for many vaccine-hesitant Oregonians
there is continued concerns over the cost. OHA and other need to continue to drive the message home
that there is no cost to get vaccinated.
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At the national level, instead of having elected officials like Donald Trump talk about COVID, we should have career professionals like Anthony Fauci give advice. There isn't a chance that people will start mistrusting Fauci, right?
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At the national level, instead of having elected officials like Donald Trump talk about COVID, we should have career professionals like Anthony Fauci give advice. There isn't a chance that people will start mistrusting Fauci, right?
https://www.statnews.com/2020/09/10/trust-cdc-fauci-evaporating/ (https://www.statnews.com/2020/09/10/trust-cdc-fauci-evaporating/)
https://www.axios.com/conservative-media-diets-tied-to-distrust-in-health-officials-541ae0c4-e9d1-485f-8ca7-ffc89517302d.html (https://www.axios.com/conservative-media-diets-tied-to-distrust-in-health-officials-541ae0c4-e9d1-485f-8ca7-ffc89517302d.html)
https://www.politico.com/news/2021/06/04/fauci-attacks-personal-conspiratorial-491896 (https://www.politico.com/news/2021/06/04/fauci-attacks-personal-conspiratorial-491896)
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/why-would-anyone-distrust-anthony-fauci/ (https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/why-would-anyone-distrust-anthony-fauci/)
:P
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The study didn't say anything at all about "moralizing". It has three recommendations to increase vaccination rates:
Recommendation 1:
More Cash Incentives
A $100 cash or debit card incentive appears to be the most straightforward way to encourage the unvaccinated to change their minds. While this incentive may only provide a nudge to a fifth of those with no plans to vaccinate—this is the most accessible and most direct path to Yes for these individuals. For people in the ‘may’ vaccinate camp, this incentive would make up to one third more likely to vaccinate. Governor Brown, OHA, and others should find ways to implement such a program across the state (and emulate a successful effort seen in the Portland metro area).
Harris county (Houston and suburbs) started offering $100 incentive for vaccination and saw a sharp uptick in first-dose vaccinations (initially 6x increase or about 2400 per day). This has slowed somewhat but remains much higher than before the incentive.
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I'm sure @talltexan was sarcastic.
Distrust (in Fauci or Gov. Brown) is not a naturally occurring phenomena. It's a result of coordinated work of the right-wing media ecosystem. If another pro-vax spokesperson appears in Oregon, he or she will be tarred and feathered just the same, and will quickly join the ranks of the mistrusted.
Also, I would take at least some responses with a grain of salt. Getting your news from social media has a (well-deserved) stigma. I'm pretty sure it is under-reported.
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Also, I would take at least some responses with a grain of salt. Getting your news from social media has a (well-deserved) stigma. I'm pretty sure it is under-reported.
Speaking of which, I follow the BBC and the Economist on Facebook. If someone in a survey asks if I get news through social media, I'm going to say "yes." It's a really ambiguous question.
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I'm not sure that I should admit to having had read this, but: Breitbart: Nolte: Howard Stern Proves Democrats Want Unvaccinated Trump Voters Dead (https://www.breitbart.com/entertainment/2021/09/10/nolte-howard-stern-proves-democrats-want-unvaccinated-trump-voters-dead).
It includes this gem:
Final note: How many of you were aware the CDC believes that 99.5 percent of those dying are unvaccinated? I bet not many of you. So why would the metric that is the most convincing one not be all over the place? Once you learn that 99.5 percent of deaths are unvaccinated, it cuts through all the muck. That number is startling, an eye-opener… Forget cases, forget mandates, forget masks, and Howard Stern… When you learn that almost everyone dying is unvaccinated, that’s a come to Jesus moment.
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ummm…is this one of those ads that say “one trick doctors don’t want you to know about?” Otherwise it doesn’t make sense.
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I'm not sure that I should admit to having had read this, but: Breitbart: Nolte: Howard Stern Proves Democrats Want Unvaccinated Trump Voters Dead (https://www.breitbart.com/entertainment/2021/09/10/nolte-howard-stern-proves-democrats-want-unvaccinated-trump-voters-dead).
It includes this gem:
Final note: How many of you were aware the CDC believes that 99.5 percent of those dying are unvaccinated? I bet not many of you. So why would the metric that is the most convincing one not be all over the place? Once you learn that 99.5 percent of deaths are unvaccinated, it cuts through all the muck. That number is startling, an eye-opener… Forget cases, forget mandates, forget masks, and Howard Stern… When you learn that almost everyone dying is unvaccinated, that’s a come to Jesus moment.
That is hilarious. Talk about pretzel logic. "Look what you mean libs made me do to myself!"
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I'm not sure that I should admit to having had read this, but: Breitbart: Nolte: Howard Stern Proves Democrats Want Unvaccinated Trump Voters Dead (https://www.breitbart.com/entertainment/2021/09/10/nolte-howard-stern-proves-democrats-want-unvaccinated-trump-voters-dead).
It includes this gem:
Final note: How many of you were aware the CDC believes that 99.5 percent of those dying are unvaccinated? I bet not many of you. So why would the metric that is the most convincing one not be all over the place? Once you learn that 99.5 percent of deaths are unvaccinated, it cuts through all the muck. That number is startling, an eye-opener… Forget cases, forget mandates, forget masks, and Howard Stern… When you learn that almost everyone dying is unvaccinated, that’s a come to Jesus moment.
If people are unaware that almost all of the covid-related deaths are unvaccinated, then I don't know what to say. I don't follow the news at all, and I'm aware of that fact.
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I'm not sure that I should admit to having had read this, but: Breitbart: Nolte: Howard Stern Proves Democrats Want Unvaccinated Trump Voters Dead (https://www.breitbart.com/entertainment/2021/09/10/nolte-howard-stern-proves-democrats-want-unvaccinated-trump-voters-dead).
It includes this gem:
Final note: How many of you were aware the CDC believes that 99.5 percent of those dying are unvaccinated? I bet not many of you. So why would the metric that is the most convincing one not be all over the place? Once you learn that 99.5 percent of deaths are unvaccinated, it cuts through all the muck. That number is startling, an eye-opener… Forget cases, forget mandates, forget masks, and Howard Stern… When you learn that almost everyone dying is unvaccinated, that’s a come to Jesus moment.
If people are unaware that almost all of the covid-related deaths are unvaccinated, then I don't know what to say. I don't follow the news at all, and I'm aware of that fact.
And I thought the current train of stupid was "half of the people dying in the hospital are vaccinated, the vaccine does not work", which holds up at least for 5 seconds thought until you remember that the majority (at least in Europe) is fully vaccinated and the most vulnerable people are vaccinated the most, so naturally for everyone not vaccinated who gets Covid-hospitalized there are about 10 vaccinated people who get it and not get hospitalized, which turns out to be the quote promised by the vaccine makers.
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My unvaccinated parents have been sick with covid and on oxygen at home for the past 3 weeks because the hospitals are full and aren't admitting any more covid patients. My mom has pneumonia and can't walk, and her oxygen has dropped down into the 60s. There's a mobile morgue at use in their local hospital. Their hospital spokesperson said that hospitalizations declined by 20 over the weekend but only because people died.
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I'm not sure that I should admit to having had read this, but: Breitbart: Nolte: Howard Stern Proves Democrats Want Unvaccinated Trump Voters Dead (https://www.breitbart.com/entertainment/2021/09/10/nolte-howard-stern-proves-democrats-want-unvaccinated-trump-voters-dead).
It includes this gem:
Final note: How many of you were aware the CDC believes that 99.5 percent of those dying are unvaccinated? I bet not many of you. So why would the metric that is the most convincing one not be all over the place? Once you learn that 99.5 percent of deaths are unvaccinated, it cuts through all the muck. That number is startling, an eye-opener… Forget cases, forget mandates, forget masks, and Howard Stern… When you learn that almost everyone dying is unvaccinated, that’s a come to Jesus moment.
That is hilarious. Talk about pretzel logic. "Look what you mean libs made me do to myself!"
Exactly. "Here's this important fact! You should know this fact! Now I'll try to convince you that this fact generally hasn't come to light. You might even believe me if you only listen to right-wing media."
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My unvaccinated parents have been sick with covid and on oxygen at home for the past 3 weeks because the hospitals are full and aren't admitting any more covid patients. My mom has pneumonia and can't walk, and her oxygen has dropped down into the 60s. There's a mobile morgue at use in their local hospital. Their hospital spokesperson said that hospitalizations declined by 20 over the weekend but only because people died.
I'm sorry.
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Life expectancy for men in the USA is down by 2.2 years because of covid-19 -
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-58659717
Relatively speaking it wasn't that great anyway. Shitty health system, right?
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I don't doubt that the majority of people dying from it are unvaccinated, but I haven't seem any statistics. Anyone know where to find them?
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I don't doubt that the majority of people dying from it are unvaccinated, but I haven't seem any statistics. Anyone know where to find them?
I don't have the actual death numbers, but the local hospital posts the hospitalization comparisons. Here was their post for the week ending 9/18:
Hospitalized
U: 144
V: 20
ICU
U: 32
V: 4
Ventilated
U: 14
V: 0
U = Unvaccinated or not yet fully vaccinated
V = Fully vaccinated
I think the fact that unvaxxed are dying at a significantly higher rate can be inferred pretty easily from that information.
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But what about my balls (https://www.vice.com/en/article/g5gag7/nicki-minaj-covid-vaccine-balls-rumor-from-trinidad)?
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My unvaccinated parents have been sick with covid and on oxygen at home for the past 3 weeks because the hospitals are full and aren't admitting any more covid patients. My mom has pneumonia and can't walk, and her oxygen has dropped down into the 60s. There's a mobile morgue at use in their local hospital. Their hospital spokesperson said that hospitalizations declined by 20 over the weekend but only because people died.
I'm so sorry. It's unusual (though obviously not unheard of) for older folks to be unvaccinated, even if they are politically conservative. It's just so risky. I am glad they are able to be out of the hospital for now and I hope they hang in there and get better.
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My province reports:
- of 912,200 people fully immunized, there are 728 infections and 16 deaths.
- of 986,054 people partially immunized (one shot), there are 2215 infections and 45 deaths.
Further:
Of those in hospital with Covid, 69% are unvaccinated; 11% are partially vaccinated and 20% are vaccinated. There are no fully vaccinated people in ICU.
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Life expectancy for men in the USA is down by 2.2 years because of covid-19 -
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-58659717
Relatively speaking it wasn't that great anyway. Shitty health system, right?
Pretty good to average health system, shitty lifestyle choices. It is really hard to fix 50 years of eating unhealthy food that’s enveloped your organs in several inches of pro-inflammatory fat and infiltrated the liver to the point it can’t filter toxins properly. Then the pancreas starts to fail and the glucose coats various cells and makes them malfunction. There’s also the agribusinesses and junk food industries promoting that garbage. Not even the vaunted UK NHS can fix that.
Sorry if I sound bitter / victim blaming. Just spent 8 hours wading through said fat to take out a tumor the size of a baseball.if that patient has a complication and dies as a result (extremely rare but have to use some example) it’d look like poor surgery even though risk of all severe complications is directly associated with (if not caused by) obesity. This is especially relevant for covid because death is so strongly related to obesity for both mechanical and physiologic reasons. We’re busting our asses to take care of people who just don’t care about their health. Yeah it’s hard to get vegetable and fruits in some areas, etc but it’s not because we haven’t developed the technology to transport them cheaply, it’s just that demand is not strong in many areas.
Access to good healthcare is an issue in rural areas for many reasons, not the least of which again is lack of demand and interest. Until shit hits the fan and everyone wants an ECMO-capable ICU in their backyard. It’s a macabre Monty Python skit, honestly.
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I don't doubt that the majority of people dying from it are unvaccinated, but I haven't seem any statistics. Anyone know where to find them?
Ask and ye shall receive:
https://www.kff.org/policy-watch/covid-19-vaccine-breakthrough-cases-data-from-the-states/
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It is really hard to fix 50 years of eating unhealthy food that’s enveloped your organs in several inches of pro-inflammatory fat and infiltrated the liver to the point it can’t filter toxins properly. Then the pancreas starts to fail and the glucose coats various cells and makes them malfunction. There’s also the agribusinesses and junk food industries promoting that garbage. Not even the vaunted UK NHS can fix that.
...
We’re busting our asses to take care of people who just don’t care about their health. Yeah it’s hard to get vegetable and fruits in some areas, etc but it’s not because we haven’t developed the technology to transport them cheaply, it’s just that demand is not strong in many areas.
I am not a medical professional but I came to similar conclusions on my own.
With that said, at no point in time have any of my doctors told me this. It was all me "doing my own research."
Also, look at what kids are fed in school. Look at the vending machines and the Taco Bells (https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB874272155530117500). The industrial complex created this mess for profit. If I were a conspiracy theorist I would say that they created demand for our expensive healthcare system.
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It is really hard to fix 50 years of eating unhealthy food that’s enveloped your organs in several inches of pro-inflammatory fat and infiltrated the liver to the point it can’t filter toxins properly. Then the pancreas starts to fail and the glucose coats various cells and makes them malfunction. There’s also the agribusinesses and junk food industries promoting that garbage. Not even the vaunted UK NHS can fix that.
...
We’re busting our asses to take care of people who just don’t care about their health. Yeah it’s hard to get vegetable and fruits in some areas, etc but it’s not because we haven’t developed the technology to transport them cheaply, it’s just that demand is not strong in many areas.
I am not a medical professional but I came to similar conclusions on my own.
With that said, at no point in time have any of my doctors told me this. It was all me "doing my own research."
Also, look at what kids are fed in school. Look at the vending machines and the Taco Bells (https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB874272155530117500). The industrial complex created this mess for profit. If I were a conspiracy theorist I would say that they created demand for our expensive healthcare system.
Oh for sure. Perfect example of expensive externalities. But in some areas if you don’t eat a bunch of meat every day, people look at you like you’re going to die of anemia.
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It is really hard to fix 50 years of eating unhealthy food that’s enveloped your organs in several inches of pro-inflammatory fat and infiltrated the liver to the point it can’t filter toxins properly. Then the pancreas starts to fail and the glucose coats various cells and makes them malfunction. There’s also the agribusinesses and junk food industries promoting that garbage. Not even the vaunted UK NHS can fix that.
...
We’re busting our asses to take care of people who just don’t care about their health. Yeah it’s hard to get vegetable and fruits in some areas, etc but it’s not because we haven’t developed the technology to transport them cheaply, it’s just that demand is not strong in many areas.
I am not a medical professional but I came to similar conclusions on my own.
With that said, at no point in time have any of my doctors told me this. It was all me "doing my own research."
Also, look at what kids are fed in school. Look at the vending machines and the Taco Bells (https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB874272155530117500). The industrial complex created this mess for profit. If I were a conspiracy theorist I would say that they created demand for our expensive healthcare system.
Oh for sure. Perfect example of expensive externalities. But in some areas if you don’t eat a bunch of meat every day, people look at you like you’re going to die of anemia.
"You don't eat meat? But how do you get protein?"
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I don't doubt that the majority of people dying from it are unvaccinated, but I haven't seem any statistics. Anyone know where to find them?
Ask and ye shall receive:
https://www.kff.org/policy-watch/covid-19-vaccine-breakthrough-cases-data-from-the-states/
Thank you. Exactly what I needed.
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It is really hard to fix 50 years of eating unhealthy food that’s enveloped your organs in several inches of pro-inflammatory fat and infiltrated the liver to the point it can’t filter toxins properly. Then the pancreas starts to fail and the glucose coats various cells and makes them malfunction. There’s also the agribusinesses and junk food industries promoting that garbage. Not even the vaunted UK NHS can fix that.
...
We’re busting our asses to take care of people who just don’t care about their health. Yeah it’s hard to get vegetable and fruits in some areas, etc but it’s not because we haven’t developed the technology to transport them cheaply, it’s just that demand is not strong in many areas.
I am not a medical professional but I came to similar conclusions on my own.
With that said, at no point in time have any of my doctors told me this. It was all me "doing my own research."
Also, look at what kids are fed in school. Look at the vending machines and the Taco Bells (https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB874272155530117500). The industrial complex created this mess for profit. If I were a conspiracy theorist I would say that they created demand for our expensive healthcare system.
One of my favorite movie scenes is from the propaganda movie "Where to invade next" when the fat American shows French school children what their age gets to eat at school in the US.
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I don't doubt that the majority of people dying from it are unvaccinated, but I haven't seem any statistics. Anyone know where to find them?
Ask and ye shall receive:
https://www.kff.org/policy-watch/covid-19-vaccine-breakthrough-cases-data-from-the-states/
My county (population ~2 million) has a data dashboard (https://kingcounty.gov/depts/health/covid-19/data/vaccination-outcomes.aspx) on this topic for local cases. Over the past month, folks who are not fully vaccinated are about 50x more likely to end up in the hospital and/or die as those who are. About 80% of the recent hospitalizations and deaths have not been fully vaccinated, and only about 20% of the eligible population has failed to get their shots.
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I don't doubt that the majority of people dying from it are unvaccinated, but I haven't seem any statistics. Anyone know where to find them?
Ask and ye shall receive:
https://www.kff.org/policy-watch/covid-19-vaccine-breakthrough-cases-data-from-the-states/
My county (population ~2 million) has a data dashboard (https://kingcounty.gov/depts/health/covid-19/data/vaccination-outcomes.aspx) on this topic for local cases. Over the past month, folks who are not fully vaccinated are about 50x more likely to end up in the hospital and/or die as those who are. About 80% of the recent hospitalizations and deaths have not been fully vaccinated, and only about 20% of the eligible population has failed to get their shots.
thank you.
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Some acquaintance on facebook posted a meme today that said something like, "this is the first time that a medicine's ineffectiveness is being blamed on those who haven't taken it"....and I just can't believe there are people out there that think the vaccines are ineffective BUT ALSO that the Flat Earth theory isn't more popular than it is. I mean, maybe it is more popular than I know? If people don't believe the vaccine works at this point, they must be believing things like the earth is flat and that if you eat apple seeds you'll grow and apple tree in your belly and....I don't even know what else these people are probably believing?
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Some acquaintance on facebook posted a meme today that said something like, "this is the first time that a medicine's ineffectiveness is being blamed on those who haven't taken it"....and I just can't believe there are people out there that think the vaccines are ineffective BUT ALSO that the Flat Earth theory isn't more popular than it is. I mean, maybe it is more popular than I know? If people don't believe the vaccine works at this point, they must be believing things like the earth is flat and that if you eat apple seeds you'll grow and apple tree in your belly and....I don't even know what else these people are probably believing?
Looking over at r/HermanCainAwards there’s not a lot of thinking involved. Mostly just copying memes that may be completely internally illogical.
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"When Randal Thom, a 60-year-old ex-Marine with a long gray mustache, fell severely ill with a high fever and debilitating congestion, he refused to go to the hospital. He was a heavy smoker who was significantly overweight and knew he faced an increased risk of severe effects from covid-19. Still, he refused to take a coronavirus test and potentially increase the caseload on Trump’s watch: “I’m not going to add to the numbers,” he told me. Thom survived the scare, but died months later in a car accident while returning home to Minnesota from a Trump boat parade in Florida."
https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/trump-rallies-front-row-joes/2021/07/15/cd842ee6-e589-11eb-8aa5-5662858b696e_story.html
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^^^^^^
Proof that belief in Trump is fatal.
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^^^^^^
Proof that belief in Trump is fatal.
Nah, just a sudden sign of God's love, who wanted this patriot close by.
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It is really hard to fix 50 years of eating unhealthy food that’s enveloped your organs in several inches of pro-inflammatory fat and infiltrated the liver to the point it can’t filter toxins properly. Then the pancreas starts to fail and the glucose coats various cells and makes them malfunction. There’s also the agribusinesses and junk food industries promoting that garbage. Not even the vaunted UK NHS can fix that.
...
We’re busting our asses to take care of people who just don’t care about their health. Yeah it’s hard to get vegetable and fruits in some areas, etc but it’s not because we haven’t developed the technology to transport them cheaply, it’s just that demand is not strong in many areas.
I am not a medical professional but I came to similar conclusions on my own.
With that said, at no point in time have any of my doctors told me this. It was all me "doing my own research."
Also, look at what kids are fed in school. Look at the vending machines and the Taco Bells (https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB874272155530117500). The industrial complex created this mess for profit. If I were a conspiracy theorist I would say that they created demand for our expensive healthcare system.
Meh, you know the food our kids get in schools (here) - actually it's very healthy. But that's California for you. Still, a number of children are overweight or obese. So, it's not completely food, but probably mostly food.
I could go on and on, and I do in other threads, but I'll leave it at this: it's hard. There are a lot of factors, and it's hard. (You can easily gain 10 lbs in a month of stress eating too much chocolate, but that shit's SUPER HARD to take back off. Ask me how I know!!)
--------
Interesting blurb in the NY Times today about how Breitbart has told their people "the libs are trying to get you to die by telling you to get vaccinated, because they know you'll refuse because you want to OWN THE LIBS". And....??? It boggles the mind.
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Meh, you know the food our kids get in schools (here) - actually it's very healthy. But that's California for you. Still, a number of children are overweight or obese. So, it's not completely food, but probably mostly food.
I'm mostly familiar with my own experience where I was eating pizza and chocolate wafers in school. But free school lunch kept me from starving to death so at least in high school I was probably underweight. The chocolate wafers were chosen by me from the vending machine in a cost/calorie trade-off to get enough calories.
I'm not necessarily saying that it is mostly food. But I'll happily blame the combination of the food with lack of exercise. Walking has continued to go down in the USA for longer than I have been alive according to all of the data I've ever seen on it. Kids in walk-able neighborhoods are less overweight last I checked.
Interesting blurb in the NY Times today about how Breitbart has told their people "the libs are trying to get you to die by telling you to get vaccinated, because they know you'll refuse because you want to OWN THE LIBS". And....??? It boggles the mind.
Right?!?! I think this is part of a larger problem which I call "anglophone collapse disorder" but the USA is certainly the furthest along.
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Some acquaintance on facebook posted a meme today that said something like, "this is the first time that a medicine's ineffectiveness is being blamed on those who haven't taken it"....and I just can't believe there are people out there that think the vaccines are ineffective BUT ALSO that the Flat Earth theory isn't more popular than it is. I mean, maybe it is more popular than I know? If people don't believe the vaccine works at this point, they must be believing things like the earth is flat and that if you eat apple seeds you'll grow and apple tree in your belly and....I don't even know what else these people are probably believing?
Could you explain this? I'm not sure what flat earth has to do with anything, but if you truly believe the vaccine is so effective, why do you care if other people get it, as I assume you have had it?
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Some acquaintance on facebook posted a meme today that said something like, "this is the first time that a medicine's ineffectiveness is being blamed on those who haven't taken it"....and I just can't believe there are people out there that think the vaccines are ineffective BUT ALSO that the Flat Earth theory isn't more popular than it is. I mean, maybe it is more popular than I know? If people don't believe the vaccine works at this point, they must be believing things like the earth is flat and that if you eat apple seeds you'll grow and apple tree in your belly and....I don't even know what else these people are probably believing?
Could you explain this? I'm not sure what flat earth has to do with anything, but if you truly believe the vaccine is so effective, why do you care if other people get it, as I assume you have had it?
It was an offhand comment, meant to bemoan the crazy things people believe in (like vaccines are ineffective, the earth is flat, if you eat an appleseed, a tree with grow in your belly). That's pretty much it. Probably I believe something as crazy as any one of those things, just because I'm human, too. But honestly, if I do I wish someone would point it out to me because I'm embarrassed in advance that I believe it.
But I will say, first of all, that I don't *believe* the vaccines are effective. I'm just objecting to that language because it implies my belief is an important aspect here. I am *aware* that the vaccines are effective.
Secondly, I care that other people get it because it matters to public health. Because that's how vaccines work, they are not just for individual protection. I assume you are aware of that? [<--I think that may sound sarcastic, but it's not meant to be. I may be assuming too much!] I am not the person to educate you if not, but perhaps someone else on this thread will be happy to, or of course Google is your friend. But the answer to your question is, I care what is going on to more than just me personally.
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Some acquaintance on facebook posted a meme today that said something like, "this is the first time that a medicine's ineffectiveness is being blamed on those who haven't taken it"....and I just can't believe there are people out there that think the vaccines are ineffective BUT ALSO that the Flat Earth theory isn't more popular than it is. I mean, maybe it is more popular than I know? If people don't believe the vaccine works at this point, they must be believing things like the earth is flat and that if you eat apple seeds you'll grow and apple tree in your belly and....I don't even know what else these people are probably believing?
Could you explain this? I'm not sure what flat earth has to do with anything, but if you truly believe the vaccine is so effective, why do you care if other people get it, as I assume you have had it?
My take on this is...
Just a couple years ago, if you asked me how many anti-vax believers there were, or how many flat-earthers there were, I'd have said, "I don't know, a few thousand in the whole world?!" Probably already a gross underestimation.
In 2016, when Trump won the election, I thought... well, a lot of people have come to believe that career politicians are the problem, and that Trump put forth a message of being "of the people" and "against the increasingly undesirable norm of politicians in power." But in 2020, I thought - well they probably all saw how Trump was no different in the pursuit of power... and then something like 73 million people voted for him, and I had to take a step back. Wow. How is it possible that 73 million people (out of about 255 million eligible voters) think that Trump is the better choice for President? Guess I've been sipping Liberal Kool-Aid too eagerly.
When I looked at the declining rate of COVID-19 vaccinations happening in the United States as early as May, I said... "Holy shit. That's way more people being anti-vax than I thought." It's possible that... you can vote for Trump and be anti-COVID vaccine, but still not be a flat-earther or in general, anti-vax. But... just from my perspective/point of view it seems like if you're OK with the information you have to accept to be pro-Trump or anti-COVID vaccine... you might as well be falling for the same insane trains of thought that anti-vax and flat-earthers do. No amount of past or current information that has consensus among the scientific community can sway your beliefs about the shape of the Earth, the safety of vaccines, or the power-hungry, selfish nature of a lifelong gray-area business man turned demagogue.
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Some acquaintance on facebook posted a meme today that said something like, "this is the first time that a medicine's ineffectiveness is being blamed on those who haven't taken it"....and I just can't believe there are people out there that think the vaccines are ineffective BUT ALSO that the Flat Earth theory isn't more popular than it is. I mean, maybe it is more popular than I know? If people don't believe the vaccine works at this point, they must be believing things like the earth is flat and that if you eat apple seeds you'll grow and apple tree in your belly and....I don't even know what else these people are probably believing?
Could you explain this? I'm not sure what flat earth has to do with anything, but if you truly believe the vaccine is so effective, why do you care if other people get it, as I assume you have had it?
My take on this is...
Just a couple years ago, if you asked me how many anti-vax believers there were, or how many flat-earthers there were, I'd have said, "I don't know, a few thousand in the whole world?!" Probably already a gross underestimation.
In 2016, when Trump won the election, I thought... well, a lot of people have come to believe that career politicians are the problem, and that Trump put forth a message of being "of the people" and "against the increasingly undesirable norm of politicians in power." But in 2020, I thought - well they probably all saw how Trump was no different in the pursuit of power... and then something like 73 million people voted for him, and I had to take a step back. Wow. How is it possible that 73 million people (out of about 255 million eligible voters) think that Trump is the better choice for President? Guess I've been sipping Liberal Kool-Aid too eagerly.
When I looked at the declining rate of COVID-19 vaccinations happening in the United States as early as May, I said... "Holy shit. That's way more people being anti-vax than I thought." It's possible that... you can vote for Trump and be anti-COVID vaccine, but still not be a flat-earther or in general, anti-vax. But... just from my perspective/point of view it seems like if you're OK with the information you have to accept to be pro-Trump or anti-COVID vaccine... you might as well be falling for the same insane trains of thought that anti-vax and flat-earthers do. No amount of past or current information that has consensus among the scientific community can sway your beliefs about the shape of the Earth, the safety of vaccines, or the power-hungry, selfish nature of a lifelong gray-area business man turned demagogue.
Thanks for the engagement, it's so hard to find people who are willing to engage rationally on the internet!
I think there is not a big overlap between people who would have been labeled "anti-vax" two years ago and today. To me and much of my social circle, there doesn't seem to be a big compelling reason to get a vaccine for a disease that a) seems to present a non-zero risk to one's health, b) at least one study has shown that natural immunity is stronger and longer lasting than the vaccine immunity and c) doesn't seem to really prevent you from spreading the disease to others if you get it, and d) the disease doesn't pose much of a health risk for people in my families' risk group (we had covid in July and survived)
I think almost the entirety of the cause of vaccine hesitancy is that it is impossible for a layperson to find any trustworthy source information regarding the efficacy and safety of the vaccine. I've gotten all the vaccines that are recommended, including a tetanus shot a few weeks ago, and have vaccinated my children, but this one just seems like there is such a hysteria around it, and lack of long-term studies that it seems like a bad idea at this time. If I were 67 and overweight, I'd get it in a second.
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@sailinlight hey there! Several of the points you’ve cited just aren’t quite hitting the nail on the head. I hear them a lot and I try to present facts when the opportunity arises.
A) you are at risk. Everyone is at risk. While people with comorbidities are at greater risk of complications (this is true of literally everything. If you’re already sick, you are at greater risk in general, with any health event) we have no crystal balls telling us who exactly is going to get their ass handed to them by this virus. I wish I could say the number of people who were fit, healthy, and had nothing wrong with them before Covid that I ended up zipping into a body bag was zero but it isn’t. B) and many others have shown that it’s less. Not all prior positives develop any lasting antibodies at all! The consensus among the experts is that prior infection is less reliable than vaccines. C) you are both less likely to contract the virus to begin with and if you do drawn the short straw and have a breakthrough case, you are contagious for a shorter amount of time, which limits how many you can infect. D) there have been so many, many second infections. Please don’t build your house on that sand.
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I met some liberal anti-vaxxers in real life again. Except that they were vaccinated, because they're smart. But they told me that if they hadn't gotten vaccinated before the mandates they probably wouldn't get vaccinated. Just because they hate the mandates that much. Old school liberals, I like it.
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Have fun developing natural immunity if you haven’t had covid yet. I hope you don’t have any at-risk individuals in your life that you care about.
If you already had covid and don’t want to get vaccinated, not worth arguing about it from a societal benefit standpoint.
The vast majority of immunologists and infectious diseases experts agree that vaccination is safe and effective. There is good data to back it, and we don’t get to cherry-pick whatever study agrees with our opinion.
I just want to make it clear to the others reading that vaccination does reduce the risk of both infection and transmission of covid-19, regardless of prior infection status (unless you just recovered from covid and received the antibody infusion for treatment). The relative benefit is less for people who had covid in the last few months, but the balance of risks and benefits still weighs towards a benefit given the extremely rare serious effects of vaccination.
Who should not get vaccinated?
- People with severe allergies to any components of a given vaccine should get one of the others.
- people with a history of cerebral thromboembolism (blood clots in the brain or surrounding veins) should get an mRNA-based (moderna, Pfizer) and not an adenovirus-based (J&J, Oxford) vaccine.
- people undergoing transplant (either stem cell or organ) should be vaccinated prior to transplantation. In the case of stem cell transplant, a booster (or whole new course, ) will be needed after the transplant has engrafted.
That’s it. Those are the risks/ineffective groups.
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Where I live, the average age for cases that have been hospitalized is 25 years old. Delta isn't a disease of the old. Anyone can get it. Badly.
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Where I live, the average age for cases that have been hospitalized is 25 years old. Delta isn't a disease of the old. Anyone can get it. Badly.
The hospitalization age is a lot lower in Florida, too, compared to previous surges. Almost 1/3 are below the age of 49.
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@sailinlight, just wondering, do you consider you have any responsibilities toward your community? I get from your comments that you dont think your immediate family will suffer from Covid infection directly. Putting that aside for a moment, I am curious to hear what responsibility or not you feel toward those that you dont know, but may become infected as a consequence of your family or friends transmitting the virus.
This is a genuine question, I want to understand your thinking.
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@sailinlight, just wondering, do you consider you have any responsibilities toward your community? I get from your comments that you dont think your immediate family will suffer from Covid infection directly. Putting that aside for a moment, I am curious to hear what responsibility or not you feel toward those that you dont know, but may become infected as a consequence of your family or friends transmitting the virus.
This is a genuine question, I want to understand your thinking.
So, since my family has already tested positive we do not anticipate getting the disease again. Furthermore, the reports I have read indicate that you still expel virus nearly as much even if you are vaccinated and somehow do get infected.
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@sailinlight, just wondering, do you consider you have any responsibilities toward your community? I get from your comments that you dont think your immediate family will suffer from Covid infection directly. Putting that aside for a moment, I am curious to hear what responsibility or not you feel toward those that you dont know, but may become infected as a consequence of your family or friends transmitting the virus.
This is a genuine question, I want to understand your thinking.
So, since my family has already tested positive we do not anticipate getting the disease again. Furthermore, the reports I have read indicate that you still expel virus nearly as much even if you are vaccinated and somehow do get infected.
Sail, mudpuppy already addressed the misconceptions you listed, but you can absolutely get the disease again even if you have had it. And getting the disease does not provide a as reliable immune response as the vaccine does. So yes you and your family absolutely are at risk at getting it again as well as transmitting it to others. I've heard anecdotally (I work in a health care facility) that a number of currently hospitalized, it is their 2nd, 3rd infection that put them in the hospital. Incorrectly assuming that their prior infection made them immune to subsequent infection or serious consequences.
https://www.nih.gov/how-immunity-generated-covid-19-vaccines-differs-infection
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-09-covid-immune.html
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@sailinlight, just wondering, do you consider you have any responsibilities toward your community? I get from your comments that you dont think your immediate family will suffer from Covid infection directly. Putting that aside for a moment, I am curious to hear what responsibility or not you feel toward those that you dont know, but may become infected as a consequence of your family or friends transmitting the virus.
This is a genuine question, I want to understand your thinking.
So, since my family has already tested positive we do not anticipate getting the disease again. Furthermore, the reports I have read indicate that you still expel virus nearly as much even if you are vaccinated and somehow do get infected.
Sail, mudpuppy already addressed the misconceptions you listed, but you can absolutely get the disease again even if you have had it. And getting the disease does not provide a as reliable immune response as the vaccine does. So yes you and your family absolutely are at risk at getting it again as well as transmitting it to others. I've heard anecdotally (I work in a health care facility) that a number of currently hospitalized, it is their 2nd, 3rd infection that put them in the hospital. Incorrectly assuming that their prior infection made them immune to subsequent infection or serious consequences.
https://www.nih.gov/how-immunity-generated-covid-19-vaccines-differs-infection
Thanks, I will read the study
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Here's another reason I care whether other people get the vaccine. https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1442806675325476867.html
They aren't just killing themselves off. They are taking resources they shouldn't need if they had the smallest shred of decency as well as self interest, and other people are suffering because the hospitals are tapped out. The story above could have been my mother, but I feel extremely lucky that she broke her hip very early in COVID and got out of the hospital before they filled up. We have a vaccine now. The hospitals shouldn't be full. Medical professionals shouldn't be pushed to these limits. There should be resources to care properly for people that have an accident.
But there aren't. And people say it's none of my business. That vaccination is an individual decision. I wish these Republicans were only killing themselves, but they get to take down others with them because no one will hold them accountable or enforce any consequences (yes, I'm talking about rationing care to the unvaccinated).
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Some acquaintance on facebook posted a meme today that said something like, "this is the first time that a medicine's ineffectiveness is being blamed on those who haven't taken it"....and I just can't believe there are people out there that think the vaccines are ineffective BUT ALSO that the Flat Earth theory isn't more popular than it is. I mean, maybe it is more popular than I know? If people don't believe the vaccine works at this point, they must be believing things like the earth is flat and that if you eat apple seeds you'll grow and apple tree in your belly and....I don't even know what else these people are probably believing?
Could you explain this? I'm not sure what flat earth has to do with anything, but if you truly believe the vaccine is so effective, why do you care if other people get it, as I assume you have had it?
My take on this is...
Just a couple years ago, if you asked me how many anti-vax believers there were, or how many flat-earthers there were, I'd have said, "I don't know, a few thousand in the whole world?!" Probably already a gross underestimation.
In 2016, when Trump won the election, I thought... well, a lot of people have come to believe that career politicians are the problem, and that Trump put forth a message of being "of the people" and "against the increasingly undesirable norm of politicians in power." But in 2020, I thought - well they probably all saw how Trump was no different in the pursuit of power... and then something like 73 million people voted for him, and I had to take a step back. Wow. How is it possible that 73 million people (out of about 255 million eligible voters) think that Trump is the better choice for President? Guess I've been sipping Liberal Kool-Aid too eagerly.
When I looked at the declining rate of COVID-19 vaccinations happening in the United States as early as May, I said... "Holy shit. That's way more people being anti-vax than I thought." It's possible that... you can vote for Trump and be anti-COVID vaccine, but still not be a flat-earther or in general, anti-vax. But... just from my perspective/point of view it seems like if you're OK with the information you have to accept to be pro-Trump or anti-COVID vaccine... you might as well be falling for the same insane trains of thought that anti-vax and flat-earthers do. No amount of past or current information that has consensus among the scientific community can sway your beliefs about the shape of the Earth, the safety of vaccines, or the power-hungry, selfish nature of a lifelong gray-area business man turned demagogue.
I think the number of hardcore anti-vaxxers is relatively small. I'm talking people that don't believe in any vaccines.
At this point, I think there are a lot of parallels between the COVID vaccine and the annual influenza vaccines, and that's how most of the people that I know view this. So comparing the take rate of annual flu vaccines to the take rate of COVID is probably not too dissimilar. And the number of people that don't really see the point in getting the flu shot most years is way larger than the number of hardcore anti-vaxxers.
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Some acquaintance on facebook posted a meme today that said something like, "this is the first time that a medicine's ineffectiveness is being blamed on those who haven't taken it"....and I just can't believe there are people out there that think the vaccines are ineffective BUT ALSO that the Flat Earth theory isn't more popular than it is. I mean, maybe it is more popular than I know? If people don't believe the vaccine works at this point, they must be believing things like the earth is flat and that if you eat apple seeds you'll grow and apple tree in your belly and....I don't even know what else these people are probably believing?
Could you explain this? I'm not sure what flat earth has to do with anything, but if you truly believe the vaccine is so effective, why do you care if other people get it, as I assume you have had it?
My take on this is...
Just a couple years ago, if you asked me how many anti-vax believers there were, or how many flat-earthers there were, I'd have said, "I don't know, a few thousand in the whole world?!" Probably already a gross underestimation.
In 2016, when Trump won the election, I thought... well, a lot of people have come to believe that career politicians are the problem, and that Trump put forth a message of being "of the people" and "against the increasingly undesirable norm of politicians in power." But in 2020, I thought - well they probably all saw how Trump was no different in the pursuit of power... and then something like 73 million people voted for him, and I had to take a step back. Wow. How is it possible that 73 million people (out of about 255 million eligible voters) think that Trump is the better choice for President? Guess I've been sipping Liberal Kool-Aid too eagerly.
When I looked at the declining rate of COVID-19 vaccinations happening in the United States as early as May, I said... "Holy shit. That's way more people being anti-vax than I thought." It's possible that... you can vote for Trump and be anti-COVID vaccine, but still not be a flat-earther or in general, anti-vax. But... just from my perspective/point of view it seems like if you're OK with the information you have to accept to be pro-Trump or anti-COVID vaccine... you might as well be falling for the same insane trains of thought that anti-vax and flat-earthers do. No amount of past or current information that has consensus among the scientific community can sway your beliefs about the shape of the Earth, the safety of vaccines, or the power-hungry, selfish nature of a lifelong gray-area business man turned demagogue.
I think the number of hardcore anti-vaxxers is relatively small. I'm talking people that don't believe in any vaccines.
At this point, I think there are a lot of parallels between the COVID vaccine and the annual influenza vaccines, and that's how most of the people that I know view this. So comparing the take rate of annual flu vaccines to the take rate of COVID is probably not too dissimilar. And the number of people that don't really see the point in getting the flu shot most years is way larger than the number of hardcore anti-vaxxers.
I don't understand how someone can see parallels between the flu vaccine with the covid vaccine. The flu and covid are very different diseases, the risk/reward for the vaccines/disease is wildly different.
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Thanks for the citations. My brother and family continue to insist that an early infection protects them forever from getting CV-19.
@sailinlight, just wondering, do you consider you have any responsibilities toward your community? I get from your comments that you dont think your immediate family will suffer from Covid infection directly. Putting that aside for a moment, I am curious to hear what responsibility or not you feel toward those that you dont know, but may become infected as a consequence of your family or friends transmitting the virus.
This is a genuine question, I want to understand your thinking.
So, since my family has already tested positive we do not anticipate getting the disease again. Furthermore, the reports I have read indicate that you still expel virus nearly as much even if you are vaccinated and somehow do get infected.
Sail, mudpuppy already addressed the misconceptions you listed, but you can absolutely get the disease again even if you have had it. And getting the disease does not provide a as reliable immune response as the vaccine does. So yes you and your family absolutely are at risk at getting it again as well as transmitting it to others. I've heard anecdotally (I work in a health care facility) that a number of currently hospitalized, it is their 2nd, 3rd infection that put them in the hospital. Incorrectly assuming that their prior infection made them immune to subsequent infection or serious consequences.
https://www.nih.gov/how-immunity-generated-covid-19-vaccines-differs-infection
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-09-covid-immune.html
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Data from Gallup: https://news.gallup.com/opinion/gallup/354938/adults-estimates-covid-hospitalization-risk.aspx
92% of Democrats are vaccinated versus 56% of Republicans
Other interesting tidbits is that Democrats are relatively worse at estimating hospitalization rates for the unvaccinated while the GOP are relatively worse at estimating the hospitalization rate for the vaccinated. (real answer for both is <1%)
Democrats' average response says that they believe the vaccine to be about 88% effective whereas GOP believe it closer to 50% effective (real answer is 95-99%)
To me, this says that almost all deaths happening now are likely GOP, ~80k deaths since July 1 concentrated in a minority of states.
If 40% of the GOP continue to refuse vaccines and assuming a 2% death rate, then that looks like this would top out at losing .8% of GOP voters. Though potentially more considering this demographic already skews old. The GOP should be very afraid of potentially losing another 0.2-0.5% of the vote for 2022. The GOP won 3 seats by a smaller margin than that.
The way this is shaping up, this very well could be the determining factor in a half dozen races nation wide. Though it won't be possible to do a direct comparison due to redistricting.
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(https://twitter.com/PeterHotez/status/1442796413415473153/photo/1)
I can't figure out how to properly attach an image to a forum post, but there's some very interesting graphs for those of you who can access this NY Times link:
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/27/briefing/covid-red-states-vaccinations.html
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If 40% of the GOP continue to refuse vaccines and assuming a 2% death rate, then that looks like this would top out at losing .8% of GOP voters. Though potentially more considering this demographic already skews old. The GOP should be very afraid of potentially losing another 0.2-0.5% of the vote for 2022. The GOP won 3 seats by a smaller margin than that.
The way this is shaping up, this very well could be the determining factor in a half dozen races nation wide. Though it won't be possible to do a direct comparison due to redistricting.
It might tip DeSantis' chances in the 2022 Florida gubernatorial race. He won by a little less than .4% in 2018.
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The GOP should be very afraid of potentially losing another 0.2-0.5% of the vote for 2022. The GOP won 3 seats by a smaller margin than that.
After redistricting, there may be no seats that are that competitive. They will definitely not be the same.
Also, GOP voters skew older, but the oldest cohort is highly vaccinated.
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(https://twitter.com/PeterHotez/status/1442796413415473153/photo/1)
I can't figure out how to properly attach an image to a forum post, but there's some very interesting graphs for those of you who can access this NY Times link:
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/27/briefing/covid-red-states-vaccinations.html
Again, how did it look during the first year of covid before vaccine, when the majority of deaths occured? Covid cases, and therefore deaths, were extremely concentrated in highly populated areas of the US which are generally BLUE took the brunt of the deaths. I still think this thread is silly, but I'm going to go out on a limb and say there is not going to be some sort of major political shift due to deaths.
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Again, how did it look during the first year of covid before vaccine, when the majority of deaths occured? Covid cases, and therefore deaths, were extremely concentrated in highly populated areas of the US which are generally BLUE took the brunt of the deaths. I still think this thread is silly, but I'm going to go out on a limb and say there is not going to be some sort of major political shift due to deaths.
Early deaths were absolutely concentrated in blue areas, esp. NY and NJ. Those deaths are already "captured" in 2020 results. If we use 2020 as a baseline, they don't alter anything (although they, tragically, affected 2020).
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@sailinlight, just wondering, do you consider you have any responsibilities toward your community? I get from your comments that you dont think your immediate family will suffer from Covid infection directly. Putting that aside for a moment, I am curious to hear what responsibility or not you feel toward those that you dont know, but may become infected as a consequence of your family or friends transmitting the virus.
This is a genuine question, I want to understand your thinking.
So, since my family has already tested positive we do not anticipate getting the disease again. Furthermore, the reports I have read indicate that you still expel virus nearly as much even if you are vaccinated and somehow do get infected.
Eventually everybody will have gone through an infection and those who also received a vaccine will have superior protection from disease.
The relatively robust but potentially short lived immunity from infection alone will dampen the peaks (flatten the curve) of waves of new cases and will bring relief to the healthcare system.
I can easily imagine that populations with low vaccination rates will be held in a slow but still deadly squeeze after the transition to the endemic state.
The result would be that life expectancy would again fall in these populations which are already affected by rampant drug use and suicides among other problems.
Surviving in an immunocompromised state in while living in low vaccination populations would also be a challenge; and that would be compounded by the difficulty in attracting healthcare workers to take care of such populations. So maybe we will see a decrease in solid organ transplant and other treatments in red areas.
And these are just some thoughts about what could happen in the foreseeable future.
I think that the events during this pandemic will have repercussions far into the future and will end up negatively impacting the health and well-being of red state populations for many years. And then, there will be no sense of urgency in helping those who do not want to be helped and who will have to live with a serious endemic disease. Maybe once a generation of post-pandemic children has grown up the situation may resolve itself.
In any case, I can come up with a good number of completely preventable bad long term scenarios for unvaccinated populations.
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Some acquaintance on facebook posted a meme today that said something like, "this is the first time that a medicine's ineffectiveness is being blamed on those who haven't taken it"....and I just can't believe there are people out there that think the vaccines are ineffective BUT ALSO that the Flat Earth theory isn't more popular than it is. I mean, maybe it is more popular than I know? If people don't believe the vaccine works at this point, they must be believing things like the earth is flat and that if you eat apple seeds you'll grow and apple tree in your belly and....I don't even know what else these people are probably believing?
Could you explain this? I'm not sure what flat earth has to do with anything, but if you truly believe the vaccine is so effective, why do you care if other people get it, as I assume you have had it?
My take on this is...
Just a couple years ago, if you asked me how many anti-vax believers there were, or how many flat-earthers there were, I'd have said, "I don't know, a few thousand in the whole world?!" Probably already a gross underestimation.
In 2016, when Trump won the election, I thought... well, a lot of people have come to believe that career politicians are the problem, and that Trump put forth a message of being "of the people" and "against the increasingly undesirable norm of politicians in power." But in 2020, I thought - well they probably all saw how Trump was no different in the pursuit of power... and then something like 73 million people voted for him, and I had to take a step back. Wow. How is it possible that 73 million people (out of about 255 million eligible voters) think that Trump is the better choice for President? Guess I've been sipping Liberal Kool-Aid too eagerly.
When I looked at the declining rate of COVID-19 vaccinations happening in the United States as early as May, I said... "Holy shit. That's way more people being anti-vax than I thought." It's possible that... you can vote for Trump and be anti-COVID vaccine, but still not be a flat-earther or in general, anti-vax. But... just from my perspective/point of view it seems like if you're OK with the information you have to accept to be pro-Trump or anti-COVID vaccine... you might as well be falling for the same insane trains of thought that anti-vax and flat-earthers do. No amount of past or current information that has consensus among the scientific community can sway your beliefs about the shape of the Earth, the safety of vaccines, or the power-hungry, selfish nature of a lifelong gray-area business man turned demagogue.
I think the number of hardcore anti-vaxxers is relatively small. I'm talking people that don't believe in any vaccines.
At this point, I think there are a lot of parallels between the COVID vaccine and the annual influenza vaccines, and that's how most of the people that I know view this. So comparing the take rate of annual flu vaccines to the take rate of COVID is probably not too dissimilar. And the number of people that don't really see the point in getting the flu shot most years is way larger than the number of hardcore anti-vaxxers.
I don't understand how someone can see parallels between the flu vaccine with the covid vaccine. The flu and covid are very different diseases, the risk/reward for the vaccines/disease is wildly different.
It's almost like there was a president who was telling them it was just the flu...
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Hispanic adults are now most vaccinated, Black and White almost on par.
https://www.kff.org/coronavirus-covid-19/poll-finding/kff-covid-19-vaccine-monitor-september-2021/
A less depressing effect of Covid on politics: as vaccine mandates are starting to get enforced, and unvaccinated people fired, we can expect self-sorting to accelerate. Some blue state nurses may move to where they can get a job w/o a vaccine. Red state nurses may be tempted to move to a state with vaccine mandates. And it probably extends beyond the medical profession.
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@sailinlight, just wondering, do you consider you have any responsibilities toward your community? I get from your comments that you dont think your immediate family will suffer from Covid infection directly. Putting that aside for a moment, I am curious to hear what responsibility or not you feel toward those that you dont know, but may become infected as a consequence of your family or friends transmitting the virus.
This is a genuine question, I want to understand your thinking.
So, since my family has already tested positive we do not anticipate getting the disease again. Furthermore, the reports I have read indicate that you still expel virus nearly as much even if you are vaccinated and somehow do get infected.
You can definitely get it more than once. I know people who got it more than once, and that was before vaccines were available and before the much more contagious Delta hit our area. They got vaccinated as soon as they could - didn't want to risk a third time, it was not fun.
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@sailinlight could you answer my question about how you see your responsibility to the wider community?
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Some acquaintance on facebook posted a meme today that said something like, "this is the first time that a medicine's ineffectiveness is being blamed on those who haven't taken it"....and I just can't believe there are people out there that think the vaccines are ineffective BUT ALSO that the Flat Earth theory isn't more popular than it is. I mean, maybe it is more popular than I know? If people don't believe the vaccine works at this point, they must be believing things like the earth is flat and that if you eat apple seeds you'll grow and apple tree in your belly and....I don't even know what else these people are probably believing?
Could you explain this? I'm not sure what flat earth has to do with anything, but if you truly believe the vaccine is so effective, why do you care if other people get it, as I assume you have had it?
My take on this is...
Just a couple years ago, if you asked me how many anti-vax believers there were, or how many flat-earthers there were, I'd have said, "I don't know, a few thousand in the whole world?!" Probably already a gross underestimation.
In 2016, when Trump won the election, I thought... well, a lot of people have come to believe that career politicians are the problem, and that Trump put forth a message of being "of the people" and "against the increasingly undesirable norm of politicians in power." But in 2020, I thought - well they probably all saw how Trump was no different in the pursuit of power... and then something like 73 million people voted for him, and I had to take a step back. Wow. How is it possible that 73 million people (out of about 255 million eligible voters) think that Trump is the better choice for President? Guess I've been sipping Liberal Kool-Aid too eagerly.
When I looked at the declining rate of COVID-19 vaccinations happening in the United States as early as May, I said... "Holy shit. That's way more people being anti-vax than I thought." It's possible that... you can vote for Trump and be anti-COVID vaccine, but still not be a flat-earther or in general, anti-vax. But... just from my perspective/point of view it seems like if you're OK with the information you have to accept to be pro-Trump or anti-COVID vaccine... you might as well be falling for the same insane trains of thought that anti-vax and flat-earthers do. No amount of past or current information that has consensus among the scientific community can sway your beliefs about the shape of the Earth, the safety of vaccines, or the power-hungry, selfish nature of a lifelong gray-area business man turned demagogue.
I think the number of hardcore anti-vaxxers is relatively small. I'm talking people that don't believe in any vaccines.
At this point, I think there are a lot of parallels between the COVID vaccine and the annual influenza vaccines, and that's how most of the people that I know view this. So comparing the take rate of annual flu vaccines to the take rate of COVID is probably not too dissimilar. And the number of people that don't really see the point in getting the flu shot most years is way larger than the number of hardcore anti-vaxxers.
I don't understand how someone can see parallels between the flu vaccine with the covid vaccine. The flu and covid are very different diseases, the risk/reward for the vaccines/disease is wildly different.
You don't see any similarities? Has our thinking gotten to be so binary on this subject that we cannot acknowledge any similarities between two different things?
Some similarities that I see:
Neither the flu vaccine or covid vaccine offers permanent immunity
Vaccines reduce the severity of symptoms for both viruses
We're very likely to need frequent boosters for either one, tailored to the given flavor of virus that's expected that season
The cost/benefit calculus changes every year with the flu vaccine depending on how virulent the virus is expected to be, and how effective the vaccine is against that particular strain. (Hopefully mRNA vaccine tech will make flu vaccines more effective and widely adopted in the future.) In recent years it's been pretty unusual to have 50% of the US population get the flu shot in a given year (that number includes children, who are often vaccinated at higher rates than young adults). 15k annual flu deaths would be low. 60k would be high. Yeah, Covid is a more serious threat. But we're also seeing more people vaccinated against it than we typically do for the flu too, and children aren't yet eligible to be vaccinated.
I guess my larger point is that there are a lot of people that would totally get a vaccine that granted permanent immunity, that meant we could actually eradicate this virus form the planet. The number of truly anti-vaxx people that wouldn't take that vaccine is likely pretty small. But there's probably a pretty significant part of the population that's at least a little hesitant to take any vaccine that is more or less just insurance against the worst outcomes and is only good for a relatively short time frame. That's where I see similarities to people's choices between the covid vaccine and the flu vaccine.
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Some acquaintance on facebook posted a meme today that said something like, "this is the first time that a medicine's ineffectiveness is being blamed on those who haven't taken it"....and I just can't believe there are people out there that think the vaccines are ineffective BUT ALSO that the Flat Earth theory isn't more popular than it is. I mean, maybe it is more popular than I know? If people don't believe the vaccine works at this point, they must be believing things like the earth is flat and that if you eat apple seeds you'll grow and apple tree in your belly and....I don't even know what else these people are probably believing?
Could you explain this? I'm not sure what flat earth has to do with anything, but if you truly believe the vaccine is so effective, why do you care if other people get it, as I assume you have had it?
My take on this is...
Just a couple years ago, if you asked me how many anti-vax believers there were, or how many flat-earthers there were, I'd have said, "I don't know, a few thousand in the whole world?!" Probably already a gross underestimation.
In 2016, when Trump won the election, I thought... well, a lot of people have come to believe that career politicians are the problem, and that Trump put forth a message of being "of the people" and "against the increasingly undesirable norm of politicians in power." But in 2020, I thought - well they probably all saw how Trump was no different in the pursuit of power... and then something like 73 million people voted for him, and I had to take a step back. Wow. How is it possible that 73 million people (out of about 255 million eligible voters) think that Trump is the better choice for President? Guess I've been sipping Liberal Kool-Aid too eagerly.
When I looked at the declining rate of COVID-19 vaccinations happening in the United States as early as May, I said... "Holy shit. That's way more people being anti-vax than I thought." It's possible that... you can vote for Trump and be anti-COVID vaccine, but still not be a flat-earther or in general, anti-vax. But... just from my perspective/point of view it seems like if you're OK with the information you have to accept to be pro-Trump or anti-COVID vaccine... you might as well be falling for the same insane trains of thought that anti-vax and flat-earthers do. No amount of past or current information that has consensus among the scientific community can sway your beliefs about the shape of the Earth, the safety of vaccines, or the power-hungry, selfish nature of a lifelong gray-area business man turned demagogue.
I think the number of hardcore anti-vaxxers is relatively small. I'm talking people that don't believe in any vaccines.
At this point, I think there are a lot of parallels between the COVID vaccine and the annual influenza vaccines, and that's how most of the people that I know view this. So comparing the take rate of annual flu vaccines to the take rate of COVID is probably not too dissimilar. And the number of people that don't really see the point in getting the flu shot most years is way larger than the number of hardcore anti-vaxxers.
I don't understand how someone can see parallels between the flu vaccine with the covid vaccine. The flu and covid are very different diseases, the risk/reward for the vaccines/disease is wildly different.
You don't see any similarities? Has our thinking gotten to be so binary on this subject that we cannot acknowledge any similarities between two different things?
Some similarities that I see:
Neither the flu vaccine or covid vaccine offers permanent immunity
Vaccines reduce the severity of symptoms for both viruses
We're very likely to need frequent boosters for either one, tailored to the given flavor of virus that's expected that season
The cost/benefit calculus changes every year with the flu vaccine depending on how virulent the virus is expected to be, and how effective the vaccine is against that particular strain. (Hopefully mRNA vaccine tech will make flu vaccines more effective and widely adopted in the future.) In recent years it's been pretty unusual to have 50% of the US population get the flu shot in a given year (that number includes children, who are often vaccinated at higher rates than young adults). 15k annual flu deaths would be low. 60k would be high. Yeah, Covid is a more serious threat. But we're also seeing more people vaccinated against it than we typically do for the flu too, and children aren't yet eligible to be vaccinated.
I guess my larger point is that there are a lot of people that would totally get a vaccine that granted permanent immunity, that meant we could actually eradicate this virus form the planet. The number of truly anti-vaxx people that wouldn't take that vaccine is likely pretty small. But there's probably a pretty significant part of the population that's at least a little hesitant to take any vaccine that is more or less just insurance against the worst outcomes and is only good for a relatively short time frame. That's where I see similarities to people's choices between the covid vaccine and the flu vaccine.
I don't see any similarities worth taking note of. The virulence and deadliness of covid is significantly higher than that of the flu. The effectiveness of the covid vaccine is significantly higher than that of typical flu shots. The cost/benefit of being vaccinated against covid is pretty overwhelmingly on the 'get vaccinated' side. That's not the case with the flu shot.
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Some acquaintance on facebook posted a meme today that said something like, "this is the first time that a medicine's ineffectiveness is being blamed on those who haven't taken it"....and I just can't believe there are people out there that think the vaccines are ineffective BUT ALSO that the Flat Earth theory isn't more popular than it is. I mean, maybe it is more popular than I know? If people don't believe the vaccine works at this point, they must be believing things like the earth is flat and that if you eat apple seeds you'll grow and apple tree in your belly and....I don't even know what else these people are probably believing?
Could you explain this? I'm not sure what flat earth has to do with anything, but if you truly believe the vaccine is so effective, why do you care if other people get it, as I assume you have had it?
My take on this is...
Just a couple years ago, if you asked me how many anti-vax believers there were, or how many flat-earthers there were, I'd have said, "I don't know, a few thousand in the whole world?!" Probably already a gross underestimation.
In 2016, when Trump won the election, I thought... well, a lot of people have come to believe that career politicians are the problem, and that Trump put forth a message of being "of the people" and "against the increasingly undesirable norm of politicians in power." But in 2020, I thought - well they probably all saw how Trump was no different in the pursuit of power... and then something like 73 million people voted for him, and I had to take a step back. Wow. How is it possible that 73 million people (out of about 255 million eligible voters) think that Trump is the better choice for President? Guess I've been sipping Liberal Kool-Aid too eagerly.
When I looked at the declining rate of COVID-19 vaccinations happening in the United States as early as May, I said... "Holy shit. That's way more people being anti-vax than I thought." It's possible that... you can vote for Trump and be anti-COVID vaccine, but still not be a flat-earther or in general, anti-vax. But... just from my perspective/point of view it seems like if you're OK with the information you have to accept to be pro-Trump or anti-COVID vaccine... you might as well be falling for the same insane trains of thought that anti-vax and flat-earthers do. No amount of past or current information that has consensus among the scientific community can sway your beliefs about the shape of the Earth, the safety of vaccines, or the power-hungry, selfish nature of a lifelong gray-area business man turned demagogue.
I think the number of hardcore anti-vaxxers is relatively small. I'm talking people that don't believe in any vaccines.
At this point, I think there are a lot of parallels between the COVID vaccine and the annual influenza vaccines, and that's how most of the people that I know view this. So comparing the take rate of annual flu vaccines to the take rate of COVID is probably not too dissimilar. And the number of people that don't really see the point in getting the flu shot most years is way larger than the number of hardcore anti-vaxxers.
I don't understand how someone can see parallels between the flu vaccine with the covid vaccine. The flu and covid are very different diseases, the risk/reward for the vaccines/disease is wildly different.
You don't see any similarities? Has our thinking gotten to be so binary on this subject that we cannot acknowledge any similarities between two different things?
Some similarities that I see:
Neither the flu vaccine or covid vaccine offers permanent immunity
Vaccines reduce the severity of symptoms for both viruses
We're very likely to need frequent boosters for either one, tailored to the given flavor of virus that's expected that season
The cost/benefit calculus changes every year with the flu vaccine depending on how virulent the virus is expected to be, and how effective the vaccine is against that particular strain. (Hopefully mRNA vaccine tech will make flu vaccines more effective and widely adopted in the future.) In recent years it's been pretty unusual to have 50% of the US population get the flu shot in a given year (that number includes children, who are often vaccinated at higher rates than young adults). 15k annual flu deaths would be low. 60k would be high. Yeah, Covid is a more serious threat. But we're also seeing more people vaccinated against it than we typically do for the flu too, and children aren't yet eligible to be vaccinated.
I guess my larger point is that there are a lot of people that would totally get a vaccine that granted permanent immunity, that meant we could actually eradicate this virus form the planet. The number of truly anti-vaxx people that wouldn't take that vaccine is likely pretty small. But there's probably a pretty significant part of the population that's at least a little hesitant to take any vaccine that is more or less just insurance against the worst outcomes and is only good for a relatively short time frame. That's where I see similarities to people's choices between the covid vaccine and the flu vaccine.
I don't see any similarities worth taking note of. The virulence and deadliness of covid is significantly higher than that of the flu. The effectiveness of the covid vaccine is significantly higher than that of typical flu shots. The cost/benefit of being vaccinated against covid is pretty overwhelmingly on the 'get vaccinated' side. That's not the case with the flu shot.
Yep. A low rate for the flu shot doesn't reliably fill up hospitals and cause a "crisis standards of care" in Idaho or Florida or Houston or etc.
Crisis Standards of Care is a last resort. It means that the number of patients needing care is more than the amount of resources (e.g. space, equipment, etc.) available.
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Those who don't get flu vaccinations often believe that they are not as at risk as the elderly, children, and people in poor health.
That belief isn't terribly different than the justification used by many for not getting the covid vaccine. Sure, there are other factors, but it boils down to a weighing of risk (often done poorly with regard to covid).
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The biggest difference between the flu shot and the covid shot is that near universal uptake of one is required for society to function.
The annual flu shot could just disappear and the overall function of society would chug along a little less efficiently.
If an individual is looking at the two as basically the same from their own individual experience, then they are failing to consider the impacts on them *personally* of this pandemic not being managed properly.
For example, I ended up in the ER with a suspected stroke right around the time that cases in my city were quite low, but in a city not far away, cases were out of control and patients were starting to be transported to my city for care. Not covid patients, any patients.
So just by chance, I was able to get efficient, effective care for something that could have been deadly. Had I been in a city where the medical system was collapsing, that night could have gone much poorer for me.
So it's not just the risk of getting seriously sick from covid. It's the risk of having a stroke, or heart attack, or car accident, and living in an area where vaccine uptake is low and the ER is flooded with people who can't breathe, so the subtle signs of your stroke get missed, and you end up permanently losing function of your bowels and your left leg and left arm because you don't get triaged ahead of the folks who can't breathe, and then a surgery that might help gets postponed by 3 years because elective surgeries keep getting suspended, and you can't find anyone to wipe your crippled ass because there's a shortage of support workers, and there are no new spots in nursing homes because they're all on lock down due to raging covid and staff shortages. So you can't walk, can't control your bowels, and can't even pay someone to change your adult diaper because a bunch of assholes thought the covid shot was as optional as the flu shot.
I've personally never been primarily afraid of covid, but I've had a chill in my spine thinking about other medical emergencies that could happen while the medical system is overburdened.
I'm lucky as hell that cases here were very low right at the time that I needed emergency care. My mom wasn't quite so lucky and ended up losing a kidney, which probably could have been prevented had the hospital not been so over burdened with covid at the time.
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I know someone right now in a small city with one hospital, who as of last night desperately needs a short hospital stay to avoid potential life-threatening consequences. There are no hospital beds available. ETA (no beds available not only in this small city, but they are looking throughout the entire state...so far with no success b/c the antivaxxers are taking up all the space). So he's on a cot in the ER indefinitely. Taking up ER space that acute patients really should have.
Fuck anti-vaxxers.
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A friend of the family just died of something that should have been treatable. By the time he was admitted (after several hours of looking for a hospital bed), it was too late for surgery to save him.
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I know someone right now in a small city with one hospital, who as of last night desperately needs a short hospital stay to avoid potential life-threatening consequences. There are no hospital beds available. ETA (no beds available not only in this small city, but they are looking throughout the entire state...so far with no success b/c the antivaxxers are taking up all the space). So he's on a cot in the ER indefinitely. Taking up ER space that acute patients really should have.
Fuck anti-vaxxers.
As a pro-vax person I'm pretty pissed that these antivaxers aren't in a warehouse somewhere that the army corps built for them.
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I feel like the medical ethics books need to have a big re-write as a fall out from this pandemic, especially since there is no reason to expect that we won’t continue to see pandemics with more and more frequency. The draining of resources from the entire medical system to feed into makeshift ICU beds to “avoid triage”, when triage is exactly what is happening to the patients who’s surgeries are being cancelled and postponed seems upside down to me. We have stories of transplant programs being shut down and brain tumour removal being postponed. We are draining routine, preventative and maintenance care for heroic care which has far less efficacy, that makes zero sense to me.
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A friend of the family just died of something that should have been treatable. By the time he was admitted (after several hours of looking for a hospital bed), it was too late for surgery to save him.
I'm so sorry to hear that. Heartbreaking, even more so because it was so avoidable.
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I feel like the medical ethics books need to have a big re-write as a fall out from this pandemic, especially since there is no reason to expect that we won’t continue to see pandemics with more and more frequency. The draining of resources from the entire medical system to feed into makeshift ICU beds to “avoid triage”, when triage is exactly what is happening to the patients who’s surgeries are being cancelled and postponed seems upside down to me. We have stories of transplant programs being shut down and brain tumour removal being postponed. We are draining routine, preventative and maintenance care for heroic care which has far less efficacy, that makes zero sense to me.
Agreed. You have to consider the many, not just the one.
If you pour all your resources into a few people, leaving many people with no or inadequate care, then you failed. Especially if those few people are not likely to survive. I wonder what would happen if all the ICUs and hospitals nationwide had a rule right now that they will not do CPR on covid patients. Your heart stops, you're dead. End of story. From what I'm reading, the survival rate for delta once you're in the ICU is extremely poor, except it takes weeks for them to actually die.
It ties into the broader concept of just because you can do a thing doesn't mean you should. Yes, medical science can do amazing things. That doesn't mean we should. The problem is that medical science is relatively new. It takes much longer than 50 or 100 years for society to adapt to the types of advances we've had in that time frame. We simply haven't made that adjustment yet.
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There must by now be survival statistics for unvaccinated covid patients with certain co-morbidities which are bad enough for them to be denied ICU care on the grounds that the resource is better used elsewhere.
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One issue is that many of these major anti-vax states do not have any statewide plan other than ignoring it. Refusing to treat a person based on their illness or how they got it is both unethical (violates the principles of autonomy, justice and beneficence) and illegal (violates federal law). Thus one can see how the hospitals’ hands are tied.
Regarding downstream level of care, again we run into the issue of care delivery based on the cause of illness and manner of getting ill is again unethical. Secondly, our healthcare is a reflection of societal mores. In general we are more aggressive with “futile healthcare theater” as I call it than others countries. Why? Because “Death Panels!!”. However, this is an interesting area of healthcare decision-making because it is clearly lawful for an attending physician to declare further care futile and thus not in the patients’ best interest. We can’t just ignore the family, because again of social norms. Thus there is a lot of counseling required to get family to agree to a do-not-resuscitate order. I have personally guided many families through this process and have noted several key points:
1. No one wants the patient to suffer.
2. The definition of suffering varies widely from person to person.
3. Most families look to the clinician for guidance on what is acceptable and unacceptable suffering for potential survival. They have little experience and cannot reasonably make an informed decision in the heat of the moment.
4. Everyone dies, and acknowledging this in a mature, timely fashion reduces the suffering of your survivors that make the unbelievably difficult decision to let your body die when the time comes.
As clinicians we can easily say that CPR in a given situation is futile. And we will not be successfully challenged in court unless it’s clearly malicious intent. But we do have the responsibility to thread extremely carefully and not allow our views of morality cloud these decisions, as that will expose us to legal jeopardy.
Everything above is the easy part. Now comes the hard part: ventilator dependence with a persistive vegetative state. Some information on this (from my trauma experience):
1. Brain death is easy to determine. There are well described, ethical, lawful procedures to determine this state. It’s a process but very straightforward in every state (slight variations of documentation from state to state).
2. The human body can keep a brain physiologically functioning at a very basic level after tremendous insult. There is a vast spectrum of functioning between fully awake/alert and brain death. Respiratory failure in particular makes this a long, painful slide because oxygen deprivation for short periods will permanently and irreversibly shut down the functions we associate with cognition, but not basic reflexes like breathing, blinking, coughing and heart function.
3. If we artificially support oxygenation, the ability to maintain this basic level can be preserved for very long periods of time (potentially years). Ultimately the cause of death in these cases is insufficient oxygen to the heart causing an irreversible irregular rhythm that interrupts blood flow (cardiac death). Hearts, especially in young people, are extremely resilient and will last for weeks even if the brain barely functions. (Brain death will eventually interrupt these reflexes and result in cardiac death as the body fails to keep itself warm and regulate electrolytes the heart needs). This is the state most covid patients find themselves in. It takes up a ventilator, clinicians’ time and emotions, and other services for critical care. Most covid patients’ families are in denial for various reasons and thus the process is drawn out for weeks in many cases.
Can I legally say this care is futile? Yes. I can say that the chance of recovery is almost zero and absent a clear advanced directive, determine it is in the patients’ best interest to stop ventilator support. What are the ethical implications? How do I define too much suffering? What did the patient think (when they could think)? Who is being hurt by keeping the patient alive? Who is being hurt by not ending the patient’s life? Is my decision to stop care for a patient because of my implicit or explicit biases?
When I was younger, I helped keep a patient alive for days because I found the way he was injured was so unjust that even now I think about it at night. In that time I thought I was being helpful, and it was reflected in his parents’ pleas to do everything. And we did literally everything that could be done. Emptied the blood bank. Clamped off major vessels with plans to amputate his legs at bedside. Emptied the blood that just got flown in (we used all of our reserves overnight). Opened his chest at bedside to restart his heart. Go back to the OR, clamp off his aorta. That did the trick, but it was obviously too late. Eventually he died from brain death, but he was dead even before I clamped off his aorta. It was all futile care and I should have known it.
It was only after he died (again, brain death is very simple to determine) that I thought to ask who were we treating. Not the patient, but the family and ourselves. After that I realized that emotion cannot be used to decide the way forward. The dying do not have that luxury for us to experiment on them to soothe our fear of letting go. But if we let go too soon, we are monsters in some people’s eyes. In that case, the parents also understood after time to grieve that their son was long gone. They said “we are only treating ourselves because we are cowards. Let him go.” That experience changed my life trajectory. I was going to be one thing, but became another. I thought that my patients should have the benefit of seeing the end coming, and planning for it. My patients still die, but with dignity because we help them prepare for it. It is still sad. But it is a different sadness when they say “thanks, but enough” and not their family saying “nothing is too much”.
Now if I had the same situation, but behaved callously because I thought the patient’s suffering was payback for their actions, I would be a monster. The one thing that made me a good at running trauma afterwards was learning from my mentors that we should acknowledge and subvert our implicit and explicit biases at every step. Why someone ended up in front of us, hemorrhaging to death did not matter. It was not our place to pass judgement. As a society we decided that everyone deserves to live, and doctors are not executioners. That’s the way it should be.
Hence the dilemma we face in our current predicament. If the quality (as our society defines it currently) of care we provide to unvaccinated covid patients is different from patients who had respiratory failure for some other reason (got shot during a robbery while closing their store, and bled out before they got to the hospital), we are complicit in their deaths. To say we need to rewrite the rules means we rewrite it for all of us. We can do what the UK does and uses a combination of age, co-morbid conditions and survival likelihood to decide on ICU vs palliative care. We can do what Japan does and as a society not accept “heroic measures” in most cases. We cannot let the reason for withholding care be based on our beliefs of who is a “good person” or “bad person”. If we had, the covid pandemic would’ve been a drop in the bucket of death from AIDS. We almost did cast “those people” aside. Do not repeat that mistake.
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Thanks Abe.
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As much as the comparison to AIDS infuriates me - @Abe I think there are plenty of differences - I would 100% agree that there is no short term chance that hospitals do anything other than provide the best care for unvaccinated COVID patients.
Long term, I think the biggest change will first be in the US health insurance industry. Companies with high vaccination rates may be offered plans with lower premiums. Hospitals can start passing on more charges. As much as I hate the health care system in th US I expect those to show up before changes in hospital care priorities.
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Just to say, I wasn't proposing "don't treat unvaccinated covid patients in the ICU because they are bad people for not getting vaccinated", I was saying "don't treat unvaccinated patients in the ICU if with their co-morbidities heroic efforts are 99.9% likely to be futile and several other people's lives and qualities of lives could be saved instead during the several weeks they will spend unconscious and dying". If a hospital has all the ICU beds, and staff, that it needs to treat everyone for as long as there is brain stem activity, by all means torture 99.9% of them to death slowly just in case 0.1% of them might survive with lifelong disabilities. But if a hospital doesn't have all the ICU beds and staff it needs to treat everyone then the QALY (Quality Adjusted Life Year) comes into play, and the covid patient with co-morbidities who would need ICU care and perhaps be unconscious on ventilation for weeks and still be 99.9% likely to die because they didn't get the vaccine and their body can't cope with the results shouldn't crowd out the cancer patient or the trauma patient or the patient needing a transplant who will have better chances of surviving for years with a recognisable quality of life.
Survival statistics for vaccinated patients needing hospital and ICU treatment are very significantly better than for unvaccinated patients. The same issue could arise for vaccinated patients with co-morbidities, but probably not in the numbers where vaccinated patients having ICU treatment are crowding others needing care out of the ICU. Which is why the "unvaccinated" bit matters: it is the decision on rationing care that arises because they are unvaccinated, and the consequences of making that decision would be the same for both vaccinated and unvaccinated - except that if people are vaccinated the decision either never has to be made or can be made on the basis that the vaccinated person has the better chance of survival with a better quality of life.
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Thanks Abe for you well thought post.
The whole topic is a very hard one and anger or fear are never good advisors, especially here.
It is also hard to put an end at a specific point except the start (not judgement at all) - it's a very, very slippery slope. One where you end with euthanasia for people who are uncurably sick, like with the sickness of homosexuality.
As Terry Pratchett put it in regards to assisted suicide: Spain does not have it because of too much religion, and Germany does not have it - very emphatically does not have it - because of too much history.
I lived most of my life a mile away from a psycological facility where insane people were gassed in Nazi times. I stood there in the gas chamber.
The people doing the gassing where simply doing their job, helping good Germans survive by cutting off "unworthy life" (lebensunwertes Leben) from the German society. They weren't murderers, right? Or wrong? What is the difference between in insane (or comatose) taking up care capabilities and a non vaccinated person? Their decision? If you kill people because they made a stupid decision, nobody would surive long enoug to get into school.
I am very interested in Japan. There are several types of yokai (monster) that are based on children that have been killed by their parents in times of e.g. starvation. Kill one to safe the rest. Is that moral?
The Zashiki warashi is one of them and it is said that this yokai, that can sometimes be seen as a small child, is protecting the houses of their killer/parents and sneaking into their beds.
Does that sound like the people involved thought the killing was a moral thing to do? I don't think so.
As much as the comparison to AIDS infuriates me - @Abe I think there are plenty of differences
You might say that. Many people (the vast majority) 50 years ago did not. In both cases: AIDS and Covid (because of not vaccinated) were the result of the patient's moral failings.
So if saying we should let non-vaccinated die because of their decision is okay with you, but letting people with AIDS (or even at the beginning: homosexuals (which were thought to be the only ones who got it)) die is making you angry: Are you sure you are making a unbiased decision?
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Thanks Abe for you well thought post.
The whole topic is a very hard one and anger or fear are never good advisors, especially here.
It is also hard to put an end at a specific point except the start (not judgement at all) - it's a very, very slippery slope. One where you end with euthanasia for people who are uncurably sick, like with the sickness of homosexuality.
As Terry Pratchett put it in regards to assisted suicide: Spain does not have it because of too much religion, and Germany does not have it - very emphatically does not have it - because of too much history.
I lived most of my life a mile away from a psycological facility where insane people were gassed in Nazi times. I stood there in the gas chamber.
The people doing the gassing where simply doing their job, helping good Germans survive by cutting off "unworthy life" (lebensunwertes Leben) from the German society. They weren't murderers, right? Or wrong? What is the difference between in insane (or comatose) taking up care capabilities and a non vaccinated person? Their decision? If you kill people because they made a stupid decision, nobody would surive long enoug to get into school.
I am very interested in Japan. There are several types of yokai (monster) that are based on children that have been killed by their parents in times of e.g. starvation. Kill one to safe the rest. Is that moral?
The Zashiki warashi is one of them and it is said that this yokai, that can sometimes be seen as a small child, is protecting the houses of their killer/parents and sneaking into their beds.
Does that sound like the people involved thought the killing was a moral thing to do? I don't think so.
As much as the comparison to AIDS infuriates me - @Abe I think there are plenty of differences
You might say that. Many people (the vast majority) 50 years ago did not. In both cases: AIDS and Covid (because of not vaccinated) were the result of the patient's moral failings.
So if saying we should let non-vaccinated die because of their decision is okay with you, but letting people with AIDS (or even at the beginning: homosexuals (which were thought to be the only ones who got it)) die is making you angry: Are you sure you are making a unbiased decision?
What? Is this what you really intended to say? If not please rephrase because I find this offensive
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Thanks Abe for you well thought post.
The whole topic is a very hard one and anger or fear are never good advisors, especially here.
It is also hard to put an end at a specific point except the start (not judgement at all) - it's a very, very slippery slope. One where you end with euthanasia for people who are uncurably sick, like with the sickness of homosexuality.
As Terry Pratchett put it in regards to assisted suicide: Spain does not have it because of too much religion, and Germany does not have it - very emphatically does not have it - because of too much history.
I lived most of my life a mile away from a psycological facility where insane people were gassed in Nazi times. I stood there in the gas chamber.
The people doing the gassing where simply doing their job, helping good Germans survive by cutting off "unworthy life" (lebensunwertes Leben) from the German society. They weren't murderers, right? Or wrong? What is the difference between in insane (or comatose) taking up care capabilities and a non vaccinated person? Their decision? If you kill people because they made a stupid decision, nobody would surive long enoug to get into school.
I am very interested in Japan. There are several types of yokai (monster) that are based on children that have been killed by their parents in times of e.g. starvation. Kill one to safe the rest. Is that moral?
The Zashiki warashi is one of them and it is said that this yokai, that can sometimes be seen as a small child, is protecting the houses of their killer/parents and sneaking into their beds.
Does that sound like the people involved thought the killing was a moral thing to do? I don't think so.
As much as the comparison to AIDS infuriates me - @Abe I think there are plenty of differences
You might say that. Many people (the vast majority) 50 years ago did not. In both cases: AIDS and Covid (because of not vaccinated) were the result of the patient's moral failings.
So if saying we should let non-vaccinated die because of their decision is okay with you, but letting people with AIDS (or even at the beginning: homosexuals (which were thought to be the only ones who got it)) die is making you angry: Are you sure you are making a unbiased decision?
What? Is this what you really intended to say? If not please rephrase because I find this offensive
Due to the patients moral failings, the sickness of bigotry has proven to be largely incurable among followers of certain religious sects.
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What? Is this what you really intended to say? If not please rephrase because I find this offensive
I read it to mean that AIDS at the time was considered a product of moral failing. I think the point was that what is considered moral can change over time, so just because some people today might find poorer care for unvaxxed covid patients to be morally acceptable due to the circumstances, they may end up judged harshly by history if the sense of that morality changes.
At least, that's what I thought was being said.
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What? Is this what you really intended to say? If not please rephrase because I find this offensive
I read it to mean that AIDS at the time was considered a product of moral failing. I think the point was that what is considered moral can change over time, so just because some people today might find poorer care for unvaxxed covid patients to be morally acceptable due to the circumstances, they may end up judged harshly by history if the sense of that morality changes.
At least, that's what I thought was being said.
Basically yes.
Just without thinking about the judging part and instead pointing to the fact that, if looked at their frame of reference (hence the old Japan point), the people were doing the appropriate thing (even if it was evil - a necessary evil maybe, but still the correct thing to do. Like in slavery where slaves naturally thought about buying slaves for themselves if they ever got rich.)
And of course you can exchange "moral failing" with "will of God", that has been done a lot.
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What? Is this what you really intended to say? If not please rephrase because I find this offensive
I read it to mean that AIDS at the time was considered a product of moral failing. I think the point was that what is considered moral can change over time, so just because some people today might find poorer care for unvaxxed covid patients to be morally acceptable due to the circumstances, they may end up judged harshly by history if the sense of that morality changes.
At least, that's what I thought was being said.
I would agree with the sentiment except the analogy is tenuous to me at best.
AIDS being a curse of the "homosexual lifestyle" or however it was said back then did not cause the bigotry against gay people. A large number of Americans have been bigoted against gay people for a long time. Blaming AIDS on gay people's moral failings was simply mixing together ignorance and an already existing bigotry.
Today, we were not blaming anyone for getting the disease before the vaccine. Even though it appeared in larger concentrations in certain populations, there was not a widespread belief about Covid being a sign from God about his displeasure with New York or New Orleans. Society at large saw it as avoidable, but generally felt compassion for anyone that caught it, no matter the circumstances (except for maybe attending a giant 15,000 person wedding during lockdowns or something like that.)
Today we have LOADS of science showing that the vaccine prevent death and hospitalization, that it's safe, and that the quickest way to end this is by a large number of people getting vaxed. (And we also tell positive stories to our children in school about how our country came together and ended Polio with vaccines (not evenly that well tested!), so, the morality about country-wide vaccine campaigns has been quite consistent for decades)
It comes to moralizing now because there are a significant number of people who don't trust doctors to take a vaccine, but have no problem at all trusting them when they have covid potentially filling a critical bed for weeks. And we now have stories of hundreds of people who have had heart attacks and other issues that can usually be solved with a visit to the ER and a short stay in the ICU dying.
Covid is NOT the same as AIDS. The moralizing is not being driven from a pre-existing bigotry against a sub-group. (If anything, anti-vax people are being driven by their own bigotry against "the libs") The moralizing is being driven from the very real world where a large group of people who have had 6 months to be vaccinated and prevent their hospitalization/death are actually killing people with treatable problems. No one is acting or even speaking in a bigoted way against unvaccinated people.
This is simply a Trolley Problem where you either save hundreds of people tied down to the track or the 1000's of people simply standing on the track out of their own free will with a highly visible, slow moving train.
Anyways, that's why I find the comparison between the 2 unfounded.
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Just to say, I wasn't proposing "don't treat unvaccinated covid patients in the ICU because they are bad people for not getting vaccinated", I was saying "don't treat unvaccinated patients in the ICU if with their co-morbidities heroic efforts are 99.9% likely to be futile and several other people's lives and qualities of lives could be saved instead during the several weeks they will spend unconscious and dying". If a hospital has all the ICU beds, and staff, that it needs to treat everyone for as long as there is brain stem activity, by all means torture 99.9% of them to death slowly just in case 0.1% of them might survive with lifelong disabilities. But if a hospital doesn't have all the ICU beds and staff it needs to treat everyone then the QALY (Quality Adjusted Life Year) comes into play, and the covid patient with co-morbidities who would need ICU care and perhaps be unconscious on ventilation for weeks and still be 99.9% likely to die because they didn't get the vaccine and their body can't cope with the results shouldn't crowd out the cancer patient or the trauma patient or the patient needing a transplant who will have better chances of surviving for years with a recognisable quality of life.
Survival statistics for vaccinated patients needing hospital and ICU treatment are very significantly better than for unvaccinated patients. The same issue could arise for vaccinated patients with co-morbidities, but probably not in the numbers where vaccinated patients having ICU treatment are crowding others needing care out of the ICU. Which is why the "unvaccinated" bit matters: it is the decision on rationing care that arises because they are unvaccinated, and the consequences of making that decision would be the same for both vaccinated and unvaccinated - except that if people are vaccinated the decision either never has to be made or can be made on the basis that the vaccinated person has the better chance of survival with a better quality of life.
That certainly wasn’t my intent either, and where I live our triage protocol has been made public and it is very clear to everyone that vaccination status is not going to be a factor, it is going to be based on likelihood of survival to 1 year as the first criteria and then it goes from there. I fully support their plans.
What I am questioning is the draining of the entire medical system before we consider starting this ICU resource triage, that is what I can’t wrap my head around, like the examples we have of transplant programs being shut down, biopsies not getting done etc. I am questioning if we have gotten the balance right on this, as there seems to be no real balance at all and it seems to be all in on the ICUs, everything else be damned. Our province has implemented enough surge beds to double normal ICU capacity, and currently we are around 175% normal capacity, but this was done by moving to only life or limb surgeries, and increasing patient load for nurses across the entire system and ICU nursing no longer means 1:1, it is not even clear to me what it is going to be cut to open up this remaining capacity they claim to have.
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Following this discussion with interest.
I imagine it's worse in the US because of the large numbers of unvaccinated (although perhaps mitigated by the private health care system) than here in Canada. However, in Alberta, where hospitals are on a knife's edge of buckling under the strain, doctors are already warning of imminently having to decide who gets a ventilator (or is removed from one) and who doesn't. Once that begins, I wonder if it will have an impact on those who have not yet been vaccinated?
In my province, where health care workers must be vaccinated, there are reports of many leaving the profession due to this, compounding the problem of limited resources. We also have a public system, which is more limited to begin with than a private one.
There is also growing anger about those with other medical issues being unable to receive the needed treatment. To the point where it has been suggested that, because the unvaccinated here are 20% of the population, that only 20% of resources be allocated to them. A separate triage system, where, once the resources are used up, you have to wait, regardless of critical need. There is little chance of this being adopted, but I can understand the frustration behind it.
There is a region not far from me where the unvaccinated are the vast majority. It also happens to house a large, modern medical facility. It has not yet been overrun, but in a matter of time, it might be. Several of the doctors are considering leaving the area because of their frustration with the situation. Which will then leave the people with fewer options for regular medical care, and having to be moved for critical care to an area where a larger percentage are vaccinated. Which makes them angry. Nobody wins.
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I need to explain my infuriation with the comparison with HIV/AIDS epidemic. There are so many differences that make it unfounded, as @FIPurpose says, too. I'm glad someone else thinks so. Here are the main differences:
1. The HIV/AIDS epidemic was most severe in major cities like NY, SF, etc.
2. Catching severe HIV at that time was largely a death sentence. Hospital systems were particularly very vulnerable. Fear in medical care facilities, completely reasonable given #1, were only compounded with the societal constructs at the time.
3. There is no vaccine for HIV/AIDS, yet. Those in at-risk communities, and in health care systems, would have taken a vaccine in a heartbeat back during peak epidemic time.
4. Major cities created special AIDS care centers because hospital systems were overrun. These helped improve and focused care and educate at-risk communities in preventative measures and encouraged testing. But it took a long time for people to even feel comfortable wanting to know if they were HIV positive, which further promoted the spread.
5. It took decades of education, research, and new drugs to make it not a death sentence and a manageable condition.
On the other hand:
1. SARS-CoV-2 is widespread across the globe and now spreading rampantly through rural areas due its airborne transmission.
2. Being COVID positive is not largely a death sentence.
3. There is a vaccine - actually many different vaccines. Hospital systems are requiring staff to be vaccinated.
4. Testing and care for COVID patients has been universally very positive across the country for the year and half the pandemic has ravaged the U.S. (and Canada). I think we generally, as a society, addressed a lot of the positive test fears very early. We have learned from past epidemics.
5. There will be nothing major coming down the lines in terms of advancements in preventing death from COVID since the vaccine exists and are very effective.
I could go on. I think any comparison of care in the hospital of an unvaccinated person to that of one with HIV during the peak epidemic is very short-sighted, too simple, and not the right comparison. I think anti-vaxxers want people to make these arguments because it helps bolster their case that there is no penalty for them not getting the vaccine, and further targets a liberal base. And if you think penalties for being unvaccinated are unwarranted, well, the cat is out of the bag. People are being fired from their job for not being vaccinated. That is a huge penalty.
What those penalties are in the care system are still TBD, but I think they will come early 2022 if cases still flood hospitals. Someone dying from a condition manageable pre-pandemic because the hospital system is overrun with unvaccinated vaccine-eligible COVID patients will be unacceptable. Even the unvaccinated will have conditions requiring what used to be routine medical care. This is the first wave with dominantly unvaccinated COVID patients. I do not think the second one will be very kind.
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Part of the mishandling of the HIV/AIDS epidemic had to do with Christian conservatives gaining power and moralizing against gay people.
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Thanks Abe.
That post makes me think about my own family history.
My grandmother died of a heart attack. She was being kept alive, and several days later the family decided to let her go, and she moved. So they waited. And she died a day or two later.
My father had an aneurysm in his aorta burst. He was a couple of months shy of 82. Living alone. Lord only knows how he managed to dial 911 and get Life flighted to the big city hospital a 2 hours drive away. But the surgeon told my sister before the surgery, that he really would have had <50% chance of survival if he'd been in his 60s. In his 80s? Way less. So...why do the surgery? He died during surgery.
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I am using the AIDS comparison purposefully because from a physician perspective there were many physicians who blamed the people who had AIDS and thus treated them poorly. This is well documented. Thus from a physician's perspective, then as now, it is unjust for me to consider treatment based on my perceptions of that patients' decisions. I personally agree that the specifics of the epidemics are significantly different in many regards. The end result, however is the same: one person has power over another person's life. They cannot ethically use their opinion on the patient's behavior to guide treatment.
Regarding your specific points, you do highlight major societal and epidemiological differences between the two pandemics (which I generally agree with), but I am overall unclear to why this makes the above ethical stance invalid or infuriating.
1. The HIV/AIDS epidemic was most severe in major cities like NY, SF, etc. - yes, but irrelevant on the ethics of healthcare.
2. Catching severe HIV at that time was largely a death sentence.
- I don't believe there's a difference in severity of HIV (especially without anti-retrovirals). I guess you are talking about AIDS vs. non-AIDS infection (though almost all people with HIV who don't have treatment will develop and die of AIDS). At any rate, Severe COVID is not necessarily a death sentence but has a very high rate of mortality.
Hospital systems were particularly very vulnerable. Fear in medical care facilities, completely reasonable given #1, were only compounded with the societal constructs at the time.
- yes. Hospital staff are still vulnerable to COVID given the method of transmission (much more likely to be transmitted than HIV), risk of breakthrough infection and new variants developing that may be vaccine-resistant. Not sure why this is relevant to the ethics argument.
3. There is no vaccine for HIV/AIDS, yet. Those in at-risk communities, and in health care systems, would have taken a vaccine in a heartbeat back during peak epidemic time.
- yes, but again my point is we cannot ethically use patients' choices to guide treatment decisions. Anti-gay physicians used the fact that men who have sex with men were more likely to be infected with HIV as a reason to give poor care (implicit or explicit).
4. Major cities created special AIDS care centers because hospital systems were overrun. These helped improve and focused care and educate at-risk communities in preventative measures and encouraged testing. But it took a long time for people to even feel comfortable wanting to know if they were HIV positive, which further promoted the spread.
- again unrelated to the ethics of treating critically ill patients.
5. It took decades of education, research, and new drugs to make it not a death sentence and a manageable condition.
- again unrelated to the ethics of treating critically ill patients.
On the other hand:
1. SARS-CoV-2 is widespread across the globe and now spreading rampantly through rural areas due its airborne transmission.
- yes. Rural people are people too. Unclear about what your point here is.
2. Being COVID positive is not largely a death sentence.
- Severe COVID is (see above), and we are discussing denying care to patients with severe COVID.
3. There is a vaccine - actually many different vaccines. Hospital systems are requiring staff to be vaccinated.
- ok. Unclear again what the point here is regarding treating or not treating patients.
4. Testing and care for COVID patients has been universally very positive across the country for the year and half the pandemic has ravaged the U.S. (and Canada). I think we generally, as a society, addressed a lot of the positive test fears very early. We have learned from past epidemics.
- and cannot let that cloud our judgement of the people who refuse testing/vaccination's right to treatment.
5. There will be nothing major coming down the lines in terms of advancements in preventing death from COVID since the vaccine exists and are very effective.
- yes.
I can see this is an emotional issue for you, and the treatment of people with HIV was and often remains inappropriately poor. But this is my point exactly: emotions should not drive clinical decisions by healthcare workers, and especially not triage decisions.
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Specifically regarding ethical triage, there are a few models that were considered during the start of the pandemic
1) time-based: whoever arrives first in the ICU is treated. Additional people are treated until there is no more capacity. At that point, the people who have been longest in the ICU are terminally extubated. This is based on the idea that time one is critically ill is predictive of survival and is related to the physiology of sepsis and cardiopulmonary function. I won't bore you all with the details, but basically increased comorbidities cause people to crash early in their ICU care (especially in resource-poor settings). It is a natural selection process.
Issues with this approach are several:
- allocation is dependent on one having medical knowledge to seek care early and the resources to do so. This becomes a socio-economic triage system and thus is unethical due to lack of justice.
- Even in a fully equal society, there are issues. Patients have the right to treatment if there is a reasonable chance of recovery. We know that time is the major determinant after the dust settles. Missing from that equation is the difficulty of predicting long-term survival in the short-term while fixing whatever caused someone to be critically ill. Survival from a heart attack is very variable and depends on many technical factors that may not be known in the few hours after someone arrives in the ER (but needs a ventilator). Similar for stroke, and similar for acute respiratory failure from COVID. Would it be ethical to take someone who has a reasonable chance of recovery for someone who might have a better chance, but also equally may have a worse chance once the dust settles? That lack of clarity in the short term makes this judgement difficult and quite often inaccurate.
Because of this, another framework was more often adopted for emergency situations: co-morbidity based. There are several well-validated scores for predicting survival in critical illness. The worse your score is, the lower you are in the queue for critical care. This doesn't fully resolve the time-to-seeking care issue but works for sorting people in a given time interval. If __ people arrive within ___ minutes of each other, the one with the best score gets the ventilator, and so on from there.
Issues with this approach:
- comorbidities are strongly linked to several external socioeconomic factors outside of the control of the patient (especially in that timeframe). Thus we are in a way judging people for their past actions.
- many scoring systems look at physiologic derangement to predict success at treatment. However they often require extensive laboratory testing and knowledge of the person's pre-existing conditions to use effectively. They are thus subject to a wide range of errors and pre-COVID were not considered suitable for a triage situation.
- comorbidities do not vary as much in a given population as one would think. Thus in practice this stratification is usually not very stratifying. Then we are now splitting hairs, which again is subject to significant error.
These issues were never successfully resolved, hence they were for the most part abandoned in favor of increasing the resources available (which is obviously more just). This leads to our current situation where some hospitals have relatively few cases and others have too many. Equitable distribution of cases (of all types) across hospitals is necessary but for the most part has not been done effectively. This is due to the fact that many states most affected by COVID lack leadership that takes it seriously. An ideal system would have a state-wide or region-wide (or even nation-wide) central triage desk that would route critically ill patients to the closest available facility.
This is what the EMS systems do to direct ambulances, but many critically ill people come in through the front door of the ER. The deaths that result in the time period that requires stabilization were likely not survivable anyway and not the fault of the ICU patients in that hospital.
I think it is also important to clarify a few things regarding hospital capacity and what that means. In Houston, the medical center is at 140% of ICU capacity (thus using non-ICU physical spaces to provide ICU-level care). This was accommodated not by denying care to non-COVID critically ill people, but delaying:
1) elective operations with minimal long-term risk to health (hernia repair, joint replacement, spine surgery for chronic back pain, plastic surgery, weight-loss surgery). If people really want these, they can go to an area that isn't at capacity or wait until the surge resolves. It would be unethical (and un-necessary) to deny care to people with an acute illness for these operations.
- at any given time, elective surgery stays make up 25-40% of hospital bed use in non-trauma hospitals.
2) outpatient operations (ones that don't require a hospital stay). This preserves ventilators, trained staff and other resources for the surge. Exceptions are outpatient cancer-related operations (these were delayed briefly last year but not since then).
3) elective organ transplants. Patients do not require kidney or pancreas transplants (the more common ones) to survive. It sucks to lose a useful organ, but it can be diverted to other states for use.
- heart, liver and lung transplants can sometimes be life-saving with a need to be performed urgently. These situations are very rare and are accommodated.
What we do keep available are:
1) operating rooms and cardiac cath labs for emergencies
2) emergency room triage systems: people who are sicker will get to the head of the line. The long delays in the ER are for non-critically-ill people.
3) airlift capabilities: if someone is critically ill but cannot be accommodated upon arrival in the ER, they are airlifted to another hospital. Again, people needing this level of care immediately are often unlikely to survive regardless of location.
In this scenario, the main issues we see are under-treated chronic medical conditions (which are not dependent on hospitals but are delayed because of staff diversion or people's fear of going to clinics). This will likely lead to a bump in preventable deaths over the next few years. Again, it would be unethical to deny acute life-saving care to someone for these reasons.
The only places to use triage as described above were the NY/NJ area in the very initial surge, and now Idaho and West Virginia. Again, these are preventable if patients are triaged out to other states once stabilized (thanks Seattle and Pittsburgh!). The issue is that transporting very critically ill people is often difficult (or not possible) and they need to be moved while stable in the ICU. Coordinating this is exceedingly difficult in the US for beauracratic reasons mostly.
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Not worth correcting you @Abe. The comparison of care for COVID patients now to that of one during the AIDS/HIV epidemic is still unfounded and way more complex than you want to believe. I can't stop you from narrowly focusing your responses. Ethics in many, but not all, situations is never black and white.
I'm sad the ethical consideration of those who will unnecessarily die from either a) afraid to go the hospital, b) routine non-urgent care that would catch urgent matters, and c) worse care due to burned out medical staff is not enough to convince those who are unvaccinated to get the vaccine.
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maybe a better comparison would be organ transplant or hepatitis treatment for those patients who drink (or smoke). those kind of treatments are largely denied in alcoholics because not only did they do it to themselves, more importantly their drinking status makes it that much more likely that treatment will fail. In the same way someone who refuses to mask up and get vaccinated, is more likely to get the virus AGAIN.
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maybe a better comparison would be organ transplant or hepatitis treatment for those patients who drink (or smoke). those kind of treatments are largely denied in alcoholics because not only did they do it to themselves, more importantly their drinking status makes it that much more likely that treatment will fail. In the same way someone who refuses to mask up and get vaccinated, is more likely to get the virus AGAIN.
I’m going to push back on that. Liver Transplant allocation is not affected by prior actions. A person who has a history of alcohol abuse/dependency can be transplanted if they are able to abstain from alcohol use during the time they are first evaluated for transplant until after transplant. Alcohol is directly toxic to the liver, and outcomes are poor if someone who was alcohol dependent relapses after transplant.
History of smoking has no bearing on transplant allocation. Active smoking is discouraged but is not a contraindication except for lung transplant (for same reasons as above for alcohol and liver).
I want to make it very clear: Someone who is acutely dying of organ failure and needs an urgent transplant (probably the best analogy in this weak construct) will not be denied a life-saving transplantation regardless of their current drinking or smoking status. Those decisions are made solely on clinical status and certain lab tests.
Non-transplantation Hepatitis treatment is not denied based on current or former alcohol, smoking or drug history.
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Not worth correcting you @Abe. The comparison of care for COVID patients now to that of one during the AIDS/HIV epidemic is still unfounded and way more complex than you want to believe. I can't stop you from narrowly focusing your responses. Ethics in many, but not all, situations is never black and white.
I'm sad the ethical consideration of those who will unnecessarily die from either a) afraid to go the hospital, b) routine non-urgent care that would catch urgent matters, and c) worse care due to burned out medical staff is not enough to convince those who are unvaccinated to get the vaccine.
My analogy was solely centered around care based on prior actions and the ethics around that. You wanted to expand it into some moral judgement of covid infected people vs. the aids crisis. I agree the care is obviously quite different now and then, for both epidemiological and technological reasons as you’ve pointed out. In no way do I believe the aids crisis and the covid crisis are similar outside of the risk of denying care to people based on actions (as many have advocated) and the ethical dilemmas of that. Hence my narrow focus. I think we’re talking at cross-points and do not have to discuss further if you don’t want.
I do agree with your second paragraph fully. I will not compromise my moral and ethical stands because of it, though. As I said before, we do not want a repeat of the moral failings from the last quarter century.
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My 61-year old anti-vax father-in-law just tested positive.
Hopefully it’s mild, but we’ll see where this goes.
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Oh no, I’m so sorry. Sending positive thoughts for an uneventful course of illness.
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Thanks for your posts @Abe It's great to see such clear and well articulated thoughts from someone with actual experience in having to make these sorts of ethical decisions.
It's sad to see how many are seemingly ok with the provision of medical care being based on the providers moral judgement regarding the worthiness or otherwise of the actions of patients.
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It's sad to see how many are seemingly ok with the provision of medical care being based on the providers moral judgement regarding the worthiness or otherwise of the actions of patients.
It is sad to see so many refuse a vaccine that would potentially save not just their life, but others' lives as well. The HIV epidemic did not have this problem.
By in large, I will contend most physicians and nurses during the HIV epidemic treated HIV positive or potential positive patients without hesitation. It seems to be even more the case today with unvaccinated COVID patients. I am not worried we are going to 'repeat any moral failings' here.
In regards to ethics, I first would start with empathy: I don't fault someone for choosing in the trolley problem to save their single loved one than saving five strangers, so neither would I fault someone for wishing the hospital cared for their loved one who died with a savable condition instead of the large number of unvaccinated COVID patients at their local hospital. I haven't experienced this, but it has happened more than it should have during this pandemic.
It is not to my goal to convince someone like @Abe that he should start convincing himself or others in his profession that they should judge treatment based on their opinion of the patient. No way.
However, the dilemma hospital systems (points of treatment of COVID) are in is new, and real, as doctors are still figuring out what is considered 'elective' and what is really not (https://www.statnews.com/2021/08/13/elective-surgeries-delayed-again-doctors-response/). This reads that a lot doctors want to do it differently this time. And in that article linked, the Vanderbilt hospital was already spending more time on helping those waiting on 'elective' operations. Is it a moral failing for that hospital system to have this person spend time on this case by case examination each morning instead of putting them on an effort to help with the overhead of COVID patients? If we examine 'best care' being the 'all hands on deck' approach during last winter than is anything less than that now a failure? I guess what I am saying is someone is drawing the line on where to divert resources. And that line exists in the gray zone between the black and white we talk about in patient care. It won't happen at the door of the ER, but it happens within the system.
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Thanks for your posts @Abe It's great to see such clear and well articulated thoughts from someone with actual experience in having to make these sorts of ethical decisions.
It's sad to see how many are seemingly ok with the provision of medical care being based on the providers moral judgement regarding the worthiness or otherwise of the actions of patients.
I'm not sure anyone has said that. I know it's not what I'm suggesting. I would want overall triage protocols to change to take it out of the hands of individual providers and make it easier for them. The current system of triage would be modified to deprioritize people who haven't been vaccinated, among all the other factors that are included in triage decisions that are ethical quandaries, but that we've set up an a priori objective system vs. evaluating on a patient by patient basis by individual providers at the point of care. By not making this change, we are also making implicit ethical judgments that we should question our comfort with. Sins of omission are no better, at least in my mind, than those of commission.
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Thanks for your posts @Abe It's great to see such clear and well articulated thoughts from someone with actual experience in having to make these sorts of ethical decisions.
It's sad to see how many are seemingly ok with the provision of medical care being based on the providers moral judgement regarding the worthiness or otherwise of the actions of patients.
I'm not sure anyone has said that. I know it's not what I'm suggesting. I would want overall triage protocols to change to take it out of the hands of individual providers and make it easier for them. The current system of triage would be modified to deprioritize people who haven't been vaccinated, among all the other factors that are included in triage decisions that are ethical quandaries, but that we've set up an a priori objective system vs. evaluating on a patient by patient basis by individual providers at the point of care. By not making this change, we are also making implicit ethical judgments that we should question our comfort with. Sins of omission are no better, at least in my mind, than those of commission.
I'll second this. I really appreciate Abe's post and I've learned a lot from them. They've helped me to see this situation in ways that I wouldn't have considered on my own.
At the same time I've been thinking that these decisions don't need to depend on any individuals morals, can't the decisions can be made at a system-wide level?
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As a recently deceased conservative radio host frequently said, "AIDS is the most preventative disease there is. Just don't have unprotected sex with multiple partners."
From that line of reasoning, I can see the parallel in the line of thought comparing the AIDS epidemic to covid. I can also say that I don't particularly care.
I'm all for a hospital administrator saying that they will not provide care to people that refuse the vaccine. I've had enough with the anti-vaxxers.
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In Alaska’s Covid Crisis, Doctors Must Decide Who Lives and Who Dies (https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/03/us/coronavirus-crisis-alaska.html)
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In Alaska’s Covid Crisis, Doctors Must Decide Who Lives and Who Dies (https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/03/us/coronavirus-crisis-alaska.html)
The whole point of lockdowns, social distancing etc. was to flatten the curve so that things didn't come to this.
We are seeing it in some places - Alberta especially.
https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2021/10/03/birth-without-a-family-some-babies-born-to-unconscious-moms-in-covid-ravaged-alberta.html (https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2021/10/03/birth-without-a-family-some-babies-born-to-unconscious-moms-in-covid-ravaged-alberta.html)
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/alberta-military-covid-19-hospital-icu-1.6197926 (https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/alberta-military-covid-19-hospital-icu-1.6197926)
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Thanks for your posts @Abe It's great to see such clear and well articulated thoughts from someone with actual experience in having to make these sorts of ethical decisions.
It's sad to see how many are seemingly ok with the provision of medical care being based on the providers moral judgement regarding the worthiness or otherwise of the actions of patients.
I'm not sure anyone has said that. I know it's not what I'm suggesting. I would want overall triage protocols to change to take it out of the hands of individual providers and make it easier for them. The current system of triage would be modified to deprioritize people who haven't been vaccinated, among all the other factors that are included in triage decisions that are ethical quandaries, but that we've set up an a priori objective system vs. evaluating on a patient by patient basis by individual providers at the point of care. By not making this change, we are also making implicit ethical judgments that we should question our comfort with. Sins of omission are no better, at least in my mind, than those of commission.
I'll second this. I really appreciate Abe's post and I've learned a lot from them. They've helped me to see this situation in ways that I wouldn't have considered on my own.
At the same time I've been thinking that these decisions don't need to depend on any individuals morals, can't the decisions can be made at a system-wide level?
Anyone else see the irony in the fact that the very group of deplorables who decried "death panels" are now the ones who have created a crisis that requires them?
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Thanks for your posts @Abe It's great to see such clear and well articulated thoughts from someone with actual experience in having to make these sorts of ethical decisions.
It's sad to see how many are seemingly ok with the provision of medical care being based on the providers moral judgement regarding the worthiness or otherwise of the actions of patients.
I'm not sure anyone has said that. I know it's not what I'm suggesting. I would want overall triage protocols to change to take it out of the hands of individual providers and make it easier for them. The current system of triage would be modified to deprioritize people who haven't been vaccinated, among all the other factors that are included in triage decisions that are ethical quandaries, but that we've set up an a priori objective system vs. evaluating on a patient by patient basis by individual providers at the point of care. By not making this change, we are also making implicit ethical judgments that we should question our comfort with. Sins of omission are no better, at least in my mind, than those of commission.
I'll second this. I really appreciate Abe's post and I've learned a lot from them. They've helped me to see this situation in ways that I wouldn't have considered on my own.
At the same time I've been thinking that these decisions don't need to depend on any individuals morals, can't the decisions can be made at a system-wide level?
It could be, but in most cases the same system that would be making these decisions (state governments) are over-run by people who think wearing a cloth mask is too much suffering to impose on people.
And I don't think that would get around the essential ethical question - are we as a society OK with denying life-saving care to people based on their behavior? I don't think we, in general, are. This would be a hugely unprecedented step. I cannot emphasize this enough.
There are many more options before the "nuclear" option. Here is a short list that don't require any triage decisions (and are mentioned tangentially in The NY Times article NaN linked):
1. Better triage and transfer of non-critically-ill patients. The US system as a whole has not collapsed, and it seems that in general this will now be a regional crisis rolling through various states at a time. Though intra-state transfers are common, inter-state transfers (except in the Mountain West & Alaska) are unusual. Alaska, Montana and Idaho are special cases because they have limited ICU capabilities and many of the critically ill are transferred to Seattle even in normal times. There are some legal and insurance billing issues that would need to be sorted for this to work, but would resolve 99% of our triage problems outside of these very isolated areas.
2. For the special cases above, we do need to increased ICU capabilities. This is somewhat a failure on the states' part to prepare and coordinate with others on supply and personnel transfer agreements (the whole stick-your-head-in-the-sand attitude commonplace in these more conservative areas regarding COVID). This COVID pandemic isn't a surprise! We do not have a shortage of ventilators or dialysis machines in this country. We do have a shortage of sedatives and narcotics, but that's everywhere.
2. Delaying non-urgent operations in a given area until the crisis passes. On average the duration of elective shut-down is about 2-3 months. Again, in almost all cases urgent operations are continuing ahead in most areas. The places being most strongly affected by triage decisions are also the areas that are most anti-vaccine (hence the problem!). I don't think it is ethical for us outsiders to tell them how to run their healthcare systems since we have limited standing other than moral outrage. I also don't think there is a scenario where states would allow such an unpopular mandate to be enforced at a state level, especially if solution #1 hasn't been attempted.
3. Deploying National Guard, Army physicians and Army medics to provide coverage of ICU units. Though the Armed Forces cannot be deployed in a military capacity within the US, they can be deployed by request of the states for disaster relief. They are well qualified to provide basic life support in a civilian setting.
So there are several solutions to this problem beyond the obvious, punitory one. Extremely rural areas again are a special case, but we run into ethical considerations of autonomy and paternalism if we try to tell them how to triage.
While to us the answer may seem obvious, in reality it is not. There are downstream consequences to every action. I do agree with Sui generis that there is an error of omission, but lay that at the hands of the legislatures who repeatedly and intentionally ignore healthcare experts advising them on the above measures.
On another point worth considering in the examples from the article, here are some questions to mull over (modeled after similar questions from my medical ethics classes):
1a) What if the person who needed emergency surgery in that article was also not vaccinated and was anti-vaccine? It isn't mentioned in the article. Does the lack of knowledge on this subject affect our decision on triage? If not, why not? If so, why?
1b) How confident are we that the COVID-infected patient was not vaccinated? What if they had one dose? How much punishment should be assigned to being late to vaccination, even if one's intentions were good (they were planning to get a second dose eventually?).
1c) Are anti-vaccine people to be de-prioritized if they have a COVID-induced critical condition, for some critical conditions, or for all critical conditions?
2a) The patient in the ER had a better chance of surviving than the patient in the rural area. Thus a decision was made to save the one in the ER. How much should a patient with COVID who is not vaccinated be de-prioritized? If the surgical emergency patient had a 1% chance of surviving and the COVID patient a 40%, how should that be calculated?
2b) How confident are we that the person in the ER was not vaccinated? If they cannot answer for themselves, how much do we trust their proxy? What proof is required of vaccination?
2c) Why was the person not vaccinated? Discuss these situations:
1- they were not aware of the vaccines' efficacy and had no trusted healthcare resource to discuss with
2- did not think it would work because they were somewhat immunocompromised (a common misconception)
3- thought the vaccine had a Gates microchip in it that would turn them into a Biden slave
4- lived 350 miles from the nearest clinic and lacked resources to obtain the vaccine. Which of these are and are not acceptable to spare them from triage? How would we verify which one it is?
3a) Is it ethical to deny care to people who do not comply with a voluntary medical request in their jurisdiction? If so, which ones? How does the temporal relationship between lack of compliance and illness affect decision-making? Is a lifetime of non-compliance with medical advice leading to an exacerbation of a chronic condition acceptable? Why or why not?
- If an exception is made specifically for COVID, detail why it is different than all other stressors on the healthcare system.
3b) Is it ethical to punish members of society for the failings of their legislatures to prepare for an expected outcome?
I don't have a good answer to these (but many not-so-good ones), and am interested in others' comments. Feel free to add other hypothetical situations. This is an important part of ethics - to chance to discuss theoretical situations and understand how the nuances affect our thinking. That is why an absolute judgement, in my mind, is very difficult (regardless of who decides it).
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I'll give these a go.
On another point worth considering in the examples from the article, here are some questions to mull over (modeled after similar questions from my medical ethics classes):
1a) What if the person who needed emergency surgery in that article was also not vaccinated and was anti-vaccine? It isn't mentioned in the article. Does the lack of knowledge on this subject affect our decision on triage? If not, why not? If so, why? Irrelevant if they're not in for covid. Maybe they can't get the vaccine for medical reasons and have been sheltering from covid for the last 18 months.
1b) How confident are we that the COVID-infected patient was not vaccinated? What if they had one dose? How much punishment should be assigned to being late to vaccination, even if one's intentions were good (they were planning to get a second dose eventually?). I would have thought this is important knowledge for deciding on treatment given that one dose or none changes outcomes. Should be a record somewhere (see 2(b)).
1c) Are anti-vaccine people to be de-prioritized if they have a COVID-induced critical condition, for some critical conditions, or for all critical conditions? Unvaccinated (doesn't matter why) are prioritised for care, including ICU and ventilators, according to their chances of surviving as against other patients requiring the same care at the same time: the ones most likely to survive, or survive with more QALYs, get the care.
2a) The patient in the ER had a better chance of surviving than the patient in the rural area. Thus a decision was made to save the one in the ER. How much should a patient with COVID who is not vaccinated be de-prioritized? If the surgical emergency patient had a 1% chance of surviving and the COVID patient a 40%, how should that be calculated? The patient with the better chance gets the care. If the rural patient's chances are less just because they are rural, and they would have better chances than the covid patient once they get to the hospital then they get the care.
2b) How confident are we that the person in the ER was not vaccinated? If they cannot answer for themselves, how much do we trust their proxy? What proof is required of vaccination? This question does not compute, as the NHS has the vaccination records of everyone in my country. If someone came in without ID from the street they are probably vaccinated.
2c) Why was the person not vaccinated? Discuss these situations:
1- they were not aware of the vaccines' efficacy and had no trusted healthcare resource to discuss with
2- did not think it would work because they were somewhat immunocompromised (a common misconception)
3- thought the vaccine had a Gates microchip in it that would turn them into a Biden slave
4- lived 350 miles from the nearest clinic and lacked resources to obtain the vaccine. Which of these are and are not acceptable to spare them from triage? How would we verify which one it is?
All questions and answers are irrelevant to deciding on the appropriate medical treatment.
3a) Is it ethical to deny care to people who do not comply with a voluntary medical request in their jurisdiction? If so, which ones? How does the temporal relationship between lack of compliance and illness affect decision-making? Is a lifetime of non-compliance with medical advice leading to an exacerbation of a chronic condition acceptable? Why or why not?
- If an exception is made specifically for COVID, detail why it is different than all other stressors on the healthcare system.
All questions irrelevant to deciding on appropriate medical treatment for covid. The issue of non-compliance with medical (rather than governmental) advice may be relevant for some other treatments such as transplants, joint replacements, etc. because non-compliance means a low/lower chance of success. The existence of co-morbidities may make treatment for covid less likely to be successful, in which case it's part of the decision as to who has the better chance of being successfully treated.
3b) Is it ethical to punish members of society for the failings of their legislatures to prepare for an expected outcome?
Question relevant to existence of resources (vote the bastards out of office!) but irrelevant to deciding on appropriate medical treatment using those available resources.
I don't have a good answer to these (but many not-so-good ones), and am interested in others' comments. Feel free to add other hypothetical situations. This is an important part of ethics - to chance to discuss theoretical situations and understand how the nuances affect our thinking. That is why an absolute judgement, in my mind, is very difficult (regardless of who decides it).
One point to make is that not giving someone an ICU bed and all the bells and whistles doesn't mean turning them out to die in the street, it means they get a bed and comfort care/hospice-type care - which they might survive or might not.
Another point to make is that excess death rates are a lot higher than covid death rates. That means that there are a lot of people dying "out in the community" who could have had a better chance of survival if they had seen a doctor and been treated but never even got that far. While the unvaccinated covid patient with co-morbidities and a small chance of surviving is taking weeks to die in the ICU there are going to be other people who never even get the chance for a doctor to see them and make the choice to treat them instead, because that doctor is too busy giving futile care to someone else.
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Anyone else see the irony in the fact that the very group of deplorables who decried "death panels" are now the ones who have created a crisis that requires them?
I see it too.
One level above that irony is the issue of medical ethics apparently becoming a mission to make the world safe for those who trust social media influencers over doctors and scientists. Compassion fatigue and frustration are suddenly becoming a contributor to the death toll, and we're seeing that in public policy (e.g. no lockdowns or restrictions around the delta wave). When the history is written, none of us will look very good.
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My 61-year old anti-vax father-in-law just tested positive.
Hopefully it’s mild, but we’ll see where this goes.
I hope his recovery is speedy and easy!
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Thanks, @Abe, I appreciate the points and the questions. A few general points:
-I definitely agree that increased efficiency and techniques / use of resources should be leveraged to minimize the bad outcomes we are seeing. Reading a story recently about a daughter calling hospitals in many surrounding states for her dad when the providers themselves had given up was pretty depressing, but I realize is just one of about a half dozen anecdotes I've read. I hope some of those measures will be implemented swiftly.
-It's a good point that that same systems that are overwhelmed are not likely to put any revised triage procedures into place. I mean, I think it's pretty unlikely anywhere (and so this conversation is mostly a thought experiment), but the likelihood is lower in places where people largely think vaccination is mind control or will prevent them being able to have children, etc. which is exactly where intervention is needed. I'm not usually one to wave my hand and think those backwards people should be consigned to the fate they've invited upon themselves, though, not least because there are ALSO people there that aren't a part of it and yet have to suffer the consequences. And so, it may be none of my business or appear paternalistic, but I still have a hard time just being satisfied with not intervening on those people's behalf.
-I'm not so sure about the lack of education here being a big ethical issue. There's a lack of education for everything to some degree and, perhaps it's just as a lawyer I've gotten comfortable with the fact that ignorance of a law is not an excuse or justification for violating it. In this case, I think ignorance is harder to come by than for a lot of things. I traveled to a remote town in Alaska (a very red state, I'm sure I don't need to point out) this summer - permanent year-round population about 20, but definitely higher in the summer. And they were advertising a vaccine clinic that was coming. So I don't want to pretend like everyone has had someone show up at their door at a convenient time with balloons and a lollipop to give along with the vaccine, but I'm a lot more comfortable with this than with....like most other things ever regarding access and knowledge. And on that note, my next point then applies:
-Some of the questions you pose are not so much ethical questions as practical ones with an ethical prod. For instance, how to be sure the patient truly is or is not vaccinated. That's a practical question about systems and procedures, simply with a reminder that it's important that we establish thoughtful and careful systems and procedures around verification because we don't want to create perverse incentives or leave giant loopholes. If we let every question about not being sure our systems were perfect, and how unethical that could be, stop us we'd all of us be permanently paralyzed and couldn't even feed ourselves without paroxysms of conscience and self-doubt. It's important to keep in mind *why* we wrestle with establishing rigorous systems, but not that we let those questions stop us from doing so efficiently and promptly.
-Finally, I take a bit of issue with some of the use of your word "punish" or other implications of being punitive. This isn't about punishing people in the retributive sense, which is how it feels like you are using it. It's about making fair decisions about use of resources. Fair decisions are often detrimental to one party or stakeholder. That doesn't mean retirbution is being taken on them for any actions. In many cases, the affected party may not have any control whatsoever for the negative impacts they will suffer. And at least that's not the case here. In this case, to the extent any decisions are made that could have negative impacts (or feel like they are "punitive" in a retirbutive sense) to an unvaccinated person, they have a choice to change that. I think it's a pretty good deal.
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I've had enough with the anti-vaxxers.
Crazy week: anti-vax coworker quarantines because anti-vax friend they spent a bunch of time with came down with COVID. This is after a close call at an with friends who are COVID positive within the next day or two.
Almost time to come back to work. Coworker's family member gets it, is hospitalized, outcome remains uncertain. Coworker quarantine extended. Then coworker's spouse gets COVID. Coworker still tests negative. When I spoke to them recently, I asked them to follow HR's protocol and stay home. I don't want it. I have my shots but I work closely with this person. Coworker thinks they are immune. Maybe they had a mild case in the past coworker suggests. I'd go get my shots a week ago if I was coworker.
Meanwhile in my family: elderly relative falls. Ambulance can't find a bed until 5th or 6th hospital. Relative spends two weeks in hospital and dies. Another elderly relative needs surgery for heart condition. Is put off for several weeks until this week. Surgery okay. Recovering. And third elderly relative has developed an un-diagnosed condition where they just pass out and then recover in ~5 mins with no awareness of anything happening - if they were sitting down. This led to a nasty fall this weekend. Again - hospitals are overwhelmed with unvaxxed COVID patients. Took all day to find hospital and then transfer out of the ER to a room. No cause found for this condition, recovering from the fall.
So my family spent weekend to help wrap up departed relative's affairs.
First relative was not in great shape before the fall but was certainly worse off due to life under COVID restrictions - more isolation, less opportunity to get out of their apartment.
A tale of two families. I don't have words strong enough to express my frustration with people like coworker and their social circle who reject the vaccine b/c of religious reasons. And to think some of their church friends are protesting outside the local hospital b/c of the visitation policies and the fact that the hospital won't treat patients with alternative medicines like Ivermectin. Local ICU is over-whelmed and some of these people think they ought to be able to visit their relatives in person. Really?
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Sorry Joe, my annoyance is small compared to what your family is experiencing.
Because my FIL tested positive, MIL can't watch my child while I work, so I'm doing what I can work-wise while keeping a toddler entertained.
FIL was also at a funeral (not covid-related) with a lot of other family members and unmasked. Daughter of the deceased is furious with him right now. Of course, because it's TN, I'm willing to bet that at least half of the people at the funeral weren't vaccinated.
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That sounds about right... I've heard more than one story of anti-vax folks that won't even quarantine if the virus doesn't force them into bed. Or they are out and about until they can't.
DW and I are so over this thing...
One more head shaker - they are coming fast these past weeks. Found out that another relative that works in health industry is now declared anti-vax and they are recently recovered from COVID. I guess it is easy to disregard COVID when you are young and immortal. How a person can value healthcare science, healthcare employment and reject some vaccines while accepting the others is nuts.
Sorry about the odd wording. Trying to share the anecdotes without revealing too much about who or where. I don't bully people IRL, I try to get along with the people around us - especially family of course - but I unload here in the forums. My apologies. ;)
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CNN: Lindsey Graham gets booed by his own supporters (https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2021/10/06/lindsey-graham-booed-vaccine-mandate-orig-vf.cnn/video/playlists/top-news-videos/) because he suggested that they "think about" getting vaccinated.
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CNN: Lindsey Graham gets booed by his own supporters (https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2021/10/06/lindsey-graham-booed-vaccine-mandate-orig-vf.cnn/video/playlists/top-news-videos/) because he suggested that they "think about" getting vaccinated.
The old guard cynics like Graham and McConnell are now reaping what they have sown since their party has been taken over by the True Believers. Those assholes are responsible for this, because they knew better.
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It's not like the Republican establishment wanted Trump in office prior to 2016. They did as much (if not more) to fight his nomination as the DNC did to fight Bernie's. Granted, they were a bit more open about it.
They got caught up in the tidal wave of idiocy and felt like they needed to go along with it.
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It's not like the Republican establishment wanted Trump in office prior to 2016. They did as much (if not more) to fight his nomination as the DNC did to fight Bernie's. Granted, they were a bit more open about it.
They got caught up in the tidal wave of idiocy and felt like they needed to go along with it.
Yeah. Cowardice. And I think they are paying for it now.
Unfortunately, so are the rest of us.
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CNN: Lindsey Graham gets booed by his own supporters (https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2021/10/06/lindsey-graham-booed-vaccine-mandate-orig-vf.cnn/video/playlists/top-news-videos/) because he suggested that they "think about" getting vaccinated.
The old guard cynics like Graham and McConnell are now reaping what they have sown since their party has been taken over by the True Believers. Those assholes are responsible for this, because they knew better.
I agree 100%. In fact I'm gullible so I thought that McConnell would see this coming and impeach Trump a long time ago.
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CNN: Lindsey Graham gets booed by his own supporters (https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2021/10/06/lindsey-graham-booed-vaccine-mandate-orig-vf.cnn/video/playlists/top-news-videos/) because he suggested that they "think about" getting vaccinated.
The old guard cynics like Graham and McConnell are now reaping what they have sown since their party has been taken over by the True Believers. Those assholes are responsible for this, because they knew better.
Trump himself got boo'd for suggesting vaccination a couple months ago. He backed off that one real quick. Right now Hannity would make you think vaccination was the worst idea ever, conveniently forgetting he wanted us all to bow down and praise Trump last year for funding vaccination research.
Seems like yesterday when McConnell was literally crying on the floor of the Senate saying how terrible it was that Congress was attacked. Changed his tune as soon as the investigation started to ask who in Congress knew it was coming.
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I saw this: https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2021/10/05/uchealth-transplant-unvaccinated/
At least one hospital system is requiring COVID vaccination for transplants. It makes sense. There aren't enough organs available for donations to start with, why would you risk giving one to an anti-vaxxer?
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Even if the organ would never go to anyone else but that person, insurance and Medicare reimbursements are often tied to outcomes. If there was a problem that could have been prevented by the hospital/staff’s actions and they failed to take those precautions, there’s a high likelihood that they would have to eat certain costs related to this.
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CNN: Lindsey Graham gets booed by his own supporters (https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2021/10/06/lindsey-graham-booed-vaccine-mandate-orig-vf.cnn/video/playlists/top-news-videos/) because he suggested that they "think about" getting vaccinated.
The old guard cynics like Graham and McConnell are now reaping what they have sown since their party has been taken over by the True Believers. Those assholes are responsible for this, because they knew better.
You know, at this point I sometimes fantasize about spreading rumors that their leading idiots have secretly vaccinated themselves, just to see them go at each other even more.
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CNN: Lindsey Graham gets booed by his own supporters (https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2021/10/06/lindsey-graham-booed-vaccine-mandate-orig-vf.cnn/video/playlists/top-news-videos/) because he suggested that they "think about" getting vaccinated.
The old guard cynics like Graham and McConnell are now reaping what they have sown since their party has been taken over by the True Believers. Those assholes are responsible for this, because they knew better.
You know, at this point I sometimes fantasize about spreading rumors that their leading idiots have secretly vaccinated themselves, just to see them go at each other even more.
They have been vaccinated and were pretty public about it. Graham was the first vaccinated senator to then test positive for Covid. Trump and McConnell were among the first in the nation to get the jab. All US Governors (Dema and Rep) have been vaccinated, and the senate had a vaccination rate of 92% back in May (can’t find updated figures to see the the last 8 holdouts have since been vaccinated).
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Southwest Airlines had to cancel over a quarter of their flights yesterday.
While they initially said it was due to weather, the apparent reason was employees walking out over vaccine mandates.
We have a flight on Southwest soon. I really hope the cancellations don't continue.
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Not according to the pilots union.
https://www.newsweek.com/southwest-airlines-cancellations-pilot-vaccine-mandate-1637440
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Not according to the pilots union.
https://www.newsweek.com/southwest-airlines-cancellations-pilot-vaccine-mandate-1637440
That's good news, thanks
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So you gonna reset your bullshit detector? Because "it came from conservative media / politicians" should lead to "assume it is false", as was the case here.
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So you gonna reset your bullshit detector? Because "it came from conservative media / politicians" should lead to "assume it is false", as was the case here.
My source was CNN, which has reports from the FAA that it's not related to air traffic control issues. The only source Newsweek has is the Southwest Airlines Pilots Association.
I don't have any reason to trust one source more than the other.
Are you going to reset your attitude in that response?
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I saw this: https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2021/10/05/uchealth-transplant-unvaccinated/
At least one hospital system is requiring COVID vaccination for transplants. It makes sense. There aren't enough organs available for donations to start with, why would you risk giving one to an anti-vaxxer?
That makes sense to you?
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I saw this: https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2021/10/05/uchealth-transplant-unvaccinated/
At least one hospital system is requiring COVID vaccination for transplants. It makes sense. There aren't enough organs available for donations to start with, why would you risk giving one to an anti-vaxxer?
That makes sense to you?
Having a transplant means taking immune suppressing drugs for life. Getting a covid vaccine before starting a lifelong immuno-suppressing regime makes sense to me.
Also, transplant organs are usually in short supply, which means they are rationed. Makes sense for them to go to people most likely to live long enough to get the best use out of them.
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I saw this: https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2021/10/05/uchealth-transplant-unvaccinated/
At least one hospital system is requiring COVID vaccination for transplants. It makes sense. There aren't enough organs available for donations to start with, why would you risk giving one to an anti-vaxxer?
That makes sense to you?
Same reason it doesn't make sense to recommend an organ transplant for a person who declares themselves wholly unwilling to take immunosuppressant drugs afterward for whatever reason (ie. 'my body my choice' or 'God hates big pharma' or 'I don't believe in organ rejection' or what have you.)
Last I heard, the organ waitlist for certain transplants is many, many years long. Why transplant an organ to a person who's made it clear they're unwilling to follow the most basic of steps to make sure the transplant is successful?
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I saw this: https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2021/10/05/uchealth-transplant-unvaccinated/
At least one hospital system is requiring COVID vaccination for transplants. It makes sense. There aren't enough organs available for donations to start with, why would you risk giving one to an anti-vaxxer?
That makes sense to you?
Based on your question, is it safe to assume you disagree?
There are other vaccines already required by some organ transplant centers like hep B and flu vaccine. Do you disagree with those requirements as well or only the covid vaccine?
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I saw this: https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2021/10/05/uchealth-transplant-unvaccinated/
At least one hospital system is requiring COVID vaccination for transplants. It makes sense. There aren't enough organs available for donations to start with, why would you risk giving one to an anti-vaxxer?
That makes sense to you?
Yes it does.
If you're an alcoholic who destroys your liver, and you won't get treatment and stop drinking, then no, I'm not wasting a perfectly good donor liver on you. Is it unfortunate for you? Yes. But that was your choice. You are free to make that choice, but you are also subject to the consequences of your choice. Don't like the consequences - change the decision.
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If you crunch the numbers based on US vital statistics, the death rate for the average American has increased by 10%-20% (this obviously changes conditional on age and other risk factors).
If you're evaluating a patient for an organ transplant, surely there are gigantic risk factors that would dwarf that marginal increase. While I encourage all of you to vaccinate to the degree that is medically appropriate, I can see why the personal* health gain from the vaccine doesn't look especially large.
*Personal safety from the vaccine is obviously different than *public safety
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Those other risk factors are a big part of why the vaccine is important for transplant patients. There’s a lot of risk that can’t be controlled much or at all, but getting a vaccine is a huge win with very little risk or effort.
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I saw this: https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2021/10/05/uchealth-transplant-unvaccinated/
At least one hospital system is requiring COVID vaccination for transplants. It makes sense. There aren't enough organs available for donations to start with, why would you risk giving one to an anti-vaxxer?
That makes sense to you?
Based on your question, is it safe to assume you disagree?
There are other vaccines already required by some organ transplant centers like hep B and flu vaccine. Do you disagree with those requirements as well or only the covid vaccine?
If the flu vaccine is actually required to receive an organ donation, I guess I'm good with it to require a COVID-19 vaccine, is it true though? At face value it feels like it's in the same territory as people who think hospitals should not treat the unvaccinated... their choice, now let 'em die! Just seems like a weird thing to deny someone a life saving organ if they are not vaccinated for something that is generally not life threatening like the flu or Covid-19. There are so many people here who openly say they don't get the flu vaccine... guess no organs for you! Saying this as a person who got his first dose on the first day it was available, and get the flu vaccine every year, so definitely not an anti-vaxxer.
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I saw this: https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2021/10/05/uchealth-transplant-unvaccinated/
At least one hospital system is requiring COVID vaccination for transplants. It makes sense. There aren't enough organs available for donations to start with, why would you risk giving one to an anti-vaxxer?
That makes sense to you?
Based on your question, is it safe to assume you disagree?
There are other vaccines already required by some organ transplant centers like hep B and flu vaccine. Do you disagree with those requirements as well or only the covid vaccine?
If the flu vaccine is actually required to receive an organ donation, I guess I'm good with it to require a COVID-19 vaccine, is it true though? At face value it feels like it's in the same territory as people who think hospitals should not treat the unvaccinated... their choice, now let 'em die! Just seems like a weird thing to deny someone a life saving organ if they are not vaccinated for something that is generally not life threatening like the flu or Covid-19. There are so many people here who openly say they don't get the flu vaccine... guess no organs for you! Saying this as a person who got his first dose on the first day it was available, and get the flu vaccine every year, so definitely not an anti-vaxxer.
Not a doctor, but organs are rare relative to people who need them. So if I had 3 people who were all good candidates for a specific organ I would pick the person most likely to survive for a good chunk of time.
Too bad more people don't sign their organ donor cards.
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I saw this: https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2021/10/05/uchealth-transplant-unvaccinated/
At least one hospital system is requiring COVID vaccination for transplants. It makes sense. There aren't enough organs available for donations to start with, why would you risk giving one to an anti-vaxxer?
That makes sense to you?
Based on your question, is it safe to assume you disagree?
There are other vaccines already required by some organ transplant centers like hep B and flu vaccine. Do you disagree with those requirements as well or only the covid vaccine?
If the flu vaccine is actually required to receive an organ donation, I guess I'm good with it to require a COVID-19 vaccine, is it true though? At face value it feels like it's in the same territory as people who think hospitals should not treat the unvaccinated... their choice, now let 'em die! Just seems like a weird thing to deny someone a life saving organ if they are not vaccinated for something that is generally not life threatening like the flu or Covid-19. There are so many people here who openly say they don't get the flu vaccine... guess no organs for you! Saying this as a person who got his first dose on the first day it was available, and get the flu vaccine every year, so definitely not an anti-vaxxer.
Not a doctor, but organs are rare relative to people who need them. So if I had 3 people who were all good candidates for a specific organ I would pick the person most likely to survive for a good chunk of time.
Too bad more people don't sign their organ donor cards.
I agree with this, and I know that the liver transplant list is absolutely sorted by an algorithm to determine who most deserves a transplant. What I am not sure I agree with is something like a covid-19 vaccine being a requirement unless there actually is a requirement for something similar like the flu vaccine... it seems a little silly. As I mentioned before, there are SO MANY people who don't get their flu vaccines and use similar reasoning to justify not getting it as those who are not interested in getting the Covid Vaccine. Really, they are going to be denied an organ because they performed an adult risk analysis regarding the danger of contracting the flu? There also is a difference, I feel, between not getting a donation because you are not vaccinated for XYZ at the time the organ is available and refusing to be vaccinated for XYZ before the procedure. From a quick Google search, it seems like the former, when I'd prefer it to be the latter. Yes, I am an organ donor.
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I saw this: https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2021/10/05/uchealth-transplant-unvaccinated/
At least one hospital system is requiring COVID vaccination for transplants. It makes sense. There aren't enough organs available for donations to start with, why would you risk giving one to an anti-vaxxer?
That makes sense to you?
Based on your question, is it safe to assume you disagree?
There are other vaccines already required by some organ transplant centers like hep B and flu vaccine. Do you disagree with those requirements as well or only the covid vaccine?
If the flu vaccine is actually required to receive an organ donation, I guess I'm good with it to require a COVID-19 vaccine, is it true though? At face value it feels like it's in the same territory as people who think hospitals should not treat the unvaccinated... their choice, now let 'em die! Just seems like a weird thing to deny someone a life saving organ if they are not vaccinated for something that is generally not life threatening like the flu or Covid-19. There are so many people here who openly say they don't get the flu vaccine... guess no organs for you! Saying this as a person who got his first dose on the first day it was available, and get the flu vaccine every year, so definitely not an anti-vaxxer.
Not a doctor, but organs are rare relative to people who need them. So if I had 3 people who were all good candidates for a specific organ I would pick the person most likely to survive for a good chunk of time.
Too bad more people don't sign their organ donor cards.
I agree with this, and I know that the liver transplant list is absolutely sorted by an algorithm to determine who most deserves a transplant. What I am not sure I agree with is something like a covid-19 vaccine being a requirement unless there actually is a requirement for something similar like the flu vaccine... it seems a little silly. As I mentioned before, there are SO MANY people who don't get their flu vaccines and use similar reasoning to justify not getting it as those who are not interested in getting the Covid Vaccine. Really, they are going to be denied an organ because they performed an adult risk analysis regarding the danger of contracting the flu? There also is a difference, I feel, between not getting a donation because you are not vaccinated for XYZ at the time the organ is available and refusing to be vaccinated for XYZ before the procedure. From a quick Google search, it seems like the former, when I'd prefer it to be the latter. Yes, I am an organ donor.
The organ recipient list is not organized according to who is the most deserving, it's organized by who is the most urgent and most likely to survive.
Also, Abe already explained that a liver would not be withheld from a patient even if they were a raging alcoholic. If that liver isn't needed for someone else, the alcoholic will get it.
There's a HUGE difference between triaging a list for organ recipients according to need and projected outcome and denying people care because they've been irresponsible.
If that was the reality then no one who fails to floss would ever be entitled to a filling.
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I would have thought by now that it was fairly clear that covid-19 and flu are different diseases with different levels of risk, the risks of covid being considerably higher. And that the covid-19 vaccines are more effective than flu vaccines. With the result that trying to use flu vaccine as a proxy for covid vaccine is basically meaningless.
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If the flu vaccine is actually required to receive an organ donation, I guess I'm good with it to require a COVID-19 vaccine, is it true though? At face value it feels like it's in the same territory as people who think hospitals should not treat the unvaccinated... their choice, now let 'em die! Just seems like a weird thing to deny someone a life saving organ if they are not vaccinated for something that is generally not life threatening like the flu or Covid-19. There are so many people here who openly say they don't get the flu vaccine... guess no organs for you! Saying this as a person who got his first dose on the first day it was available, and get the flu vaccine every year, so definitely not an anti-vaxxer.
Ah, that makes sense. While I personally have some choice words for people who choose not to get vaccinated and then clog up the hospitals sick with COVID, I am definitely not in the 'let 'em die' camp.
To me, organ transplant is different because of the wait times for many transplant organs and all the medical preparation (pre and post) needed to make sure the transplant goes through. If someone refused point blank to do as their doctors recommended in preparation for a transplant (take the appropriate meds, get the recommended vaccines, stop drinking & taking drugs, go through appropriate testing procedures to make sure the organ was compatible) I would say 'No organ for you until you do those things!'
I acknowledge that I say this as someone with extremely limited medical knowledge, but I don't think it's an unreasonable stance. Especially if the end goal is to have successful organ transplants with relatively healthy patients who are able to live longer and happier lives as a result.
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I recognize that "deserving" was the wrong word, but "most urgent and likely to survive" is what I meant even though I chose the wrong word... I watched a Forensic Files episode and this list/algorithm was the subject of the episode so I consider myself to be an expert on the matter. (joke)
As I said earlier, if someone can show me that flu vaccine is a requirement for an organ transplant I'll say that so should a Covid Vaccine... they feel similar enough to me (even though Covid is more dangerous for most) that there was already a precedent set for something like that. If it's not true than it really just feels like people making up new rules to make people "pay" for not sharing their stance on the current hot button issue.
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I recognize that "deserving" was the wrong word, but "most urgent and likely to survive" is what I meant even though I chose the wrong word... I watched a Forensic Files episode and this list/algorithm was the subject of the episode so I consider myself to be an expert on the matter. (joke)
As I said earlier, if someone can show me that flu vaccine is a requirement for an organ transplant I'll say that so should a Covid Vaccine... they feel similar enough to me (even though Covid is more dangerous for most) that there was already a precedent set for something like that. If it's not true than it really just feels like people making up new rules to make people "pay" for not sharing their stance on the current hot button issue.
Covid and seasonal flu are wildly different. Just down to the blood clot risk alone with respect to transplanted organs. Then there's the added factor that some flu shots are made with live viruses, which are sometimes contraindicated for some transplant recipients.
Besides, there's what you are perceiving to be some lay people's sentiment towards people who refuse the covid vaccine, and then there's how medicine actually works, which Abe has done an excellent job of explaining to people, so I really don't need to go over it again.
So this weird false equivalence between whether or not the flu shot is actually required for transplant patients and whether or not a lay person thinks an organ should or shouldn't be given to people who refuse the covid vaccine, really have nothing to do with each other.
One is a question of actual medicine and the other is an issue you are taking with random people's opinions.
So far, I've only seen one actual doctor come into this debate and talk about boots on the ground reality of making decisions for actual patients, and he was actually against withholding treatment from patients who refuse the vaccine.
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I recognize that "deserving" was the wrong word, but "most urgent and likely to survive" is what I meant even though I chose the wrong word... I watched a Forensic Files episode and this list/algorithm was the subject of the episode so I consider myself to be an expert on the matter. (joke)
As I said earlier, if someone can show me that flu vaccine is a requirement for an organ transplant I'll say that so should a Covid Vaccine... they feel similar enough to me (even though Covid is more dangerous for most) that there was already a precedent set for something like that. If it's not true than it really just feels like people making up new rules to make people "pay" for not sharing their stance on the current hot button issue.
Requirements to get on the receiver list are done by the hospital. There are no universal rules to getting on the list. If a hospital feels that you are too risky based on whatever reasons, they can decline to put you on the transplant list. A person is free to go to another hospital, but these determinations are not nationally mandated or recommended. These are decisions that will be different from hospital to hospital.
What's happening is that some hospitals are out right refusing transplants for refusing the vaccine, others will bump you down the list, but most don't have any policy on it.
As of late April, fewer than 7% of transplant programs nationwide reported inactivating patients who were unvaccinated or partially vaccinated against covid, according to research by Dr. Krista Lentine, a nephrologist at the Saint Louis University School of Medicine.
UCHealth in Denver began requiring covid vaccinations for transplant patients in late August, citing the American Society of Transplantation's August recommendation that "all solid organ transplant recipients should be vaccinated against SARS-CoV-2."
Patients who undergo transplant surgery have their immune systems artificially suppressed during recovery, to keep their bodies from rejecting the new organ. That leaves unvaccinated transplant patients at "extreme risk" of severe illness if they are infected by covid, with mortality rates estimated at 20% to 30%, depending on the study, Dan Weaver, a spokesperson for UCHealth said. For the same reason, transplant patients who receive covid vaccines after surgery may fail to mount a strong immune response, research shows.
UW Medicine in Seattle began mandating covid vaccines this summer, said Dr. Ajit Limaye, director of the solid organ transplant infectious diseases program. Patients were already required to meet other stringent criteria to be considered for transplantation, including receiving inoculations against several illnesses, such as hepatitis B and influenza.
"We mandate hepatitis and influenza vaccines, and nobody has an issue with that," he said. "And now we have this one vaccination that can save lives and make an impact on the post-transplant recovery phase. And we have this huge uproar from the public."
Nearly 107,000 candidates are waiting for organs in the U.S.; dozens die each day still waiting. Transplant centers evaluate which patients are allowed to be placed on the national list, taking into account medical criteria and other factors like financial means and social support to ensure that donor organs won't fail.
Eventually, Patel said, he thinks nearly all transplant programs will mandate covid vaccination, largely because transplant centers are evaluated on the longer-term survival of their patients.
"I think it's going to spread like wildfire across the country," he said. "If you start losing patients in a year due to covid, it will be mandated sooner rather than later.
https://www.cnn.com/2021/10/08/health/organ-transplant-vaccine-khn-partner/index.html (https://www.cnn.com/2021/10/08/health/organ-transplant-vaccine-khn-partner/index.html)
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I would have thought by now that it was fairly clear that covid-19 and flu are different diseases with different levels of risk, the risks of covid being considerably higher. And that the covid-19 vaccines are more effective than flu vaccines. With the result that trying to use flu vaccine as a proxy for covid vaccine is basically meaningless.
I feel like this was a super popular thing to say about a year / year and a half ago, but the similarities to the flu are definitely there now... time to re-assess jumping into conversations to point this out.
Different diseases? Yes, everyone knows that. Enough similarities to use them when comparing / contrasting human behaviors, risks, etc.? I personally think so.
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I would have thought by now that it was fairly clear that covid-19 and flu are different diseases with different levels of risk, the risks of covid being considerably higher. And that the covid-19 vaccines are more effective than flu vaccines. With the result that trying to use flu vaccine as a proxy for covid vaccine is basically meaningless.
I feel like this was a super popular thing to say about a year / year and a half ago, but the similarities to the flu are definitely there now... time to re-assess jumping into conversations to point this out.
Different diseases? Yes, everyone knows that. Enough similarities to use them when comparing / contrasting human behaviors, risks, etc.? I personally think so.
You're entitled to think that. A lot of medical professionals don't.
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I would have thought by now that it was fairly clear that covid-19 and flu are different diseases with different levels of risk, the risks of covid being considerably higher. And that the covid-19 vaccines are more effective than flu vaccines. With the result that trying to use flu vaccine as a proxy for covid vaccine is basically meaningless.
I feel like this was a super popular thing to say about a year / year and a half ago, but the similarities to the flu are definitely there now... time to re-assess jumping into conversations to point this out.
Different diseases? Yes, everyone knows that. Enough similarities to use them when comparing / contrasting human behaviors, risks, etc.? I personally think so.
Well if we’re going to make comparisons between pathogens, one might as well say there are similarities between Covid and the tuberculosis or meningitis. They each share a few things but clearly not the same.
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Four times as many law enforcement officers died from C19 than died from gunshot wounds in 2020.
https://nleomf.org/memorial/facts-figures/officer-fatality-data/causes-of-law-enforcement-deaths/ (https://nleomf.org/memorial/facts-figures/officer-fatality-data/causes-of-law-enforcement-deaths/)
Yet their vaccination rate is very low in most places.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/12/us/police-covid-vaccines.html (https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/12/us/police-covid-vaccines.html)
If they could only wear one thing on their shift tonight, how many police officers would choose a mask over their bullet resistant vest? The numbers say the mask is more likely to save your life. And if these folks are "doing their own research" on social media, how can we trust them to discern the truth in criminal investigations?
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I would have thought by now that it was fairly clear that covid-19 and flu are different diseases with different levels of risk, the risks of covid being considerably higher. And that the covid-19 vaccines are more effective than flu vaccines. With the result that trying to use flu vaccine as a proxy for covid vaccine is basically meaningless.
I feel like this was a super popular thing to say about a year / year and a half ago, but the similarities to the flu are definitely there now... time to re-assess jumping into conversations to point this out.
Different diseases? Yes, everyone knows that. Enough similarities to use them when comparing / contrasting human behaviors, risks, etc.? I personally think so.
You're entitled to think that. A lot of medical professionals don't.
I'm not a medical professional, but I'm pretty sure that I remember medical professionals comparing COVID-19 to the 1918 influenza pandemic early in 2020. I think that it is pretty obvious that it was the best comparison anyone could come up with in history for a respiratory virus.
Also, thank the gods that it wasn't a very good comparison. The 1918 flu mostly killed people young children, people aged 25-34, (and the very old) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_flu). But how many very old people were there in the world in 1918? Anyway, my recollection of events in early 2020 was that it was the only comparison anyone could make, but as we learned more it quickly became obvious that although it might be the best analogy of a global viral pandemic that we had in the history books it wasn't a good analogy for SARS-CoV-2. But they absolutely both had surges (at least in the UK), see above article.
As a slight aside, some people now believe that the 1889-1890 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1889%E2%80%931890_pandemic) "flu" pandemic was actually a Coronavirus, but we have worse historical records for that time-period.
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I would have thought by now that it was fairly clear that covid-19 and flu are different diseases with different levels of risk, the risks of covid being considerably higher. And that the covid-19 vaccines are more effective than flu vaccines. With the result that trying to use flu vaccine as a proxy for covid vaccine is basically meaningless.
I feel like this was a super popular thing to say about a year / year and a half ago, but the similarities to the flu are definitely there now... time to re-assess jumping into conversations to point this out.
Different diseases? Yes, everyone knows that. Enough similarities to use them when comparing / contrasting human behaviors, risks, etc.? I personally think so.
You're entitled to think that. A lot of medical professionals don't.
I'm not a medical professional, but I'm pretty sure that I remember medical professionals comparing COVID-19 to the 1918 influenza pandemic early in 2020. I think that it is pretty obvious that it was the best comparison anyone could come up with in history for a respiratory virus.
Also, thank the gods that it wasn't a very good comparison. The 1918 flu mostly killed people young children, people aged 25-34, (and the very old) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_flu). But how many very old people were there in the world in 1918? Anyway, my recollection of events in early 2020 was that it was the only comparison anyone could make, but as we learned more it quickly became obvious that although it might be the best analogy of a global viral pandemic that we had in the history books it wasn't a good analogy for SARS-CoV-2. But they absolutely both had surges (at least in the UK), see above article.
As a slight aside, some people now believe that the 1889-1890 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1889%E2%80%931890_pandemic) "flu" pandemic was actually a Coronavirus, but we have worse historical records for that time-period.
I don't at all understand what your point is in response to my post.
Covid isn't very comparable to much that we have records for, that doesn't mean that it *is* comparable to seasonal flu.
I'm so confused.
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Covid isn't very comparable to much that we have records for, that doesn't mean that it *is* comparable to seasonal flu.
Indeed!
"Don't worry guys, COVID-19 is just the Spanish flu!"
Things are only as dangerous as the names we give them. See, I just called it the flu and now it's no biggie.
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Covid isn't very comparable to much that we have records for, that doesn't mean that it *is* comparable to seasonal flu.
Indeed!
"Don't worry guys, COVID-19 is just the Spanish flu!"
I never compared COVID to the seasonal flu nor did I say not to worry nor did I say that it was just the "Spanish flu." In fact I wrote "thank the gods that it wasn't a very good comparison." Don't put words in my mouth.
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What was the point of your post, though?
I was replying to a thread between former player, v8rx7guy, and Malcat about the relative similarities and difference between the COVID-19/SARS-CoV-2 pandemic and influenza. I thought that it was pretty clear reading the whole thread top to bottom, left to right, that I was simultaneously agree with some of the points that they had made while disagreeing with others. But perhaps I wasn't clear somehow.
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Covid isn't very comparable to much that we have records for, that doesn't mean that it *is* comparable to seasonal flu.
Indeed!
"Don't worry guys, COVID-19 is just the Spanish flu!"
I never compared COVID to the seasonal flu nor did I say not to worry nor did I say that it was just the "Spanish flu." In fact I wrote "thank the gods that it wasn't a very good comparison." Don't put words in my mouth.
That's not what I thought you said. I don't understand what you were trying to say.
It seemed like what you were trying to say was that because some medical professionals compared covid to the Spanish flu and that wasn't terribly accurate, that it's somehow less valid that they don't tend to equate it to the seasonal flu.
...or something like that, as I said, it was confusing.
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That's not what I thought you said. I don't understand what you were trying to say.
It seemed like what you were trying to say was that because some medical professionals compared covid to the Spanish flu and that wasn't terribly accurate, that it's somehow less valid that they don't tend to equate it to the seasonal flu.
...or something like that, as I said, it was confusing.
I would suggest that you simply read the words that I wrote in the order that I wrote them and take them for what they are, no more or less with no hidden meaning.
With that said, perhaps I will try to put it this way: comparing pandemic coronavirus to pandemic influenza is an imperfect analogy, but not without any merit, and medical professionals absolutely do it:
Medical historian compares the coronavirus to the 1918 flu pandemic: Both were highly political (https://www.cnbc.com/2020/09/28/comparing-1918-flu-vs-coronavirus.html)
COVID-19: a comparison to the 1918 influenza and how we can defeat it (https://pmj.bmj.com/content/97/1147/273)
Harvard expert compares 1918 flu, COVID-19 (https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2020/05/harvard-expert-compares-1918-flu-covid-19/)
Comparing COVID-19 and the 1918–19 influenza pandemics in the United Kingdom (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1201971220305117)
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That's not what I thought you said. I don't understand what you were trying to say.
It seemed like what you were trying to say was that because some medical professionals compared covid to the Spanish flu and that wasn't terribly accurate, that it's somehow less valid that they don't tend to equate it to the seasonal flu.
...or something like that, as I said, it was confusing.
I would suggest that you simply read the words that I wrote in the order that I wrote them and take them for what they are, no more or less with no hidden meaning.
With that said, perhaps I will try to put it this way: comparing pandemic coronavirus to pandemic influenza is an imperfect analogy, but not without any merit, and medical professionals absolutely do it:
Medical historian compares the coronavirus to the 1918 flu pandemic: Both were highly political (https://www.cnbc.com/2020/09/28/comparing-1918-flu-vs-coronavirus.html)
COVID-19: a comparison to the 1918 influenza and how we can defeat it (https://pmj.bmj.com/content/97/1147/273)
Harvard expert compares 1918 flu, COVID-19 (https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2020/05/harvard-expert-compares-1918-flu-covid-19/)
Comparing COVID-19 and the 1918–19 influenza pandemics in the United Kingdom (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1201971220305117)
I read it multiple times, I understand the content of your post, but for the life of me I can't make sense of it in response to what I wrote. All I wrote was that many medical professionals *don't* think that covid and seasonal flu are reasonably comparable when a pp said that they are.
But really, it's not that big a deal if I don't understand.
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That's not what I thought you said. I don't understand what you were trying to say.
It seemed like what you were trying to say was that because some medical professionals compared covid to the Spanish flu and that wasn't terribly accurate, that it's somehow less valid that they don't tend to equate it to the seasonal flu.
...or something like that, as I said, it was confusing.
I would suggest that you simply read the words that I wrote in the order that I wrote them and take them for what they are, no more or less with no hidden meaning.
With that said, perhaps I will try to put it this way: comparing pandemic coronavirus to pandemic influenza is an imperfect analogy, but not without any merit, and medical professionals absolutely do it:
Medical historian compares the coronavirus to the 1918 flu pandemic: Both were highly political (https://www.cnbc.com/2020/09/28/comparing-1918-flu-vs-coronavirus.html)
COVID-19: a comparison to the 1918 influenza and how we can defeat it (https://pmj.bmj.com/content/97/1147/273)
Harvard expert compares 1918 flu, COVID-19 (https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2020/05/harvard-expert-compares-1918-flu-covid-19/)
Comparing COVID-19 and the 1918–19 influenza pandemics in the United Kingdom (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1201971220305117)
I read it multiple times, I understand the content of your post, but for the life of me I can't make sense of it in response to what I wrote. All I wrote was that many medical professionals *don't* think that covid and seasonal flu are reasonably comparable when a pp said that they are.
But really, it's not that big a deal if I don't understand.
No one in the thread that I responded to wrote "seasonal." I thought that the obvious implication was that we were comparing pandemic flu to pandemic coronavirus. Perhaps that is some of the confusion. Obviously, in my mind, you shouldn't compare the seasonal flu to SARS-CoV-2, except perhaps to say "hey guys this is so much worse!!!" You should compare seasonal flu to non-novel coronaviruses like the common cold.
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That's not what I thought you said. I don't understand what you were trying to say.
It seemed like what you were trying to say was that because some medical professionals compared covid to the Spanish flu and that wasn't terribly accurate, that it's somehow less valid that they don't tend to equate it to the seasonal flu.
...or something like that, as I said, it was confusing.
I would suggest that you simply read the words that I wrote in the order that I wrote them and take them for what they are, no more or less with no hidden meaning.
With that said, perhaps I will try to put it this way: comparing pandemic coronavirus to pandemic influenza is an imperfect analogy, but not without any merit, and medical professionals absolutely do it:
Medical historian compares the coronavirus to the 1918 flu pandemic: Both were highly political (https://www.cnbc.com/2020/09/28/comparing-1918-flu-vs-coronavirus.html)
COVID-19: a comparison to the 1918 influenza and how we can defeat it (https://pmj.bmj.com/content/97/1147/273)
Harvard expert compares 1918 flu, COVID-19 (https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2020/05/harvard-expert-compares-1918-flu-covid-19/)
Comparing COVID-19 and the 1918–19 influenza pandemics in the United Kingdom (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1201971220305117)
I read it multiple times, I understand the content of your post, but for the life of me I can't make sense of it in response to what I wrote. All I wrote was that many medical professionals *don't* think that covid and seasonal flu are reasonably comparable when a pp said that they are.
But really, it's not that big a deal if I don't understand.
No one in the thread that I responded to wrote "seasonal." I thought that the obvious implication was that we were comparing pandemic flu to pandemic coronavirus. Perhaps that is some of the confusion. Obviously, in my mind, you shouldn't compare the seasonal flu to SARS-CoV-2, except perhaps to say "hey guys this is so much worse!!!" You should compare seasonal flu to non-novel coronaviruses like the common cold.
I was responding to someone who had been specifically talking about annual flu shots. They were saying that covid now is basically the same as the seasonal flu.
If that wasn't clear to you, then it makes sense that your response made no sense to me, because that was the context I was responding to.
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This is in some ways comparable to the Spanish Flu pandemic. I found this about Canadian deaths
Out of Canada’s population of eight million, fifty thousand died from the flu, an enormous death toll in just a few months. In contrast, sixty-thousand Canadians died in the four years of World War I.
https://www.canadashistory.ca/explore/arts-culture-society/killer-flu (https://www.canadashistory.ca/explore/arts-culture-society/killer-flu)
It's personal for my family, my Dad and his brother were orphaned at a young age, both parents died in that pandemic.
Sadly the western provinces seem to have reacted better then than they are now.
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I was responding to someone who had been specifically talking about annual flu shots. They were saying that covid now is basically the same as the seasonal flu.
If that wasn't clear to you, then it makes sense that your response made no sense to me, because that was the context I was responding to.
Well, it was clear to me that we were talking about annual flu vaccines, since we didn't have them in 1918. But it isn't clear to me that v8rx7guy was wildly off when he wrote "time to re-assess jumping into conversations to point this out." To be clear I do not yet agree with him, but the 1918 flu went from being pandemic in 1918 to being endemic by 1921. So pretty soon we could be to that point with this pandemic too.
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Yeah...I'm still not really following the logic of the response, but as I said before. I don't need any of this to make sense.
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It's personal for my family, my Dad and his brother were orphaned at a young age, both parents died in that pandemic.
Mine too. So far we've lost more to the 1918 pandemic than this one. Of course we didn't have any vaccines back then.
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It's personal for my family, my Dad and his brother were orphaned at a young age, both parents died in that pandemic.
Mine too. So far we've lost more to the 1918 pandemic than this one. Of course we didn't have any vaccines back then.
Apparently not.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/the-covid-19-pandemic-is-considered-the-deadliest-in-american-history-as-death-toll-surpasses-1918-estimates-180978748/
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I can't speak to the flu vaccine requirement, but the person who got my BFF's husband's kidney had both shots plus the booster and still almost died from Covid. I can't imagine how bad it would have been if he hadn't been vaccinated.
Given the waitlist for organs, I've got no problem prioritizing someone who is likely to get the most use out of one.
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It's personal for my family, my Dad and his brother were orphaned at a young age, both parents died in that pandemic.
Mine too. So far we've lost more to the 1918 pandemic than this one. Of course we didn't have any vaccines back then.
Apparently not.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/the-covid-19-pandemic-is-considered-the-deadliest-in-american-history-as-death-toll-surpasses-1918-estimates-180978748/
I was only in reference to my family. I have lost more blood relatives to the 1918 pandemic than COVID-19. But since you posted the article it seems only obvious to point out the very first line: But national population numbers have tripled since then. Influenza killed one in 150 Americans, while one in 500 people have died from the coronavirus.
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...so far.
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It's personal for my family, my Dad and his brother were orphaned at a young age, both parents died in that pandemic.
Mine too. So far we've lost more to the 1918 pandemic than this one. Of course we didn't have any vaccines back then.
Apparently not.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/the-covid-19-pandemic-is-considered-the-deadliest-in-american-history-as-death-toll-surpasses-1918-estimates-180978748/
I was only in reference to my family. I have lost more blood relatives to the 1918 pandemic than COVID-19. But since you posted the article it seems only obvious to point out the very first line: But national population numbers have tripled since then. Influenza killed one in 150 Americans, while one in 500 people have died from the coronavirus.
Ah, got it. I didn't catch that you were saying only in reference to your family.
And yes, fair point about the population numbers then vs. now.
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Allen West--who is running for governor in Texas--appears to have missed the memo that leaders are supposed to quietly receive the vaccine even while they discourage their supporters from receiving it.
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwiSyan5zsrzAhWtpnIEHaquCSoQFnoECAUQAQ&url=https%3A%2F%2Fslate.com%2Fnews-and-politics%2F2021%2F10%2Fallen-west-unvaccinated-hospitalized-covid-coronavirus.html&usg=AOvVaw23kDip_cbft1mdOXPLxJQu (https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwiSyan5zsrzAhWtpnIEHaquCSoQFnoECAUQAQ&url=https%3A%2F%2Fslate.com%2Fnews-and-politics%2F2021%2F10%2Fallen-west-unvaccinated-hospitalized-covid-coronavirus.html&usg=AOvVaw23kDip_cbft1mdOXPLxJQu)
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It's personal for my family, my Dad and his brother were orphaned at a young age, both parents died in that pandemic.
Mine too. So far we've lost more to the 1918 pandemic than this one. Of course we didn't have any vaccines back then.
Apparently not.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/the-covid-19-pandemic-is-considered-the-deadliest-in-american-history-as-death-toll-surpasses-1918-estimates-180978748/
I was only in reference to my family. I have lost more blood relatives to the 1918 pandemic than COVID-19. But since you posted the article it seems only obvious to point out the very first line: But national population numbers have tripled since then. Influenza killed one in 150 Americans, while one in 500 people have died from the coronavirus.
Ah, got it. I didn't catch that you were saying only in reference to your family.
And yes, fair point about the population numbers then vs. now.
Not only has the population tripled since then but life expectancy has greatly increased in the last century as well. It was what, 54 in 1914 and 78 in 2019? Modern medicine successfully extended the lives of a whole lot of people much deeper into old age where, unfortunately, a novel virus could really wreak havoc (75% of US Covid deaths are in the 65+ bracket, 94% in the 50+). Had they lived back then many of the people that Covid has taken would have been dead of something else by the time the 1918 flu came to town.
Whatever the top line Covid numbers end up being the 1918 flu was much, much worse (*barring the emergence of some super virulent Covid variant that can kill a healthy 28 year in 36 hours, the way the 2nd wave of 1918 flu could).
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Whatever the top line Covid numbers end up being the 1918 flu was much, much worse (*barring the emergence of some super virulent Covid variant that can kill a healthy 28 year in 36 hours, the way the 2nd wave of 1918 flu could).
It was certainly worse for the healthy 28 year old crowd. But in my family they were on a farm with no electricity or running water when they got it. They did not have access to anything we would call medical care. This meant no oxygen, ventilators, monoclonal antibodies, steroids, antibiotics*, etc. I think that you need to take that into account when thinking about the differing death tolls. But I'm not a doctor or an epidemiologist so I don't know exactly how much that changed the outcome.
* - EDITed to add that "the majority of deaths were from bacterial pneumonia, a common secondary infection associated with influenza" according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_flu
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Whatever the top line Covid numbers end up being the 1918 flu was much, much worse (*barring the emergence of some super virulent Covid variant that can kill a healthy 28 year in 36 hours, the way the 2nd wave of 1918 flu could).
It was certainly worse for the healthy 28 year old crowd. But in my family they were on a farm with no electricity or running water when they got it. They did not have access to anything we would call medical care. This meant no oxygen, ventilators, monoclonal antibodies, steroids, etc. I think that you need to take that into account when thinking about the differing death tolls. But I'm not a doctor or an epidemiologist so I don't know exactly how much that changed the outcome.
Not just less health care for the Spanish flu, but less health care for everything plus poorer and more limited food, poor housing conditions and hard physical labour - the reports on the physical condition of men conscripted into WW1 make it clear just how much healthier young adults are today than 100 years ago.
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Of course, there are quite a few excess deaths in the USA, and according to the Economist
https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/coronavirus-excess-deaths-estimates
the actual death toll is
United States
Official covid-19 deaths: 719,525
Per 100,000: 216.1
Estimated excess deaths: 840k to 970k
Estimated excess deaths per 100,000: 250 to 290
Estimate v official: +30%
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Virtually no one who died from the 1918 flu pandemic would be alive today, whereas almost everyone who died from Covid 19 would otherwise still be with us.
Ergo, Covid-19 has been far worse
:-P
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@neo von retorch , thanks for helping me out, I will take more care with my links to future outrages.
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In response to the thread topic, while my parents aren't dead (yet), their minds are gone - to the point where I doubt they could figure out how to vote even if they were able to get to a voting location this year. They got the virus around September 1st. They are in their 60s, and the neurological effects are amazing. In a very bad way. The neurological effects combined with a steady diet of conspiracy theories and misinformation prior to their diagnoses have made it very difficult to get them help for their physical bodies, too.
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In response to the thread topic, while my parents aren't dead (yet), their minds are gone - to the point where I doubt they could figure out how to vote even if they were able to get to a voting location this year. They got the virus around September 1st. They are in their 60s, and the neurological effects are amazing. In a very bad way. The neurological effects combined with a steady diet of conspiracy theories and misinformation prior to their diagnoses have made it very difficult to get them help for their physical bodies, too.
This must be exceptionally difficult for you. I hope things get better for you soon.
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In response to the thread topic, while my parents aren't dead (yet), their minds are gone - to the point where I doubt they could figure out how to vote even if they were able to get to a voting location this year. They got the virus around September 1st. They are in their 60s, and the neurological effects are amazing. In a very bad way. The neurological effects combined with a steady diet of conspiracy theories and misinformation prior to their diagnoses have made it very difficult to get them help for their physical bodies, too.
I think there are a lot of Gen-X / millennial going through some flavor of this right now. My in-laws got heart disease after C19.
Remember now naive we were back when we thought it was harmless to believe misinformation?
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Remember now naive we were back when we thought it was harmless to believe misinformation?
It is also scary how easy it became to kill Americans, completely consequence-free. Generate anti-vaxx content (or promote it) -> people die who would otherwise live. One could even work out a ratio of $ spent to lives lost.
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Back then(in my "then") it seemed to to revolve around stories I heard about cars that ran on water or something that could be mixed with gasoline to make a pickup truck get 50 MPG. UPOs and aliens. Sure, some people died when they were wrongfully accused of crimes they did not commit. See the Black History memorials for examples.
School yard fights in the 70s and 80s - around here - the goal was to give the other guy some bruises. Now things have become much darker and evil in these school yard conflicts.
Now we have conservatives who actively share info they know will kill a portion of their followers. All because they want to continue the belief in the conservative virus survivors that the liberals are wrecking the country...
If anything the liberals might wreck certain income streams that rely on pollution and consequences that never get charged back to the originating companies.
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Remember now naive we were back when we thought it was harmless to believe misinformation?
It is also scary how easy it became to kill Americans, completely consequence-free. Generate anti-vaxx content (or promote it) -> people die who would otherwise live. One could even work out a ratio of $ spent to lives lost.
It works for car culture and global warming too. Also probably handing out assault rifles by the truckload on credit to 18 year olds.
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Another friend's unvaccinated parent died yesterday. Late 50s or early 60s. Young. Parents, don't do this to your kids, please. Get vaccinated.
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Coworker's has relative that is tettering on the edge due to COVID. No vaccine of course. Coworker and family still won't get the vaccine. ???
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Meanwhile, I know I'm not alone in contemplating the extent I'm willing to lie to get a booster. Moderna 2nd does in April, and no comorbidities, so by all accounts should still be fine. But about a month out from visiting family, I kinda want to get a booster anyway.
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Just to add some global perspective, the vaccination rate in my ancestral homeland is below 25%, despite shots being free and widely available for a long time. Other mitigation measures are similarly popular.
But crowdsourcing oxygen is very much a thing.
So every time I despair about American covidiots, I remind myself that I could be where their share is ~75%.
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Meanwhile, I know I'm not alone in contemplating the extent I'm willing to lie to get a booster. Moderna 2nd does in April, and no comorbidities, so by all accounts should still be fine. But about a month out from visiting family, I kinda want to get a booster anyway.
I'm planning to get the booster next month since I will be traveling to covid hotspots to visit family for the holidays. My understanding is that you don't have to prove that you "qualify" for the shot.
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Meanwhile, I know I'm not alone in contemplating the extent I'm willing to lie to get a booster. Moderna 2nd does in April, and no comorbidities, so by all accounts should still be fine. But about a month out from visiting family, I kinda want to get a booster anyway.
A booster will be more useful to you in a few months. You are right that by all accounts you are very low risk - getting a booster now likely wouldn’t do much.
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Meanwhile, I know I'm not alone in contemplating the extent I'm willing to lie to get a booster. Moderna 2nd does in April, and no comorbidities, so by all accounts should still be fine. But about a month out from visiting family, I kinda want to get a booster anyway.
I just went through and registered for the booster today. In CA, it's all done by "have you read the criteria, and you swear you meet at least one of them" attestations. I meet two of them.
They *do* ask for the name of your primary physician - maybe they let them know?
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The Herman Cain Award subreddit is just overflowing with publicly declared anti-vaxxers dying, like by the hour it seems. It's just shocking how many people are kicking the bucket right now.
On my way home from a family gettogether where I heard of deaths and severe illness in distant relatives, I started thinking about what form the transition to endemicity of the virus could take. I live in Jacksonville and things are really bad here in the unvaccinated population. That probably colors my thoughts more negative than the issue deserves. In any case, here is what I wrote down when I got home. I think there is a possibility that the unvaccinated are going to be absolutely screwed as vaccination rates are going up:
I am slowly becoming more and more supicious that Delta is more virulent than previous variants.
Generally, transmissible pathogens do not do well in terms of becoming endemic if their virulence is excessive, but this is not always true, particularly with zoonotic diseases. But now we have a large population of vaccinated people in whom the virus can circulate with minimal mortality.
Maybe this has removed the brake on virulence similar to what is seen in zoonotic diseases like Ebola. In other words, the vaccinated are to the unvaccinated what bats are to humans in areas where Ebola is endemic.
Combine this with the close contact of this population with the susceptible, unvaccinated population and one comes up with the, not at all desirable, situation that ever more lethal variants could freely circulate exterminating over time the unvaccinated adult population. (immunity conveyed via infection in adults doe not appear to be protective in the long run, whereas children are probably more likely to develop robust immunity from infection)
I now can imagine the entering of the endemic stage to be accompanied by a massive die-off of the unlucky unvaccinated population.
What I am saying here is not more than basic evolutionary biology: The apparent decrease over time in virulence of a successful endemic pathogen is not necessarily mediated by a change of the pathogen but also by a major mortality event in the host population selecting for resistant varieties and resulting in an apparent decrease in virulence.
The depopulation of the Americas by infectious diseases after contact with Europeans comes to mind, but there are many other examples, particularly in plant diseases (Dutch elm disease and others).
Well, food for thought, nothing more.
I read an interesting article just a couple days ago that a new variant has been uncovered, one labelled C.1.2 (that would mean something to a virologist). It is the most highly mutated variant yet, and shares many of the same mutations that the Delta variant does. We'll have to see whether it's as transmissible or deadly, etc. with time. Interestingly, this latest variant has evolved to needing only half as many iterations as the original strain to mutate again. So the speed of mutation from that variant forward is doublly fast. How many attempts at mutation does it need to find one that hurts us more? that evades vaccines? We're leaving the door open for a very bad outcome.
The good news is that natural immunity from infection has now rather convincingly been shown to be at least as good as immunity from vaccination with the Pfizer/Biontech vaccine.
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.08.24.21262415v1
First, that article is a preprint that has not yet been peer reviewed. Second, there are a lot of flaws in their methodology from what I can gather. (Read the comments.)
Releasing preprints has been a particularly problematic aspect of this pandemic. Especially as they are so open to misunderstanding, misinterpretation, and even willful misrepresentation by the science illiterate and would-be profiteers.
I hear you but I can´t help the illiterate and they cannot be protected from this in any reasonable way.
I have reviewed quite a number of papers and I can report, unless outright fabrication is discovered, that this study moves my needle from possible equivalence of prior infection with vaccination from possibly (as there is mechanistic biological plausibility) to most likely equivalence and possibly superiority of prior infection in conveying immunity to symptomatic reinfection (I emphasize symptomatic) when compared to the effects of the Pfizer/Biontech vaccine.
The real meat of the study is found in the very low rates of symptomatic reinfection in all groups (hence the wide CI´s of the OR´s despite the large number of subjects). The finding that the the odds of symptomatic reinfection are in favor of natural immunity is only the icing on the cake as the risk of symptomatic reinfection was less than 0.1% 1%. That translates into less than 10 per 1000 in both groups, making the difference between the groups for all practical purposes irrelevant.
The difference between the groups is what the comments are going on about, but this is at this point an interesting but academic discussion.
Of course, observational studies have serious limitations but we will never see RCT´s investigating this issue.
Another observational study from the UK of vaccine and natural infection induced immunity.
Quote:
"...the protection afforded by two doses (14 days or more previously) of either vaccine against symptomatic infection did not differ from the protection afforded by previous natural infection"
In this study, natural immunity is equivalent to full vaccination in preventing symptomatic infections with the Delta variant. How long that protection lasts is still not clear.
Coronavirus (COVID-19) Infection Survey Technical Article: Impact of vaccination on testing positive in the UK: October 2021
https://tinyurl.com/dj26cxkc
Which protects you more against Covid – vaccination or prior infection?
https://tinyurl.com/3jnafejm
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Meanwhile, I know I'm not alone in contemplating the extent I'm willing to lie to get a booster. Moderna 2nd does in April, and no comorbidities, so by all accounts should still be fine. But about a month out from visiting family, I kinda want to get a booster anyway.
I had an annual appointment with a (new-to-me, due to a move) primary care doctor last Thursday. She encouraged me to get a booster. I have no underlying health conditions. She said anyone can get it as long as it has been 6 months since your last dose of the the vaccine (Moderna in my case). I suppose this could depend on what state one is in, but in my state it sounds like "6 months" is the only qualification required, unless my doctor is mistaken. I believe she said it will be a half-dose (which I'm hoping means fewer/less side effects.)
My 6 months is today. I plan on looking in to it soon but I'm waiting for a whole in my schedule so that if I have side-effects it isn't inconvenient.
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Meanwhile, I know I'm not alone in contemplating the extent I'm willing to lie to get a booster. Moderna 2nd does in April, and no comorbidities, so by all accounts should still be fine. But about a month out from visiting family, I kinda want to get a booster anyway.
I had an annual appointment with a (new-to-me, due to a move) primary care doctor last Thursday. She encouraged me to get a booster. I have no underlying health conditions. She said anyone can get it as long as it has been 6 months since your last dose of the the vaccine (Moderna in my case). I suppose this could depend on what state one is in, but in my state it sounds like "6 months" is the only qualification required, unless my doctor is mistaken. I believe she said it will be a half-dose (which I'm hoping means fewer/less side effects.)
My 6 months is today. I plan on looking in to it soon but I'm waiting for a whole in my schedule so that if I have side-effects it isn't inconvenient.
Same. I don't really have any underlying conditions (heart, I suppose, but it's a bit of a stretch) but I have an appointment for 11/1 prior to my visit to out of state family (not all are old enough to be vaccinated). Anyone who wants one can get one as long as it's been 6 months; I just signed up on CVS's website. Made an appointment for my spouse earlier this month on Walgreens's website after my doctor mentioned she'd sent her spouse for a booster. He does have an underlying condition (BMI>25, so that really qualifies a good chunk of the population). But there's no verification required of anything other than the timeframe.
edited to add they seem to have plenty of supply right now and no shortage of appointments available, unlike earlier this spring.
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BMI over 25 - guess I don't need to lie. Was under that when first vaccines came out, but trending the wrong way. Now I'm over and trending the right way.
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BMI over 25 - guess I don't need to lie. Was under that when first vaccines came out, but trending the wrong way. Now I'm over and trending the right way.
Well, hurry up and get one before you lose more weight ;-) I was just over 25 a couple months ago due to pandemic weight gain but then I got skinny again.
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No one's put out any guidance or even hints yet as to when boosters would/should be made available for non-at-risk populations have they?
My DH is a super strict rule follower and I expect will not get one until he officially qualifies. Like he qualified quite early originally because he's a professor but since he wasn't teaching any classes in spring semester, he felt it was a "loophole" and he almost didn't get vaxxed until genpop was eligible. We're traveling a lot for the holidays, so hoping in the next month or so they announce booster recs/availability for everyone 6 months +.
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No one's put out any guidance or even hints yet as to when boosters would/should be made available for non-at-risk populations have they?
My DH is a super strict rule follower and I expect will not get one until he officially qualifies. Like he qualified quite early originally because he's a professor but since he wasn't teaching any classes in spring semester, he felt it was a "loophole" and he almost didn't get vaxxed until genpop was eligible. We're traveling a lot for the holidays, so hoping in the next month or so they announce booster recs/availability for everyone 6 months +.
https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2021/p1021-covid-booster.html
I clicked on "over 18 who have underlying medical conditions" to verify the recommendation indeed does go down to BMI >= 25 (Overweight). BMI may be a stupid metric for a lot of things, but in this case I'll take it as a fellow rule-follower.
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No one's put out any guidance or even hints yet as to when boosters would/should be made available for non-at-risk populations have they?
My DH is a super strict rule follower and I expect will not get one until he officially qualifies. Like he qualified quite early originally because he's a professor but since he wasn't teaching any classes in spring semester, he felt it was a "loophole" and he almost didn't get vaxxed until genpop was eligible. We're traveling a lot for the holidays, so hoping in the next month or so they announce booster recs/availability for everyone 6 months +.
I did see a report on CNN last week that they're considering opening up to all 40+ next month. But under the current guidelines I think he would qualify as a teacher due to occupational risk. Really, there is a lot of supply available so I don't think he should feel bad about it. Edited to add: or you could try fattening him up a bit.
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No one's put out any guidance or even hints yet as to when boosters would/should be made available for non-at-risk populations have they?
My DH is a super strict rule follower and I expect will not get one until he officially qualifies. Like he qualified quite early originally because he's a professor but since he wasn't teaching any classes in spring semester, he felt it was a "loophole" and he almost didn't get vaxxed until genpop was eligible. We're traveling a lot for the holidays, so hoping in the next month or so they announce booster recs/availability for everyone 6 months +.
https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2021/p1021-covid-booster.html
I clicked on "over 18 who have underlying medical conditions" to verify the recommendation indeed does go down to BMI >= 25 (Overweight). BMI may be a stupid metric for a lot of things, but in this case I'll take it as a fellow rule-follower.
Amazing, isn't it? I believe that qualifies almost 75% of the adult population. I have told all my friends about it :-)
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No one's put out any guidance or even hints yet as to when boosters would/should be made available for non-at-risk populations have they?
My DH is a super strict rule follower and I expect will not get one until he officially qualifies. Like he qualified quite early originally because he's a professor but since he wasn't teaching any classes in spring semester, he felt it was a "loophole" and he almost didn't get vaxxed until genpop was eligible. We're traveling a lot for the holidays, so hoping in the next month or so they announce booster recs/availability for everyone 6 months +.
I did see a report on CNN last week that they're considering opening up to all 40+ next month. But under the current guidelines I think he would qualify as a teacher due to occupational risk. Really, there is a lot of supply available so I don't think he should feel bad about it. Edited to add: or you could try fattening him up a bit.
I would love to fatten him up because you can barely see him when he turns sideways! It will open up to everyone long before any fattening happens. But yes, hopefully the lack of supply constraint (at least for us here in rich countries like the US) would make him more willing. And he is actually teaching a class this semester. And we'll be visiting lots of older people, so it just seems like a good time to try to take extra precautions.
I'm sure we have LOTS of company in the "traveling a lot and visiting many elderly people over the holidays" category, so I hope regulators/decision makers take that into account when deciding about updating recommendations.
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No one's put out any guidance or even hints yet as to when boosters would/should be made available for non-at-risk populations have they?
My DH is a super strict rule follower and I expect will not get one until he officially qualifies. Like he qualified quite early originally because he's a professor but since he wasn't teaching any classes in spring semester, he felt it was a "loophole" and he almost didn't get vaxxed until genpop was eligible. We're traveling a lot for the holidays, so hoping in the next month or so they announce booster recs/availability for everyone 6 months +.
https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2021/p1021-covid-booster.html
I clicked on "over 18 who have underlying medical conditions" to verify the recommendation indeed does go down to BMI >= 25 (Overweight). BMI may be a stupid metric for a lot of things, but in this case I'll take it as a fellow rule-follower.
I don't think I've been below a BMI of 25 since I was in college, and I don't think anyone would classify me as overweight (6' 200 lbs.) based on appearance.
It feels a bit like jumping the queue, but I guess I'll see if I can get the booster.
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No one's put out any guidance or even hints yet as to when boosters would/should be made available for non-at-risk populations have they?
My DH is a super strict rule follower and I expect will not get one until he officially qualifies. Like he qualified quite early originally because he's a professor but since he wasn't teaching any classes in spring semester, he felt it was a "loophole" and he almost didn't get vaxxed until genpop was eligible. We're traveling a lot for the holidays, so hoping in the next month or so they announce booster recs/availability for everyone 6 months +.
https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2021/p1021-covid-booster.html
I clicked on "over 18 who have underlying medical conditions" to verify the recommendation indeed does go down to BMI >= 25 (Overweight). BMI may be a stupid metric for a lot of things, but in this case I'll take it as a fellow rule-follower.
I don't think I've been below a BMI of 25 since I was in college, and I don't think anyone would classify me as overweight (6' 200 lbs.) based on appearance.
It feels a bit like jumping the queue, but I guess I'll see if I can get the booster.
since the avg american over 30 is obese using both BMI and BF% its quite easy to be overweight and people classify you as not overweight by appearance b/c based on the avg person you look great. I fit this similar category at overweight by both metrics at 6'4 and 220lbs. When people get down to what science considers to be healthier weights we start to think they may have something wrong b/c they are "too" thin. goal for me is to get to 190-200 and stay there for once while trimming BF down to 16% or so.
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No one's put out any guidance or even hints yet as to when boosters would/should be made available for non-at-risk populations have they?
My DH is a super strict rule follower and I expect will not get one until he officially qualifies. Like he qualified quite early originally because he's a professor but since he wasn't teaching any classes in spring semester, he felt it was a "loophole" and he almost didn't get vaxxed until genpop was eligible. We're traveling a lot for the holidays, so hoping in the next month or so they announce booster recs/availability for everyone 6 months +.
https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2021/p1021-covid-booster.html
I clicked on "over 18 who have underlying medical conditions" to verify the recommendation indeed does go down to BMI >= 25 (Overweight). BMI may be a stupid metric for a lot of things, but in this case I'll take it as a fellow rule-follower.
I don't think I've been below a BMI of 25 since I was in college, and I don't think anyone would classify me as overweight (6' 200 lbs.) based on appearance.
It feels a bit like jumping the queue, but I guess I'll see if I can get the booster.
since the avg american over 30 is obese using both BMI and BF% its quite easy to be overweight and people classify you as not overweight by appearance b/c based on the avg person you look great. I fit this similar category at overweight by both metrics at 6'4 and 220lbs. When people get down to what science considers to be healthier weights we start to think they may have something wrong b/c they are "too" thin. goal for me is to get to 190-200 and stay there for once while trimming BF down to 16% or so.
In the military, if you register above a BMI of 25, you have to get your waist and neck measured as well. It's a quick and easy test to determine if you're fat or muscular. I always had to get taped, and I was never classified as fat.
BMI may be easy to measure, but it's a garbage way to determine whether or not someone is overweight.
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No one's put out any guidance or even hints yet as to when boosters would/should be made available for non-at-risk populations have they?
My DH is a super strict rule follower and I expect will not get one until he officially qualifies. Like he qualified quite early originally because he's a professor but since he wasn't teaching any classes in spring semester, he felt it was a "loophole" and he almost didn't get vaxxed until genpop was eligible. We're traveling a lot for the holidays, so hoping in the next month or so they announce booster recs/availability for everyone 6 months +.
https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2021/p1021-covid-booster.html
I clicked on "over 18 who have underlying medical conditions" to verify the recommendation indeed does go down to BMI >= 25 (Overweight). BMI may be a stupid metric for a lot of things, but in this case I'll take it as a fellow rule-follower.
I don't think I've been below a BMI of 25 since I was in college, and I don't think anyone would classify me as overweight (6' 200 lbs.) based on appearance.
It feels a bit like jumping the queue, but I guess I'll see if I can get the booster.
since the avg american over 30 is obese using both BMI and BF% its quite easy to be overweight and people classify you as not overweight by appearance b/c based on the avg person you look great. I fit this similar category at overweight by both metrics at 6'4 and 220lbs. When people get down to what science considers to be healthier weights we start to think they may have something wrong b/c they are "too" thin. goal for me is to get to 190-200 and stay there for once while trimming BF down to 16% or so.
In the military, if you register above a BMI of 25, you have to get your waist and neck measured as well. It's a quick and easy test to determine if you're fat or muscular. I always had to get taped, and I was never classified as fat.
BMI may be easy to measure, but it's a garbage way to determine whether or not someone is overweight.
are there outliers yes but its far from garbage when approximately the same number of people are overweight and obese by BF% standards as well as BMI. very few Americans fall into the I have too many muscles for BMI to properly gauge my health as it relates to fat composition.
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That may be true, but DadJokes is still right.
https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=106268439
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No one's put out any guidance or even hints yet as to when boosters would/should be made available for non-at-risk populations have they?
My DH is a super strict rule follower and I expect will not get one until he officially qualifies. Like he qualified quite early originally because he's a professor but since he wasn't teaching any classes in spring semester, he felt it was a "loophole" and he almost didn't get vaxxed until genpop was eligible. We're traveling a lot for the holidays, so hoping in the next month or so they announce booster recs/availability for everyone 6 months +.
https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2021/p1021-covid-booster.html
I clicked on "over 18 who have underlying medical conditions" to verify the recommendation indeed does go down to BMI >= 25 (Overweight). BMI may be a stupid metric for a lot of things, but in this case I'll take it as a fellow rule-follower.
I don't think I've been below a BMI of 25 since I was in college, and I don't think anyone would classify me as overweight (6' 200 lbs.) based on appearance.
It feels a bit like jumping the queue, but I guess I'll see if I can get the booster.
since the avg american over 30 is obese using both BMI and BF% its quite easy to be overweight and people classify you as not overweight by appearance b/c based on the avg person you look great. I fit this similar category at overweight by both metrics at 6'4 and 220lbs. When people get down to what science considers to be healthier weights we start to think they may have something wrong b/c they are "too" thin. goal for me is to get to 190-200 and stay there for once while trimming BF down to 16% or so.
In the military, if you register above a BMI of 25, you have to get your waist and neck measured as well. It's a quick and easy test to determine if you're fat or muscular. I always had to get taped, and I was never classified as fat.
BMI may be easy to measure, but it's a garbage way to determine whether or not someone is overweight.
are there outliers yes but its far from garbage when approximately the same number of people are overweight and obese by BF% standards as well as BMI. very few Americans fall into the I have too many muscles for BMI to properly gauge my health as it relates to fat composition.
I've been the same height (6') and waist size (32.5") since highschool. Over that period my body weight has ranged from 170 lbs to 225lbs. At my lightest I was boxing and running a lot - looked anorexic but was 'normal' BMI. At my heaviest I was wrestling and lifting weights and looked like a Greek god but was obese according to BMI.
BMI is definitely garbage if you're active. I think that hip to waist ratios are a far more effective method of determining general health.
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I don't think there is much of a queue to cut in the US - maybe a few areas where demand is way above average, but overall there is ample vaccine supply here. At least based on "ease of finding an appointment".
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I don't think there is much of a queue to cut in the US - maybe a few areas where demand is way above average, but overall there is ample vaccine supply here. At least based on "ease of finding an appointment".
Yes, exactly, which is why I’m not concerned about “following the rules” on this one. As soon as my six months are up, I’m getting my third shot. Appointments are wide open in my area.
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No one's put out any guidance or even hints yet as to when boosters would/should be made available for non-at-risk populations have they?
My DH is a super strict rule follower and I expect will not get one until he officially qualifies. Like he qualified quite early originally because he's a professor but since he wasn't teaching any classes in spring semester, he felt it was a "loophole" and he almost didn't get vaxxed until genpop was eligible. We're traveling a lot for the holidays, so hoping in the next month or so they announce booster recs/availability for everyone 6 months +.
https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2021/p1021-covid-booster.html
I clicked on "over 18 who have underlying medical conditions" to verify the recommendation indeed does go down to BMI >= 25 (Overweight). BMI may be a stupid metric for a lot of things, but in this case I'll take it as a fellow rule-follower.
I don't think I've been below a BMI of 25 since I was in college, and I don't think anyone would classify me as overweight (6' 200 lbs.) based on appearance.
It feels a bit like jumping the queue, but I guess I'll see if I can get the booster.
since the avg american over 30 is obese using both BMI and BF% its quite easy to be overweight and people classify you as not overweight by appearance b/c based on the avg person you look great. I fit this similar category at overweight by both metrics at 6'4 and 220lbs. When people get down to what science considers to be healthier weights we start to think they may have something wrong b/c they are "too" thin. goal for me is to get to 190-200 and stay there for once while trimming BF down to 16% or so.
In the military, if you register above a BMI of 25, you have to get your waist and neck measured as well. It's a quick and easy test to determine if you're fat or muscular. I always had to get taped, and I was never classified as fat.
BMI may be easy to measure, but it's a garbage way to determine whether or not someone is overweight.
are there outliers yes but its far from garbage when approximately the same number of people are overweight and obese by BF% standards as well as BMI. very few Americans fall into the I have too many muscles for BMI to properly gauge my health as it relates to fat composition.
I've been the same height (6') and waist size (32.5") since highschool. Over that period my body weight has ranged from 170 lbs to 225lbs. At my lightest I was boxing and running a lot - looked anorexic but was 'normal' BMI. At my heaviest I was wrestling and lifting weights and looked like a Greek god but was obese according to BMI.
BMI is definitely garbage if you're active. I think that hip to waist ratios are a far more effective method of determining general health.
what's sad is the reason you state its garbage is correct but the reason its still telling in this country and great to use as a standard is the avg American isn't active so until that scale tips to lots of active Americans with lots of muscles pushing their bmi up its a very accurate representation of the general health of the population. its also a very easy calculation to perform as most people know those 2 attributes about themselves and also most people who are active and focus on their health know its a bad metric if you have muscle mass.
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Are there any studies indicating the optimal time frame for boosters for those of us who are mostly healthy?
I had a very strong reaction to Moderna #2, and I'm not sure if I should get the booster now or wait another month or two. I thought about taking the rapid antibody test to see if I'm still protected, but read that some antibody tests don't detect antibodies generated by the vaccine...and that testing for antibodies isn't necessarily an indication of how well you are protected...
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Are there any studies indicating the optimal time frame for boosters for those of us who are mostly healthy?
I had a very strong reaction to Moderna #2, and I'm not sure if I should get the booster now or wait another month or two. I thought about taking the rapid antibody test to see if I'm still protected, but read that some antibody tests don't detect antibodies generated by the vaccine...and that testing for antibodies isn't necessarily an indication of how well you are protected...
That's correct. Antibody production may go down, but your immune system has a "memory" that allows for somewhat more rapid re-production in the event of subsequent infection.
If you want to try a different vaccine than Moderna, the FDA has authorized mixing and matching.
A single booster dose of any of the available COVID-19 vaccines may be administered as a heterologous booster dose following completion of primary vaccination with a different available COVID-19 vaccine.
Source: https://www.fda.gov/news-events/press-announcements/coronavirus-covid-19-update-fda-takes-additional-actions-use-booster-dose-covid-19-vaccines (https://www.fda.gov/news-events/press-announcements/coronavirus-covid-19-update-fda-takes-additional-actions-use-booster-dose-covid-19-vaccines)
If it's been at least 6 months as the FDA recommends, then I suggest getting a booster sooner rather than later, based on the observation that COVID spreads easier in the winter months, a lot like the flu. Remember that it takes a few weeks to maximize immunity.
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No one's put out any guidance or even hints yet as to when boosters would/should be made available for non-at-risk populations have they?
My DH is a super strict rule follower and I expect will not get one until he officially qualifies. Like he qualified quite early originally because he's a professor but since he wasn't teaching any classes in spring semester, he felt it was a "loophole" and he almost didn't get vaxxed until genpop was eligible. We're traveling a lot for the holidays, so hoping in the next month or so they announce booster recs/availability for everyone 6 months +.
https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2021/p1021-covid-booster.html
I clicked on "over 18 who have underlying medical conditions" to verify the recommendation indeed does go down to BMI >= 25 (Overweight). BMI may be a stupid metric for a lot of things, but in this case I'll take it as a fellow rule-follower.
I don't think I've been below a BMI of 25 since I was in college, and I don't think anyone would classify me as overweight (6' 200 lbs.) based on appearance.
It feels a bit like jumping the queue, but I guess I'll see if I can get the booster.
since the avg american over 30 is obese using both BMI and BF% its quite easy to be overweight and people classify you as not overweight by appearance b/c based on the avg person you look great. I fit this similar category at overweight by both metrics at 6'4 and 220lbs. When people get down to what science considers to be healthier weights we start to think they may have something wrong b/c they are "too" thin. goal for me is to get to 190-200 and stay there for once while trimming BF down to 16% or so.
In the military, if you register above a BMI of 25, you have to get your waist and neck measured as well. It's a quick and easy test to determine if you're fat or muscular. I always had to get taped, and I was never classified as fat.
BMI may be easy to measure, but it's a garbage way to determine whether or not someone is overweight.
are there outliers yes but its far from garbage when approximately the same number of people are overweight and obese by BF% standards as well as BMI. very few Americans fall into the I have too many muscles for BMI to properly gauge my health as it relates to fat composition.
I've been the same height (6') and waist size (32.5") since highschool. Over that period my body weight has ranged from 170 lbs to 225lbs. At my lightest I was boxing and running a lot - looked anorexic but was 'normal' BMI. At my heaviest I was wrestling and lifting weights and looked like a Greek god but was obese according to BMI.
BMI is definitely garbage if you're active. I think that hip to waist ratios are a far more effective method of determining general health.
what's sad is the reason you state its garbage is correct but the reason its still telling in this country and great to use as a standard is the avg American isn't active so until that scale tips to lots of active Americans with lots of muscles pushing their bmi up its a very accurate representation of the general health of the population. its also a very easy calculation to perform as most people know those 2 attributes about themselves and also most people who are active and focus on their health know its a bad metric if you have muscle mass.
It's also a pretty bad metric if you are not a white person of European descent.
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Are there any studies indicating the optimal time frame for boosters for those of us who are mostly healthy?
I had a very strong reaction to Moderna #2, and I'm not sure if I should get the booster now or wait another month or two. I thought about taking the rapid antibody test to see if I'm still protected, but read that some antibody tests don't detect antibodies generated by the vaccine...and that testing for antibodies isn't necessarily an indication of how well you are protected...
If it helps, the Moderna booster is half strength.
Earlier this year, the blood donation sites also tested for antibodies when you donated blood. Before my shot - no antibodies. After my shot - antibodies.
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I boosted today.
I picked Pfizer as a booster but I got Moderna for my initial series. I saw the data on antibody increase with each initial vaccine versus the mix and match boosters and the greatest increase for me was to get Pfizer. The antibody boost data for initial Janssens getting a Moderna booster was boggling.
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I boosted today.
I picked Pfizer as a booster but I got Moderna for my initial series. I saw the data on antibody increase with each initial vaccine versus the mix and match boosters and the greatest increase for me was to get Pfizer. The antibody boost data for initial Janssens getting a Moderna booster was boggling.
Yeah - for "initial Moderna" the numbers came in so close between Pfizer and Moderna booster that yourlocalepidemiologist.com called it a tie, but Pfizer was a touch better when you look at the details chart. Happens that the most convenient location for us is doing Pfizer, so I'll probably be doing a mix-and-match as well.
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No one's put out any guidance or even hints yet as to when boosters would/should be made available for non-at-risk populations have they?
My DH is a super strict rule follower and I expect will not get one until he officially qualifies. Like he qualified quite early originally because he's a professor but since he wasn't teaching any classes in spring semester, he felt it was a "loophole" and he almost didn't get vaxxed until genpop was eligible. We're traveling a lot for the holidays, so hoping in the next month or so they announce booster recs/availability for everyone 6 months +.
https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2021/p1021-covid-booster.html
I clicked on "over 18 who have underlying medical conditions" to verify the recommendation indeed does go down to BMI >= 25 (Overweight). BMI may be a stupid metric for a lot of things, but in this case I'll take it as a fellow rule-follower.
I don't think I've been below a BMI of 25 since I was in college, and I don't think anyone would classify me as overweight (6' 200 lbs.) based on appearance.
It feels a bit like jumping the queue, but I guess I'll see if I can get the booster.
since the avg american over 30 is obese using both BMI and BF% its quite easy to be overweight and people classify you as not overweight by appearance b/c based on the avg person you look great. I fit this similar category at overweight by both metrics at 6'4 and 220lbs. When people get down to what science considers to be healthier weights we start to think they may have something wrong b/c they are "too" thin. goal for me is to get to 190-200 and stay there for once while trimming BF down to 16% or so.
In the military, if you register above a BMI of 25, you have to get your waist and neck measured as well. It's a quick and easy test to determine if you're fat or muscular. I always had to get taped, and I was never classified as fat.
BMI may be easy to measure, but it's a garbage way to determine whether or not someone is overweight.
are there outliers yes but its far from garbage when approximately the same number of people are overweight and obese by BF% standards as well as BMI. very few Americans fall into the I have too many muscles for BMI to properly gauge my health as it relates to fat composition.
I've been the same height (6') and waist size (32.5") since highschool. Over that period my body weight has ranged from 170 lbs to 225lbs. At my lightest I was boxing and running a lot - looked anorexic but was 'normal' BMI. At my heaviest I was wrestling and lifting weights and looked like a Greek god but was obese according to BMI.
BMI is definitely garbage if you're active. I think that hip to waist ratios are a far more effective method of determining general health.
what's sad is the reason you state its garbage is correct but the reason its still telling in this country and great to use as a standard is the avg American isn't active so until that scale tips to lots of active Americans with lots of muscles pushing their bmi up its a very accurate representation of the general health of the population. its also a very easy calculation to perform as most people know those 2 attributes about themselves and also most people who are active and focus on their health know its a bad metric if you have muscle mass.
It's also a pretty bad metric if you are not a white person of European descent.
The irony being that it was invented by a white person of European decent (Adolphe Quetelet). But he was a statistician that studied populations. It was never intended by the original inventor to be applied to individuals.
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I boosted today.
I picked Pfizer as a booster but I got Moderna for my initial series. I saw the data on antibody increase with each initial vaccine versus the mix and match boosters and the greatest increase for me was to get Pfizer. The antibody boost data for initial Janssens getting a Moderna booster was boggling.
Do you have a link for this? Sounds like great info and I would definitely consider boosting with Pfizer if it helps.
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I boosted today.
I picked Pfizer as a booster but I got Moderna for my initial series. I saw the data on antibody increase with each initial vaccine versus the mix and match boosters and the greatest increase for me was to get Pfizer. The antibody boost data for initial Janssens getting a Moderna booster was boggling.
Do you have a link for this? Sounds like great info and I would definitely consider boosting with Pfizer if it helps.
https://yourlocalepidemiologist.substack.com/p/what-booster-should-i-get-data-from (https://yourlocalepidemiologist.substack.com/p/what-booster-should-i-get-data-from)
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From that article, the sentence "After the primary Moderna series, there was equal benefit from either a Moderna or Pfizer booster.", but if you look at the graphic, Moderna -> Pfizer booster was slightly higher than Moderna -> Moderna Booster.
I think the overall point is "get an RNA booster unless J&J is the only option available to you, then get that" - Moderna vs. Pfizer is splitting hairs based on the available data if your first two doses were Moderna.
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No one's put out any guidance or even hints yet as to when boosters would/should be made available for non-at-risk populations have they?
My DH is a super strict rule follower and I expect will not get one until he officially qualifies. Like he qualified quite early originally because he's a professor but since he wasn't teaching any classes in spring semester, he felt it was a "loophole" and he almost didn't get vaxxed until genpop was eligible. We're traveling a lot for the holidays, so hoping in the next month or so they announce booster recs/availability for everyone 6 months +.
https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2021/p1021-covid-booster.html
I clicked on "over 18 who have underlying medical conditions" to verify the recommendation indeed does go down to BMI >= 25 (Overweight). BMI may be a stupid metric for a lot of things, but in this case I'll take it as a fellow rule-follower.
I don't think I've been below a BMI of 25 since I was in college, and I don't think anyone would classify me as overweight (6' 200 lbs.) based on appearance.
It feels a bit like jumping the queue, but I guess I'll see if I can get the booster.
since the avg american over 30 is obese using both BMI and BF% its quite easy to be overweight and people classify you as not overweight by appearance b/c based on the avg person you look great. I fit this similar category at overweight by both metrics at 6'4 and 220lbs. When people get down to what science considers to be healthier weights we start to think they may have something wrong b/c they are "too" thin. goal for me is to get to 190-200 and stay there for once while trimming BF down to 16% or so.
In the military, if you register above a BMI of 25, you have to get your waist and neck measured as well. It's a quick and easy test to determine if you're fat or muscular. I always had to get taped, and I was never classified as fat.
BMI may be easy to measure, but it's a garbage way to determine whether or not someone is overweight.
are there outliers yes but its far from garbage when approximately the same number of people are overweight and obese by BF% standards as well as BMI. very few Americans fall into the I have too many muscles for BMI to properly gauge my health as it relates to fat composition.
I've been the same height (6') and waist size (32.5") since highschool. Over that period my body weight has ranged from 170 lbs to 225lbs. At my lightest I was boxing and running a lot - looked anorexic but was 'normal' BMI. At my heaviest I was wrestling and lifting weights and looked like a Greek god but was obese according to BMI.
BMI is definitely garbage if you're active. I think that hip to waist ratios are a far more effective method of determining general health.
what's sad is the reason you state its garbage is correct but the reason its still telling in this country and great to use as a standard is the avg American isn't active so until that scale tips to lots of active Americans with lots of muscles pushing their bmi up its a very accurate representation of the general health of the population. its also a very easy calculation to perform as most people know those 2 attributes about themselves and also most people who are active and focus on their health know its a bad metric if you have muscle mass.
It's also a pretty bad metric if you are not a white person of European descent.
The irony being that it was invented by a white person of European decent (Adolphe Quetelet). But he was a statistician that studied populations. It was never intended by the original inventor to be applied to individuals.
Exactly lol. He even said as much, explicitly.
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I boosted today.
I picked Pfizer as a booster but I got Moderna for my initial series. I saw the data on antibody increase with each initial vaccine versus the mix and match boosters and the greatest increase for me was to get Pfizer. The antibody boost data for initial Janssens getting a Moderna booster was boggling.
Yeah - for "initial Moderna" the numbers came in so close between Pfizer and Moderna booster that yourlocalepidemiologist.com called it a tie, but Pfizer was a touch better when you look at the details chart. Happens that the most convenient location for us is doing Pfizer, so I'll probably be doing a mix-and-match as well.
Yes, it’s convenient for me that my two employers are offering two different mRNAs, so while I got my initial series at one, I got my booster with the other.
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I boosted today.
I picked Pfizer as a booster but I got Moderna for my initial series. I saw the data on antibody increase with each initial vaccine versus the mix and match boosters and the greatest increase for me was to get Pfizer. The antibody boost data for initial Janssens getting a Moderna booster was boggling.
Do you have a link for this? Sounds like great info and I would definitely consider boosting with Pfizer if it helps.
https://secure.medicalletter.org/downloads/1621g_table.pdf
I also have some handy dandy infographics (not made by me, but based on data from this table) if you want the cliffnotes.
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I boosted today.
I picked Pfizer as a booster but I got Moderna for my initial series. I saw the data on antibody increase with each initial vaccine versus the mix and match boosters and the greatest increase for me was to get Pfizer. The antibody boost data for initial Janssens getting a Moderna booster was boggling.
Do you have a link for this? Sounds like great info and I would definitely consider boosting with Pfizer if it helps.
https://secure.medicalletter.org/downloads/1621g_table.pdf
I also have some handy dandy infographics (not made by me, but based on data from this table) if you want the cliffnotes.
appreciate this info we were going to just stick with moderna since it was the best for the 1st 2 shots but sounds like we should get pfizer this time.
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I think either mRNA is a good booster choice, but if you have the opportunity to do so, I think it’s worth knowing that the mixing approach has the best results!
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I boosted today.
I picked Pfizer as a booster but I got Moderna for my initial series. I saw the data on antibody increase with each initial vaccine versus the mix and match boosters and the greatest increase for me was to get Pfizer. The antibody boost data for initial Janssens getting a Moderna booster was boggling.
Do you have a link for this? Sounds like great info and I would definitely consider boosting with Pfizer if it helps.
https://secure.medicalletter.org/downloads/1621g_table.pdf
I also have some handy dandy infographics (not made by me, but based on data from this table) if you want the cliffnotes.
I might be missing something, but where does the table show efficacy of mixing vaccines?
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Page 3
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Page 3
Thanks. Took a while to find that single sentence.
ETA: Although this article states that the study being reported on showed greater efficacy with sticking to Moderna for all three shots... so maybe I'll just do that.
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2021/10/13/1045485935/study-of-covid-vaccine-boosters-suggests-moderna-or-pfizer-works-best
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Page 3
Thanks. Took a while to find that single sentence.
ETA: Although this article states that the study being reported on showed greater efficacy with sticking to Moderna for all three shots... so maybe I'll just do that.
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2021/10/13/1045485935/study-of-covid-vaccine-boosters-suggests-moderna-or-pfizer-works-best
I'm inclined to do the same if the efficacy is similar, but Modena booster is a half dose and possibility of fewer side effects.
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Thanks for all of this info...very helpful! If anybody here has had the Moderna booster (after having a rough reaction to Moderna #2), I'd love to hear if the 1/2 dose booster was better or just as rough as shot #2.
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Hmm, my first 2 shots were Pfizer, and odds are my booster shot will be too. Not sure I will have any choices.
I know someone who had the AstraZeneca first and second shots. She is taking immune-compromising drugs and was just eligible for a booster, she got Moderna. She was wiped the next day, which I suppose is good, shows her immune system reacted.
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Thanks for all of this info...very helpful! If anybody here has had the Moderna booster (after having a rough reaction to Moderna #2), I'd love to hear if the 1/2 dose booster was better or just as rough as shot #2.
My secretary received the Moderna booster - her shoulder and arm swelled up and were painful. The swelling is starting to go away (only a day later).
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I had the booster for Pfizer a few weeks ago and it was similar but less severe symptoms (muscle pain in the receiving shoulder and fatigue).
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I had pfizer booster on left arm, flu shot right arm yesterday. woke up very sore, but got less as day went on.
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Despite of the decent immunity conferred by COVID infection, immunity acquired by vaccination is very much preferable and infection should be followed up by vaccination in the survivors.
The virus in its Delta variant will inevitably infect every single unvaccinated person eventually and they will end up either immune and fully recovered, permanently disabled to varying degrees or dead.
As there appears to be a general lack of knowledge and imagination on what the acquisition of natural immunity via infection might entail, some more graphic illustrations of the journey to the bitter end when things are not going well might be in order.
The first link is to an edited version of a series of video clips Amy posted on TikTok. Amy was a 47 year old anti-vaxxer who left four children behind. I think it is appropriate to keep the footage available as Amy has published the videos herself and it may help persuade some to opt for the vaccine.
The clinical course is typical for a patient becoming chronically critically ill with COVID-19. Amy spent a total of 40 days in the ICU of which 19 days were spent on high flow oxygen and noninvasive mechanical ventilation (BiPAP, at least 8 days of the 19).
The videos end on September 30 just prior to her being intubated and put on a ventilator for the subsequent 21 days until her demise. The video is the best illustration of the course of COVID in up to forty percent of COVID patients entering the ICU that I have seen so far and I believe it could speak to the lay person as well.
I should emphasize that the outcome of Amy´s illness is not an uncommon complication of COVID-19 and should put the common side effect of vaccination, which is a sore and swollen arm for a couple of days, into perspective.
https://tinyurl.com/jvrcc4j9
As we have no account of what happened between the last clip and her death, I have included a link to an article about an embalmer reporting on the condition of the bodies of COVID victims after prolonged critical illness with fatal outcome. It does not take much to imagine how Amy´s last 21 days turned out.
Texas Embalmer Shares Nightmare COVID Experiences: 'Unlike Anything I've Seen Before'
https://tinyurl.com/nu452ydd
In conclusion, acquiring immunity via infection by foregoing vaccination is a terrible idea and if things go wrong in that quest there likely is no merciful quick death but a long period of living in terror, severe pain and regrets.
Many thanks to Amy for recording and publishing these clips so diligently. Although Amy may have hurt or killed people by spewing anti-vaxxer nonsense on social media and by blocking an ICU bed for 40 days, she might inadvertently help convince some people to go for the vaccine.
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Good lord, she was a single mom of 5 kids. Those poor children, and her poor family stuck with grieving her, raising her kids, and dealing with her medical bills. Her unrepentant anti-vax stance is even more infuriating when you consider the level of irresponsibility even to her own dependents.
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Side effects - can anti-vaxxers listen to this and decide that not being vaccinated is worth it?
https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-79-breakaway/clip/15873932-we-waited-long-long-covid-19-victim (https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-79-breakaway/clip/15873932-we-waited-long-long-covid-19-victim)
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Good lord, she was a single mom of 5 kids. Those poor children, and her poor family stuck with grieving her, raising her kids, and dealing with her medical bills. Her unrepentant anti-vax stance is even more infuriating when you consider the level of irresponsibility even to her own dependents.
Imagine the kids getting their annual COVID shot for the next few decades just as routinely as we get the flu shot, thinking of their mother every single time, and wondering how this became the hill she died on.
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Side effects - can anti-vaxxers listen to this and decide that not being vaccinated is worth it?
https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-79-breakaway/clip/15873932-we-waited-long-long-covid-19-victim (https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-79-breakaway/clip/15873932-we-waited-long-long-covid-19-victim)
They won't listen to it.
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Good lord, she was a single mom of 5 kids. Those poor children, and her poor family stuck with grieving her, raising her kids, and dealing with her medical bills. Her unrepentant anti-vax stance is even more infuriating when you consider the level of irresponsibility even to her own dependents.
Imagine the kids getting their annual COVID shot for the next few decades just as routinely as we get the flu shot, thinking of their mother every single time, and wondering how this became the hill she died on.
Vaccinated individuals are 11 times more likely to survive covid than unvaccinated . . . but even unvaccinated, it's somewhere below 1% of people who contract it will end up dying from the disease.
We're at a weird place with covid. It's just at the point where it's very dangerous . . . but not so dangerous that it can't be ignored and wished away by people who want to deny reality. If mortality was higher, this would be an easier sell.
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It's also interesting in the USA that the prospect of avoiding high medical bills for yourself (or for your family members if you die after 3 weeks in intensive care) doesn't seem to be an incentive either.
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It's also interesting in the USA that the prospect of avoiding high medical bills for yourself (or for your family members if you die after 3 weeks in intensive care) doesn't seem to be an incentive either.
Maybe the legacy of COVID will be less about demographic change due to deaths and more about the increased impoverishment of the hardest hit demographics, due to medical bills, long-term symptoms, and disability.
But yes, it’s strange to watch people who would drive an extra mile to pay 5 cents less per gallon of gas refusing to accept the tens of thousands of dollars in savings that could be had by wearing a mask or getting vaccinated.
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More on natural immunity, vaccine immunity and hybrid immunity:
"While the concept of natural immunity has often been misused by people opposed to vaccine mandates, public health officials and scientists should be open to the evidence. Research, including my team’s study of the immune responses of nearly 2,150 health care workers in Sweden after infection with SARS-CoV-2 — the virus that causes Covid-19 — and vaccination, suggests that the protection gained from infection is long-lasting and that it can be significantly bolstered by a single Covid-19 vaccine dose."
https://tinyurl.com/azmfhper
https://ki.se/en/kids/community
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It's also interesting in the USA that the prospect of avoiding high medical bills for yourself (or for your family members if you die after 3 weeks in intensive care) doesn't seem to be an incentive either.
Maybe the legacy of COVID will be less about demographic change due to deaths and more about the increased impoverishment of the hardest hit demographics, due to medical bills, long-term symptoms, and disability.
But yes, it’s strange to watch people who would drive an extra mile to pay 5 cents less per gallon of gas refusing to accept the tens of thousands of dollars in savings that could be had by wearing a mask or getting vaccinated.
Yes, very odd. The 1% mortality doesn't tell the whole story, either, as previously noted. My parents have been unable to work for two months now and counting. So in addition to medical costs, they have unemployment and disability to contend with vs a vaccine which would have cost them nothing.
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More on natural immunity, vaccine immunity and hybrid immunity:
"While the concept of natural immunity has often been misused by people opposed to vaccine mandates, public health officials and scientists should be open to the evidence. Research, including my team’s study of the immune responses of nearly 2,150 health care workers in Sweden after infection with SARS-CoV-2 — the virus that causes Covid-19 — and vaccination, suggests that the protection gained from infection is long-lasting and that it can be significantly bolstered by a single Covid-19 vaccine dose."
https://tinyurl.com/azmfhper
https://ki.se/en/kids/community
If it can be "significantly bolstered" by one shot, then it wasn't optimal to begin with?
I've been told by a pharmacist that if you keep your arm moving for 20 minutes after the shot, the pain will be less. No harm in trying that. But yeah, I'll take brutal pain over Covid symptoms any day.
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N = 1...
I got my booster on Tuesday, all three shots moderna. After second shot, I had fever, chills, and nausea. Not horrible but not great. 24 hours after second shot, felt perfectly normal. After third shot, no fever, chills or nausea. Had a headache and was super tired. 24 hours later, felt normal. Way less reaction than 2nd shot. Easy peasy.
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48h from booster (Moderna initial series, Pfizer booster) I still haven’t had any constitutional symptoms. My arm is still a little sore. My spouse thinks that deltoid feels somewhat warmer to the touch than the other but I don’t have any redness or anything. My symptoms are overall very similar to my symptoms following my initial Moderna doses.
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More on natural immunity, vaccine immunity and hybrid immunity:
"While the concept of natural immunity has often been misused by people opposed to vaccine mandates, public health officials and scientists should be open to the evidence. Research, including my team’s study of the immune responses of nearly 2,150 health care workers in Sweden after infection with SARS-CoV-2 — the virus that causes Covid-19 — and vaccination, suggests that the protection gained from infection is long-lasting and that it can be significantly bolstered by a single Covid-19 vaccine dose."
https://tinyurl.com/azmfhper
https://ki.se/en/kids/community
If it can be "significantly bolstered" by one shot, then it wasn't optimal to begin with?
I've been told by a pharmacist that if you keep your arm moving for 20 minutes after the shot, the pain will be less. No harm in trying that. But yeah, I'll take brutal pain over Covid symptoms any day.
I tired the moving arm. Of course, I don't know what it would have been like if I'd not moved my arm, but I had very, very significant arm soreness anyway.
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More on natural immunity, vaccine immunity and hybrid immunity:
"While the concept of natural immunity has often been misused by people opposed to vaccine mandates, public health officials and scientists should be open to the evidence. Research, including my team’s study of the immune responses of nearly 2,150 health care workers in Sweden after infection with SARS-CoV-2 — the virus that causes Covid-19 — and vaccination, suggests that the protection gained from infection is long-lasting and that it can be significantly bolstered by a single Covid-19 vaccine dose."
https://tinyurl.com/azmfhper
https://ki.se/en/kids/community
If it can be "significantly bolstered" by one shot, then it wasn't optimal to begin with?
I've been told by a pharmacist that if you keep your arm moving for 20 minutes after the shot, the pain will be less. No harm in trying that. But yeah, I'll take brutal pain over Covid symptoms any day.
That´s the point, optimal protection requires vaccination after recovery from infection - according to current expert consensus.
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More on natural immunity, vaccine immunity and hybrid immunity:
"While the concept of natural immunity has often been misused by people opposed to vaccine mandates, public health officials and scientists should be open to the evidence. Research, including my team’s study of the immune responses of nearly 2,150 health care workers in Sweden after infection with SARS-CoV-2 — the virus that causes Covid-19 — and vaccination, suggests that the protection gained from infection is long-lasting and that it can be significantly bolstered by a single Covid-19 vaccine dose."
https://tinyurl.com/azmfhper
https://ki.se/en/kids/community
If it can be "significantly bolstered" by one shot, then it wasn't optimal to begin with?
I've been told by a pharmacist that if you keep your arm moving for 20 minutes after the shot, the pain will be less. No harm in trying that. But yeah, I'll take brutal pain over Covid symptoms any day.
That´s the point, optimal protection requires vaccination after recovery from infection - according to current expert consensus.
The bolded seems like a misleading statement. Vaccination prevents worst case outcomes for people. Exposure to the virus first carries with it much higher risk of dying, higher risk of being hospitalized, and higher risk of long covid.
If you're planning on going with hybrid immunity (a mix of exposure and vaccination), I'd think that exposure to covid after vaccination would be a much safer course of action as this mitigates the risks of the approach.
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I don’t read that in Pete’s post at all. They said that optimum protection isn't obtained from infection alone. Vaccination is still needed.
Judging by the results I’ve called out today that are second go-round positives, I will confirm that with personal anecdata.
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More on natural immunity, vaccine immunity and hybrid immunity:
"While the concept of natural immunity has often been misused by people opposed to vaccine mandates, public health officials and scientists should be open to the evidence. Research, including my team’s study of the immune responses of nearly 2,150 health care workers in Sweden after infection with SARS-CoV-2 — the virus that causes Covid-19 — and vaccination, suggests that the protection gained from infection is long-lasting and that it can be significantly bolstered by a single Covid-19 vaccine dose."
https://tinyurl.com/azmfhper
https://ki.se/en/kids/community
If it can be "significantly bolstered" by one shot, then it wasn't optimal to begin with?
I've been told by a pharmacist that if you keep your arm moving for 20 minutes after the shot, the pain will be less. No harm in trying that. But yeah, I'll take brutal pain over Covid symptoms any day.
That´s the point, optimal protection requires vaccination after recovery from infection - according to current expert consensus.
The bolded seems like a misleading statement. Vaccination prevents worst case outcomes for people. Exposure to the virus first carries with it much higher risk of dying, higher risk of being hospitalized, and higher risk of long covid.
If you're planning on going with hybrid immunity (a mix of exposure and vaccination), I'd think that exposure to covid after vaccination would be a much safer course of action as this mitigates the risks of the approach.
The context for my statement is the hypothetical subject who has had COVID-19 and for whom vaccination would then result in optimal protection. Of course, pursuing natural immunity without previous vaccination is a terrible idea, but it is what the vaccine refusers are actually doing.
Now there is some evidence that vaccination after infection might be superior to straight vaccination, but, given the high effectiveness of vaccines, that is probably not very relevant.
As for hybrid immunity overall: everyone will eventually get infected with SARS-CoV-2 making hybrid immunity the norm - it is only a matter of time.
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You don't see the problem with stating "optimal protection requires vaccination after infection" without also saying "everyone - infected or not - should go get vaccinated if they aren't yet"?
What PeteD01 posted (I'm going the initial post quoted there and ensuing thread) is a statement of fact "best covid protection comes from infection followed by vaccine". And for people who are already vaccinated, or at least not vaccine-hesitant for dubious reasons, it is super easy to fill in the blank with the rest of the point - "so even if you've had Covid, get vaccinated once you're eligible - talk to your doctor about the best time to get the shot".
But that's not what is written - what my unvaccinated sister will inevetibly fill in the blanks with is "so I should wait and if I happen to catch covid, then go get vaccinated."
In case I'm not being clear - anyone reading this should go get your covid vaccine if you're eligible and haven't yet, and get a booster if you're eligible forthwith! Only exceptions are if your doctor has given you advice not to for medical reasons.
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What PeteD01 posted (I'm going the initial post quoted there and ensuing thread) is a statement of fact "best covid protection comes from infection followed by vaccine". And for people who are already vaccinated, or at least not vaccine-hesitant for dubious reasons, it is super easy to fill in the blank with the rest of the point - "so even if you've had Covid, get vaccinated once you're eligible - talk to your doctor about the best time to get the shot".
But that's not what is written - what my unvaccinated sister will inevitably fill in the blanks with is "so I should wait and if I happen to catch covid, then go get vaccinated."
That was basically my concern with the post as it was written.
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What PeteD01 posted (I'm going the initial post quoted there and ensuing thread) is a statement of fact "best covid protection comes from infection followed by vaccine". And for people who are already vaccinated, or at least not vaccine-hesitant for dubious reasons, it is super easy to fill in the blank with the rest of the point - "so even if you've had Covid, get vaccinated once you're eligible - talk to your doctor about the best time to get the shot".
But that's not what is written - what my unvaccinated sister will inevitably fill in the blanks with is "so I should wait and if I happen to catch covid, then go get vaccinated."
That was basically my concern with the post as it was written.
You don't see the problem with stating "optimal protection requires vaccination after infection" without also saying "everyone - infected or not - should go get vaccinated if they aren't yet"?
What PeteD01 posted (I'm going the initial post quoted there and ensuing thread) is a statement of fact "best covid protection comes from infection followed by vaccine". And for people who are already vaccinated, or at least not vaccine-hesitant for dubious reasons, it is super easy to fill in the blank with the rest of the point - "so even if you've had Covid, get vaccinated once you're eligible - talk to your doctor about the best time to get the shot".
But that's not what is written - what my unvaccinated sister will inevetibly fill in the blanks with is "so I should wait and if I happen to catch covid, then go get vaccinated."
In case I'm not being clear - anyone reading this should go get your covid vaccine if you're eligible and haven't yet, and get a booster if you're eligible forthwith! Only exceptions are if your doctor has given you advice not to for medical reasons.
I hear you but will add that this is not Facebook or any of the other open sewer social media environments and therefore your unvaccinated sister is extremely unlikely to read any of this. In fact, there is some of that low attention span poison noticeable even here: I specifically quoted all the relevant parts of the subthread to provide context without repeating the same thing over and over again.
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What PeteD01 posted (I'm going the initial post quoted there and ensuing thread) is a statement of fact "best covid protection comes from infection followed by vaccine". And for people who are already vaccinated, or at least not vaccine-hesitant for dubious reasons, it is super easy to fill in the blank with the rest of the point - "so even if you've had Covid, get vaccinated once you're eligible - talk to your doctor about the best time to get the shot".
But that's not what is written - what my unvaccinated sister will inevitably fill in the blanks with is "so I should wait and if I happen to catch covid, then go get vaccinated."
That was basically my concern with the post as it was written.
My post was a specific answer to a specific question and does not make much sense as a freestanding statement:
SunnyDays: If it (natural immunity) can be "significantly bolstered" by one shot, then it wasn't optimal to begin with?
PeteD01: That´s the point, optimal protection requires vaccination after recovery from infection - according to current expert consensus.
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I'd agree this isn't quite as big a deal here vs. Facebook, but there are definitely a few folks inclined to believe and spread anti-vax stuff here. Plus for every poster we have, how many lurkers are there - that's a wider audience, though still not Facebook level.
Seems like that is a bit lower lately though - maybe mods are shutting it down a little more harshly or something?
And I'd point out - the post that Sunny responded to also shared a statement of the same fact without the context. The answer to the question was briefer / more emphatic, but the first post you made about this particular fact didn't state anything interpreting what actions might be appropriate from the information shared. Maybe one of the articles got into that, but not everyone clicks through to the links, and some pretty dense reading even if you click through.
The quote you shared is almost antagonistic in tone towards public health officials - what is a vaccine hesitant non-scientist going to think reading that quote?
So you've got two opportunities to write out the between-the lines conclusion that seems obvious (to me anyway, but I haven't spent approaching a year talking myself out of getting vaccinated), and neither time did that happen.
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Interesting podcast about long covid19 - coronacast is a daily podcast from the Australian Broadcasting Commission, and each day it looks into something about covid19.
https://www.abc.net.au/radio/programs/coronacast/will-vaccines-stop-me-getting-long-covid/13603902
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The quote you shared is almost antagonistic in tone towards public health officials - what is a vaccine hesitant non-scientist going to think reading that quote?
And here is the problem: Public health officials will continue to lose credibility if they do not address this issue of strong natural immunity but they will continue to avoid the issue in fear of having people fill in the blanks the wrong way. I do not have any of those concerns. The number of third shots in the vaccinated is now higher than first shots in the unvaccinated of all shots given per day in the US. That signals that the still unvaccinated are pretty much set and will have to suffer through COVID. I am also not concerned about minority vaccine resistant people reading this as the dynamics of vaccine resistance in those populations is independent of internet information and can only be overcome through trusted informal or formal channels.
So you've got two opportunities to write out the between-the lines conclusion that seems obvious (to me anyway, but I haven't spent approaching a year talking myself out of getting vaccinated), and neither time did that happen.
My credibility among the still unvaccinated is definitely going to be enhanced by knowing as much as possible about natural immunity and the role of vaccines to improve on that immunity, whereas repeating some boilerplate exhortations is likely going to do the opposite.
It has been the delusional right that has been talking about natural immunity and herd immunity etc.; it is time to own this subject because the vast majority of the unvaccinated is now beyond reach, but the anti-vaxxers will use it to further their agenda.
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The way I read the quote was that a study was providing evidence to the medical community that infection was sufficient to result in long term immunity. Which makes their next statement that a vaccine will significantly bolster it appear contradictory. I think the wording of this conclusion is poor - confusing at best and supporting the anti-vaxx side at worst. I did not read the full study.
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The way I read the quote was that a study was providing evidence to the medical community that infection was sufficient to result in long term immunity. Which makes their next statement that a vaccine will significantly bolster it appear contradictory. I think the wording of this conclusion is poor - confusing at best and supporting the anti-vaxx side at worst. I did not read the full study.
Ah, now I understand the problem. Immunity can be long lasting but only protect moderately (let´s say 70%). Bolstering immunity may mean pushing protection to 90%+. There really is no contradiction between long term immunity and being able to bolster it if immunity is notunderstood as a binary issue.
I also did not just provide the link to the study but also to an opinion piece by the principal investigator which is an easy read.
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The way I read the quote was that a study was providing evidence to the medical community that infection was sufficient to result in long term immunity. Which makes their next statement that a vaccine will significantly bolster it appear contradictory. I think the wording of this conclusion is poor - confusing at best and supporting the anti-vaxx side at worst. I did not read the full study.
+1
That is precisely my response, too.
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The way I read the quote was that a study was providing evidence to the medical community that infection was sufficient to result in long term immunity. Which makes their next statement that a vaccine will significantly bolster it appear contradictory. I think the wording of this conclusion is poor - confusing at best and supporting the anti-vaxx side at worst. I did not read the full study.
+1
That is precisely my response, too.
We have good evidence that immunity after SARS-CoV-2 infection is robust and results in protection from COVID19 comparable to full vaccination for at least 9 months. We also know that vaccination after infection results in much higher levels of neutralizing antibodies than vaccination in the not previously infected.
So the statement that SARS-CoV-2 infection induces strong long term immunity that can be bolstered by post infection vaccination is simply true according to current knowledge.
But what is also true is that the recommendation of getting vaccinated after having been infected does not have as strong evidence behind it as has vaccination in the not previously infected. The recommendation essentially is based on that we do not know if the robustness of the immunity after infection is enjoyed by all comers with all kinds of health issues and risk factors and that we do not yet know how long natural immunity lasts. The recommendation thus tends to veer towards "better safe than sorry" - which is good enough for me but may not be good enough for a young healthy person who had mild COVID a couple of months before and is vaccine hesitant. This has to be acknowledged in order not to lose such an individual´s trust and to keep the option of vaccination at a later date open.
Broad and efficient SARS-CoV-2 immunity 8 months post mild infection. Journal of Internal Medicine 2021 (PMID: 34459525):
Robust humoral and cellular immune responses and low risk for reinfection at least 8 months following asymptomatic to mild COVID-19
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/joim.13387
Considerable decline in neutralizing antibodies after both BNT162b2 and ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 vaccination over 3-7 months. Vaccination following SARS-CoV-2 infection resulted in higher antibody titers at all sampling time points when compared to SARS-CoV-2 naive vaccinees. Neutralizing antibody titers against all ten tested SARS-CoV-2 variants were at least 2 respectively 3-fold higher in SARS-CoV-2 recovered as compared to naive vaccinees following BNT162b2 and ChAdOx1 nCoV-19, respectively. MedRXiv 2021 (doi: 10.1101/2021.10.16.21264948):
Impact of SARS-CoV-2 infection on longitudinal vaccine immune responses
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.10.16.21264948v1
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It's also interesting in the USA that the prospect of avoiding high medical bills for yourself (or for your family members if you die after 3 weeks in intensive care) doesn't seem to be an incentive either.
Maybe the legacy of COVID will be less about demographic change due to deaths and more about the increased impoverishment of the hardest hit demographics, due to medical bills, long-term symptoms, and disability.
But yes, it’s strange to watch people who would drive an extra mile to pay 5 cents less per gallon of gas refusing to accept the tens of thousands of dollars in savings that could be had by wearing a mask or getting vaccinated.
Kind of goes hand in hand with voting against one's best interests too doesn't it? Lots of people out there will be influenced to make worse choices on many topics all because they don't like a certain group of other people.
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And on a lighter note: ;-)
https://www.thebeaverton.com/2021/10/misinformed-horse-uses-covid-19-vaccine-to-treat-worm-infestation/ (https://www.thebeaverton.com/2021/10/misinformed-horse-uses-covid-19-vaccine-to-treat-worm-infestation/)
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And on a lighter note: ;-)
https://www.thebeaverton.com/2021/10/misinformed-horse-uses-covid-19-vaccine-to-treat-worm-infestation/ (https://www.thebeaverton.com/2021/10/misinformed-horse-uses-covid-19-vaccine-to-treat-worm-infestation/)
Snort. (Pun intended.) That’s great!
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The way I read the quote was that a study was providing evidence to the medical community that infection was sufficient to result in long term immunity. Which makes their next statement that a vaccine will significantly bolster it appear contradictory. I think the wording of this conclusion is poor - confusing at best and supporting the anti-vaxx side at worst. I did not read the full study.
+1
That is precisely my response, too.
We have good evidence that immunity after SARS-CoV-2 infection is robust and results in protection from COVID19 comparable to full vaccination for at least 9 months. We also know that vaccination after infection results in much higher levels of neutralizing antibodies than vaccination in the not previously infected.
So the statement that SARS-CoV-2 infection induces strong long term immunity that can be bolstered by post infection vaccination is simply true according to current knowledge.
But what is also true is that the recommendation of getting vaccinated after having been infected does not have as strong evidence behind it as has vaccination in the not previously infected. The recommendation essentially is based on that we do not know if the robustness of the immunity after infection is enjoyed by all comers with all kinds of health issues and risk factors and that we do not yet know how long natural immunity lasts. The recommendation thus tends to veer towards "better safe than sorry" - which is good enough for me but may not be good enough for a young healthy person who had mild COVID a couple of months before and is vaccine hesitant. This has to be acknowledged in order not to lose such an individual´s trust and to keep the option of vaccination at a later date open.
Broad and efficient SARS-CoV-2 immunity 8 months post mild infection. Journal of Internal Medicine 2021 (PMID: 34459525):
Robust humoral and cellular immune responses and low risk for reinfection at least 8 months following asymptomatic to mild COVID-19
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/joim.13387
Considerable decline in neutralizing antibodies after both BNT162b2 and ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 vaccination over 3-7 months. Vaccination following SARS-CoV-2 infection resulted in higher antibody titers at all sampling time points when compared to SARS-CoV-2 naive vaccinees. Neutralizing antibody titers against all ten tested SARS-CoV-2 variants were at least 2 respectively 3-fold higher in SARS-CoV-2 recovered as compared to naive vaccinees following BNT162b2 and ChAdOx1 nCoV-19, respectively. MedRXiv 2021 (doi: 10.1101/2021.10.16.21264948):
Impact of SARS-CoV-2 infection on longitudinal vaccine immune responses
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.10.16.21264948v1
How effective is Covid infection with one strain vs another?
Anecdotally, I know individuals who have had confirmed cases of Covid more than once, before vaccines were widely available, and before the delta variant arrived here. Given the timing, it seemed likely they had different variants each time.
At least the unpleasant side effects of each bout convinced them to get vaccinated as soon as they could!
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The way I read the quote was that a study was providing evidence to the medical community that infection was sufficient to result in long term immunity. Which makes their next statement that a vaccine will significantly bolster it appear contradictory. I think the wording of this conclusion is poor - confusing at best and supporting the anti-vaxx side at worst. I did not read the full study.
+1
That is precisely my response, too.
We have good evidence that immunity after SARS-CoV-2 infection is robust and results in protection from COVID19 comparable to full vaccination for at least 9 months. We also know that vaccination after infection results in much higher levels of neutralizing antibodies than vaccination in the not previously infected.
So the statement that SARS-CoV-2 infection induces strong long term immunity that can be bolstered by post infection vaccination is simply true according to current knowledge.
But what is also true is that the recommendation of getting vaccinated after having been infected does not have as strong evidence behind it as has vaccination in the not previously infected. The recommendation essentially is based on that we do not know if the robustness of the immunity after infection is enjoyed by all comers with all kinds of health issues and risk factors and that we do not yet know how long natural immunity lasts. The recommendation thus tends to veer towards "better safe than sorry" - which is good enough for me but may not be good enough for a young healthy person who had mild COVID a couple of months before and is vaccine hesitant. This has to be acknowledged in order not to lose such an individual´s trust and to keep the option of vaccination at a later date open.
Broad and efficient SARS-CoV-2 immunity 8 months post mild infection. Journal of Internal Medicine 2021 (PMID: 34459525):
Robust humoral and cellular immune responses and low risk for reinfection at least 8 months following asymptomatic to mild COVID-19
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/joim.13387
Considerable decline in neutralizing antibodies after both BNT162b2 and ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 vaccination over 3-7 months. Vaccination following SARS-CoV-2 infection resulted in higher antibody titers at all sampling time points when compared to SARS-CoV-2 naive vaccinees. Neutralizing antibody titers against all ten tested SARS-CoV-2 variants were at least 2 respectively 3-fold higher in SARS-CoV-2 recovered as compared to naive vaccinees following BNT162b2 and ChAdOx1 nCoV-19, respectively. MedRXiv 2021 (doi: 10.1101/2021.10.16.21264948):
Impact of SARS-CoV-2 infection on longitudinal vaccine immune responses
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.10.16.21264948v1
How effective is Covid infection with one strain vs another?
Anecdotally, I know individuals who have had confirmed cases of Covid more than once, before vaccines were widely available, and before the delta variant arrived here. Given the timing, it seemed likely they had different variants each time.
At least the unpleasant side effects of each bout convinced them to get vaccinated as soon as they could!
Good question but fortunately academic by now because Delta has outcompeted previous variants. It looks though as previous Alpha infection resulted in lower neutralizing antibodies for Delta than previous Delta infection. I would say that this is not unexpected and one might expect a similar situation with new variants appearing. The good news is that everything appears to indicate that infection with any variant followed by vaccination improves immunity to Delta dramatically and I think that might pan out for future variants as well. That is one reason why vaccination a few weeks after infection is likely the best way to deal with this issue.
Now where variants come into play is when an otherwise healthy young person after having had recent infection with Delta is vaccine hesitant. As long as Delta is the predominant variant in the community, a strong case for immunization right away can honestly not be made. I would recommend to such a patient to speak again to a trusted health care provider at the 8 months after recovery mark or whenever a new variant emerges, whichever comes first.
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2782139
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CDC review from 10/29/2021 of the evidence supporting induction of robust immunity for at least six months after SARS-CoV-2 infection. The recommendation of vaccination following infection is unchanged:
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/science/science-briefs/vaccine-induced-immunity.html
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CDC review from 10/29/2021 of the evidence supporting induction of robust immunity for at least six months after SARS-CoV-2 infection. The recommendation of vaccination following infection is unchanged:
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/science/science-briefs/vaccine-induced-immunity.html
Yes? They very clearly explain why that is the case in the second bullet point:
- Substantial immunologic evidence and a growing body of epidemiologic evidence indicate that vaccination after infection significantly enhances protection and further reduces risk of reinfection, which lays the foundation for CDC recommendations.
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The way I read the quote was that a study was providing evidence to the medical community that infection was sufficient to result in long term immunity. Which makes their next statement that a vaccine will significantly bolster it appear contradictory. I think the wording of this conclusion is poor - confusing at best and supporting the anti-vaxx side at worst. I did not read the full study.
+1
That is precisely my response, too.
We have good evidence that immunity after SARS-CoV-2 infection is robust and results in protection from COVID19 comparable to full vaccination for at least 9 months. We also know that vaccination after infection results in much higher levels of neutralizing antibodies than vaccination in the not previously infected.
So the statement that SARS-CoV-2 infection induces strong long term immunity that can be bolstered by post infection vaccination is simply true according to current knowledge.
But what is also true is that the recommendation of getting vaccinated after having been infected does not have as strong evidence behind it as has vaccination in the not previously infected. The recommendation essentially is based on that we do not know if the robustness of the immunity after infection is enjoyed by all comers with all kinds of health issues and risk factors and that we do not yet know how long natural immunity lasts. The recommendation thus tends to veer towards "better safe than sorry" - which is good enough for me but may not be good enough for a young healthy person who had mild COVID a couple of months before and is vaccine hesitant. This has to be acknowledged in order not to lose such an individual´s trust and to keep the option of vaccination at a later date open.
Broad and efficient SARS-CoV-2 immunity 8 months post mild infection. Journal of Internal Medicine 2021 (PMID: 34459525):
Robust humoral and cellular immune responses and low risk for reinfection at least 8 months following asymptomatic to mild COVID-19
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/joim.13387
Considerable decline in neutralizing antibodies after both BNT162b2 and ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 vaccination over 3-7 months. Vaccination following SARS-CoV-2 infection resulted in higher antibody titers at all sampling time points when compared to SARS-CoV-2 naive vaccinees. Neutralizing antibody titers against all ten tested SARS-CoV-2 variants were at least 2 respectively 3-fold higher in SARS-CoV-2 recovered as compared to naive vaccinees following BNT162b2 and ChAdOx1 nCoV-19, respectively. MedRXiv 2021 (doi: 10.1101/2021.10.16.21264948):
Impact of SARS-CoV-2 infection on longitudinal vaccine immune responses
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.10.16.21264948v1
How effective is Covid infection with one strain vs another?
Anecdotally, I know individuals who have had confirmed cases of Covid more than once, before vaccines were widely available, and before the delta variant arrived here. Given the timing, it seemed likely they had different variants each time.
At least the unpleasant side effects of each bout convinced them to get vaccinated as soon as they could!
Good question but fortunately academic by now because Delta has outcompeted previous variants. It looks though as previous Alpha infection resulted in lower neutralizing antibodies for Delta than previous Delta infection. I would say that this is not unexpected and one might expect a similar situation with new variants appearing. The good news is that everything appears to indicate that infection with any variant followed by vaccination improves immunity to Delta dramatically and I think that might pan out for future variants as well. That is one reason why vaccination a few weeks after infection is likely the best way to deal with this issue.
Now where variants come into play is when an otherwise healthy young person after having had recent infection with Delta is vaccine hesitant. As long as Delta is the predominant variant in the community, a strong case for immunization right away can honestly not be made. I would recommend to such a patient to speak again to a trusted health care provider at the 8 months after recovery mark or whenever a new variant emerges, whichever comes first.
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2782139
Ok, time´s up.
Millions have survived COVID-19 caused by the Delta variant and have enjoyed robust natural immunity even without being vaccinated as well.
Now a new variant (Omicron) with multiple new mutations has emerged. The effect of these mutations on virulence and transmissibility are not yet known.
However, given the excellent safety profiles of the available vaccine and what we know about reinfections with new variants in COVID-19 survivors, there is now no time to lose to get vaccinated even with a history of COVID-19 within the last 6-9 months.
All COVID-19 survivors (without any contraindication, which extremely rare) need to be vaccinated upon recovery. Natural immunity cannot be relied on anymore and cannot justify procrastination with the impending spread of the Omicron variant in US.
The same is true for the third vaccination. Everyone needs to receive the third shot ASAP.
A high level of immunity of vaccination after post-COVID-19, as well as of a third shot after initial vaccination can be expected within 7-10 days - just in time for the arrival of Omicron.
(and to prevent any confusion, I am a retired pulmonary and critical care physician and I am still publishing and mentoring junior faculty in the field.)
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Have the various vaccines proven effective against the Omicron variant?
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Have the various vaccines proven effective against the Omicron variant?
Too soon to know. The Omicron variant was only identified this week. It seems to be more infective than Delta. I've seen suggestions that it is more likely to create re-infections in people who have previously had other variants of covid, which is a bad sign. I've also seen suggestions that it is more likely than earlier variants to cause serious disease in younger people, in their 30s and 40s. It's going to take a few weeks to start getting decent stats. But many countries in Europe are finding cases now so it looks inevitable that large statistical analysis will follow sooner or later.
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Have the various vaccines proven effective against the Omicron variant?
Effectiveness of the vaccines is not an either/or quality, making this question unanswerable.
Vaccinations after infection and third shorts have been shown to greatly increase antibody titers and variety as well as improve cellular immunity (T-cell). An incremental increase of effective protection from COVID-19after such immunizations is expected.
To dig a little deeper into your question, the idea that "proof" plays any role in the process of science is actually incorrect. Scientists are generally satisfied if their conclusions allow predictions about future events and that broadly consists of reproducibility of the experiments or correct predictions in the uncontrolled environment the real world represents.
In this specific context and in consideration of the available evidence, we can predict an incremental positive effect of vaccinations on protective immunity which is likely sufficiently large to be meaningful for the individual and for society.
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re: rage at anti-vaxxers and their treatment for COVID overwhelming hospital capacity to the detriment of others who need care (which I believe was a somewhat spirited topic off and on in this thread): https://www.npr.org/2021/11/28/1058988220/once-rare-lung-transplants-for-covid-19-patients-are-rising-quickly
Predictably, I am annoyed at the idea of anti-vaxxers getting a lung transplant (to the exclusion of someone else). Although this article talks about some much more sympathetic characters, primarily people that got COVID prior to vaccine availability and are not anti-vaxxers. As was discussed in this thread, organs are often given to other people that have caused their own problems, like smokers or people who abuse alcohol. I still feel like this is a big difference. Addiction is such a complicated thing and not only do we not have the most effective approaches to handling addiciton (like nowhere near as effective as the vaccines are in preventing death and hospitalization for COVID), but we also certainly don't make them widely available for free to people to ensure they aren't killed or ruined because of them. Getting COVID isn't comparable at all to being addicted to a very addicting drug like cigarettes. In response, my DH suggested to me that the right wing, anti-vaxx, conspiracy theories might in fact be comparable to cigarette addiction. I guess we don't know, empirically, but I am skeptical.
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Getting COVID isn't comparable at all to being addicted to a very addicting drug like cigarettes. In response, my DH suggested to me that the right wing, anti-vaxx, conspiracy theories might in fact be comparable to cigarette addiction.
Also, has a single government official expressed skepticism in the vaccine? If I'm a gullible person with a 10th grade education might I trust that government official? Might they have convinced me the be skeptical of the vaccine? If that is the case, perhaps it is immoral to deny me the medical care I need just because I'm uneducated and gullible.
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Transplant organs aren't given to people with active addiction. Someone who is still drinking won't be given a new liver to treat cirrhosis. My uncle wouldn't have been given a lung transplant if he'd been an active smoker. He'd quit well over a decade before, and his progressive, terminal lung damage was a gene-related side effect of the chemotherapy he was taking for rheumatoid arthritis (his two non-smoking sisters with RA were promptly pulled off of the same drug when they started showing symptoms of lung damage).
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Getting COVID isn't comparable at all to being addicted to a very addicting drug like cigarettes. In response, my DH suggested to me that the right wing, anti-vaxx, conspiracy theories might in fact be comparable to cigarette addiction.
Also, has a single government official expressed skepticism in the vaccine? If I'm a gullible person with a 10th grade education might I trust that government official? Might they have convinced me the be skeptical of the vaccine? If that is the case, perhaps it is immoral to deny me the medical care I need just because I'm uneducated and gullible.
I think that not actively denouncing antivaxx rhetoric did a lot of damage. And I think those who didn’t actively denounce knew that it would result in harm but they didn’t care be because vote$
-
Getting COVID isn't comparable at all to being addicted to a very addicting drug like cigarettes. In response, my DH suggested to me that the right wing, anti-vaxx, conspiracy theories might in fact be comparable to cigarette addiction.
Also, has a single government official expressed skepticism in the vaccine? If I'm a gullible person with a 10th grade education might I trust that government official? Might they have convinced me the be skeptical of the vaccine? If that is the case, perhaps it is immoral to deny me the medical care I need just because I'm uneducated and gullible.
I think that not actively denouncing antivaxx rhetoric did a lot of damage. And I think those who didn’t actively denounce knew that it would result in harm but they didn’t care be because vote$
The GOP made denouncing of any COVID medical advice from the professionals their election platform. Those "gullible" people declared themselves competent, voted, and cried out that anyone who weren't them were the gullible ones. Oh, and they believe in personal responsibility over government hand outs. They're not "uneducated and gullible" in a vacuum. Their choices affect other people. Recall that some of them swore on their deathbeds that it wasn't COVID killing them, they're attacking people just for wearing masks in public, they're suing hospitals for not prescribing unproven livestock medication, and the people they elected are leading the charge.
If a choice has to be made to allocate scarce resources between someone who has made every attempt to do right by themselves and their community, and someone who ignores medical advice and defiantly/recklessly/violently gets sick and injured and swears by their personal decisions? No question.
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Recall that some of them swore on their deathbeds that it wasn't COVID killing them
not to party poop, but I wish I didn’t recall these things. I lived them. People who would who verbally abused the entire staff until they literally didn’t have the breath to do so. That’s a fucked up feeling, waiting outside the room until they get bad enough to not fight when you when you bring the intubation box in. And then you have people who shouldn’t have died and the moments when you tell the people left behind that they did. Ultimately, I quit the job.
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Recall that some of them swore on their deathbeds that it wasn't COVID killing them
not to party poop, but I wish I didn’t recall these things. I lived them. People who would who verbally abused the entire staff until they literally didn’t have the breath to do so. That’s a fucked up feeling, waiting outside the room until they get bad enough to not fight when you when you bring the intubation box in. And then you have people who shouldn’t have died and the moments when you tell the people left behind that they did. Ultimately, I quit the job.
Oh man, that is a rough burden to carry. Sorry it went that way and you had to deal with it. It really shouldn't have gone that way.
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Getting COVID isn't comparable at all to being addicted to a very addicting drug like cigarettes. In response, my DH suggested to me that the right wing, anti-vaxx, conspiracy theories might in fact be comparable to cigarette addiction.
Also, has a single government official expressed skepticism in the vaccine? If I'm a gullible person with a 10th grade education might I trust that government official? Might they have convinced me the be skeptical of the vaccine? If that is the case, perhaps it is immoral to deny me the medical care I need just because I'm uneducated and gullible.
I think that not actively denouncing antivaxx rhetoric did a lot of damage. And I think those who didn’t actively denounce knew that it would result in harm but they didn’t care be because vote$
The GOP made denouncing of any COVID medical advice from the professionals their election platform. Those "gullible" people declared themselves competent, voted, and cried out that anyone who weren't them were the gullible ones.
That is a factually incorrect statement. There were 331.4M people in the USA in 2020 (https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/decennial-census/about/rdo.html) and only 74.2M voted for the GOP presidential candidate (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_United_States_presidential_election). Most people in the USA do not vote.
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Getting COVID isn't comparable at all to being addicted to a very addicting drug like cigarettes. In response, my DH suggested to me that the right wing, anti-vaxx, conspiracy theories might in fact be comparable to cigarette addiction.
Also, has a single government official expressed skepticism in the vaccine? If I'm a gullible person with a 10th grade education might I trust that government official? Might they have convinced me the be skeptical of the vaccine? If that is the case, perhaps it is immoral to deny me the medical care I need just because I'm uneducated and gullible.
I think that not actively denouncing antivaxx rhetoric did a lot of damage. And I think those who didn’t actively denounce knew that it would result in harm but they didn’t care be because vote$
The GOP made denouncing of any COVID medical advice from the professionals their election platform. Those "gullible" people declared themselves competent, voted, and cried out that anyone who weren't them were the gullible ones.
That is a factually incorrect statement. There were 331.4M people in the USA in 2020 (https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/decennial-census/about/rdo.html) and only 74.2M voted for the GOP presidential candidate (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_United_States_presidential_election). Most people in the USA do not vote.
I'm missing what you are pointing out is factually untrue. It looks like you are correcting someone saying something about how many people voted and/or voted for Trump in 2020, but I don't see any claims about that in the above. What am I missing?
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Getting COVID isn't comparable at all to being addicted to a very addicting drug like cigarettes. In response, my DH suggested to me that the right wing, anti-vaxx, conspiracy theories might in fact be comparable to cigarette addiction.
Also, has a single government official expressed skepticism in the vaccine? If I'm a gullible person with a 10th grade education might I trust that government official? Might they have convinced me the be skeptical of the vaccine? If that is the case, perhaps it is immoral to deny me the medical care I need just because I'm uneducated and gullible.
I think that not actively denouncing antivaxx rhetoric did a lot of damage. And I think those who didn’t actively denounce knew that it would result in harm but they didn’t care be because vote$
The GOP made denouncing of any COVID medical advice from the professionals their election platform. Those "gullible" people declared themselves competent, voted, and cried out that anyone who weren't them were the gullible ones.
That is a factually incorrect statement. There were 331.4M people in the USA in 2020 (https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/decennial-census/about/rdo.html) and only 74.2M voted for the GOP presidential candidate (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_United_States_presidential_election). Most people in the USA do not vote.
I'm missing what you are pointing out is factually untrue. It looks like you are correcting someone saying something about how many people voted and/or voted for Trump in 2020, but I don't see any claims about that in the above. What am I missing?
I guess that it depends on who exactly Travis is replying to. If Travis is only in reference to the people who actually voted for anti-vax candidates, then fine. But should we be denying medical care based on who you voted for? Because my original post includes a bunch of people that just didn't vote, because most people don't vote.
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The GOP made denouncing of any COVID medical advice from the professionals their election platform. Those "gullible" people declared themselves competent, voted, and cried out that anyone who weren't them were the gullible ones. Oh, and they believe in personal responsibility over government hand outs. They're not "uneducated and gullible" in a vacuum. Their choices affect other people. Recall that some of them swore on their deathbeds that it wasn't COVID killing them, they're attacking people just for wearing masks in public, they're suing hospitals for not prescribing unproven livestock medication, and the people they elected are leading the charge.
If a choice has to be made to allocate scarce resources between someone who has made every attempt to do right by themselves and their community, and someone who ignores medical advice and defiantly/recklessly/violently gets sick and injured and swears by their personal decisions? No question.
Absolutely b/c profits come first. The "Chamber of Commerce" members can't have a bad year. Must keep the restaurants open, the stores open, the schools open (so people can go to work and help their employers continue to make money). Money is more important than lives and the GOP message will be adapted to achieve the profits.
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Getting COVID isn't comparable at all to being addicted to a very addicting drug like cigarettes. In response, my DH suggested to me that the right wing, anti-vaxx, conspiracy theories might in fact be comparable to cigarette addiction.
Also, has a single government official expressed skepticism in the vaccine? If I'm a gullible person with a 10th grade education might I trust that government official? Might they have convinced me the be skeptical of the vaccine? If that is the case, perhaps it is immoral to deny me the medical care I need just because I'm uneducated and gullible.
I think that not actively denouncing antivaxx rhetoric did a lot of damage. And I think those who didn’t actively denounce knew that it would result in harm but they didn’t care be because vote$
The GOP made denouncing of any COVID medical advice from the professionals their election platform. Those "gullible" people declared themselves competent, voted, and cried out that anyone who weren't them were the gullible ones.
That is a factually incorrect statement. There were 331.4M people in the USA in 2020 (https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/decennial-census/about/rdo.html) and only 74.2M voted for the GOP presidential candidate (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_United_States_presidential_election). Most people in the USA do not vote.
I'm missing what you are pointing out is factually untrue. It looks like you are correcting someone saying something about how many people voted and/or voted for Trump in 2020, but I don't see any claims about that in the above. What am I missing?
I guess that it depends on who exactly Travis is replying to. If Travis is only in reference to the people who actually voted for anti-vax candidates, then fine. But should we be denying medical care based on who you voted for? Because my original post includes a bunch of people that just didn't vote, because most people don't vote.
Nobody should be denied medical care for their beliefs - religious, political, or scientific. Even if those beliefs are patently stupid and harmful. It's a dangerous path to even contemplate going down.
Look at those who follow homeopathy and homeopathic cures. They're 100% reality denying bullshit. Diluting something with water (sometimes alcohol) does not make it a powerful cure. Yet when the bullshit fails and the person needs real medical care, are they refused because they were dumb enough to buy into the lie? Last survey I read, a quarter of Americans believe that homeopathy is legit.
If you're going to hold off on giving vaccine denying Republicans care, then you're also going to need to deny 'alternative medicine' folks care too. The damage and denialism is real in both cases.
But why stop there? Why not deny people who do risky things medical care? Nobody needs to go downhill skiing. It's a risky sport. Shouldn't we be prioritizing people who don't risk their health?
This is a bad path to set down.
-
Getting COVID isn't comparable at all to being addicted to a very addicting drug like cigarettes. In response, my DH suggested to me that the right wing, anti-vaxx, conspiracy theories might in fact be comparable to cigarette addiction.
Also, has a single government official expressed skepticism in the vaccine? If I'm a gullible person with a 10th grade education might I trust that government official? Might they have convinced me the be skeptical of the vaccine? If that is the case, perhaps it is immoral to deny me the medical care I need just because I'm uneducated and gullible.
I think that not actively denouncing antivaxx rhetoric did a lot of damage. And I think those who didn’t actively denounce knew that it would result in harm but they didn’t care be because vote$
The GOP made denouncing of any COVID medical advice from the professionals their election platform. Those "gullible" people declared themselves competent, voted, and cried out that anyone who weren't them were the gullible ones.
That is a factually incorrect statement. There were 331.4M people in the USA in 2020 (https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/decennial-census/about/rdo.html) and only 74.2M voted for the GOP presidential candidate (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_United_States_presidential_election). Most people in the USA do not vote.
I'm missing what you are pointing out is factually untrue. It looks like you are correcting someone saying something about how many people voted and/or voted for Trump in 2020, but I don't see any claims about that in the above. What am I missing?
I guess that it depends on who exactly Travis is replying to. If Travis is only in reference to the people who actually voted for anti-vax candidates, then fine. But should we be denying medical care based on who you voted for? Because my original post includes a bunch of people that just didn't vote, because most people don't vote.
Nobody should be denied medical care for their beliefs - religious, political, or scientific. Even if those beliefs are patently stupid and harmful. It's a dangerous path to even contemplate going down.
Look at those who follow homeopathy and homeopathic cures. They're 100% reality denying bullshit. Diluting something with water (sometimes alcohol) does not make it a powerful cure. Yet when the bullshit fails and the person needs real medical care, are they refused because they were dumb enough to buy into the lie? Last survey I read, a quarter of Americans believe that homeopathy is legit.
If you're going to hold off on giving vaccine denying Republicans care, then you're also going to need to deny 'alternative medicine' folks care too. The damage and denialism is real in both cases.
But why stop there? Why not deny people who do risky things medical care? Nobody needs to go downhill skiing. It's a risky sport. Shouldn't we be prioritizing people who don't risk their health?
This is a bad path to set down.
While I would generally agree, I think there is a time where it is not only appropriate but important to do this as a public health measure, and that is when these beliefs are causing people to consume so much medical care that other people cannot get medical care.
No one was ever turned away from 5 hospitals and had to be life-flighted 3 states away for their urgent cardiac care because the homeopathy crowd is using up all the ICU beds. In fact, this hasn't been the situation for any bad decisions ever. Until COVID.
This is a unique case and is an easy way to distinguish when these measures should and should not be implemented.
-
Getting COVID isn't comparable at all to being addicted to a very addicting drug like cigarettes. In response, my DH suggested to me that the right wing, anti-vaxx, conspiracy theories might in fact be comparable to cigarette addiction.
Also, has a single government official expressed skepticism in the vaccine? If I'm a gullible person with a 10th grade education might I trust that government official? Might they have convinced me the be skeptical of the vaccine? If that is the case, perhaps it is immoral to deny me the medical care I need just because I'm uneducated and gullible.
I think that not actively denouncing antivaxx rhetoric did a lot of damage. And I think those who didn’t actively denounce knew that it would result in harm but they didn’t care be because vote$
The GOP made denouncing of any COVID medical advice from the professionals their election platform. Those "gullible" people declared themselves competent, voted, and cried out that anyone who weren't them were the gullible ones.
That is a factually incorrect statement. There were 331.4M people in the USA in 2020 (https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/decennial-census/about/rdo.html) and only 74.2M voted for the GOP presidential candidate (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_United_States_presidential_election). Most people in the USA do not vote.
I'm missing what you are pointing out is factually untrue. It looks like you are correcting someone saying something about how many people voted and/or voted for Trump in 2020, but I don't see any claims about that in the above. What am I missing?
I guess that it depends on who exactly Travis is replying to. If Travis is only in reference to the people who actually voted for anti-vax candidates, then fine. But should we be denying medical care based on who you voted for? Because my original post includes a bunch of people that just didn't vote, because most people don't vote.
Nobody should be denied medical care for their beliefs - religious, political, or scientific. Even if those beliefs are patently stupid and harmful. It's a dangerous path to even contemplate going down.
Look at those who follow homeopathy and homeopathic cures. They're 100% reality denying bullshit. Diluting something with water (sometimes alcohol) does not make it a powerful cure. Yet when the bullshit fails and the person needs real medical care, are they refused because they were dumb enough to buy into the lie? Last survey I read, a quarter of Americans believe that homeopathy is legit.
If you're going to hold off on giving vaccine denying Republicans care, then you're also going to need to deny 'alternative medicine' folks care too. The damage and denialism is real in both cases.
But why stop there? Why not deny people who do risky things medical care? Nobody needs to go downhill skiing. It's a risky sport. Shouldn't we be prioritizing people who don't risk their health?
This is a bad path to set down.
While I would generally agree, I think there is a time where it is not only appropriate but important to do this as a public health measure, and that is when these beliefs are causing people to consume so much medical care that other people cannot get medical care.
No one was ever turned away from 5 hospitals and had to be life-flighted 3 states away for their urgent cardiac care because the homeopathy crowd is using up all the ICU beds. In fact, this hasn't been the situation for any bad decisions ever. Until COVID.
This is a unique case and is an easy way to distinguish when these measures should and should not be implemented.
Covid anti-vaccine folks are an easy group to point fingers at because they are simple to track.
I don't think we really keep stats on the damage that followers of homeopathy cause, but (given that they're drinking small vials of water and taking sugar pills rather than follow proper medicine) would expect that they also increase the load on hospitals during stressful times like this pandemic.
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Reminds me of the public debate here in the 2000s in the U.S. about whether health care is a "right" or a "privilege."
Of course, Republican legislators were in the "it's a privilege" camp, and were anti the Affordable Care Act aka Obamacare due to their knee-jerk anti-anything the Democrats were proposing. They were all fine with defining health care as a privilege because their thought process was that you just had to go get a job that offered health insurance as a benefit. And if you were unlucky enough to not get such a job, then oh well ...
So they all voted against it but fortunately, due to the razor-thin majority the Democrats had at the time, the ACA passed in 2010.
That's why many of us find it ironic that these same Republican voters are the majority of anti-vaxxers. Even with a vaccine offered for free for everyone, they would rather die.
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Getting COVID isn't comparable at all to being addicted to a very addicting drug like cigarettes. In response, my DH suggested to me that the right wing, anti-vaxx, conspiracy theories might in fact be comparable to cigarette addiction.
Also, has a single government official expressed skepticism in the vaccine? If I'm a gullible person with a 10th grade education might I trust that government official? Might they have convinced me the be skeptical of the vaccine? If that is the case, perhaps it is immoral to deny me the medical care I need just because I'm uneducated and gullible.
I think that not actively denouncing antivaxx rhetoric did a lot of damage. And I think those who didn’t actively denounce knew that it would result in harm but they didn’t care be because vote$
The GOP made denouncing of any COVID medical advice from the professionals their election platform. Those "gullible" people declared themselves competent, voted, and cried out that anyone who weren't them were the gullible ones.
That is a factually incorrect statement. There were 331.4M people in the USA in 2020 (https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/decennial-census/about/rdo.html) and only 74.2M voted for the GOP presidential candidate (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_United_States_presidential_election). Most people in the USA do not vote.
I'm missing what you are pointing out is factually untrue. It looks like you are correcting someone saying something about how many people voted and/or voted for Trump in 2020, but I don't see any claims about that in the above. What am I missing?
I guess that it depends on who exactly Travis is replying to. If Travis is only in reference to the people who actually voted for anti-vax candidates, then fine. But should we be denying medical care based on who you voted for? Because my original post includes a bunch of people that just didn't vote, because most people don't vote.
Nobody should be denied medical care for their beliefs - religious, political, or scientific. Even if those beliefs are patently stupid and harmful. It's a dangerous path to even contemplate going down.
Look at those who follow homeopathy and homeopathic cures. They're 100% reality denying bullshit. Diluting something with water (sometimes alcohol) does not make it a powerful cure. Yet when the bullshit fails and the person needs real medical care, are they refused because they were dumb enough to buy into the lie? Last survey I read, a quarter of Americans believe that homeopathy is legit.
If you're going to hold off on giving vaccine denying Republicans care, then you're also going to need to deny 'alternative medicine' folks care too. The damage and denialism is real in both cases.
But why stop there? Why not deny people who do risky things medical care? Nobody needs to go downhill skiing. It's a risky sport. Shouldn't we be prioritizing people who don't risk their health?
This is a bad path to set down.
While I would generally agree, I think there is a time where it is not only appropriate but important to do this as a public health measure, and that is when these beliefs are causing people to consume so much medical care that other people cannot get medical care.
No one was ever turned away from 5 hospitals and had to be life-flighted 3 states away for their urgent cardiac care because the homeopathy crowd is using up all the ICU beds. In fact, this hasn't been the situation for any bad decisions ever. Until COVID.
This is a unique case and is an easy way to distinguish when these measures should and should not be implemented.
Covid anti-vaccine folks are an easy group to point fingers at because they are simple to track.
I don't think we really keep stats on the damage that followers of homeopathy cause, but (given that they're drinking small vials of water and taking sugar pills rather than follow proper medicine) would expect that they also increase the load on hospitals during stressful times like this pandemic.
But that's exactly it. The anti-vaxxers are the but-for cause of the "stressful times" in the hospitals in the first place. Without them, I'm not sure that ANY hospital would be overextended. You can't say that about the homeopathy crowd. You probably can't say that about the homeopathy crowd plus the "crowds" created by 10 other stupid health decisions people are making. It's the anti-vaxxers that are preventing others from receiving timely health care (to the extent it is happening...I don't want to pretend this is happening to everyone everywhere everyday) and that is the unique thing that is incredibly damaging in a way no other situation is or has been. It's much more urgent to address this.
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Double-posting, but I agree with sui generis and others.
The notion of implementing some requirements where those who deliberately refuse to get the Covid vaccine would go to the back of the line is very antithetical to modern medicine's mandate to care for all equally.
However, as we found during this pandemic, resources are not infinite. We have to acknowledge that fact.
And the fact that our society has already been allowing some patients to be prioritized based on whether they can pay, e.g., mental health care, dental, vision, hearing, care for disabled, etc. The U.S. can't seem to pass the Medicare for All legislation despite being the only developed country that doesn't offer it and despite the majority of the country in favor of it.
So we continue to muddle along watching one after another suffer and die too early.
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Maybe it has been covered, but I'm not sure how down-prioritizing someone who won't get a Covid vax is different than down-listing someone who needs an organ transplant but is an alcoholic. Their choices mean their outcome is less likely to be good, so the limited resource goes to someone more likely to have a better outcome.
Maybe this depends on whether we are talking about not treating (in the face of immediately limited resources) someone who *had* refused to get vaccinated vs. someone who had previously refused but now swears in their life...almost literally... that they will get vaccinated as soon as they are medically cleared to do so, so please treat them now. Just like a new liver might go to an alcoholic who swears they are done drinking and convinces a doctor they mean it, but not to someone who says they will have a beer after surgery.
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Ok, time´s up.
[..]
A high level of immunity of vaccination after post-COVID-19, as well as of a third shot after initial vaccination can be expected within 7-10 days - just in time for the arrival of Omicron.
Thanks for the reminder, I managed to get an appointment for a booster shot same-day and just came back from getting it, partially due to your post reminding me. So don't feel like your posts are shouting into the void.
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Ok, time´s up.
[..]
A high level of immunity of vaccination after post-COVID-19, as well as of a third shot after initial vaccination can be expected within 7-10 days - just in time for the arrival of Omicron.
Thanks for the reminder, I managed to get an appointment for a booster shot same-day and just came back from getting it, partially due to your post reminding me. So don't feel like your posts are shouting into the void.
Thank you for the feedback - appreciate it!
I also would like to point out that the CDC changed its guidance, 48 hours after my post, to more strongly recommending third dose vaccinations in all over 18 years old 6 months after initial vaccinations.
There is agreement among experts on what to do in respect to vaccinations at this point in time.
Of course, we cannot help those who wish to be confused for whatever reason and who loudly complain whenever guidance changes, and who will inevitably come out of the woodwork with the updated CDC guidance released yesterday - they can safely be ignored.
https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/29/health/cdc-booster-guidance-omicron/index.html
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For me it's still 2 month until booster. Maybe I even get the omicran adapted Moderna/Bointech then. They could make it just in time.
Yesterday I read an article about the first vaccination in Germany/Bavaria. Smallpox. (btw. the Wikipedia article should have a trigger warning) At least 10 times as deadly as corona and assorted bad effects. At that time, everyone knew at least one who had died from it.
Still a vast part of the people didn't wanted the vaccine - for the fucking same reasons as today (well, and that children start to sound like a cow because the vaccine was made from cow pox, that's not used in case of Corona but only because cows don't play a role).
It was not until the king put a heavy fine on not being vaccinated until the situation got better.
Those who don't learn from history...
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For me it's still 2 month until booster. Maybe I even get the omicran adapted Moderna/Bointech then. They could make it just in time.
Yesterday I read an article about the first vaccination in Germany/Bavaria. Smallpox. (btw. the Wikipedia article should have a trigger warning) At least 10 times as deadly as corona and assorted bad effects. At that time, everyone knew at least one who had died from it.
Still a vast part of the people didn't wanted the vaccine - for the fucking same reasons as today (well, and that children start to sound like a cow because the vaccine was made from cow pox, that's not used in case of Corona but only because cows don't play a role).
It was not until the king put a heavy fine on not being vaccinated until the situation got better.
Those who don't learn from history...
The anti-vaxxers are always with us...
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2021/11/polio-vaccine-antivaxxer-history-duon-miller.html (https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2021/11/polio-vaccine-antivaxxer-history-duon-miller.html)
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I guess that it depends on who exactly Travis is replying to. If Travis is only in reference to the people who actually voted for anti-vax candidates, then fine. But should we be denying medical care based on who you voted for? Because my original post includes a bunch of people that just didn't vote, because most people don't vote.
Took a few days off out of town, but I'm back and I owe you all a response. I was taking exception to your remark that anti-vax Republicans are somehow just uneducated and vulnerable to persuasion. The size of this crowd is not small. They appear to come from all across the US and from various economic and social backgrounds. They're intelligent enough to make informed decisions, and they're still making the decision to oppose any measure that might combat this virus. And to your remark that "most people in the US don't vote," voter turnout last year was the highest in 100 years at 66%.
Reminds me of the public debate here in the 2000s in the U.S. about whether health care is a "right" or a "privilege."
...
That's why many of us find it ironic that these same Republican voters are the majority of anti-vaxxers. Even with a vaccine offered for free for everyone, they would rather die.
I'm not advocating a political test for health care, but I want to point out the hypocrisy that if the GOP had it their way a decade ago, the number of uninsured requiring COVID treatment would be in the millions with hospitals looking to their state governments for financial aid far beyond what they've already had to do to the point of it likely breaking state governments. I don't give a damn what a homeopath does with his or her time. Generally speaking, their choices don't affect me. On the other hand, the GOP made spreading a virus around the country something to be proud of. Now anti-insurance, anti-mask, anti-vaccine, anti-anything a Democrat might suggest folks have been flooding ERs after having coughed all over everybody they know and demanding treatment. A doctor is going to treat them with the resources he has, but somewhere there's a hospital running out of oxygen, medication, and even a bed to stick them in. Our overworked medical system is going to require years to recover from this and it isn't over yet (and you can count on that effort being underfunded). This anti-authoritarian streak has infected my army as well with Privates all the way up to Generals defying the federal government because a handful of Republican politicians convinced them this vaccine is somehow different from the dozens we're required to get already, and that they should disobey lawful orders because its a Democrat giving them. This isn't the result of a handful of "gullible" people.
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From what I've read, only 70% of eligible voters are actually registered to vote in the US. There are also quite a number of people in the US population who are not eligible - children, migrants... I suspect that 66% of registered voters equates to less than 50% of the total US population. Thus, it's probable that most people in the US don't vote.
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Given how insurance plays a big role in healthcare in the US, have any insurance companies proposed either a higher deductible, higher premiums or a denial of coverage to those who are unvaccinated by choice and subsequently catch Covid?
Kind of like what Singapore is proposing with their public system but for private insurance.
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I believe that there was an airline that made premiums higher for unvaccinated employees.
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And to your remark that "most people in the US don't vote," voter turnout last year was the highest in 100 years at 66%.
Just to quibble a bit on this point - Deborah already outlined why this “66% voted” can be very misleading, but I think it’s worth delving to a bit more deeply.
Biden officially received just over 81MM votes, Trump 74MM. In 2020 the US population was 329.5MM
That means 24.9% of the population voted for Biden, 22.5% for Trump. Roughly 174 million didn’t vote for either candidate, and almost all of those didn’t vote at all. Now about 74 million are under the age of 18, but that still leaves 100MM adults living in the US who didn’t vote at all. The lions share of those are eligible votes who just didn’t turn out (44% of the registered voter population who didn’t show up plus ~56 million eligible voters who aren’t registered). Then there’s several million people who are ineligible for legal reasons (citizen status, convicted felon, etc).
So while it’s great to have “record high voter turnout” it’s also necessary to be critical and examine why we have way more eligible but absent voters than people who voted for either candidate, and why we still can’t seem to crack 50% participation in one of the most publicized elections of our lives.
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And to your remark that "most people in the US don't vote," voter turnout last year was the highest in 100 years at 66%.
Just to quibble a bit on this point - Deborah already outlined why this “66% voted” can be very misleading, but I think it’s worth delving to a bit more deeply.
Biden officially received just over 81MM votes, Trump 74MM. In 2020 the US population was 329.5MM
That means 24.9% of the population voted for Biden, 22.5% for Trump. Roughly 174 million didn’t vote for either candidate, and almost all of those didn’t vote at all. Now about 74 million are under the age of 18, but that still leaves 100MM adults living in the US who didn’t vote at all. The lions share of those are eligible votes who just didn’t turn out (44% of the registered voter population who didn’t show up plus ~56 million eligible voters who aren’t registered). Then there’s several million people who are ineligible for legal reasons (citizen status, convicted felon, etc).
Exactly right. Because we were discussing people (not registered voters, not eligible voters) getting COVID and receiving medical care. In a typical voting year ~40% of the population votes.
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More on third dose vaccinations (booster shots):
"As recently as last week, many public health experts were fiercely opposed to the Biden administration’s campaign to roll out booster shots of the coronavirus vaccines to all American adults. There was little scientific evidence to support extra doses for most people, the researchers said.
The Omicron variant has changed all that."
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/01/health/covid-omicron-booster-shots.html
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And to your remark that "most people in the US don't vote," voter turnout last year was the highest in 100 years at 66%.
Just to quibble a bit on this point - Deborah already outlined why this “66% voted” can be very misleading, but I think it’s worth delving to a bit more deeply.
Biden officially received just over 81MM votes, Trump 74MM. In 2020 the US population was 329.5MM
That means 24.9% of the population voted for Biden, 22.5% for Trump. Roughly 174 million didn’t vote for either candidate, and almost all of those didn’t vote at all. Now about 74 million are under the age of 18, but that still leaves 100MM adults living in the US who didn’t vote at all. The lions share of those are eligible votes who just didn’t turn out (44% of the registered voter population who didn’t show up plus ~56 million eligible voters who aren’t registered). Then there’s several million people who are ineligible for legal reasons (citizen status, convicted felon, etc).
Exactly right. Because we were discussing people (not registered voters, not eligible voters) getting COVID and receiving medical care. In a typical voting year ~40% of the population votes.
And I can't believe we're actually arguing this - you're including children in a discussion of people making medical decisions/body autonomy? You set the bar at having a 10th grade education and being influenced by politicians.
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And to your remark that "most people in the US don't vote," voter turnout last year was the highest in 100 years at 66%.
Just to quibble a bit on this point - Deborah already outlined why this “66% voted” can be very misleading, but I think it’s worth delving to a bit more deeply.
Biden officially received just over 81MM votes, Trump 74MM. In 2020 the US population was 329.5MM
That means 24.9% of the population voted for Biden, 22.5% for Trump. Roughly 174 million didn’t vote for either candidate, and almost all of those didn’t vote at all. Now about 74 million are under the age of 18, but that still leaves 100MM adults living in the US who didn’t vote at all. The lions share of those are eligible votes who just didn’t turn out (44% of the registered voter population who didn’t show up plus ~56 million eligible voters who aren’t registered). Then there’s several million people who are ineligible for legal reasons (citizen status, convicted felon, etc).
Exactly right. Because we were discussing people (not registered voters, not eligible voters) getting COVID and receiving medical care. In a typical voting year ~40% of the population votes.
And I can't believe we're actually arguing this - you're including children in a discussion of people making medical decisions/body autonomy? You set the bar at having a 10th grade education and being influenced by politicians.
First of all, that's this new thing we've been working on called an example.
Second of all I live in Oregon where the age of consent for medical treatment is 15.
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Why shouldn't kids/teenagers be able to participate in/make medical decisions and have body autonomy? I have a niece and nephew who jumped at the chance to get vaccinated. They are 15 and 17 and completely understood the risks and rewards. Their mother would have preferred to wait a few months to see how the teenage population handled the jabs before having her kids vaccinated, but she trusts their judgment.
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More on third dose vaccinations (booster shots):
"As recently as last week, many public health experts were fiercely opposed to the Biden administration’s campaign to roll out booster shots of the coronavirus vaccines to all American adults. There was little scientific evidence to support extra doses for most people, the researchers said.
The Omicron variant has changed all that."
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/01/health/covid-omicron-booster-shots.html
Omircron changed nothing, if at all Omicron could be woven as an argument against booster.
Data from e.g. Israel has even 2 month ago shown that booster not only work and are needed because immuity drop off sharply, but also that they increase the safety level by a magnitude.
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I guess that it depends on who exactly Travis is replying to. If Travis is only in reference to the people who actually voted for anti-vax candidates, then fine. But should we be denying medical care based on who you voted for? Because my original post includes a bunch of people that just didn't vote, because most people don't vote.
Took a few days off out of town, but I'm back and I owe you all a response. I was taking exception to your remark that anti-vax Republicans are somehow just uneducated and vulnerable to persuasion. The size of this crowd is not small. They appear to come from all across the US and from various economic and social backgrounds. They're intelligent enough to make informed decisions, and they're still making the decision to oppose any measure that might combat this virus. And to your remark that "most people in the US don't vote," voter turnout last year was the highest in 100 years at 66%.
Reminds me of the public debate here in the 2000s in the U.S. about whether health care is a "right" or a "privilege."
...
That's why many of us find it ironic that these same Republican voters are the majority of anti-vaxxers. Even with a vaccine offered for free for everyone, they would rather die.
I'm not advocating a political test for health care, but I want to point out the hypocrisy that if the GOP had it their way a decade ago, the number of uninsured requiring COVID treatment would be in the millions with hospitals looking to their state governments for financial aid far beyond what they've already had to do to the point of it likely breaking state governments. I don't give a damn what a homeopath does with his or her time. Generally speaking, their choices don't affect me. On the other hand, the GOP made spreading a virus around the country something to be proud of. Now anti-insurance, anti-mask, anti-vaccine, anti-anything a Democrat might suggest folks have been flooding ERs after having coughed all over everybody they know and demanding treatment. A doctor is going to treat them with the resources he has, but somewhere there's a hospital running out of oxygen, medication, and even a bed to stick them in. Our overworked medical system is going to require years to recover from this and it isn't over yet (and you can count on that effort being underfunded). This anti-authoritarian streak has infected my army as well with Privates all the way up to Generals defying the federal government because a handful of Republican politicians convinced them this vaccine is somehow different from the dozens we're required to get already, and that they should disobey lawful orders because its a Democrat giving them. This isn't the result of a handful of "gullible" people.
First, I will say that I agree with your overall sentiments, but I did want to respond to the idea that these are anti-authoritarians, because I feel this distinction is important.
These people are 100% authoritarian.
The difference here is that they cannot see leaders as anything BUT embodied authority because that's what they believe leaders ought to be--basically dictators (rather than any other kind of leader) and in this case they are simply anti THIS putative "authority"'s authority. They are all about following their choice of absolute authority. That's why they spew nonsense about Biden being a dictator. It's not that they don't like the principle of dictators.
We don't see all leaders as dictators, and we are against the principle no matter who the leader in question is. We don't follow Biden the way anyone would follow a dictator, which is another thing the right-wingers get wrong because that's not the choice they would make. We are anti-authoritarian. It doesn't mean we don't listen to or act in accordance with the laws and directives of our leaders.
Authoritarian followers insist on a green sky and deny reality and facts on their chosen dictator's say-so, and that's what makes them so dangerous.
The discussion at https://theauthoritarians.org/ (https://theauthoritarians.org/) is a study of this mindset, which is of course not surprisingly just like that of any follower of other dictators.
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Why shouldn't kids/teenagers be able to participate in/make medical decisions and have body autonomy?
Indeed! I got my Hepatitis B series in school at 15 because I was allowed to consent. But if I had refused to consent I like to think that I wouldn't have been condemned to a lifetime of poor treatment.
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More on third dose vaccinations (booster shots):
"As recently as last week, many public health experts were fiercely opposed to the Biden administration’s campaign to roll out booster shots of the coronavirus vaccines to all American adults. There was little scientific evidence to support extra doses for most people, the researchers said.
The Omicron variant has changed all that."
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/01/health/covid-omicron-booster-shots.html
Omircron changed nothing, if at all Omicron could be woven as an argument against booster.
Data from e.g. Israel has even 2 month ago shown that booster not only work and are needed because immuity drop off sharply, but also that they increase the safety level by a magnitude.
The above is a quote from the article and, with careful reading, it is clear that it is the researchers who did not think that third shots are necessary who changed their mind because of Omicron.
As far as I am concerned, I do not even think that calling the third shot a booster is correct. The RNA vaccines were initially investigated as a two injection schedule but experience has shown that it is more appropriate to call the third injection the third injection of a three injection series.
A booster shot is generally understood as a periodic boost (every 10 years with tetanus for example) to bring immunity back up to initial levels.
The third shot of the RNA vaccines results in a qualitatively and quantitatively much improved immunity.
The Israeli study and others like it just confirm that it is more appropriate to think of the RNA vaccinations as three injection vaccination series and to consider everyone who has had only two shots as incompletely vaccinated.
The reason why this is not a minor issue is that a third shot much improves immunity over initial immunity and that would not be expected from a mere booster shot. The third shot is superior to what is generally understood as a booster shot.
What Omicron changed dramatically is the need for early vaccination after recovery from COVID. While it is clear that previous infection results in robust immunity possibly outlasting vaccinations, this immunity does not sufficiently extend to Omicron. There has been a lot of pressure to recognize previous infection as equivalent to vaccination and Omicron has put this idea to rest and has thereby simplified negotiations regarding vaccine mandates.
Omicron means for the COVID survivors that they cannot rely at all on natural immunity for protection and that they need to get vaccinated ASAP.
Omicron also puts to rest the notion of achieving herd immunity via natural immunity.
This idea of naturally acquired herd immunity has been largely discredited, but GOP politicians who have promoted anti-vaxxerism and anti-maskism and anti-mandatism have no other backup to rescue themselves from eventually having to face responsibility for delaying effective disease management among their constituents.
All this has basically blown up in their face with Omicron.
One has to consider that although the situation in undervaxxed areas appears like a succession of events (deaths, hospitalizations, etc), the reality is that the consequences of these events are not going away any time soon, that is they are cumulative. Every death, hospitalization or chronic disability from COVID hits not just an individual but most often a family whose lives are permanently changed often through financial devastation. Families are not monolithic in their thinking and I believe, and have seen some good evidence, that a lot of bad blood is being created with each day going by. The GOP is trying to harness a force of nature to further their ends and might find itself riding a tiger.
edit: added video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qsdQ7HDKfis&t=41s
I think there is a good chance that we are seeing the beginnings of the slow COVID death squeeze in the undervaxxed areas of the country. This death squeeze does not only involve deaths from COVID but also the inability of chronically overtaxed hospitals to provide non-COVID care. Add to that the financial duress imposed by medical bills and by long term disability and one has a recipe for a grim future for many families unless vaccinations go up dramatically.
Edit: The topic is "How much will non-vaxxing by GOP reduce the population of voting age republicans". The anti-vaxxerism of the GOP can reduce the population of voting age republicans not only through attrition from death but also from loss of confidence in their, largely absent, leadership competence. In any case, they have lost control long ago and all we can see is the struggle to get in front of the parade.
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A booster shot is generally understood as a periodic boost (every 10 years with tetanus for example) to bring immunity back up to initial levels.
Yup, and Hepatitis B is three shots over six months.
Omricon also puts to rest the notion of achieving herd immunity via natural immunity.
Yes, but might it also put to rest any chance of herd immunity? I'm not sure, I don't believe that we have any good data yet on R0 or Rt.
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Omricon also puts to rest the notion of achieving herd immunity via natural immunity.
This idea of naturally acquired herd immunity has been largely discredited, but GOP politicians who have promoted anti-vaxxerism and anti-maskism and anti-mandatism have no other backup to rescue themselves from eventually having to face responsibility for delaying effective disease management among their constituents.
All this has basically blown up in their face with Omricon.
One has to consider that although the situation in undervaxxed areas appears like a succession of events (deaths, hospitalizations, etc), the reality is that the consequences of these events are not going away any time soon, that is they are cumulative. Every death, hosptalization or chronic disability from COVID hits not just an individual but most often a family whose lives are permanently changed often through financial devastation. Families are not monolithic in their thinking and I believe, and have seen some good evidence, that a lot of bad blood is being created with each day going by. The GOP is trying to harness a force of nature to further their ends and might find itself riding a tiger.
Authoritarians like Modi, Orbin, Bolsonaro, and Putin are not actually concerned with the well-being of their people, or reducing the impact of the pandemic on their countries. Authoritarians benefit when their populations and their institutions are disrupted by chaos, because such disruptions reduce the strength of the business people, bureaucrats, and peasants who might otherwise oppose them. Desperation also inclines people to blame scapegoats, and the most convenient scapegoats are always the minorities who might form a coalition against the ruler. This, in a nutshell, explains why dictatorships are such shitty places to live.
When we consider Trump's moves to expand the deficit, undermine federal agencies like the postal service, EPA, and department of education with saboteur administrators, to block an effective public health response so that the virus can wreck havoc, to spread conspiracy theories, and to cause his followers to distrust election results, we have to consider whether chaos is the master plan rather than a byproduct of incompetence. Maybe by "Making America Weak" Trump was attacking any possible sources of resistance and any remaining faith in the old order.
If you've lost faith in elections, lost faith in the competence of public health experts, been persuaded to believe conspiracy theories, and become alienated from your family and friends, you're just the sort of person who might don the red cap. But it was the leader you adore, who says only he can fix it, who disrupted your life in the first place and put you in such a desperate position that you think your best hope is a dictatorship.
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A booster shot is generally understood as a periodic boost (every 10 years with tetanus for example) to bring immunity back up to initial levels.
Yup, and Hepatitis B is three shots over six months.
Omricon also puts to rest the notion of achieving herd immunity via natural immunity.
Yes, but might it also put to rest any chance of herd immunity? I'm not sure, I don't believe that we have any good data yet on R0 or Rt.
That has been settled long ago. SARS-CoV-2 is a multispecies zoonotic virus. The concept of herd immunity does not really make a lot of sense when talking about a genetically unstable RNA virus with deep multispecies zoonotic reservoirs. The implications of this are not pretty for anti-vaxxers.
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Omricon also puts to rest the notion of achieving herd immunity via natural immunity.
This idea of naturally acquired herd immunity has been largely discredited, but GOP politicians who have promoted anti-vaxxerism and anti-maskism and anti-mandatism have no other backup to rescue themselves from eventually having to face responsibility for delaying effective disease management among their constituents.
All this has basically blown up in their face with Omricon.
One has to consider that although the situation in undervaxxed areas appears like a succession of events (deaths, hospitalizations, etc), the reality is that the consequences of these events are not going away any time soon, that is they are cumulative. Every death, hosptalization or chronic disability from COVID hits not just an individual but most often a family whose lives are permanently changed often through financial devastation. Families are not monolithic in their thinking and I believe, and have seen some good evidence, that a lot of bad blood is being created with each day going by. The GOP is trying to harness a force of nature to further their ends and might find itself riding a tiger.
Authoritarians like Modi, Orbin, Bolsonaro, and Putin are not actually concerned with the well-being of their people, or reducing the impact of the pandemic on their countries. Authoritarians benefit when their populations and their institutions are disrupted by chaos, because such disruptions reduce the strength of the business people, bureaucrats, and peasants who might otherwise oppose them. Desperation also inclines people to blame scapegoats, and the most convenient scapegoats are always the minorities who might form a coalition against the ruler. This, in a nutshell, explains why dictatorships are such shitty places to live.
When we consider Trump's moves to expand the deficit, undermine federal agencies like the postal service, EPA, and department of education with saboteur administrators, to block an effective public health response so that the virus can wreck havoc, to spread conspiracy theories, and to cause his followers to distrust election results, we have to consider whether chaos is the master plan rather than a byproduct of incompetence. Maybe by "Making America Weak" Trump was attacking any possible sources of resistance and any remaining faith in the old order.
If you've lost faith in elections, lost faith in the competence of public health experts, been persuaded to believe conspiracy theories, and become alienated from your family and friends, you're just the sort of person who might don the red cap. But it was the leader you adore, who says only he can fix it, who disrupted your life in the first place and put you in such a desperate position that you think your best hope is a dictatorship.
I am actually not seeing that the GOP/MAGAverse is supported by the downtrodden and desperate so much as by terrified members of the middle class fearing loss of status. Being actually knocked off their precarious middle class perch by following a suicide cult might just be the sobering experience they needed.
I am also not making a prediction here but merely point out some ways the GOP anti-vaxxism may impact the GOP electorate (thread topic). That many of them are in for a rough ride is unquestionable, what they are going to do about it is another thing.
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@ChpBstrd, interesting theory about Trump’s intentions, but I think you give him too much credit. After reading Fire and Fury and also Too Much and Never Enough (both highly recommended), I’ve come to the conclusion that he is incapable of that much planning and is exactly as dumb as he seems. Unfortunately, a lot of people seem to have interpreted his reactive, chaotic behaviour as a kind of brilliance. Probably because they are no more capable of critical thinking than him. To the detriment of all.
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@ChpBstrd, interesting theory about Trump’s intentions, but I think you give him too much credit. After reading Fire and Fury and also Too Much and Never Enough (both highly recommended), I’ve come to the conclusion that he is incapable of that much planning and is exactly as dumb as he seems. Unfortunately, a lot of people seem to have interpreted his reactive, chaotic behaviour as a kind of brilliance. Probably because they are no more capable of critical thinking than him. To the detriment of all.
Could it be that the GOP movers and shakers know and understand this theory? And used this chance to implement things?
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Planning may not be Trump's forte, but he had people around who were good at it. Bannon, Parscale, and Miller come to mind, I'm sure I'm forgetting others. Parscale's use of Trump rallies to activate WWC non-voters is pure brilliance, as much as I hate to admit it. And Bannon was always open about his quest to weaken American institutions.
Counterintuitively, being dumb is Trump's advantage. He's not afraid to do things a sane person would be afraid of - like attack all the press at once. Or attempt to steal the election, completely in the open, and yelling "they are stealing the election!". And it works, the polite society isn't trained to deal with this level of shamelessness. He also instinctively understands other people of similar mindset, and there are so many of them. Remember "I love the uneducateds"? We heard contempt, but they heard "I love you for what others despise you for".
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Every death, hospitalization or chronic disability from COVID hits not just an individual but most often a family whose lives are permanently changed often through financial devastation. Families are not monolithic in their thinking and I believe, and have seen some good evidence, that a lot of bad blood is being created with each day going by. The GOP is trying to harness a force of nature to further their ends and might find itself riding a tiger.
^^^^^^. Yes. We are seeing the continuing consequences of this in my own family. And my parents still will not get vaccinated. They believe their antibodies are good forever.
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Every death, hospitalization or chronic disability from COVID hits not just an individual but most often a family whose lives are permanently changed often through financial devastation. Families are not monolithic in their thinking and I believe, and have seen some good evidence, that a lot of bad blood is being created with each day going by. The GOP is trying to harness a force of nature to further their ends and might find itself riding a tiger.
^^^^^^. Yes. We are seeing the continuing consequences of this in my own family. And my parents still will not get vaccinated. They believe their antibodies are good forever.
There's some of this happening in a family I know indirectly. Grandma was old and in poor health. She was cared for by daughter who is an anti-vaxxer. Grandma just died of covid this week. I don't know where she contracted it (there were paid caregivers as well, etc), but I have heard that the wider family has split and there's been a lot of nasty words said for a while BECAUSE grandma got covid.
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"Pro-Trump counties now have far higher COVID death rates. Misinformation is to blame"
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2021/12/05/1059828993/data-vaccine-misinformation-trump-counties-covid-death-rate
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Interesting subthread on Reddit a doctor started with a post explaining why he is leaving medicine.
One response:
smacksaw
·
9 hr. ago
👉🧙♂️Go now and die in what way seems best to you🧝♀️👍
They have no chance. Their entire social circle are idiots and they are traumatised.
To deal with their trauma and to fit in, they will become radicalised.
https://www.reddit.com/r/HermanCainAward/comments/ran0xw/my_career_of_treating_patients_has_ended/
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Interesting subthread on Reddit a doctor started with a post explaining why he is leaving medicine.
One response:
smacksaw
·
9 hr. ago
👉🧙♂️Go now and die in what way seems best to you🧝♀️👍
They have no chance. Their entire social circle are idiots and they are traumatised.
To deal with their trauma and to fit in, they will become radicalised.
https://www.reddit.com/r/HermanCainAward/comments/ran0xw/my_career_of_treating_patients_has_ended/
Wow what a stunning story.
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They have no chance. Their entire social circle are idiots and they are traumatised.
To deal with their trauma and to fit in, they will become radicalised.
That's the reason for much of my dread as to the future of the country. We hoped that Covid was a reality too grim, too in your face to ignore. That people will see the light. Instead, it drives people deeper and deeper into the crazy. They'll kill and die before accepting that they were wrong. Or, rather, they *are* killing and dying.
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They have no chance. Their entire social circle are idiots and they are traumatised.
To deal with their trauma and to fit in, they will become radicalised.
That's the reason for much of my dread as to the future of the country. We hoped that Covid was a reality too grim, too in your face to ignore. That people will see the light. Instead, it drives people deeper and deeper into the crazy. They'll kill and die before accepting that they were wrong.
And they will do exactly the same if the Republican party don't win the 2022 and 2024 elections - it will have to have been a fix so violence is the only answer.
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That's the problem with the apparent premise of the topic: that Covid deaths are weakening the GOP. Instead, to borrow MMM's line, Covid seems to poison the GOP just enough. The hardening of the base, the energy that the anger brings, it more than offsets the losses in the ranks.
And the other side, the Dems, are sapped of all the energy by the dread and the gloom.
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They have no chance. Their entire social circle are idiots and they are traumatised.
To deal with their trauma and to fit in, they will become radicalised.
That's the reason for much of my dread as to the future of the country. We hoped that Covid was a reality too grim, too in your face to ignore. That people will see the light. Instead, it drives people deeper and deeper into the crazy. They'll kill and die before accepting that they were wrong.
And they will do exactly the same if the Republican party don't win the 2022 and 2024 elections - it will have to have been a fix so violence is the only answer.
It's also why increasingly terrible effects of climate change will create more resistance to action.
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“It is very clear our vaccine for the Omicron variant should be a three-dose vaccine,” Ugur Sahin, co-founder and chief executive of BioNTech, told a press briefing.
https://www.politico.eu/article/first-global-studies-suggest-omicron-escapes-vaccine-immunity-boosters-show-promise/
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If Omicron is much less dangerous (as initial reports suggest) . . . do we even need a vaccine for it?
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If Omicron is much less dangerous (as initial reports suggest) . . . do we even need a vaccine for it?
Jury remains out on if / why it might be less severe. Plus it is spreading extremely rapidly, which means even if percentage of severe cases goes down, we could still overwhelm our hospitals. Will be a few months until an omicron-specific vaccine is available (has not been determined if we even need a variant-specific vaccine for this), but the existing vaccines plus booster appear to be helpful.
https://yourlocalepidemiologist.substack.com/p/omicron-were-getting-some-answers (https://yourlocalepidemiologist.substack.com/p/omicron-were-getting-some-answers)
"The acceleration of patients in the ICU and ventilators is faster than the previous Delta wave." in South Africa. Still very early. So I'd say get your vaccine if you haven't and get boosted when it is time. More antibodies means better protection.
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Damn.
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If Omicron is much less dangerous (as initial reports suggest) . . . do we even need a vaccine for it?
We have a vaccine for the seasonal flu
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If Omicron is much less dangerous (as initial reports suggest) . . . do we even need a vaccine for it?
We have a vaccine for the seasonal flu
Sure . . . but nobody gives a fuck if you get it or not. :P
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If Omicron is much less dangerous (as initial reports suggest) . . . do we even need a vaccine for it?
A highly transmissible virus with much reduced virulence could indeed obviate the need for an Omicron updated vaccine for many (but not the need for a third shot as other variants are still around and emerging).
That's a very much best case scenario and I think this to be unlikely but possible.
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If Omicron is much less dangerous (as initial reports suggest) . . . do we even need a vaccine for it?
We have a vaccine for the seasonal flu
Sure . . . but nobody gives a fuck if you get it or not. :P
They do if you work in a healthcare setting...my Mom used to complain about having to get the flu vaccine because her healthcare employer mandated it. But otherwise, yeah, people aren't going to ask you if you've gotten your flu shot before you come for Thanksgiving.
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If Omicron is much less dangerous (as initial reports suggest) . . . do we even need a vaccine for it?
We have a vaccine for the seasonal flu
Sure . . . but nobody gives a fuck if you get it or not. :P
They do if you work in a healthcare setting...my Mom used to complain about having to get the flu vaccine because her healthcare employer mandated it. But otherwise, yeah, people aren't going to ask you if you've gotten your flu shot before you come for Thanksgiving.
It's also not the *only* strain floating around.
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If Omicron is much less dangerous (as initial reports suggest) . . . do we even need a vaccine for it?
Yes because (even if all the good news would be true)
A) it's way more infectious.
B) vaccines still protect from serious cases.
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If Omicron is much less dangerous (as initial reports suggest) . . . do we even need a vaccine for it?
Yes because (even if all the good news would be true)
A) it's way more infectious.
B) vaccines still protect from serious cases.
My line of reasoning was that if Omicron doesn't cause serious cases at a rate higher than say - the flu - then the infectiousness is actually a good thing. We would achieve widespread immunity naturally, without needing vaccination.
Infectiousness doesn't really matter when it's not coupled with severity.
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Latest briefing in the UK is that Omicron infections are doubling every two and a half to three days and initial indications from South Africa are for a rapid increase in hospitalisations -
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/prime-minister-confirms-move-to-plan-b-in-england
So basically we're even more fucked than before.
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If Omicron is much less dangerous (as initial reports suggest) . . . do we even need a vaccine for it?
Yes because (even if all the good news would be true)
A) it's way more infectious.
B) vaccines still protect from serious cases.
My line of reasoning was that if Omicron doesn't cause serious cases at a rate higher than say - the flu - then the infectiousness is actually a good thing. We would achieve widespread immunity naturally, without needing vaccination.
Infectiousness doesn't really matter when it's not coupled with severity.
Basic math needs to be done. Calling something "less severe" is not a quantifiable metric, and the infectiousness needs to be accounted for in terms of how many people at one time are likely to require hospitalization as a result. That is what policy is based on: how to keep the hospitals from collapsing. So if the severity*infection rate is enough to challenge our already collapsing medical infrastructure, then vaccination is still critical.
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People who are at risk, and those who are around those who are at risk, get the flu shot. When I was the human half of a therapy dog team I had to get my flu shot every year and provide proof to my organization. Flu can still be serious, remember the last H1N1 bout?
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People who are at risk, and those who are around those who are at risk, get the flu shot. When I was the human half of a therapy dog team I had to get my flu shot every year and provide proof to my organization. Flu can still be serious, remember the last H1N1 bout?
Can therapy dogs get flu??
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If Omicron is much less dangerous (as initial reports suggest) . . . do we even need a vaccine for it?
Yes because (even if all the good news would be true)
A) it's way more infectious.
B) vaccines still protect from serious cases.
My line of reasoning was that if Omicron doesn't cause serious cases at a rate higher than say - the flu - then the infectiousness is actually a good thing. We would achieve widespread immunity naturally, without needing vaccination.
Infectiousness doesn't really matter when it's not coupled with severity.
Basic math needs to be done. Calling something "less severe" is not a quantifiable metric, and the infectiousness needs to be accounted for in terms of how many people at one time are likely to require hospitalization as a result. That is what policy is based on: how to keep the hospitals from collapsing. So if the severity*infection rate is enough to challenge our already collapsing medical infrastructure, then vaccination is still critical.
And Omicron is a mutation - the entire COVID species did not suddenly put on new jerseys on the same day. All three are active in the world, with the first two definitely needing vaccines.
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If Omicron is much less dangerous (as initial reports suggest) . . . do we even need a vaccine for it?
Yes because (even if all the good news would be true)
A) it's way more infectious.
B) vaccines still protect from serious cases.
My line of reasoning was that if Omicron doesn't cause serious cases at a rate higher than say - the flu - then the infectiousness is actually a good thing. We would achieve widespread immunity naturally, without needing vaccination.
Infectiousness doesn't really matter when it's not coupled with severity.
Basic math needs to be done. Calling something "less severe" is not a quantifiable metric, and the infectiousness needs to be accounted for in terms of how many people at one time are likely to require hospitalization as a result. That is what policy is based on: how to keep the hospitals from collapsing. So if the severity*infection rate is enough to challenge our already collapsing medical infrastructure, then vaccination is still critical.
And Omicron is a mutation - the entire COVID species did not suddenly put on new jerseys on the same day. All three are active in the world, with the first two definitely needing vaccines.
Yep, I mentioned that earlier than Omicron isn't the only strain out there.
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People who are at risk, and those who are around those who are at risk, get the flu shot. When I was the human half of a therapy dog team I had to get my flu shot every year and provide proof to my organization. Flu can still be serious, remember the last H1N1 bout?
Can therapy dogs get flu??
Looks like YES they can, but it isn’t super common. (Cats have been shown to catch Covid btw..)
I imagine the larger concern is the patients of said therapy dog.
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People who are at risk, and those who are around those who are at risk, get the flu shot. When I was the human half of a therapy dog team I had to get my flu shot every year and provide proof to my organization. Flu can still be serious, remember the last H1N1 bout?
Can therapy dogs get flu??
Looks like YES they can, but it isn’t super common. (Cats have been shown to catch Covid btw..)
I imagine the larger concern is the patients of said therapy dog.
Yes. I was mostly visiting a seniors residence. Others in the organization visited hospitals and hospice. So we needed to be healthy. If we had any sort of illness, no matter how mild, we cancelled. The dogs were all very well groomed, because we didn't want to risk a toenail damaging anyone's fragile skin.
Of course the dogs all had to have their shots, I provided proof every year to my coordinator.
We actually got into therapy visits because a friend of mine was in palliative care, and when I visited her she asked if I could bring my dog. I could, and I did. It took 15 minutes to get to her room, people appeared from their rooms to visit with my girl. She was a very cute and friendly dog, good with all sorts of people. Wheelchairs and walkers and canes were fine with her.
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Hospitalization and deaths are going up again. Will see how it pans out. Omicron + delta circulating is not a good situation. Also cdc reports influenza is picking up exponentially now, and it’s H3N2, which is among the more virulent seasonal strains. I anticipate significant surge in hospitalization overall as a result. People who have lung injury from ARDS or otherwise are more susceptible to influenza. So we may see an uptick in anti-vax covid-recovered people ending up in the hospital with influenza.
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Hospitalization and deaths are going up again. Will see how it pans out. Omicron + delta circulating is not a good situation. Also cdc reports influenza is picking up exponentially now, and it’s H3N2, which is among the more virulent seasonal strains. I anticipate significant surge in hospitalization overall as a result. People who have lung injury from ARDS or otherwise are more susceptible to influenza. So we may see an uptick in anti-vax covid-recovered people ending up in the hospital with influenza.
And the anti-vax Covid-recovered from the last couple of waves are not done dying yet - even without Omicron and influenza.
A recent study suggests that survivors of severe Covid (defined simply as Covid hospitalized within thirty days of diagnosis of Covid) may have an all cause one year mortality of up to 50%. Given that the ratio of hospitalizations and deaths is in the ballpark of 10, we are looking at a possible death toll about 5 times higher than the Covid deaths so far reported.
Add Omicron, influenza and ongoing rampant anti-vaxxerism to this grim outlook, and we can glimpse the outlines of the cumulative impact of republican anti-vaxxerism on increasingly concentrated areas of low vaccination rates.
Of course, we are mostly concerned with the momentous impact of case and hospitalization numbers because that´s what determines health care resource utilization, but that is not even half the story because the cumulative impact is what determines the effect on the affected populations.
In other words, things are already worse in anti-vax susceptible populations than generally appreciated and are about to get much worse again.
That said, it is somewhat amusing to hear GOP figures saying that the pandemic is over in red areas...
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fmed.2021.778434/full
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Hospitalization and deaths are going up again. Will see how it pans out. Omicron + delta circulating is not a good situation. Also cdc reports influenza is picking up exponentially now, and it’s H3N2, which is among the more virulent seasonal strains. I anticipate significant surge in hospitalization overall as a result. People who have lung injury from ARDS or otherwise are more susceptible to influenza. So we may see an uptick in anti-vax covid-recovered people ending up in the hospital with influenza.
And the anti-vax Covid-recovered from the last couple of waves are not done dying yet - even without Omicron and influenza.
A recent study suggests that survivors of severe Covid (defined simply as Covid hospitalized within thirty days of diagnosis of Covid) may have an all cause one year mortality of up to 50%. Given that the ratio of hospitalizations and deaths is in the ballpark of 10, we are looking at a possible death toll about 5 times higher than the Covid deaths so far reported.
Add Omicron, influenza and ongoing rampant anti-vaxxerism to this grim outlook, and we can glimpse the outlines of the cumulative impact of republican anti-vaxxerism on increasingly concentrated areas of low vaccination rates.
Of course, we are mostly concerned with the momentous impact of case and hospitalization numbers because that´s what determines health care resource utilization, but that is not even half the story because the cumulative impact is what determines the effect on the affected populations.
In other words, things are already worse in anti-vax susceptible populations than generally appreciated and are about to get much worse again.
That said, it is somewhat amusing to hear GOP figures saying that the pandemic is over in red areas...
https://www.frontiersin.org/articlesy/10.3389/fmed.2021.778434/full
Thanks for that article. Nearly 50% mortality within a year! (vs ~20% in overall population, suggesting they are in general fairly sick). And that’s with a mild flu season! Not good.
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I'm in the UK, but my dad is becoming more and more of an anti-vaxxer on the matter of covid by the week. It's gotten to the point where I can't believe he genuinely thinks the stuff he says lately... he told me the other day that I'm more likely to die of the vaccine than of covid and that 50000 people in the US died of the vaccine but they covered it up... genuinely I don't know where he heard this clown logic. I have had both my vaccines and plan to get the booster as soon as it's been extended to my age group.
At least we managed to get him to have his first jab back in the summer, before he was so sceptical. He never got his second jab, though.
I think the problem is the YouTube algorithm. He's always been right-wing (UK edition), but it's only since he discovered YouTube about 3 years ago and started listening to right wing US youtubers all the time that he's got steadily more and more wild in his ideas. He used to be relatively sensible. I think he must click on the YouTube recommendations a lot and never listen to any counterbalancing stuff that would take him out of the bubble.
Unfortunately, once he's made up his mind on a topic, he doesn't really listen to me any more. If I suggest that maybe some of these people he's listening to online might not be accurate, he'll just laugh at me and call me stupid, probably.
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I'm in the UK, but my dad is becoming more and more of an anti-vaxxer on the matter of covid by the week. It's gotten to the point where I can't believe he genuinely thinks the stuff he says lately... he told me the other day that I'm more likely to die of the vaccine than of covid and that 50000 people in the US died of the vaccine but they covered it up... genuinely I don't know where he heard this clown logic. I have had both my vaccines and plan to get the booster as soon as it's been extended to my age group.
At least we managed to get him to have his first jab back in the summer, before he was so sceptical. He never got his second jab, though.
I think the problem is the YouTube algorithm. He's always been right-wing (UK edition), but it's only since he discovered YouTube about 3 years ago and started listening to right wing US youtubers all the time that he's got steadily more and more wild in his ideas. He used to be relatively sensible. I think he must click on the YouTube recommendations a lot and never listen to any counterbalancing stuff that would take him out of the bubble.
Unfortunately, once he's made up his mind on a topic, he doesn't really listen to me any more. If I suggest that maybe some of these people he's listening to online might not be accurate, he'll just laugh at me and call me stupid, probably.
I think you are right about the YouTube problem. I had heard years ago that someone did a study that if you followed the YouTube recommendations from any video you start at, you end up getting to Nazi or some conspiracy theorist content within like 7 videos.
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I'm in the UK, but my dad is becoming more and more of an anti-vaxxer on the matter of covid by the week. It's gotten to the point where I can't believe he genuinely thinks the stuff he says lately... he told me the other day that I'm more likely to die of the vaccine than of covid and that 50000 people in the US died of the vaccine but they covered it up... genuinely I don't know where he heard this clown logic. I have had both my vaccines and plan to get the booster as soon as it's been extended to my age group.
At least we managed to get him to have his first jab back in the summer, before he was so sceptical. He never got his second jab, though.
I think the problem is the YouTube algorithm. He's always been right-wing (UK edition), but it's only since he discovered YouTube about 3 years ago and started listening to right wing US youtubers all the time that he's got steadily more and more wild in his ideas. He used to be relatively sensible. I think he must click on the YouTube recommendations a lot and never listen to any counterbalancing stuff that would take him out of the bubble.
Unfortunately, once he's made up his mind on a topic, he doesn't really listen to me any more. If I suggest that maybe some of these people he's listening to online might not be accurate, he'll just laugh at me and call me stupid, probably.
I think you are right about the YouTube problem. I had heard years ago that someone did a study that if you followed the YouTube recommendations from any video you start at, you end up getting to Nazi or some conspiracy theorist content within like 7 videos.
I was going to argue, but I tried it.
1st video: cute cats.
2nd video: cute cats
3rd video: choice between slime (literally, the green slime) and puppies and babies.
So, yeah. I can see it. I didn't continue.
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I'm in the UK, but my dad is becoming more and more of an anti-vaxxer on the matter of covid by the week. It's gotten to the point where I can't believe he genuinely thinks the stuff he says lately... he told me the other day that I'm more likely to die of the vaccine than of covid and that 50000 people in the US died of the vaccine but they covered it up... genuinely I don't know where he heard this clown logic. I have had both my vaccines and plan to get the booster as soon as it's been extended to my age group.
At least we managed to get him to have his first jab back in the summer, before he was so sceptical. He never got his second jab, though.
I think the problem is the YouTube algorithm. He's always been right-wing (UK edition), but it's only since he discovered YouTube about 3 years ago and started listening to right wing US youtubers all the time that he's got steadily more and more wild in his ideas. He used to be relatively sensible. I think he must click on the YouTube recommendations a lot and never listen to any counterbalancing stuff that would take him out of the bubble.
Unfortunately, once he's made up his mind on a topic, he doesn't really listen to me any more. If I suggest that maybe some of these people he's listening to online might not be accurate, he'll just laugh at me and call me stupid, probably.
I think you are right about the YouTube problem. I had heard years ago that someone did a study that if you followed the YouTube recommendations from any video you start at, you end up getting to Nazi or some conspiracy theorist content within like 7 videos.
Interesting twist on Godwin’s Law (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin%27s_law)
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I'm in the UK, but my dad is becoming more and more of an anti-vaxxer on the matter of covid by the week. It's gotten to the point where I can't believe he genuinely thinks the stuff he says lately... he told me the other day that I'm more likely to die of the vaccine than of covid and that 50000 people in the US died of the vaccine but they covered it up... genuinely I don't know where he heard this clown logic. I have had both my vaccines and plan to get the booster as soon as it's been extended to my age group.
At least we managed to get him to have his first jab back in the summer, before he was so sceptical. He never got his second jab, though.
I think the problem is the YouTube algorithm. He's always been right-wing (UK edition), but it's only since he discovered YouTube about 3 years ago and started listening to right wing US youtubers all the time that he's got steadily more and more wild in his ideas. He used to be relatively sensible. I think he must click on the YouTube recommendations a lot and never listen to any counterbalancing stuff that would take him out of the bubble.
Unfortunately, once he's made up his mind on a topic, he doesn't really listen to me any more. If I suggest that maybe some of these people he's listening to online might not be accurate, he'll just laugh at me and call me stupid, probably.
I think you are right about the YouTube problem. I had heard years ago that someone did a study that if you followed the YouTube recommendations from any video you start at, you end up getting to Nazi or some conspiracy theorist content within like 7 videos.
You ever want to blow your mind . . . pick any article at all on wikipedia. Then click on the first link on the page. Keep clicking on the first link on every following page that comes up. You will always end up hitting 'philosophy' in the end.
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Hospitalization and deaths are going up again. Will see how it pans out. Omicron + delta circulating is not a good situation. Also cdc reports influenza is picking up exponentially now, and it’s H3N2, which is among the more virulent seasonal strains. I anticipate significant surge in hospitalization overall as a result. People who have lung injury from ARDS or otherwise are more susceptible to influenza. So we may see an uptick in anti-vax covid-recovered people ending up in the hospital with influenza.
And the anti-vax Covid-recovered from the last couple of waves are not done dying yet - even without Omicron and influenza.
A recent study suggests that survivors of severe Covid (defined simply as Covid hospitalized within thirty days of diagnosis of Covid) may have an all cause one year mortality of up to 50%. Given that the ratio of hospitalizations and deaths is in the ballpark of 10, we are looking at a possible death toll about 5 times higher than the Covid deaths so far reported.
Add Omicron, influenza and ongoing rampant anti-vaxxerism to this grim outlook, and we can glimpse the outlines of the cumulative impact of republican anti-vaxxerism on increasingly concentrated areas of low vaccination rates.
Of course, we are mostly concerned with the momentous impact of case and hospitalization numbers because that´s what determines health care resource utilization, but that is not even half the story because the cumulative impact is what determines the effect on the affected populations.
In other words, things are already worse in anti-vax susceptible populations than generally appreciated and are about to get much worse again.
That said, it is somewhat amusing to hear GOP figures saying that the pandemic is over in red areas...
https://www.frontiersin.org/articlesy/10.3389/fmed.2021.778434/full
Thanks for that article. Nearly 50% mortality within a year! (vs ~20% in overall population, suggesting they are in general fairly sick). And that’s with a mild flu season! Not good.
The control group was not the general population but patients who showed up at a facility for Covid testing and were negative. Most of them probably had symptoms of something and, as a group, were sicker than the general population. There are issues with the control group as it is somewhat ill-defined. Nevertheless, disregarding the control group still leaves us with a 50% one year all cause mortality, which is impressive in of itself.
Let´s assume that this somewhat hidden mortality can be confirmed by other studies, and we have an impact of Covid on unvaccinated populations that is almost an order of magnitude higher (assuming that the surviving 50% are not all perfectly healthy after one year, which seems a reasonable assumption) than suggested by the momentous impact of hospitalizations and deaths on health care resources. (in fancy terms, we are apprpriately looking at the second derivative of the rate of accrual of a mountain of misery when focusing on waves of hospitalizations and deaths)
That said, the impact of Covid on the GOP anti-vaxxer electorate is roughly a function of the accrued disabilities and deaths multiplied by the average number of people, other than the Covid victims themselves, that are affected by the health events. As the vaccinated appear to be largely spared from severe Covid and death, the disproportionate effect of Covid on the unvaccinated population, combined with the party alignment of vaccination behavior, now appears to be capable to materially impact the GOP electorate given enough time and with current trends persisting.
Now about herd immunity. The idea of achieving herd immunity with vaccination and/or infection needs to be retired. A genetically unstable RNA virus with deep and ubiquitous animal reservoirs is unlikely to result in the achievement of herd immunity with a single pass through the susceptible population and may not even do that with multiple passes. "Herd immunity" is nothing but a specter in the heads of many conservatives all over the world and particularly of the GOP and in a large part of their electorate. At this point, the idea of herd immunity via natural infection is basically down to two scenarios. The first one is the hope that a variant arises which is extremely infectious, has extremely low virulence and results in excellent broad immunity against future variants. In other words, an almost perfect attenuated virus as used in live vaccines plus high infectiousness. And such a thing is supposed to arise naturally. Fat chance. The other scenario is that subsequent infections will eventually lead to broad immunity. I can see that eventually happen in children but the costs in an adult population are excessive and that we are alredy seein g very clearly. So we are essentially down to the miraculous appearance of a saviour in form of a benevolent SARS-CoV-2 variant. Seems appropriate for a SARS-CoV-2 death cult.
As for vaccines, it is becoming more and more clear that the differential impact of vaccination on the vaccinated vs the unvaccinated is largely driven by the vaccines and to some important degree by behavior. This is not unsurprising as programmable mRNA vaccines are tailor-made for rapidly evolving genetically unstable RNA viruses. The end game when it comes to vaccinations is to hopefully develop a vaccine inducing immunity to less variable regions of the virus, thus providing much broader immunity than mRNA vaccines eliciting immunity to highly variable viral targets. For the foreseeable future, we are stuck with repeated updated mRNA vaccines unless it turns out that immunity improves and nonspecifically broadens with subsequent injections thus covering future variants. This is not an unreasonable hope.
This is just a rough outline but I hope that it conveys the seriousness and potential scale of the still developing catastrophe that is more and more concentrated among GOP non-vaxxers. I think the story has gotten away from the GOP and has definitely gotten away from the sick unvaxxed evidenced by the surprise and terror on thousands of their faces every day, who all of a sudden find themselves suffocating surrounded by others suffocating as well, and who now ask themselves if they are already on their deathbed.
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^^^ We already have annual flu vaccinations because flu also changes and each year has different strains. No surprise that this may be where we end up with Covid-19.
Given the annual flu mortality, I used to laugh when people said "it's no worse than the flu". Flu can be deadly, too many people don't take it seriously.
I'm a vaxxer (is that a term?), I can see down the road going to my pharmacy every fall, flu in one arm and Covid in the other. Or flu one week and Covid a week later, which is what I am doing this year with my Covid booster.
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I'm in the UK, but my dad is becoming more and more of an anti-vaxxer on the matter of covid by the week. It's gotten to the point where I can't believe he genuinely thinks the stuff he says lately... he told me the other day that I'm more likely to die of the vaccine than of covid and that 50000 people in the US died of the vaccine but they covered it up... genuinely I don't know where he heard this clown logic. I have had both my vaccines and plan to get the booster as soon as it's been extended to my age group.
At least we managed to get him to have his first jab back in the summer, before he was so sceptical. He never got his second jab, though.
I think the problem is the YouTube algorithm. He's always been right-wing (UK edition), but it's only since he discovered YouTube about 3 years ago and started listening to right wing US youtubers all the time that he's got steadily more and more wild in his ideas. He used to be relatively sensible. I think he must click on the YouTube recommendations a lot and never listen to any counterbalancing stuff that would take him out of the bubble.
Unfortunately, once he's made up his mind on a topic, he doesn't really listen to me any more. If I suggest that maybe some of these people he's listening to online might not be accurate, he'll just laugh at me and call me stupid, probably.
I think you are right about the YouTube problem. I had heard years ago that someone did a study that if you followed the YouTube recommendations from any video you start at, you end up getting to Nazi or some conspiracy theorist content within like 7 videos.
You ever want to blow your mind . . . pick any article at all on wikipedia. Then click on the first link on the page. Keep clicking on the first link on every following page that comes up. You will always end up hitting 'philosophy' in the end.
I tried it, started with "death metal" (random!)
I clicked on the first link in the body of each article on wikipedia.
Eventually I got to "linguistics". The first link is "phonetics". The first link in "phonetics" is "linguistics"
I'm afraid I'm now stuck.
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I'm in the UK, but my dad is becoming more and more of an anti-vaxxer on the matter of covid by the week. It's gotten to the point where I can't believe he genuinely thinks the stuff he says lately... he told me the other day that I'm more likely to die of the vaccine than of covid and that 50000 people in the US died of the vaccine but they covered it up... genuinely I don't know where he heard this clown logic. I have had both my vaccines and plan to get the booster as soon as it's been extended to my age group.
At least we managed to get him to have his first jab back in the summer, before he was so sceptical. He never got his second jab, though.
I think the problem is the YouTube algorithm. He's always been right-wing (UK edition), but it's only since he discovered YouTube about 3 years ago and started listening to right wing US youtubers all the time that he's got steadily more and more wild in his ideas. He used to be relatively sensible. I think he must click on the YouTube recommendations a lot and never listen to any counterbalancing stuff that would take him out of the bubble.
Unfortunately, once he's made up his mind on a topic, he doesn't really listen to me any more. If I suggest that maybe some of these people he's listening to online might not be accurate, he'll just laugh at me and call me stupid, probably.
I think you are right about the YouTube problem. I had heard years ago that someone did a study that if you followed the YouTube recommendations from any video you start at, you end up getting to Nazi or some conspiracy theorist content within like 7 videos.
You ever want to blow your mind . . . pick any article at all on wikipedia. Then click on the first link on the page. Keep clicking on the first link on every following page that comes up. You will always end up hitting 'philosophy' in the end.
I tried it, started with "death metal" (random!)
I clicked on the first link in the body of each article on wikipedia.
Eventually I got to "linguistics". The first link is "phonetics". The first link in "phonetics" is "linguistics"
I'm afraid I'm now stuck.
First link under phonetics is "language" - "Linguistics is the scientific study of language" and 'language' is a link there. So I don't find the circular arrangement. I do have a hard time seeing it as a link though - that only changing the font color with no underline that wikipedia does, particularly the 'already clicked' one really kind of blends in visually for me.
-
Ah, I missed "language"
Trying again, linguistics
language
communication
Latin
classical language
language
communication
Latin
classical language
language
communication
Mind not blown
-
Ah, I missed "language"
Trying again, linguistics
language
communication
Latin
classical language
language
communication
Latin
classical language
language
communication
Mind not blown
I started with "seismology" and ended up in the same loop.
ETA: and again from "basenji". But I did eventually get to "philosophy" starting from "coffee."
-
Philosophy
Greek
Modern Greek
Dialects (uh oh)
Latin
Classical language
Wayyyyy off topic
-
I'm in the UK, but my dad is becoming more and more of an anti-vaxxer on the matter of covid by the week. It's gotten to the point where I can't believe he genuinely thinks the stuff he says lately... he told me the other day that I'm more likely to die of the vaccine than of covid and that 50000 people in the US died of the vaccine but they covered it up... genuinely I don't know where he heard this clown logic. I have had both my vaccines and plan to get the booster as soon as it's been extended to my age group.
At least we managed to get him to have his first jab back in the summer, before he was so sceptical. He never got his second jab, though.
I think the problem is the YouTube algorithm. He's always been right-wing (UK edition), but it's only since he discovered YouTube about 3 years ago and started listening to right wing US youtubers all the time that he's got steadily more and more wild in his ideas. He used to be relatively sensible. I think he must click on the YouTube recommendations a lot and never listen to any counterbalancing stuff that would take him out of the bubble.
Unfortunately, once he's made up his mind on a topic, he doesn't really listen to me any more. If I suggest that maybe some of these people he's listening to online might not be accurate, he'll just laugh at me and call me stupid, probably.
I think you are right about the YouTube problem. I had heard years ago that someone did a study that if you followed the YouTube recommendations from any video you start at, you end up getting to Nazi or some conspiracy theorist content within like 7 videos.
You ever want to blow your mind . . . pick any article at all on wikipedia. Then click on the first link on the page. Keep clicking on the first link on every following page that comes up. You will always end up hitting 'philosophy' in the end.
Fake news.
Abortion law
Abortion
Pregnancy
Offspring
Biology
Science
Latin
Classical language
Language
Communication
Latin
Odessa
Russian language
East Slavic languages
Slavic languages
Indo-European languages
Language family
Language
Communication
Latin
Classical language
Language
-
If you start with Kevin Bacon after six moves your hard drive is erased!
-
I'm in the UK, but my dad is becoming more and more of an anti-vaxxer on the matter of covid by the week. It's gotten to the point where I can't believe he genuinely thinks the stuff he says lately... he told me the other day that I'm more likely to die of the vaccine than of covid and that 50000 people in the US died of the vaccine but they covered it up... genuinely I don't know where he heard this clown logic. I have had both my vaccines and plan to get the booster as soon as it's been extended to my age group.
At least we managed to get him to have his first jab back in the summer, before he was so sceptical. He never got his second jab, though.
I think the problem is the YouTube algorithm. He's always been right-wing (UK edition), but it's only since he discovered YouTube about 3 years ago and started listening to right wing US youtubers all the time that he's got steadily more and more wild in his ideas. He used to be relatively sensible. I think he must click on the YouTube recommendations a lot and never listen to any counterbalancing stuff that would take him out of the bubble.
Unfortunately, once he's made up his mind on a topic, he doesn't really listen to me any more. If I suggest that maybe some of these people he's listening to online might not be accurate, he'll just laugh at me and call me stupid, probably.
I think you are right about the YouTube problem. I had heard years ago that someone did a study that if you followed the YouTube recommendations from any video you start at, you end up getting to Nazi or some conspiracy theorist content within like 7 videos.
You ever want to blow your mind . . . pick any article at all on wikipedia. Then click on the first link on the page. Keep clicking on the first link on every following page that comes up. You will always end up hitting 'philosophy' in the end.
I tried it, started with "death metal" (random!)
I clicked on the first link in the body of each article on wikipedia.
Eventually I got to "linguistics". The first link is "phonetics". The first link in "phonetics" is "linguistics"
I'm afraid I'm now stuck.
You need to click the first link. "Phonetics" is the second link on the "linguistics" page. "Language" is the first.
-
Haha, see above
-
I'm in the UK, but my dad is becoming more and more of an anti-vaxxer on the matter of covid by the week. It's gotten to the point where I can't believe he genuinely thinks the stuff he says lately... he told me the other day that I'm more likely to die of the vaccine than of covid and that 50000 people in the US died of the vaccine but they covered it up... genuinely I don't know where he heard this clown logic. I have had both my vaccines and plan to get the booster as soon as it's been extended to my age group.
At least we managed to get him to have his first jab back in the summer, before he was so sceptical. He never got his second jab, though.
I think the problem is the YouTube algorithm. He's always been right-wing (UK edition), but it's only since he discovered YouTube about 3 years ago and started listening to right wing US youtubers all the time that he's got steadily more and more wild in his ideas. He used to be relatively sensible. I think he must click on the YouTube recommendations a lot and never listen to any counterbalancing stuff that would take him out of the bubble.
Unfortunately, once he's made up his mind on a topic, he doesn't really listen to me any more. If I suggest that maybe some of these people he's listening to online might not be accurate, he'll just laugh at me and call me stupid, probably.
I think you are right about the YouTube problem. I had heard years ago that someone did a study that if you followed the YouTube recommendations from any video you start at, you end up getting to Nazi or some conspiracy theorist content within like 7 videos.
You ever want to blow your mind . . . pick any article at all on wikipedia. Then click on the first link on the page. Keep clicking on the first link on every following page that comes up. You will always end up hitting 'philosophy' in the end.
Fake news.
Abortion law
Abortion
Pregnancy
Offspring
Biology
Science
Latin
Classical language
Language
Communication
Latin
Odessa
Russian language
East Slavic languages
Slavic languages
Indo-European languages
Language family
Language
Communication
Latin
Classical language
Language
Language -> scientific study -> scientific method -> empirical ->proposition -> logic -> truth -> fact -> experience -> conscience -> sentience -> feelings -> psychological states -> mind -> thought -> idea -> philosophy
:P
-
Wikipedia:
Plate tectonics
-> Late Latin
-> Latin
-> Classical Languages
-> Language
-> Communication
-> Latin
-
Wikipedia:
Plate tectonics
-> Late Latin
-> Latin
-> Classical Languages
-> Language
-> Communication
-> Latin
Communication => discipline => Knowledge => facts => experience -> conscience -> sentience -> feelings -> psychological states -> mind -> thought -> idea -> philosophy
-
GuitarStv, you seem to have a different wiki.
Blame Canada?
-
For the record, Australian Wiki
Irish Wolfhound - link path depends on if you click the first link in the actual article or the first link on the page (including help links for example). Too many links to write them all down....
Both paths lead to continuous loop....
Language - Communication - Latin - Classical language - Language - Communication - Latin - Classical language.....
-
GuitarStv, you seem to have a different wiki.
Blame Canada?
Weird.
I was so impressed when someone showed me the "all topics point back to philosophy" thing a couple years ago.
-
It took me 9 links to end at philosophy at the en WP. Random article, don't ask me which one it was or what was between.
Well, of course philo is the end of the way, since that is where science started. Also it's cool.
-
GuitarStv, you seem to have a different wiki.
Blame Canada?
Weird.
I was so impressed when someone showed me the "all topics point back to philosophy" thing a couple years ago.
I tried it on my laptop and got language -> communication -> meaning and eventually philosophy.
I take back blaming the fine country to the North, as apparently results are device dependent.
-
Wikipedia:
Plate tectonics
-> Late Latin
-> Latin
-> Classical Languages
-> Language
-> Communication
-> Latin
Communication => discipline => Knowledge => facts => experience -> conscience -> sentience -> feelings -> psychological states -> mind -> thought -> idea -> philosophy
Communication article starts as follows and you are missing the fact that the word 'Latin' is a link which puts you into a loop.
Communication (from Latin communicare, meaning "to share" or "to be in relation with")
-
Wikipedia:
Plate tectonics
-> Late Latin
-> Latin
-> Classical Languages
-> Language
-> Communication
-> Latin
Communication => discipline => Knowledge => facts => experience -> conscience -> sentience -> feelings -> psychological states -> mind -> thought -> idea -> philosophy
For mine
Communication article starts as follows and you are missing the fact that the word 'Latin' is a link which puts you into a loop.
Communication (from Latin communicare, meaning "to share" or "to be in relation with")
Basically everything starts with a definition, which gives the language the word comes from, so of course we are going to all end up in the language/philosophy area.
If I skip that, where do I go?
Besides the ask for money, of course.
Plate tectonics -> scientific theory -> natural world and universe -> branches of science -> sciences -> scientific method
I got bored, but so far so good.
-
Basically everything starts with a definition, which gives the language the word comes from, so of course we are going to all end up in the language/philosophy area.
If I skip that, where do I go?
Okay, I re-ran my Abortion Law and Odessa tests. After a lot of articles Abortion Law does end up at Philosophy but Odessa ends up in a loop around Logic.
-
It took me 9 clicks to get from Dee Snider to philosophy.
I was unable to get to philosophy by starting with Donald Trump.
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It took me 9 clicks to get from Dee Snider to philosophy.
I was unable to get to philosophy by starting with Donald Trump.
That makes total sense considering that philosophy requires the ability to think.
-
but Odessa ends up in a loop around Logic.
This makes total sense, and is very Odessa.
-
I would think the obvious steps from Odessa would be to Soviet era film directors.
-
So is the rule always end up in a loop, or end up at Philosophy then?
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So is the rule always end up in a loop, or end up at Philosophy then?
By definition, if you don’t wind up in a loop don’t you HAVE to eventually wind up at philosophy (or literally every other major subject?).
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Whatever happens you will get caught in a loop eventually. The only question is which loop. Clearly the one containing philosophy is a common one (the most common?) but it would be interesting* to see the results if someone tried the exercise with a few thousand random articles to see how many different loop are out there waiting to catch you.
*Note, I said it would be interesting to see the results. To actually do it would be mind numbingly dull!
-
I'm in the UK, but my dad is becoming more and more of an anti-vaxxer on the matter of covid by the week. It's gotten to the point where I can't believe he genuinely thinks the stuff he says lately... he told me the other day that I'm more likely to die of the vaccine than of covid and that 50000 people in the US died of the vaccine but they covered it up... genuinely I don't know where he heard this clown logic. I have had both my vaccines and plan to get the booster as soon as it's been extended to my age group.
At least we managed to get him to have his first jab back in the summer, before he was so sceptical. He never got his second jab, though.
I think the problem is the YouTube algorithm. He's always been right-wing (UK edition), but it's only since he discovered YouTube about 3 years ago and started listening to right wing US youtubers all the time that he's got steadily more and more wild in his ideas. He used to be relatively sensible. I think he must click on the YouTube recommendations a lot and never listen to any counterbalancing stuff that would take him out of the bubble.
Unfortunately, once he's made up his mind on a topic, he doesn't really listen to me any more. If I suggest that maybe some of these people he's listening to online might not be accurate, he'll just laugh at me and call me stupid, probably.
I think you are right about the YouTube problem. I had heard years ago that someone did a study that if you followed the YouTube recommendations from any video you start at, you end up getting to Nazi or some conspiracy theorist content within like 7 videos.
I just went with the auto-play at the end of each video
My test:
Kurzgesagt (science education videos)
Kurzgesagt again
Veritasium (similar to Kurzgesagt)
Veritasium again
Veritasium again
Veritasium again
Veritasium again
and again
and again
and again
and again
and again
Economics Explained - MIT Has Predicted that Society Will Collapse in 2040
Vanity Fair - Casino Cheating Expert Reviews Card Counting and Casino Scams From Movies
GQ - Casino Boss Breaks Down Gambling Scenes from Movies
GQ - David Copperfield Breaks Down Magic Scenes from Movies
WIRED - Toxicologist Answers Poison Questions From Twitter
WIRED - Daniel Radcliffe Answers MORE of the Web's Most Searched Questions
WIRED - Tom Hardy & Andy Serkis Answer the Web's Most Searched Questions
Saturday Night Live - SNL Stories from the Show: Jason Sudeikis
I stopped there. I don't know if the Economics Explained video qualifies as a conspiracy theory, but it definitely took longer than I expected to get something different than what I started watching.
-
On the original topic here, the Omicron variant of covid-19 is producing hospitalisations and a first death here in the UK. So the idea that it could be "mild" doesn't seem to be holding true.
Omicron is between 2 and 3 times as infectious as Delta - by tomorrow it is expected to be the dominant variant in London, having only been identified 2 and a half weeks ago.
-
On the original topic here, the Omicron variant of covid-19 is producing hospitalisations and a first death here in the UK. So the idea that it could be "mild" doesn't seem to be holding true.
Omicron is between 2 and 3 times as infectious as Delta - by tomorrow it is expected to be the dominant variant in London, having only been identified 2 and a half weeks ago.
Ontario is calculating it at 3.2 right now.
-
On the original topic here, the Omicron variant of covid-19 is producing hospitalisations and a first death here in the UK. So the idea that it could be "mild" doesn't seem to be holding true.
Omicron is between 2 and 3 times as infectious as Delta - by tomorrow it is expected to be the dominant variant in London, having only been identified 2 and a half weeks ago.
Ontario is calculating it at 3.2 right now.
Lovely! Meanwhile, there is a whole thread in General on how precautions other than vaccines are no longer necessary.
-
I'm in the UK, but my dad is becoming more and more of an anti-vaxxer on the matter of covid by the week. It's gotten to the point where I can't believe he genuinely thinks the stuff he says lately... he told me the other day that I'm more likely to die of the vaccine than of covid and that 50000 people in the US died of the vaccine but they covered it up... genuinely I don't know where he heard this clown logic. I have had both my vaccines and plan to get the booster as soon as it's been extended to my age group.
At least we managed to get him to have his first jab back in the summer, before he was so sceptical. He never got his second jab, though.
I think the problem is the YouTube algorithm. He's always been right-wing (UK edition), but it's only since he discovered YouTube about 3 years ago and started listening to right wing US youtubers all the time that he's got steadily more and more wild in his ideas. He used to be relatively sensible. I think he must click on the YouTube recommendations a lot and never listen to any counterbalancing stuff that would take him out of the bubble.
Unfortunately, once he's made up his mind on a topic, he doesn't really listen to me any more. If I suggest that maybe some of these people he's listening to online might not be accurate, he'll just laugh at me and call me stupid, probably.
I think you are right about the YouTube problem. I had heard years ago that someone did a study that if you followed the YouTube recommendations from any video you start at, you end up getting to Nazi or some conspiracy theorist content within like 7 videos.
I just went with the auto-play at the end of each video
My test:
Kurzgesagt (science education videos)
Kurzgesagt again
Veritasium (similar to Kurzgesagt)
Veritasium again
Veritasium again
Veritasium again
Veritasium again
and again
and again
and again
and again
and again
Economics Explained - MIT Has Predicted that Society Will Collapse in 2040
Vanity Fair - Casino Cheating Expert Reviews Card Counting and Casino Scams From Movies
GQ - Casino Boss Breaks Down Gambling Scenes from Movies
GQ - David Copperfield Breaks Down Magic Scenes from Movies
WIRED - Toxicologist Answers Poison Questions From Twitter
WIRED - Daniel Radcliffe Answers MORE of the Web's Most Searched Questions
WIRED - Tom Hardy & Andy Serkis Answer the Web's Most Searched Questions
Saturday Night Live - SNL Stories from the Show: Jason Sudeikis
I stopped there. I don't know if the Economics Explained video qualifies as a conspiracy theory, but it definitely took longer than I expected to get something different than what I started watching.
Did you autoplay on a private window or new container? If you were logged in, or even logged out in a browser session where google can easily tell who you are, your autoplay will be very different. I have been shocked at just how awful the front page of youtube looks when logged out! (Mine when logged in is mainly woodworking tutorials.)
-
On the original topic here, the Omicron variant of covid-19 is producing hospitalisations and a first death here in the UK. So the idea that it could be "mild" doesn't seem to be holding true.
Omicron is between 2 and 3 times as infectious as Delta - by tomorrow it is expected to be the dominant variant in London, having only been identified 2 and a half weeks ago.
Ontario is calculating it at 3.2 right now.
Lovely! Meanwhile, there is a whole thread in General on how precautions other than vaccines are no longer necessary.
I think that's the minority position of people in that thread, though...most of us are still taking some additional precautions.
-
On the original topic here, the Omicron variant of covid-19 is producing hospitalisations and a first death here in the UK. So the idea that it could be "mild" doesn't seem to be holding true.
Omicron is between 2 and 3 times as infectious as Delta - by tomorrow it is expected to be the dominant variant in London, having only been identified 2 and a half weeks ago.
Ontario is calculating it at 3.2 right now.
Lovely! Meanwhile, there is a whole thread in General on how precautions other than vaccines are no longer necessary.
I think that's the minority position of people in that thread, though...most of us are still taking some additional precautions.
I agree. While the antis might stand out, especially 2 of the most brazen, my impression is that the vast majority of people in that thread are still masking up when required, if not more often than required particularly in places with few requirements, and even not doing things they previously did but maybe weren't super enthusiastic about.
There's a lot of discussion around children that can't be vaxxed and different approaches and all I can say is that I am deeply sympathetic for the tougher position people with children are in in their decision-making. As if we needed anything in this world (and this country esp.) that makes it harder for parents and for women (because we know it will way disproportionately impact any women involved in the parenting) to participate in life and the economy and grow a safe and happy family. Between this and the abortion ruling coming down in the spring/summer, I will be interested/scared to see in a couple decades where this pattern has left women in the workforce and decisions about family planning. I don't think it will be a good or happy place.
-
On the original topic here, the Omicron variant of covid-19 is producing hospitalisations and a first death here in the UK. So the idea that it could be "mild" doesn't seem to be holding true.
Omicron is between 2 and 3 times as infectious as Delta - by tomorrow it is expected to be the dominant variant in London, having only been identified 2 and a half weeks ago.
Seems the medical authorities of SA still consider Omicron mild - although due to different demographics it seems wise to prepare for the worst in Europe and the US from public health strategy pov.
See youtube, Dr John Campbell, "UK, 50% omicron now".
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I've just stumbled on this thread, but perhaps an answer can be found? Today's New York Times reports that Covid has caused a lot of deaths - at this point we're at about 800,000 deaths.
So - how many of those deceased Americans were Republicans who actually voted? If you could rough that out...you would have the answer to the current reduction of Republican voters. I guess it doesn't matter if they were vaxxed or not, they're still out of the voting pool.
-
On the original topic here, the Omicron variant of covid-19 is producing hospitalisations and a first death here in the UK. So the idea that it could be "mild" doesn't seem to be holding true.
Omicron is between 2 and 3 times as infectious as Delta - by tomorrow it is expected to be the dominant variant in London, having only been identified 2 and a half weeks ago.
Ontario is calculating it at 3.2 right now.
Lovely! Meanwhile, there is a whole thread in General on how precautions other than vaccines are no longer necessary.
I think that's the minority position of people in that thread, though...most of us are still taking some additional precautions.
I agree. While the antis might stand out, especially 2 of the most brazen, my impression is that the vast majority of people in that thread are still masking up when required, if not more often than required particularly in places with few requirements, and even not doing things they previously did but maybe weren't super enthusiastic about.
If someone in that thread wrote "I violate my local mask requirements" then I missed it.
But since this is a political thread about the GOP not vaxxing I think that its obvious to point out that "I have three doses and I'm tired of the pandemic" is wildly different than the GOP anti-vaxxers (who incidentally seem to also be anti-maskers).
-
My test:
Kurzgesagt (science education videos)
Kurzgesagt again
Veritasium (similar to Kurzgesagt)
I stopped there. I don't know if the Economics Explained video qualifies as a conspiracy theory, but it definitely took longer than I expected to get something different than what I started watching.
To be fair, you started as far away from conspiracy theories as you could with those two ;)
-
On the original topic here, the Omicron variant of covid-19 is producing hospitalisations and a first death here in the UK. So the idea that it could be "mild" doesn't seem to be holding true.
Omicron is between 2 and 3 times as infectious as Delta - by tomorrow it is expected to be the dominant variant in London, having only been identified 2 and a half weeks ago.
"Mild" still holds true.
A) Mild does not mean nobody is seriously harmed, just that the number is very low.
B) mild was always used in comparison to delta. If you have a virus that is 3 times as infectious, but only causes 2 times as many death, it's still milder.
The point is (which is the hope) that omicron causes less death per infected and that in the endemic phase we will get to probably next year, this will result in less serious cases as it would be with delta.
Keep in mind that the average time from infection to death is likely to be around 3 weeks (as with the other covid variants) so we will start to see the real seriousness just around Christmas. Before that everything is still speculation.
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If Omicron is much less dangerous (as initial reports suggest) . . . do we even need a vaccine for it?
A highly transmissible virus with much reduced virulence could indeed obviate the need for an Omicron updated vaccine for many (but not the need for a third shot as other variants are still around and emerging).
That's a very much best case scenario and I think this to be unlikely but possible.
Update:
It does appear that a third dose (Booster) of wildtype SARS-CoV-2 based vaccines (all current vaccines) induces immunity against symptomatic Omicron infection at up to 80% and that is excellent. This is early after the third immunization and we will have to see how long immunity lasts. There are reasons to believe that the benefit is sustained even if antibody titers wane over time. If imunity persists, the case for Omicron specific additional doses (boosters) in those having received wildtype based third doses will become weaker.
However, those who have not started their immunization yet, might benefit from initiation of vaccinations with an Omicron specific vaccine, once available, as protection from Omicron after the first two doses of wildtype based vaccines is relatively weak (up to 40% but probably less).
page 20:
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1040076/Technical_Briefing_31.pdf
So the current answer to your question is that a full course of wildtype based vaccines (three shots total) might indeed obviate the need for Omicron specific additional vaccinations. The virus indeed appears highly infectious and much less virulent, but that might be solely due to host factors (immunization) and not due to decreased virulence of the virus itself.
I am not aware of any study showing that early immunity to Omicron after two wildtype based vaccinations is any better than immunity after a few months. If it is not, the unvaccinated population must now contend with a longer time from initial vaccination until full immunity while being faced with a virus of extreme transmissibility. This is not a good situation and complicates the plight of the unvaccinated.
Based on this I would expect discussions regarding decreasing the interval between second and third shot wildtype based vaccinations to one month or so, anticipating the availability of Omicron specific vaccines for initiation of vaccination series in the vaccine naive.
(all this is preliminary as it pertains only to symptomatic disease. However, severe disease and death rates are a function of symptomatic disease rates, so severe disease and death rates are expected to move in the same direction as symptomatic disease rates but this cannot be quantified yet)
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If someone in that thread wrote "I violate my local mask requirements" then I missed it.
But since this is a political thread about the GOP not vaxxing I think that its obvious to point out that "I have three doses and I'm tired of the pandemic" is wildly different than the GOP anti-vaxxers (who incidentally seem to also be anti-maskers).
https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/welcome-to-the-forum/where-do-you-stand-on-'living-with-covid'-'getting-back-to-normal'/msg2945040/#msg2945040
(https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/welcome-to-the-forum/where-do-you-stand-on-'living-with-covid'-'getting-back-to-normal'/msg2945040/#msg2945040)
Why this is, in fact, different, why is that "tired of the pandemic" necessarily means "drop precautions"? It's pretty clear that precautions help. I mean, look north of the border.
-
If someone in that thread wrote "I violate my local mask requirements" then I missed it.
But since this is a political thread about the GOP not vaxxing I think that its obvious to point out that "I have three doses and I'm tired of the pandemic" is wildly different than the GOP anti-vaxxers (who incidentally seem to also be anti-maskers).
https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/welcome-to-the-forum/where-do-you-stand-on-'living-with-covid'-'getting-back-to-normal'/msg2945040/#msg2945040
(https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/welcome-to-the-forum/where-do-you-stand-on-'living-with-covid'-'getting-back-to-normal'/msg2945040/#msg2945040)
Why this is, in fact, different, why is that "tired of the pandemic" necessarily means "drop precautions"? It's pretty clear that precautions help. I mean, look north of the border.
Well, we are doing better than the US, but what I want to know is what is Japan doing? Because thier numbers are excellent.
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@PeteD01, thank you for your posts on this subject. They are always educational.
In spite of Omicron being milder, I still fear, not for the willfully unvaccinated, because I have no sympathy to spare for them, but for those who will be displaced in the medical system by the ill unvaccinated. Our wait lists for various treatments right now are the worst they have ever been, by far, and will only get worse with Omicron. THAT is the tragedy, in my opinion.
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If someone in that thread wrote "I violate my local mask requirements" then I missed it.
But since this is a political thread about the GOP not vaxxing I think that its obvious to point out that "I have three doses and I'm tired of the pandemic" is wildly different than the GOP anti-vaxxers (who incidentally seem to also be anti-maskers).
https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/welcome-to-the-forum/where-do-you-stand-on-'living-with-covid'-'getting-back-to-normal'/msg2945040/#msg2945040
(https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/welcome-to-the-forum/where-do-you-stand-on-'living-with-covid'-'getting-back-to-normal'/msg2945040/#msg2945040)
Why this is, in fact, different, why is that "tired of the pandemic" necessarily means "drop precautions"? It's pretty clear that precautions help. I mean, look north of the border.
I missed that reply, thanks! As for why it is different, this is an anti-vaxxer thread. Not wearing a mask when legal in your location is different than not getting vaccinated, because that's how reality works.
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If someone in that thread wrote "I violate my local mask requirements" then I missed it.
But since this is a political thread about the GOP not vaxxing I think that its obvious to point out that "I have three doses and I'm tired of the pandemic" is wildly different than the GOP anti-vaxxers (who incidentally seem to also be anti-maskers).
https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/welcome-to-the-forum/where-do-you-stand-on-'living-with-covid'-'getting-back-to-normal'/msg2945040/#msg2945040
(https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/welcome-to-the-forum/where-do-you-stand-on-'living-with-covid'-'getting-back-to-normal'/msg2945040/#msg2945040)
Why this is, in fact, different, why is that "tired of the pandemic" necessarily means "drop precautions"? It's pretty clear that precautions help. I mean, look north of the border.
Well, we are doing better than the US, but what I want to know is what is Japan doing? Because thier numbers are excellent.
I don't know about lately, but I think that in general throughout the pandemic they have been one of the countries with excellent contact tracing (https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2021/08/16/national/tokyo-scales-down-contact-tracing/). My cursory understanding is that this is a developed Asian country theme because of their experiences with SARS-1.
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If someone in that thread wrote "I violate my local mask requirements" then I missed it.
But since this is a political thread about the GOP not vaxxing I think that its obvious to point out that "I have three doses and I'm tired of the pandemic" is wildly different than the GOP anti-vaxxers (who incidentally seem to also be anti-maskers).
https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/welcome-to-the-forum/where-do-you-stand-on-'living-with-covid'-'getting-back-to-normal'/msg2945040/#msg2945040
(https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/welcome-to-the-forum/where-do-you-stand-on-'living-with-covid'-'getting-back-to-normal'/msg2945040/#msg2945040)
Why this is, in fact, different, why is that "tired of the pandemic" necessarily means "drop precautions"? It's pretty clear that precautions help. I mean, look north of the border.
Well, we are doing better than the US, but what I want to know is what is Japan doing? Because thier numbers are excellent.
I don't know about lately, but I think that in general throughout the pandemic they have been one of the countries with excellent contact tracing (https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2021/08/16/national/tokyo-scales-down-contact-tracing/). My cursory understanding is that this is a developed Asian country theme because of their experiences with SARS-1.
Well, that would make sense, because our contact tracing is pretty hit-and-miss.
We had a bit of SARS-1, but don't seem to have learned much from that experience.
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...
As for vaccines, it is becoming more and more clear that the differential impact of vaccination on the vaccinated vs the unvaccinated is largely driven by the vaccines and to some important degree by behavior. This is not unsurprising as programmable mRNA vaccines are tailor-made for rapidly evolving genetically unstable RNA viruses. The end game when it comes to vaccinations is to hopefully develop a vaccine inducing immunity to less variable regions of the virus, thus providing much broader immunity than mRNA vaccines eliciting immunity to highly variable viral targets. For the foreseeable future, we are stuck with repeated updated mRNA vaccines unless it turns out that immunity improves and nonspecifically broadens with subsequent injections thus covering future variants. This is not an unreasonable hope.
...
An article in the New England Journal of Medicine outlining the characteristics of a vaccine universally efficacious against a variety of coronaviruses.
Development of such vaccines is a complex and time consuming task, meaning that we are stuck with catching up with the virus with highly specific vaccines for the time being.
https://tinyurl.com/2p97yre3
The article puts the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic into perspective by explaining the larger threat from other coronaviruses.
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@PeteD01, thank you for your posts on this subject. They are always educational.
In spite of Omicron being milder, I still fear, not for the willfully unvaccinated, because I have no sympathy to spare for them, but for those who will be displaced in the medical system by the ill unvaccinated. Our wait lists for various treatments right now are the worst they have ever been, by far, and will only get worse with Omicron. THAT is the tragedy, in my opinion.
Thanks for the feedback.
As for the "willfully unvaccinated", they are still victims of a pernicious cult. And without going into the psychological reasons why people tend to latch on to malicious suggestions that a present and dangerous threat is nothing to worry about, a victim remains a victim even if they do not elicit sympathy.
From the perspective of health care staff tasked with taking care of such patients, they are simply patients who have made catastrophic behavioral mistakes that landed them in particularly gruesome circumstances.
That is no different in essence than taking care of patients ravaged by the consequences of their freely chosen lifestyle, which makes some of them very unsympathetic characters as well.
The problem is the sheer number of them showing up - nothing else really.
Here is an example of someone who made a terrible mistake because he was being lied to, and who was in no position to actually evaluate that what he let himself getting exposed to. Without letting him completely off the hook, he might not be dead now if not for the professional liers egging him on. And no, he, his children, his wife and his friends did not "deserve" any of this:
https://tinyurl.com/2p932w32
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@PeteD01, thank you for your posts on this subject. They are always educational.
In spite of Omicron being milder, I still fear, not for the willfully unvaccinated, because I have no sympathy to spare for them, but for those who will be displaced in the medical system by the ill unvaccinated. Our wait lists for various treatments right now are the worst they have ever been, by far, and will only get worse with Omicron. THAT is the tragedy, in my opinion.
Thanks for the feedback.
As for the "willfully unvaccinated", they are still victims of a pernicious cult. And without going into the psychological reasons why people tend to latch on to malicious suggestions that a present and dangerous threat is nothing to worry about, a victim remains a victim even if they do not elicit sympathy.
From the perspective of health care staff tasked with taking care of such patients, they are simply patients who have made catastrophic behavioral mistakes that landed them in particularly gruesome circumstances.
That is no different in essence than taking care of patients ravaged by the consequences of their freely chosen lifestyle, which makes some of them very unsympathetic characters as well.
The problem is the sheer number of them showing up - nothing else really.
Here is an example of someone who made a terrible mistake because he was being lied to, and who was in no position to actually evaluate that what he let himself getting exposed to. Without letting him completely off the hook, he might not be dead now if not for the professional liers egging him on. And no, he, his children, his wife and his friends did not "deserve" any of this:
https://tinyurl.com/2p932w32
I agree that the AV crowd are victims, but do they have to be such willing victims?
The "Sorry Anti-Vaxer" site is really something.
I don't do any of the standard SM sites, but this meme/anti-meme thing is seemingly a very powerful communication tool for "shearing the sheep" as one poster at SAV put it.
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@PeteD01, thank you for your posts on this subject. They are always educational.
In spite of Omicron being milder, I still fear, not for the willfully unvaccinated, because I have no sympathy to spare for them, but for those who will be displaced in the medical system by the ill unvaccinated. Our wait lists for various treatments right now are the worst they have ever been, by far, and will only get worse with Omicron. THAT is the tragedy, in my opinion.
Thanks for the feedback.
As for the "willfully unvaccinated", they are still victims of a pernicious cult. And without going into the psychological reasons why people tend to latch on to malicious suggestions that a present and dangerous threat is nothing to worry about, a victim remains a victim even if they do not elicit sympathy.
From the perspective of health care staff tasked with taking care of such patients, they are simply patients who have made catastrophic behavioral mistakes that landed them in particularly gruesome circumstances.
That is no different in essence than taking care of patients ravaged by the consequences of their freely chosen lifestyle, which makes some of them very unsympathetic characters as well.
The problem is the sheer number of them showing up - nothing else really.
Here is an example of someone who made a terrible mistake because he was being lied to, and who was in no position to actually evaluate that what he let himself getting exposed to. Without letting him completely off the hook, he might not be dead now if not for the professional liers egging him on. And no, he, his children, his wife and his friends did not "deserve" any of this:
https://tinyurl.com/2p932w32
I like to tell myself that if a bunch of coal rolling climate change denying Americans who are actively attempting to bring about the rapture remove themselves from the gene pool that it is a good thing for the planet. But some of these stories are sad.
But what's up with this guy who never met a conspiracy theory that he didn't like? https://tinyurl.com/yeyk67rc
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Last night I found out that my participating lifetime annuity will increase its payout next year by a whopping 5%, which is a historically high amount.
"Participating" annuity means that excess reserves covering future payout liabilities are returned to annuitants via periodically increased payouts. In the past, increases were usually in the 1-2% range every other year or so - not close to inflation but a nice perk. The reason for these increases is that the reserves have to be calculated with a little buffer which is returned to the annuitants over time as the need for he excess diminishes over time.
The 5% increase is way too high to be explained that way.
Of course, the insurance company is not required to disclose the details leading to their number and they won´t; but we know that the pertinent regulations require that contractual liabilities of participating lifetime income annuities are backed by safe investments, i.e. government issued fixed income instruments and high grade bonds. These fixed income instruments are held to maturity and regulations of the insurance industry allow these instruments to be accounted for as face value plus cumulative interest. This eliminates fluctuations of book value with changing yields. In other words, the value of the required reserves does not track the market and therefore, the excess reserves cannot be due to increased market value of the underlying securities. It is also not conceivale that administrative expenses have gone down so much as to allow massive increases in payouts, as administrative costs for holding and selling fixed income instruments held to maturity are extremely low to begin with.
That leaves only a decrease in future liabilities as the cause for the excess reserves. This decrease in future liabilities is most likely due to a mismatch between mortality predicted on the basis of mortality tables and actual mortality experienced.
Well, we do not have to look too hard to find an event that is of historic proportions and associated with mass death to at least entertain that this event may exist in a causal relationship with a predicted vs actual mortality mismatch leading to a historic increase of benefits to the survivors.
A participating annuity does have a bet on unexpected mortality events baked into it, just as it has a risk of medical advances leading to large increases in life expectancies (a good part of the benfits are not guaranteed and payments can decrease in the event of such increases in life expectancies).
Of course, I knew this and expected some increase in benefits - but certainly not that much. (I am certainly on the pessimistic side when it comes to the true impact of Covid, now concentrated among Republican voters, but I may not be pessimistic enough)
All these considerations are based on inferences as the insurance company will never disclose the details of their decision making, but, according to my knowledge, there simply is no other source capable of providing the funds for the payout increase than higher than predicted mortality in the respective annuitant cohorts. (Yes there is. See edit below)That said, what is happening with my annuity might be an early signal of what is going to happen to other insurance-like products with benefits payed out over a lifetime, such as Medicare and Social Security.
We might be seeing millions of years of potential future benefits going up in crematorium smoke. Given that the majority of Covid victims are at an age where they have completed or are about to complete their total pay-in in form of payroll taxes, their voluntary foregoing of benefit collection might leave Medicare and Social Security in better shape than before the pandemic.
Of course, one could argue that mass disability will cause costs in excess of such savings but it has become clear that survivors of Covid with persistent health problems do not live that long - but who knows at this point.
So there may be a silver lining, and we might look back in a few years and see that the antivaxxers have done a service and great sacrifice for the greater good by leaving all those uncollected benefits on the table to be enjoyed by the survivors.
I certainly appreciate it but would still recommend the vaccine - but I would be lying if said that my enthusiasm for promoting the vaccine among the lemmings hasn´t been dampened somewhat by my nice pay rise.
Add to that the fact that it is getting a little late for full protection from Omicron, and that severe disease deaths are now occuring in a shrinking pool of unvaccinated, mostly Republican, individuals at a ratio of possibly more than 10 to 1, and we have the making of a self-correcting situation that leaves survivors better off by relieving pressure on SS and Medicare.
So yes, get the vaccine.
Yes, all three shots.
Yes, get the vaccine even if you had Covid.
Still don´t want to get the shot?
Well, thank you for your sacrifice - I appreciate it.
Edit: It is very difficult to find out details about how an insurance company does their internal calculations but I have found a statement saying that the increase in payout is funded by "strong underlying performance of (the) general account".
I also found that part of the payout is "not guaranteed" with the increase belonging to the not guaranteed portion. "Not guaranteed" annuity payments do not fall under the strict accounting and investment regulations guaranteed annuity payments fall under. Therefore, it is perfectly legal to have the "not guaranteed" amounts funded by other than safe fixed income securities which can typically be found in an insurance company´s general account.
All that means is that we will never know how much of the historic increase in payments is caused by a mortality event as I would not expect the insurance company to spell this out and their statement regarding the general account would be technically correct even if the entire increase is due to a mortality event.
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@PeteD01, thank you for your posts on this subject. They are always educational.
In spite of Omicron being milder, I still fear, not for the willfully unvaccinated, because I have no sympathy to spare for them, but for those who will be displaced in the medical system by the ill unvaccinated. Our wait lists for various treatments right now are the worst they have ever been, by far, and will only get worse with Omicron. THAT is the tragedy, in my opinion.
Thanks for the feedback.
As for the "willfully unvaccinated", they are still victims of a pernicious cult. And without going into the psychological reasons why people tend to latch on to malicious suggestions that a present and dangerous threat is nothing to worry about, a victim remains a victim even if they do not elicit sympathy.
From the perspective of health care staff tasked with taking care of such patients, they are simply patients who have made catastrophic behavioral mistakes that landed them in particularly gruesome circumstances.
That is no different in essence than taking care of patients ravaged by the consequences of their freely chosen lifestyle, which makes some of them very unsympathetic characters as well.
The problem is the sheer number of them showing up - nothing else really.
Here is an example of someone who made a terrible mistake because he was being lied to, and who was in no position to actually evaluate that what he let himself getting exposed to. Without letting him completely off the hook, he might not be dead now if not for the professional liers egging him on. And no, he, his children, his wife and his friends did not "deserve" any of this:
https://tinyurl.com/2p932w32
Maybe this says more about me than the person whose story is detailed in that link, but I only see him as a victim of his own stupidity.
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In Australia, in a similar vein, they calculate that we have had many thousands fewer deaths in the past (almost) two years than we should have (probably because of mask wearing and social distancing, people didn’t die of flu, and just about every other disease, so the pandemic has decreased the death rate). As a result of that and lockdowns, the private health insurance funds haven’t spent as much as they should have during this time. As private health insurance here is subsidised by the government, the health funds have to give back the excess to their customers. I received a letter a few days ago saying I now have six months extra health insurance.
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...
Maybe this says more about me than the person whose story is detailed in that link, but I only see him as a victim of his own stupidity.
He doesn´t elicit much sympathy, if any.
Doesn´t change his status as a victim of the pandemic and of its profiteers that egged him on in his stupidity.
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These fixed income instruments are held to maturity and regulations of the insurance industry allow these instruments to be accounted for as face value plus cumulative interest.
Maybe a lot of investments is just inflation-based.
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These fixed income instruments are held to maturity and regulations of the insurance industry allow these instruments to be accounted for as face value plus cumulative interest.
Maybe a lot of investments is just inflation-based.
The yields of inflation protected instruments are way too low for them to match their liabilities and none are listed in the general account composition. In addition, there are some riskier investments but not enough (private equity 3%, natural resources 2.5%, real estate 4%, and that´s about it for that particular general account) to explain where those 5% come from.
On the other hand, the performance of the general account is pretty much assets minus liabilities. That means that the performance might be great because of a decrease in liabilities (for example an unexpected mortality event among annuitants) or because of an increase in asset values (which I have trouble to see, at least at that magnitude).
So the statement that the payout increase of the annuities is backed by the excellent performance of the general account is technically correct even if the performance is entirely due to a decrease in liabilities.
In any case, impossible to prove but interesting nevertheless.
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In Australia, in a similar vein, they calculate that we have had many thousands fewer deaths in the past (almost) two years than we should have (probably because of mask wearing and social distancing, people didn’t die of flu, and just about every other disease, so the pandemic has decreased the death rate). As a result of that and lockdowns, the private health insurance funds haven’t spent as much as they should have during this time. As private health insurance here is subsidised by the government, the health funds have to give back the excess to their customers. I received a letter a few days ago saying I now have six months extra health insurance.
This just about persuades me to live among the swarms of deadly venomous face-sized spiders.
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I've been seeing multiple articles about omnicrom and that it's outcompeting delta. Article (below) about Denmark was one of the first. While we don't know what the severity of omnicrom is going to be on average, the sheer number of cases does not bode well for the US. My office is having a mini outbreak. Out of 15 in the office, 2 are confirmed positive, a 3rd is sick with no test results yet, and the rest of the office is getting tested. My test was negative.
I'm mostly worried about the healthcare system. Fuck the admins and insurance companies, but if all the nurses quit we're really screwed.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/12/18/omicron-variant-denmark/?fbclid=IwAR1JJdxlwnPeVhmwL5E5f_MD-QzW9jRHiXosXg3UGxnzemtGlHXrirr6EHQ
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It's definitely getting closer. I now know multiple peeps who have it (including a sibling who is vaxxed and boosted). Sib almost had to go in for iv fluids to deal with vertigo and vomiting but turned the corner after a couple days of being miserable. A moderate case can still be pretty bad. And we're going to see A LOT more breakthrough cases with the new variant.
DH and I are locking down through January. I'm hoping by then it will burn through the population and create a bit of herd immunity.
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I'm watching the map of my state on the NYTimes Covid map and there is a slight color wave that is visible spreading across the state north to south.
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I'm watching the map of my state on the NYTimes Covid map and there is a slight color wave that is visible spreading across the state north to south.
There's a new colour - black - on the map of infections in London, for areas with more than 1,600 infections per 100,000 in the last 7 days. The worst number appears to be Dalston, Kingsland and De Beauvoir (just north-east of the City of London, by which I mean the business district not the whole metropolitan area) with 2,900.3. That's about 1 in every 34 people confirmed as having a covid infection in the last 7 days. I have cousins in the De Beauvoir area.
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I saw that Sarah Palin said she'd get vaccinated "over my dead body".
Works for me.
Our extended family is/was planning on getting together on Christmas day (from age 86 down to toddler). I offered to buy and deliver fast covid tests to all. The two who were hosting refuse to test (all the sane ones are fine with it). So not only have I ruined Christmas, but their anniversary (today) just for requesting they take a free in home test.
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I saw that Sarah Palin said she'd get vaccinated "over my dead body".
Works for me.
The snark is strong in this one. ;-)
Our extended family is/was planning on getting together on Christmas day (from age 86 down to toddler). I offered to buy and deliver fast covid tests to all. The two who were hosting refuse to test (all the sane ones are fine with it). So not only have I ruined Christmas, but their anniversary (today) just for requesting they take a free in home test.
Hmmm, isn't there a saying about cutting off one's nose to spite one's face?
Or maybe they were afraid they would test positive, for good reason?
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@geekette , did you ruin Christmas...or save it? If your relatives won't even take a test - I can't imagine how the dinner conversation would go...
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New diagnoses of COVID-19 has tripled and regular inpatient census for COVID-19 patients has gone up 50% in the last week in Houston. Total diagnoses (outpatient and inpatient) are up 1000% (not a typo) from the beginning of December, when we were at the nadir following the delta wave, and 500% from last week. Testing numbers have held steady, so this is a true increase and not from increased testing.
Fortunately we are at 20% of maximum COVID-19 hospitalizations (2,500 during peak of the delta wave), so have some buffer. If there is a linear increase, we will max out in 18 days, despite just having gone through a wave. Unfortunately the time period between that wave and this uptick is much shorter than the previous waves and we have a significant number of people still hospitalized from the tail end of delta.
It is too early to determine severity of omicron vs. delta (at least in this area). The mortality rate after hospitalization remains approximately 9% (also not a typo).
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I'm watching the map of my state on the NYTimes Covid map and there is a slight color wave that is visible spreading across the state north to south.
There's a new colour - black - on the map of infections in London, for areas with more than 1,600 infections per 100,000 in the last 7 days. The worst number appears to be Dalston, Kingsland and De Beauvoir (just north-east of the City of London, by which I mean the business district not the whole metropolitan area) with 2,900.3. That's about 1 in every 34 people confirmed as having a covid infection in the last 7 days. I have cousins in the De Beauvoir area.
Oh my gosh. We're only at ~27 per 100K.
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I'm watching the map of my state on the NYTimes Covid map and there is a slight color wave that is visible spreading across the state north to south.
There's a new colour - black - on the map of infections in London, for areas with more than 1,600 infections per 100,000 in the last 7 days. The worst number appears to be Dalston, Kingsland and De Beauvoir (just north-east of the City of London, by which I mean the business district not the whole metropolitan area) with 2,900.3. That's about 1 in every 34 people confirmed as having a covid infection in the last 7 days. I have cousins in the De Beauvoir area.
Oh my gosh. We're only at ~27 per 100K.
We're at 76 per 100K in Detroit/Wayne County, MI. That doesn't seem so bad, and yet we still have temporary FEMA staff at our local hospital to help with staff overwhelm. I'm dreading the post-Christmas wave. The county only has a 50% full vaccination rate. That's 850,000 people without full vaccination, many of whom will be packing homes and churches this weekend.
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We're at 76 per 100K in Detroit/Wayne County, MI. That doesn't seem so bad, and yet we still have temporary FEMA staff at our local hospital to help with staff overwhelm. I'm dreading the post-Christmas wave. The county only has a 50% full vaccination rate. That's 850,000 people without full vaccination, many of whom will be packing homes and churches this weekend.
We had a trip to Michigan earlier this fall (all outdoor activities, ate what we cooked in our AirBNB, takeout or outdoors). We were shocked by the low % of mask wearing compared to our area. The vaccination rate is similarly dismal. The only exceptions were very close to college campuses. We thought "they are asking for trouble" - and, lo and behold, trouble came.
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New diagnoses of COVID-19 has tripled and regular inpatient census for COVID-19 patients has gone up 50% in the last week in Houston. Total diagnoses (outpatient and inpatient) are up 1000% (not a typo) from the beginning of December, when we were at the nadir following the delta wave, and 500% from last week. Testing numbers have held steady, so this is a true increase and not from increased testing.
Fortunately we are at 20% of maximum COVID-19 hospitalizations (2,500 during peak of the delta wave), so have some buffer. If there is a linear increase, we will max out in 18 days, despite just having gone through a wave. Unfortunately the time period between that wave and this uptick is much shorter than the previous waves and we have a significant number of people still hospitalized from the tail end of delta.
It is too early to determine severity of omicron vs. delta (at least in this area). The mortality rate after hospitalization remains approximately 9% (also not a typo).
We are in a relative lull (in comparison with Delta) up here in the Panhandle (~110 cases per 100K) with no sign of Omicron yet, but I figure this wave will hit us hard and fast next week. Only about 50% of our county is vaccinated, so it's going to be ugly. Again. I think I can squeeze in one more swim tomorrow without huge risk (to be decided depending on what today's numbers show at the end of the day), but I suspect January is going to be completely shot as far as going to the pool. Time to hunker down again. Ugh.
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We're at 76 per 100K in Detroit/Wayne County, MI. That doesn't seem so bad, and yet we still have temporary FEMA staff at our local hospital to help with staff overwhelm. I'm dreading the post-Christmas wave. The county only has a 50% full vaccination rate. That's 850,000 people without full vaccination, many of whom will be packing homes and churches this weekend.
We had a trip to Michigan earlier this fall (all outdoor activities, ate what we cooked in our AirBNB, takeout or outdoors). We were shocked by the low % of mask wearing compared to our area. The vaccination rate is similarly dismal. The only exceptions were very close to college campuses. We thought "they are asking for trouble" - and, lo and behold, trouble came.
Indiana is similar. You can tell how red an area is by going to the grocery store and seeing how many are wearing masks. The more blue an area, the more masks. It also applies to things like do you quarantine while waiting on a test, etc.
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Trump was at a rally with Bill O'Reilly a couple days ago where both of them mentioned being fully vaccinated with booster shots. He got some boos from the crowd over that statement. He countered that he developed the vaccines, and to not get them would play "into their hands." Whoever "they" is. He gave the caveat that he doesn't believe in vaccine mandates. Of course, vaccines don't work too well unless just about everybody gets them, and he spent the last couple years building a base of voters who openly defy anything coming from the government, including the vaccines that he thinks he invented.
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I'm watching the map of my state on the NYTimes Covid map and there is a slight color wave that is visible spreading across the state north to south.
There's a new colour - black - on the map of infections in London, for areas with more than 1,600 infections per 100,000 in the last 7 days. The worst number appears to be Dalston, Kingsland and De Beauvoir (just north-east of the City of London, by which I mean the business district not the whole metropolitan area) with 2,900.3. That's about 1 in every 34 people confirmed as having a covid infection in the last 7 days. I have cousins in the De Beauvoir area.
Oh my gosh. We're only at ~27 per 100K.
We're at 76 per 100K in Detroit/Wayne County, MI. That doesn't seem so bad, and yet we still have temporary FEMA staff at our local hospital to help with staff overwhelm. I'm dreading the post-Christmas wave. The county only has a 50% full vaccination rate. That's 850,000 people without full vaccination, many of whom will be packing homes and churches this weekend.
That sucks, Multnomah County OR is at 17/100K with 85% of adults fully vaccinated and a more or less enforced indoor mask mandate. I know I'm in that other thread saying that I trust my vaccine and I'm not particularly worried, but some of you live in a different place than I do.
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The name of the thread rests on the assumption that most people who didn't get the vaccine are Republicans. I spent some time browsing county-level vaccination data for my state, and found that things changed:
- wealthy liberal areas still lead on vaxx rates, but deep blue areas with high share of minority population are now lagging state average and surrounding counties
- college towns used to have higher vax rates compared to surrounding (conservative) counties. This is now reversed.
- several deep red counties got their shit together, and really improved since I last checked (month ago?), now beating state average.
- and then, it's not my state, but WV now has a higher vax rate than NY, NJ, DC, MD, WA. They started strong, then plateaued, and now do well again.
So the premise of the thread may yet need to be revisited.
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The name of the thread rests on the assumption that most people who didn't get the vaccine are Republicans. I spent some time browsing county-level vaccination data for my state, and found that things changed:
- wealthy liberal areas still lead on vaxx rates, but deep blue areas with high share of minority population are now lagging state average and surrounding counties
- college towns used to have higher vax rates compared to surrounding (conservative) counties. This is now reversed.
- several deep red counties got their shit together, and really improved since I last checked (month ago?), now beating state average.
- and then, it's not my state, but WV now has a higher vax rate than NY, NJ, DC, MD, WA. They started strong, then plateaued, and now do well again.
So the premise of the thread may yet need to be revisited.
Party affiliation matters a huge amount with regards to vaccination - https://www.brookings.edu/blog/fixgov/2021/10/01/for-covid-19-vaccinations-party-affiliation-matters-more-than-race-and-ethnicity/ (https://www.brookings.edu/blog/fixgov/2021/10/01/for-covid-19-vaccinations-party-affiliation-matters-more-than-race-and-ethnicity/)
There are certainly some Democrats who are anti-vaccine, but this is a fringe opinion. This is not a fringe opinion in the Republican party.
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Party affiliation matters a huge amount with regards to vaccination - https://www.brookings.edu/blog/fixgov/2021/10/01/for-covid-19-vaccinations-party-affiliation-matters-more-than-race-and-ethnicity/ (https://www.brookings.edu/blog/fixgov/2021/10/01/for-covid-19-vaccinations-party-affiliation-matters-more-than-race-and-ethnicity/)
There are certainly some Democrats who are anti-vaccine, but this is a fringe opinion. This is not a fringe opinion in the Republican party.
That's October 1st. Last century in Covid years. Back then the map of vaccination rate, for my state where I know how counties vote, looked like 2020 election map.
It doesn't anymore.
Democrats may not be loudly anti-vaccine, but they sure as hell are not all getting their shots.
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I'm watching the map of my state on the NYTimes Covid map and there is a slight color wave that is visible spreading across the state north to south.
There's a new colour - black - on the map of infections in London, for areas with more than 1,600 infections per 100,000 in the last 7 days. The worst number appears to be Dalston, Kingsland and De Beauvoir (just north-east of the City of London, by which I mean the business district not the whole metropolitan area) with 2,900.3. That's about 1 in every 34 people confirmed as having a covid infection in the last 7 days. I have cousins in the De Beauvoir area.
Oh my gosh. We're only at ~27 per 100K.
We're at 76 per 100K in Detroit/Wayne County, MI. That doesn't seem so bad, and yet we still have temporary FEMA staff at our local hospital to help with staff overwhelm. I'm dreading the post-Christmas wave. The county only has a 50% full vaccination rate. That's 850,000 people without full vaccination, many of whom will be packing homes and churches this weekend.
That sucks, Multnomah County OR is at 17/100K with 85% of adults fully vaccinated and a more or less enforced indoor mask mandate. I know I'm in that other thread saying that I trust my vaccine and I'm not particularly worried, but some of you live in a different place than I do.
Well crap. Just looked it up. My county - over 200 per 100k. I can't find vaxx rates, but the state as a whole is about 50%, and we're bluer, so a bit over that. And from what I can tell, the hospitals are on/off bypass.
Don't get sick or hurt in NWI.
Edit: Note and when I say over 200 per 100k, that's the best I got. It could be 2000 and they wouldn't tell us.
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I just realized this but I'm pretty sure that the NYT map is daily cases per 100k where as the comment from former player was weekly cases. I figured this out when I was digging through CDC data which is also reported weekly and had to make sense of it.
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Party affiliation matters a huge amount with regards to vaccination - https://www.brookings.edu/blog/fixgov/2021/10/01/for-covid-19-vaccinations-party-affiliation-matters-more-than-race-and-ethnicity/ (https://www.brookings.edu/blog/fixgov/2021/10/01/for-covid-19-vaccinations-party-affiliation-matters-more-than-race-and-ethnicity/)
There are certainly some Democrats who are anti-vaccine, but this is a fringe opinion. This is not a fringe opinion in the Republican party.
That's October 1st. Last century in Covid years. Back then the map of vaccination rate, for my state where I know how counties vote, looked like 2020 election map.
It doesn't anymore.
Can you show me the study that you're using to draw that conclusion?
The Republican party has made anti-vaccine sentiment part of their platform. It's not fringe at all (https://www.statnews.com/2021/11/17/gop-opposition-to-vaccine-mandates-extends-far-beyond-covid-19/ (https://www.statnews.com/2021/11/17/gop-opposition-to-vaccine-mandates-extends-far-beyond-covid-19/), https://www.npr.org/2021/12/06/1057344561/anti-vaccine-activists-political-conference-trump-republicans (https://www.npr.org/2021/12/06/1057344561/anti-vaccine-activists-political-conference-trump-republicans)). Political leaders openly refuse to vaccinate with no party backlash - https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/dec/21/sarah-palin-covid-vaccine-coronavirus (https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/dec/21/sarah-palin-covid-vaccine-coronavirus).
Democrats may not be loudly anti-vaccine, but they sure as hell are not all getting their shots.
Yep, I did agree that there certainly are anti-vaccine Democrats. But they're far fewer than the anti-vaccine Republicans based on every study and report I've read.
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Reviewing https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/covid-19-vaccine-doses.html the gap on a state-wide level is fairly narrow between the most and least vaccinated. Of course the WV datapoint is just cherry-picking (large uptick in vaccination after delta slammed the state), but in general the difference between low-vaccine and high-vaccine states is not great.
What is clear is that even relatively high vaccination rates of 70%+ are not enough to protect the unvaccinated from hospitalization. Many of the hardest-hit counties since the initial waves through the northeast are rural and GOP-leaning. This has not changed recently. It’s clear that there have been high losses on both sides of the aisle, for various reasons. It’s also pretty clear that much of the anti-vaccination rhetoric is driven by the GOP (though not all).
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What is clear is that even relatively high vaccination rates of 70%+ are not enough to protect the unvaccinated from hospitalization.
Yes. Even for Delta it would have needed around 85% for herd immunity. But with Omicron - at least until there is a adjusted vaccine - there is no herd immunity. Maybe never will. As it looks now, it will be something everyone gets several times a year.
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I'm watching the map of my state on the NYTimes Covid map and there is a slight color wave that is visible spreading across the state north to south.
There's a new colour - black - on the map of infections in London, for areas with more than 1,600 infections per 100,000 in the last 7 days. The worst number appears to be Dalston, Kingsland and De Beauvoir (just north-east of the City of London, by which I mean the business district not the whole metropolitan area) with 2,900.3. That's about 1 in every 34 people confirmed as having a covid infection in the last 7 days. I have cousins in the De Beauvoir area.
Oh my gosh. We're only at ~27 per 100K.
We're at 76 per 100K in Detroit/Wayne County, MI. That doesn't seem so bad, and yet we still have temporary FEMA staff at our local hospital to help with staff overwhelm. I'm dreading the post-Christmas wave. The county only has a 50% full vaccination rate. That's 850,000 people without full vaccination, many of whom will be packing homes and churches this weekend.
That sucks, Multnomah County OR is at 17/100K with 85% of adults fully vaccinated and a more or less enforced indoor mask mandate. I know I'm in that other thread saying that I trust my vaccine and I'm not particularly worried, but some of you live in a different place than I do.
Yes, there is a huge amount of variation. Mask wearing at the Meijer in a neighboring suburb earlier this week was higher than I've seen in months, yet still probably below 50%. No mandates. I'm not afraid for myself or my husband, as we're both in our mid-40s, healthy, and are vaxed and boosted. I'd be horrified to pass on COVID to someone less able to fight it off, and I'm extremely concerned about the burden on our local healthcare system.
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In PA, it's mostly red majority counties with just over a dozen of the 67 voting for Biden in 2020.
The blue counties are largely in the 75%+ vaccinated camp for 18+ while the red are mostly 45-60%. One is 41%.
As many have said...
* I'm not so much worried about me (42) and spouse (37) as I am about an in-law with M.S., my parents, etc.
* I'm less worried about death than long-term effects
* I'm less worried about children getting sick than high transmission rates
The theme here is second-order effects (https://www.betterleadersbetterschools.com/second-order-thinking/).
Over and over again in forums and article comments, we see first-order effect arguments (low rate of death, children not getting sick, etc., some of which are selfish, e.g. I will be fine, why worry) from the anti-mask, anti-vaxx, and anti-mandate/restriction crowds.
(Of course, the counter-arguments include unintended consequence of concessions made to your government, and their increasing power and tyranny.) I wonder if there's something to explore with this line of thinking. Maybe after coffee?
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In PA, it's mostly red majority counties with just over a dozen of the 67 voting for Biden in 2020.
The blue counties are largely in the 75%+ vaccinated camp for 18+ while the red are mostly 45-60%. One is 41%.
As many have said...
* I'm not so much worried about me (42) and spouse (37) as I am about an in-law with M.S., my parents, etc.
* I'm less worried about death than long-term effects
* I'm less worried about children getting sick than high transmission rates
The theme here is second-order effects (https://www.betterleadersbetterschools.com/second-order-thinking/).
Over and over again in forums and article comments, we see first-order effect arguments (low rate of death, children not getting sick, etc., some of which are selfish, e.g. I will be fine, why worry) from the anti-mask, anti-vaxx, and anti-mandate/restriction crowds.
(Of course, the counter-arguments include unintended consequence of concessions made to your government, and their increasing power and tyranny.) I wonder if there's something to explore with this line of thinking. Maybe after coffee?
PA is one of those states that has been extremely close statewide a lot lately.
2016 Trump won by 45k votes
2016 Toomey won reelection by about 90k votes
2020 Biden won by 75k votes.
2020 PA House GOP won by 400k votes.
PA has had about 35k covid deaths. And by a lot of the stats presented on GOP v Dem deaths, that means that covid will be about a -10k swing against the GOP. It wouldn't have changed any of the outcomes above, but it does mean that the GOP in that state will have to work harder in order to win.
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In PA, it's mostly red majority counties with just over a dozen of the 67 voting for Biden in 2020.
The blue counties are largely in the 75%+ vaccinated camp for 18+ while the red are mostly 45-60%. One is 41%.
As many have said...
* I'm not so much worried about me (42) and spouse (37) as I am about an in-law with M.S., my parents, etc.
* I'm less worried about death than long-term effects
* I'm less worried about children getting sick than high transmission rates
The theme here is second-order effects (https://www.betterleadersbetterschools.com/second-order-thinking/).
Over and over again in forums and article comments, we see first-order effect arguments (low rate of death, children not getting sick, etc., some of which are selfish, e.g. I will be fine, why worry) from the anti-mask, anti-vaxx, and anti-mandate/restriction crowds.
(Of course, the counter-arguments include unintended consequence of concessions made to your government, and their increasing power and tyranny.) I wonder if there's something to explore with this line of thinking. Maybe after coffee?
PA is one of those states that has been extremely close statewide a lot lately.
2016 Trump won by 45k votes
2016 Toomey won reelection by about 90k votes
2020 Biden won by 75k votes.
2020 PA House GOP won by 400k votes.
PA has had about 35k covid deaths. And by a lot of the stats presented on GOP v Dem deaths, that means that covid will be about a -10k swing against the GOP. It wouldn't have changed any of the outcomes above, but it does mean that the GOP in that state will have to work harder in order to win.
Is this not assuming that the deaths happened linearly through time? I would say the deaths were highly concentrated in the high population more blue areas in the early stages of covid and pre-vaccine. The Rep vs. Dem death rate you are referring to I believe is a post-vaccine stat.
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In PA, it's mostly red majority counties with just over a dozen of the 67 voting for Biden in 2020.
The blue counties are largely in the 75%+ vaccinated camp for 18+ while the red are mostly 45-60%. One is 41%.
As many have said...
* I'm not so much worried about me (42) and spouse (37) as I am about an in-law with M.S., my parents, etc.
* I'm less worried about death than long-term effects
* I'm less worried about children getting sick than high transmission rates
The theme here is second-order effects (https://www.betterleadersbetterschools.com/second-order-thinking/).
Over and over again in forums and article comments, we see first-order effect arguments (low rate of death, children not getting sick, etc., some of which are selfish, e.g. I will be fine, why worry) from the anti-mask, anti-vaxx, and anti-mandate/restriction crowds.
(Of course, the counter-arguments include unintended consequence of concessions made to your government, and their increasing power and tyranny.) I wonder if there's something to explore with this line of thinking. Maybe after coffee?
PA is one of those states that has been extremely close statewide a lot lately.
2016 Trump won by 45k votes
2016 Toomey won reelection by about 90k votes
2020 Biden won by 75k votes.
2020 PA House GOP won by 400k votes.
PA has had about 35k covid deaths. And by a lot of the stats presented on GOP v Dem deaths, that means that covid will be about a -10k swing against the GOP. It wouldn't have changed any of the outcomes above, but it does mean that the GOP in that state will have to work harder in order to win.
Is this not assuming that the deaths happened linearly through time? I would say the deaths were highly concentrated in the high population more blue areas in the early stages of covid and pre-vaccine. The Rep vs. Dem death rate you are referring to I believe is a post-vaccine stat.
You can look up the stats for deaths at any point in time. PA covid deaths were about 9k pre 2020 election.
But even then, there's only 1 county in PA that went 80/20 blue, the other blue counties are more like 60/40 counties. So it's not as big of a disparity before the vaccine as now.
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I thought it’d be a good idea to clarify what the UK data shows on omicron’s virulence relative to delta. Estimated vary from 30-70% risk of hospitalization, which would put in line with pre-Delta variants. However, omicron is substantially more infectious than delta. Infection risk in a population is an exponential growth function, while hospitalization risk is linear with regard to infection (you can spread the virus to others, you can’t spread relative decrease in risk of hospitalization). Those studies further suggest (with limited data) that deaths after hospitalization are similar between the two strains. This latter point remains to be determined as there are many factors that are risks for death, and vary substantially between the US and UK (even more so when comparing to South Africa).
What does this mean for death and hospitalization rates? About 5% of people with covid get hospitalized based on data from the delta surge. About 1% die. Assuming both these risks are halved with omicron and that lack of booster puts one at similar risk of omicron as an unvaccinated person has for delta (again based on UK data), we have only a 20-30% booster rate in the US, leaving 200m x 2.5% = 5m hospitalized and 200 x 0.5% = 1m at risk of death. Will we reach this level? Probably not, but given how easily spread omicron is and how little preparation we are doing as a society, I think we will come close.
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/covid-data/covidview/index.html
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I thought it’d be a good idea to clarify what the UK data shows on omicron’s virulence relative to delta. Estimated vary from 30-70% risk of hospitalization, which would put in line with pre-Delta variants. However, omicron is substantially more infectious than delta. Infection risk in a population is an exponential growth function, while hospitalization risk is linear with regard to infection (you can spread the virus to others, you can’t spread relative decrease in risk of hospitalization). Those studies further suggest (with limited data) that deaths after hospitalization are similar between the two strains. This latter point remains to be determined as there are many factors that are risks for death, and vary substantially between the US and UK (even more so when comparing to South Africa).
What does this mean for death and hospitalization rates? About 5% of people with covid get hospitalized based on data from the delta surge. About 1% die. Assuming both these risks are halved with omicron and that lack of booster puts one at similar risk of omicron as an unvaccinated person has for delta (again based on UK data), we have only a 20-30% booster rate in the US, leaving 200m x 2.5% = 5m hospitalized and 200 x 0.5% = 1m at risk of death. Will we reach this level? Probably not, but given how easily spread omicron is and how little preparation we are doing as a society, I think we will come close.
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/covid-data/covidview/index.html
I would bet the under.
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45 got boos for telling his faithful to get jabs, and he doubled down on it, claiming he created 3 vaccines (under Operation Warp Speed, he can take the credit if it means people get vaxxed). He's probably realized the deaths are going to affect outcomes in mid-term and prezzie elections, or at least someone on his team has realized and has convinced him to spread the message.
(popcorn n beer on this. and some groundnuts. and some pepitos and sunflower seeds. gosh darn it, i'm running out of snacks watching this latest soap opera dram unfold.)
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To reiterate a sentiment expressed several pages ago on this thread…
I don’t think it will be the loss (death) of loyal voters of one particular party which will significantly impact future elections. Rather, it will be the perception of which ‘side’ ultimately handled the pandemic better.
On the GOP side I think it will be about how many ‘leaning’ and independent voters get utterly turned off by the anti-vaxx position the mainstream Republicans have supported.
On the Dem side it will be how many people think this administration (as well as D-Governors) failed to manage the pandemic reasonably well (and better than the alternative).
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45 got boos for telling his faithful to get jabs, and he doubled down on it, claiming he created 3 vaccines (under Operation Warp Speed, he can take the credit if it means people get vaxxed). He's probably realized the deaths are going to affect outcomes in mid-term and prezzie elections, or at least someone on his team has realized and has convinced him to spread the message.
(popcorn n beer on this. and some groundnuts. and some pepitos and sunflower seeds. gosh darn it, i'm running out of snacks watching this latest soap opera dram unfold.)
I saw this. I think this is the strongest and most supportive stance he's taken. Day late and a dollar short.
I wonder what my anti vax family think about that. 45 is their religious leader.
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45 got boos for telling his faithful to get jabs, and he doubled down on it, claiming he created 3 vaccines (under Operation Warp Speed, he can take the credit if it means people get vaxxed). He's probably realized the deaths are going to affect outcomes in mid-term and prezzie elections, or at least someone on his team has realized and has convinced him to spread the message.
(popcorn n beer on this. and some groundnuts. and some pepitos and sunflower seeds. gosh darn it, i'm running out of snacks watching this latest soap opera dram unfold.)
I saw this. I think this is the strongest and most supportive stance he's taken. Day late and a dollar short.
I wonder what my anti vax family think about that. 45 is their religious leader.
One common take seems to be similar to what people told themselves when he sorta, kinda denounced white suprematists after supporting them, or all those similar instances. Basically, that he was clear with what he said and he meant every word of it. But then he sort of backed off a little bit, with a tacit wink to his supporters, because it is what an oppressed person (which they feel anyone not wanting to get vaccinated is) does to survive. IOW, he said what he meant, then retreated a bit from that publicly in order to survive, basically.
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45 got boos for telling his faithful to get jabs, and he doubled down on it, claiming he created 3 vaccines (under Operation Warp Speed, he can take the credit if it means people get vaxxed). He's probably realized the deaths are going to affect outcomes in mid-term and prezzie elections, or at least someone on his team has realized and has convinced him to spread the message.
(popcorn n beer on this. and some groundnuts. and some pepitos and sunflower seeds. gosh darn it, i'm running out of snacks watching this latest soap opera dram unfold.)
I saw this. I think this is the strongest and most supportive stance he's taken. Day late and a dollar short.
I wonder what my anti vax family think about that. 45 is their religious leader.
One common take seems to be similar to what people told themselves when he sorta, kinda denounced white suprematists after supporting them, or all those similar instances. Basically, that he was clear with what he said and he meant every word of it. But then he sort of backed off a little bit, with a tacit wink to his supporters, because it is what an oppressed person (which they feel anyone not wanting to get vaccinated is) does to survive. IOW, he said what he meant, then retreated a bit from that publicly in order to survive, basically.
And if he was serious about supporting vaccines, he would be saying it a lot more than he is, and with a lot more emphasis.
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45 got boos for telling his faithful to get jabs, and he doubled down on it, claiming he created 3 vaccines (under Operation Warp Speed, he can take the credit if it means people get vaxxed). He's probably realized the deaths are going to affect outcomes in mid-term and prezzie elections, or at least someone on his team has realized and has convinced him to spread the message.
(popcorn n beer on this. and some groundnuts. and some pepitos and sunflower seeds. gosh darn it, i'm running out of snacks watching this latest soap opera dram unfold.)
I saw this. I think this is the strongest and most supportive stance he's taken. Day late and a dollar short.
I wonder what my anti vax family think about that. 45 is their religious leader.
One common take seems to be similar to what people told themselves when he sorta, kinda denounced white suprematists after supporting them, or all those similar instances. Basically, that he was clear with what he said and he meant every word of it. But then he sort of backed off a little bit, with a tacit wink to his supporters, because it is what an oppressed person (which they feel anyone not wanting to get vaccinated is) does to survive. IOW, he said what he meant, then retreated a bit from that publicly in order to survive, basically.
And if he was serious about supporting vaccines, he would be saying it a lot more than he is, and with a lot more emphasis.
Yeah he and the rest of the GOP leadership don’t really believe in anything other than exploiting their gullible base for their own personal profit. I’m sure some think thank told him to say something about vaccines for some political reason. Doubt compassion for their base’s suffering was a factor.
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To reiterate a sentiment expressed several pages ago on this thread…
I don’t think it will be the loss (death) of loyal voters of one particular party which will significantly impact future elections. Rather, it will be the perception of which ‘side’ ultimately handled the pandemic better.
On the GOP side I think it will be about how many ‘leaning’ and independent voters get utterly turned off by the anti-vaxx position the mainstream Republicans have supported.
On the Dem side it will be how many people think this administration (as well as D-Governors) failed to manage the pandemic reasonably well (and better than the alternative).
This is 100% true. And, as Virginia Gov. election shows, so far Republicans have an advantage.
Leaning and independent voters do not associate the generic Republican brand with anti-vaxxers. They do judge Democratic administrations by the actual state of affairs in regards to Covid.
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To reiterate a sentiment expressed several pages ago on this thread…
I don’t think it will be the loss (death) of loyal voters of one particular party which will significantly impact future elections. Rather, it will be the perception of which ‘side’ ultimately handled the pandemic better.
On the GOP side I think it will be about how many ‘leaning’ and independent voters get utterly turned off by the anti-vaxx position the mainstream Republicans have supported.
On the Dem side it will be how many people think this administration (as well as D-Governors) failed to manage the pandemic reasonably well (and better than the alternative).
This is 100% true. And, as Virginia Gov. election shows, so far Republicans have an advantage.
Leaning and independent voters do not associate the generic Republican brand with anti-vaxxers. They do judge Democratic administrations by the actual state of affairs in regards to Covid.
The GOP have a much better messaging campaign. Even when the GOP are in complete control they will continue to blame Dems for whatever is going wrong. Trump did this through conspiracy talk that even though he was the president there were all these secret Democratic bureaucrats that actually control everything the government does. And that there are secret democrats in the GOP who are posers.
It's the same messaging strategy of saying that Jan 6 were actually undercover ops.
A lot of normies may not believe that exact story, but they end up coming away with a "general vibe" that Dems were the ones in charge (even if they weren't or it was a split government).
Even looking back at past administrations, people tend to just look at who the president is rather than the shape of congress. It seems more often than not, the bills that people hate the most are compromise bills between opposing branches of different parties. But the president's party is the one that receives all the blame.
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Even looking back at past administrations, people tend to just look at who the president is rather than the shape of congress. It seems more often than not, the bills that people hate the most are compromise bills between opposing branches of different parties. But the president's party is the one that receives all the blame.
This makes the Parliamentary system look so good! When we hate something we know exactly who to blame! Especially in a majority government situation. Of course in a minority government situation we get to blame TWO parties! ;-)
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The GOP have a much better messaging campaign. Even when the GOP are in complete control they will continue to blame Dems for whatever is going wrong. Trump did this through conspiracy talk that even though he was the president there were all these secret Democratic bureaucrats that actually control everything the government does. And that there are secret democrats in the GOP who are posers.
Yeah, messaging is easier when your message is not limited to even remotely faithful description of reality.
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I've lost so much respect for many of my fellow Americans this year. I'm finding out that many people do not have critical thinking skills.
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I've lost so much respect for many of my fellow Americans this year. I'm finding out that many people do not have critical thinking skills.
If it isn't 100% effective, we shouldn't try it!
Call it a shot, not a vaccine, like the flu shot!
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No, call it the sure fire shot!
This makes the Parliamentary system look so good! When we hate something we know exactly who to blame! Especially in a majority government situation. Of course in a minority government situation we get to blame TWO parties! ;-)
We Germans can even blame 3 government parties! Though it's easier to just use the smallest one, FDP (the libertarians so to speak). That's generally correct.
They are always going in and out of governments and parliaments because the people keep forgetting... and like to hear "lower taxes!"
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Dropping in to the discussion with my usual non sequitur to share this link which address the original question of the thread. Haven't checked over the graphics but they are quite striking if true.
https://acasignups.net/21/11/17/red-shift-how-trumps-attempt-let-covid-19-destroy-blue-america-reversed-itself-animated
Edit to add another page with a less controversial title:
https://acasignups.net/21/12/27/weekly-update-covid19-casedeath-rates-county-partisan-lean-vaccination-rate
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Dropping in to the discussion with my usual non sequitur to share this link which address the original question of the thread. Haven't checked over the graphics but they are quite striking if true.
https://acasignups.net/21/11/17/red-shift-how-trumps-attempt-let-covid-19-destroy-blue-america-reversed-itself-animated
Edit to add another page with a less controversial title:
https://acasignups.net/21/12/27/weekly-update-covid19-casedeath-rates-county-partisan-lean-vaccination-rate
Thanks for the link. The NY Times looked at this a few months ago and found similar results at that time. We will see what the effect of Omicron will be.
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Dropping in to the discussion with my usual non sequitur to share this link which address the original question of the thread. Haven't checked over the graphics but they are quite striking if true.
https://acasignups.net/21/11/17/red-shift-how-trumps-attempt-let-covid-19-destroy-blue-america-reversed-itself-animated
Edit to add another page with a less controversial title:
https://acasignups.net/21/12/27/weekly-update-covid19-casedeath-rates-county-partisan-lean-vaccination-rate
This basically answers the question. Great find @Poundwise .
Ironically though, it makes little difference politically, due to the Electoral College. That is unless urban liberals move into the recently-vacated and more-affordable houses of COVID victims in purple areas on the peripheries of urban areas, now that many of them can work from home.
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Dropping in to the discussion with my usual non sequitur to share this link which address the original question of the thread. Haven't checked over the graphics but they are quite striking if true.
https://acasignups.net/21/11/17/red-shift-how-trumps-attempt-let-covid-19-destroy-blue-america-reversed-itself-animated
Edit to add another page with a less controversial title:
https://acasignups.net/21/12/27/weekly-update-covid19-casedeath-rates-county-partisan-lean-vaccination-rate
This basically answers the question. Great find @Poundwise .
Ironically though, it makes little difference politically, due to the Electoral College. That is unless urban liberals move into the recently-vacated and more-affordable houses of COVID victims in purple areas on the peripheries of urban areas, now that many of them can work from home.
Who knows… but this describes exactly what is happening in my red county; there has been a record number of out-of-state sales this year (by a lot) and the majority of out-of-state buyers are from two nearby very blue states.
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Dropping in to the discussion with my usual non sequitur to share this link which address the original question of the thread. Haven't checked over the graphics but they are quite striking if true.
https://acasignups.net/21/11/17/red-shift-how-trumps-attempt-let-covid-19-destroy-blue-america-reversed-itself-animated
Edit to add another page with a less controversial title:
https://acasignups.net/21/12/27/weekly-update-covid19-casedeath-rates-county-partisan-lean-vaccination-rate
This basically answers the question. Great find @Poundwise .
Ironically though, it makes little difference politically, due to the Electoral College. That is unless urban liberals move into the recently-vacated and more-affordable houses of COVID victims in purple areas on the peripheries of urban areas, now that many of them can work from home.
Who knows… but this describes exactly what is happening in my red county; there has been a record number of out-of-state sales this year (by a lot) and the majority of out-of-state buyers are from two nearby very blue states.
It would be great if COVID helped correct the georgraphic sorting that has been a political disaster. Not just the in the electoral college, but the House (and state leg) due to recent gerrymandered redistricting that will be in effect for the next decade. Those districts will require blue people to actually move into them, not just to depopulate the red residents, to lose the power of gerrymandering. And of course the Senate's long-standing rural bias that wasn't as decisive before our current political polarization and geographic sorting.
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Dropping in to the discussion with my usual non sequitur to share this link which address the original question of the thread. Haven't checked over the graphics but they are quite striking if true.
https://acasignups.net/21/11/17/red-shift-how-trumps-attempt-let-covid-19-destroy-blue-america-reversed-itself-animated
Edit to add another page with a less controversial title:
https://acasignups.net/21/12/27/weekly-update-covid19-casedeath-rates-county-partisan-lean-vaccination-rate
This kind of confirms what I've said a few times throughout the thread, my feel was that Covid deaths were much higher in blue areas up until the vaccine started rolling out. The majority of death so far happened before the vaccine and improvements to treatment... so I'm not convinced that there is going to be some sort of political win because so many more republican voters died from Covid than Democrats... though there is still a lifetime to figure that one out. I will also say that it would be nice if someone could take the data combine it all and guess what the total death was for each voting party... from what I can tell all that info is there.
I feel like this article also very much explains why red areas did not take seriously/thought people were making shit up for the longest time (but does not explain why some still do think that).
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I will also say that it would be nice if someone could take the data combine it all and guess what the total death was for each voting party... from what I can tell all that info is there.
There are all sorts of scores that both parties' data crunchers assign to voters trying to predict who is a D and who is an R .They are more reliable than nothing, but far from 100% reliable. This data is not public. If someone has a really burning desire, they can buy it - if they can convince a selling organization that it would advance the cause. Like partisan pollsters, they only do business with like-minded entities.
Then there is party registration data (AKA voter file). It's also not 100% reliable in a sense that not everyone bothers to change party registration when they decide to no longer vote with a party. Rules as to who can get it differ by state. All provide lists to parties, but not all to the public - or they may give public access to a paper copy in an election office. Also, not all states have party registration data, those who don't simply register a voter to vote at a certain address.
You can get additional insights from voter files on primary elections, assuming a state makes it public (not all do). Assumption here is that very few people vote in another party's election; and the biggest problem is that not that many people vote in primaries.
TL;DR: not that easy for a hobbyist, if possible at all.
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I saw this data out of the census bureau recently on covid 19 migration: https://www.census.gov/library/visualizations/2021/comm/how-does-your-state-compare.html?cid=how-does-your-compare (https://www.census.gov/library/visualizations/2021/comm/how-does-your-state-compare.html?cid=how-does-your-compare)
What this basically says is that there has been a large exit from California, New York, and Illinois and large influxes to Texas and Florida in the past year.
Basically, California and New York have each lost a couple hundred thousand people (lucky for New York, they would be down another EV now if the census were held this year) and Texas and Florida have both gained another couple hundred thousand people. I don't know how much of the demographics we can say are red vs blue, but I'd think that it could very well be a net positive to democrats in Texas and Florida about +20-30k. It's hard to say for sure though.
We have been thinking about moving to Ohio to find reasonable housing prices, so this data helps support that notion. It's good to know though that even New York or Mass might have plenty of property for sale. It's really hard to even find houses for sale in places where everyone is moving to.
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I saw this data out of the census bureau recently on covid 19 migration: https://www.census.gov/library/visualizations/2021/comm/how-does-your-state-compare.html?cid=how-does-your-compare (https://www.census.gov/library/visualizations/2021/comm/how-does-your-state-compare.html?cid=how-does-your-compare)
What this basically says is that there has been a large exit from California, New York, and Illinois and large influxes to Texas and Florida in the past year.
Basically, California and New York have each lost a couple hundred thousand people (lucky for New York, they would be down another EV now if the census were held this year) and Texas and Florida have both gained another couple hundred thousand people. I don't know how much of the demographics we can say are red vs blue, but I'd think that it could very well be a net positive to democrats in Texas and Florida about +20-30k. It's hard to say for sure though.
We have been thinking about moving to Ohio to find reasonable housing prices, so this data helps support that notion. It's good to know though that even New York or Mass might have plenty of property for sale. It's really hard to even find houses for sale in places where everyone is moving to.
I'm betting the majority of people moving to TX and FL are Republicans. Why else move to a place where schools are being prohibited from making kids wear masks? They're chasing low taxes, cheap McMansions, and the feeling of freedom that comes from directly inhaling the air inside WalMart.
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I saw this data out of the census bureau recently on covid 19 migration: https://www.census.gov/library/visualizations/2021/comm/how-does-your-state-compare.html?cid=how-does-your-compare (https://www.census.gov/library/visualizations/2021/comm/how-does-your-state-compare.html?cid=how-does-your-compare)
What this basically says is that there has been a large exit from California, New York, and Illinois and large influxes to Texas and Florida in the past year.
Basically, California and New York have each lost a couple hundred thousand people (lucky for New York, they would be down another EV now if the census were held this year) and Texas and Florida have both gained another couple hundred thousand people. I don't know how much of the demographics we can say are red vs blue, but I'd think that it could very well be a net positive to democrats in Texas and Florida about +20-30k. It's hard to say for sure though.
We have been thinking about moving to Ohio to find reasonable housing prices, so this data helps support that notion. It's good to know though that even New York or Mass might have plenty of property for sale. It's really hard to even find houses for sale in places where everyone is moving to.
I'm betting the majority of people moving to TX and FL are Republicans. Why else move to a place where schools are being prohibited from making kids wear masks? They're chasing low taxes, cheap McMansions, and the feeling of freedom that comes from directly inhaling the air inside WalMart.
Or they're the kids of the 80-90's that moved to the coasts, found a job, and weren't inundated with Rush Limbaugh for 3 decades that now see the opportunity to move back without losing out on their high salary job.
Texas really isn't that low tax of a state. So I don't buy people moving for that reason. But cheap McMansions fit that mold at least. But I don't see why that would be exclusively the domain of GOP voters. I'm generally a blue voter more than not and even I'm looking for a cheaper place to live. (Though the trade off still exists, it's easier to find high paying jobs in the expensive cities) SFH's should be 300-500k not 800-1.2MM.
There's also plenty of liberal cities in both Texas and Florida that can attract people that care a lot about their political environments, it's not like any state is one giant monolith. I think fastest growing areas of Texas are Austin and Dallas, not exactly GOP bastions.
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I saw this data out of the census bureau recently on covid 19 migration: https://www.census.gov/library/visualizations/2021/comm/how-does-your-state-compare.html?cid=how-does-your-compare (https://www.census.gov/library/visualizations/2021/comm/how-does-your-state-compare.html?cid=how-does-your-compare)
What this basically says is that there has been a large exit from California, New York, and Illinois and large influxes to Texas and Florida in the past year.
Basically, California and New York have each lost a couple hundred thousand people (lucky for New York, they would be down another EV now if the census were held this year) and Texas and Florida have both gained another couple hundred thousand people. I don't know how much of the demographics we can say are red vs blue, but I'd think that it could very well be a net positive to democrats in Texas and Florida about +20-30k. It's hard to say for sure though.
We have been thinking about moving to Ohio to find reasonable housing prices, so this data helps support that notion. It's good to know though that even New York or Mass might have plenty of property for sale. It's really hard to even find houses for sale in places where everyone is moving to.
I'm betting the majority of people moving to TX and FL are Republicans. Why else move to a place where schools are being prohibited from making kids wear masks? They're chasing low taxes, cheap McMansions, and the feeling of freedom that comes from directly inhaling the air inside WalMart.
Interesting data point, but while this is an issue, some are being persuaded to move because the schools are open and parents want their kids off of remote learning. There are families that were on a timeline to be transferred for Toyota and State Farm that have moved up their transfer request to come here because schools are still closed where they live now and they/their kids want to be in person.
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Or they're the kids of the 80-90's that moved to the coasts, found a job, and weren't inundated with Rush Limbaugh for 3 decades that now see the opportunity to move back without losing out on their high salary job.
Working in tech where our head office is in New York, I can confirm that was the main reason some staff relocated to southern states. An opportunity to move to their home state while retaining their lucrative employment.
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From July 2020 to July 2021, Arizona saw the third most population increase (after Texas and Florida). I suspect many (or most) of those people are from CA. They gained about 100,000 people, and likely more than that if you add the rest of 2021. Now, not all people from CA (or the other states that lost people to migration) are reliably Dem, but it stands to reason many are. (I'd guess that people on the less liberal side are more likely to move to AZ than those hard core liberals, but still....)
I think Arizona matters a lot more than Texas when looking at how migration and deaths can change elections. Trump won Texas by over 600,000 voters, so it would take a *lot* of change to turn Texas blue. But the delta in Arizona was only about 10,000 (in favor of Biden), so an influx of 70,000 Ds and 30,000 Rs (for example) is enough to make a significant difference in the voting pattern of the state, making it more reliably Blue. And if you then add in more Red Covid deaths than blue, those numbers can be even more significant. Suddenly, a veeery close race (10,000 votes) becomes a more comfortable lead of ~60,000-70,000 votes.
Florida went to Trump by about 370,000 votes. That's less than the difference in Texas but still a lot of votes. It is also approximately the same number of people who have moved to Florida n the last year and a half. Even if most of those voters are reliably democratic, it still wouldn't be enough to swing Texas, assuming most people continue to vote the same way and in the same numbers. Now, if a significant number of Florida Covid deaths were Republicans, it might start to get close. So the difference doesn't seem as meaningful as in Arizona, but it does start to make a replica of 2019 into a very tight race. And unlike in AZ, this difference is moving toward the losing side, instead of just increasing the numerical lead.
For me, it is most interesting to look at the numbers for both the migration and the Covid death by party affiliation in the swing states. There aren't great numbers, because even within a red or blue county, we don't know that an individual is left or right leaning. But I feel fairly safe making some assumptions. And in states where things tend to be close, if there was a lot of immigration (presumably from more-likely-to-lean-liberal people) and a large differential in Republican deaths vs. Democratic deaths, that could absolutely have very real effects in elections. I saw this data out of the census bureau recently on covid 19 migration: https://www.census.gov/library/visualizations/2021/comm/how-does-your-state-compare.html?cid=how-does-your-compare (https://www.census.gov/library/visualizations/2021/comm/how-does-your-state-compare.html?cid=how-does-your-compare)
What this basically says is that there has been a large exit from California, New York, and Illinois and large influxes to Texas and Florida in the past year.
Basically, California and New York have each lost a couple hundred thousand people (lucky for New York, they would be down another EV now if the census were held this year) and Texas and Florida have both gained another couple hundred thousand people. I don't know how much of the demographics we can say are red vs blue, but I'd think that it could very well be a net positive to democrats in Texas and Florida about +20-30k. It's hard to say for sure though.
We have been thinking about moving to Ohio to find reasonable housing prices, so this data helps support that notion. It's good to know though that even New York or Mass might have plenty of property for sale. It's really hard to even find houses for sale in places where everyone is moving to.
I'm betting the majority of people moving to TX and FL are Republicans. Why else move to a place where schools are being prohibited from making kids wear masks? They're chasing low taxes, cheap McMansions, and the feeling of freedom that comes from directly inhaling the air inside WalMart.
I mostly grew up in CA and most of my family and friends still live there. Those that have moved (or seem to be strongly considering moving) are generally not the most liberal among the bunch, but most aren't moving because they are happy about kids not wearing masks and a chicken in every pot and a gun in every gun rack. There are a few of those, but most seem to be fairly moderate, politically, but wanting to get ahead financially and willing to tolerate those policies to get there.
In fact, this is a conversation I've had with an old friend who is really, really wanting to leave CA and plans to as soon as her partner's son graduates from high school. She runs her own niche consulting business and has contacts in Oklahoma. I've gently warned her, several times, that she should think long and hard before making that move. She hates that she can't afford a home in SoCal. She has also lived in SoCal most of her life and I don't get the sense she understands just how difficult it can be living in a place with a very, very different culture. She is pretty moderate, especially for CA, but I still think she might struggle moving to a very very conservative state. Her motivations for moving have very little to do with culture, and I'm afraid she's not paying enough attention to that element.
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I mostly grew up in CA and most of my family and friends still live there. Those that have moved (or seem to be strongly considering moving) are generally not the most liberal among the bunch, but most aren't moving because they are happy about kids not wearing masks and a chicken in every pot and a gun in every gun rack. There are a few of those, but most seem to be fairly moderate, politically, but wanting to get ahead financially and willing to tolerate those policies to get there.
In fact, this is a conversation I've had with an old friend who is really, really wanting to leave CA and plans to as soon as her partner's son graduates from high school. She runs her own niche consulting business and has contacts in Oklahoma. I've gently warned her, several times, that she should think long and hard before making that move. She hates that she can't afford a home in SoCal. She has also lived in SoCal most of her life and I don't get the sense she understands just how difficult it can be living in a place with a very, very different culture. She is pretty moderate, especially for CA, but I still think she might struggle moving to a very very conservative state. Her motivations for moving have very little to do with culture, and I'm afraid she's not paying enough attention to that element.
I'm also a child of CA, and the state has been hemorrhaging mid-high income residents for years of both parties. CA can be an expensive and politically chaotic place to live. Even before the pandemic, the cost of living was going up well above the national average pushing many of my childhood friends out of state. It was getting too expensive for some liberal friends, and my conservative friends wanted to find a safe place away from all the liberals. If the emigration went up a notch in the last year, it was probably by people who already had their eye on the exit and something about COVID pushed them over the decision point.
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I mostly grew up in CA and most of my family and friends still live there. Those that have moved (or seem to be strongly considering moving) are generally not the most liberal among the bunch, but most aren't moving because they are happy about kids not wearing masks and a chicken in every pot and a gun in every gun rack. There are a few of those, but most seem to be fairly moderate, politically, but wanting to get ahead financially and willing to tolerate those policies to get there.
In fact, this is a conversation I've had with an old friend who is really, really wanting to leave CA and plans to as soon as her partner's son graduates from high school. She runs her own niche consulting business and has contacts in Oklahoma. I've gently warned her, several times, that she should think long and hard before making that move. She hates that she can't afford a home in SoCal. She has also lived in SoCal most of her life and I don't get the sense she understands just how difficult it can be living in a place with a very, very different culture. She is pretty moderate, especially for CA, but I still think she might struggle moving to a very very conservative state. Her motivations for moving have very little to do with culture, and I'm afraid she's not paying enough attention to that element.
I'm also a child of CA, and the state has been hemorrhaging mid-high income residents for years of both parties. CA can be an expensive and politically chaotic place to live. Even before the pandemic, the cost of living was going up well above the national average pushing many of my childhood friends out of state. It was getting too expensive for some liberal friends, and my conservative friends wanted to find a safe place away from all the liberals. If the emigration went up a notch in the last year, it was probably by people who already had their eye on the exit and something about COVID pushed them over the decision point.
I agree. Like many, I left California reluctantly because of job opportunities and cost of housing. Honestly if a surgeon gets queasy about housing costs, it's a huge problem.
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I recall Ted Cruz saying at a fundraiser than people there should thank California for keeping Texas red. His campaign figured transplants from CA are to the right of natives of TX.
Another aspect: move for work or for retirement. Former favors D, latter helps R.
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Re movement out of CA, some may be moving in part because of the wildfire risk. I didn't leave CA because of that, but I was certainly happy to leave the smoke behind. And that was before the last couple of years with such terrible fires.
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Of all the people I know who moved to Texas from California, only one is to the "right" of native Texans. Mostly, they are liberal but want to buy a house.
I know that we are losing overall population here in CA, but my local community is gaining people - from elsewhere in CA, but also a lot are coming in from NY, NJ, Chicago, and even some Boston...
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I know that we are losing overall population here in CA, but my local community is gaining people - from elsewhere in CA, but also a lot are coming in from NY, NJ, Chicago, and even some Boston...
Same here. On NextDoor I see a lot of people expressing dismay with our area and CA as a whole and saying something to the effect of "we'll see how they like it when I take my tax dollars elsewhere!" And then they sell their house and there's a bidding war and it sells for $250k or more over asking and I'm sure they are very happy with all that money, but they probably didn't notice that not only is no one upset that they are taking their tax dollars elsewhere, but now the government is getting MORE tax dollars directly due to their move, so they didn't accomplish their desire at all.
So while I know it's a fact that there is a net loss in population in CA, I really should look up where those net losses are occurring because it sure feels like there are still about 10 people vying for every available housing unit.
To the extent it's all still trickling down, ok, I'll try to be patient, but I guess I am sitting here weirdly hoping my state becomes a lot more reviled than it already is. And it's hard to imagine people hating CA more than they already do! But I do believe our political project, not to mention many other things, would benefit from a better geographic dispersement. People should be able to have good jobs everywhere and enjoy good food, cultural opportunities and neighbors no matter where they live. To the extent the perception or reality has been that you have to be in just a handful of places to live the good life, it's been really damaging on both sides.
I wish there was a way to accomplish this without making people totally hate CA completely in order to give up and leave (and BTW, I have been hearing about how poorly received my fellow Californians are in all these other places when they arrive all my life - used to be OR, then TX and MT, now ID and I guess pretty soon like ND if not already?) but it does seem like that's the only way this thing is (partially?) being accomplished.
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Of all the people I know who moved to Texas from California, only one is to the "right" of native Texans. Mostly, they are liberal but want to buy a house.
I know that we are losing overall population here in CA, but my local community is gaining people - from elsewhere in CA, but also a lot are coming in from NY, NJ, Chicago, and even some Boston...
That'd be me (came for a job rather than house, but same general idea). Most people who are "right-wing" in CA find they are actually center-right at most in Texas.
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I'm in the UK, but my dad is becoming more and more of an anti-vaxxer on the matter of covid by the week. It's gotten to the point where I can't believe he genuinely thinks the stuff he says lately... he told me the other day that I'm more likely to die of the vaccine than of covid and that 50000 people in the US died of the vaccine but they covered it up... genuinely I don't know where he heard this clown logic. I have had both my vaccines and plan to get the booster as soon as it's been extended to my age group.
At least we managed to get him to have his first jab back in the summer, before he was so sceptical. He never got his second jab, though.
I think the problem is the YouTube algorithm. He's always been right-wing (UK edition), but it's only since he discovered YouTube about 3 years ago and started listening to right wing US youtubers all the time that he's got steadily more and more wild in his ideas. He used to be relatively sensible. I think he must click on the YouTube recommendations a lot and never listen to any counterbalancing stuff that would take him out of the bubble.
Unfortunately, once he's made up his mind on a topic, he doesn't really listen to me any more. If I suggest that maybe some of these people he's listening to online might not be accurate, he'll just laugh at me and call me stupid, probably.
Peter McCullough (I'm paraphrasing here) points to the VAERS system which has 9,000 recorded deaths from the vaccine. It is generally accepted that what VAERS records is under estimated by a factor of 5. So that is where the ~50,000 comes from.
[MOD NOTE: Banned for second offence. (that's not what VAERS means)]
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I'm in the UK, but my dad is becoming more and more of an anti-vaxxer on the matter of covid by the week. It's gotten to the point where I can't believe he genuinely thinks the stuff he says lately... he told me the other day that I'm more likely to die of the vaccine than of covid and that 50000 people in the US died of the vaccine but they covered it up... genuinely I don't know where he heard this clown logic. I have had both my vaccines and plan to get the booster as soon as it's been extended to my age group.
At least we managed to get him to have his first jab back in the summer, before he was so sceptical. He never got his second jab, though.
I think the problem is the YouTube algorithm. He's always been right-wing (UK edition), but it's only since he discovered YouTube about 3 years ago and started listening to right wing US youtubers all the time that he's got steadily more and more wild in his ideas. He used to be relatively sensible. I think he must click on the YouTube recommendations a lot and never listen to any counterbalancing stuff that would take him out of the bubble.
Unfortunately, once he's made up his mind on a topic, he doesn't really listen to me any more. If I suggest that maybe some of these people he's listening to online might not be accurate, he'll just laugh at me and call me stupid, probably.
Peter McCullough (I'm paraphrasing here) points to the VAERS system which has 9,000 recorded deaths from the vaccine. It is generally accepted that what VAERS records is under estimated by a factor of 5. So that is where the ~50,000 comes from.
It is not at all "generally accepted" that the VAERS records are underestimating.
Also, this is not at all what the VAERS system is designed to do. Also, literally anyone can submit something to the system, for any reason, without any sort of proof. Also, the system would count an individual and that individual's lawyer filing an entry as two separate cases.
https://www.nbcconnecticut.com/news/national-international/some-vaccine-skeptics-are-citing-a-little-known-government-website-heres-what-vaers-really-shows/2602989/
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I'm in the UK, but my dad is becoming more and more of an anti-vaxxer on the matter of covid by the week. It's gotten to the point where I can't believe he genuinely thinks the stuff he says lately... he told me the other day that I'm more likely to die of the vaccine than of covid and that 50000 people in the US died of the vaccine but they covered it up... genuinely I don't know where he heard this clown logic. I have had both my vaccines and plan to get the booster as soon as it's been extended to my age group.
At least we managed to get him to have his first jab back in the summer, before he was so sceptical. He never got his second jab, though.
I think the problem is the YouTube algorithm. He's always been right-wing (UK edition), but it's only since he discovered YouTube about 3 years ago and started listening to right wing US youtubers all the time that he's got steadily more and more wild in his ideas. He used to be relatively sensible. I think he must click on the YouTube recommendations a lot and never listen to any counterbalancing stuff that would take him out of the bubble.
Unfortunately, once he's made up his mind on a topic, he doesn't really listen to me any more. If I suggest that maybe some of these people he's listening to online might not be accurate, he'll just laugh at me and call me stupid, probably.
Peter McCullough (I'm paraphrasing here) points to the VAERS system which has 9,000 recorded deaths from the vaccine. It is generally accepted that what VAERS records is under estimated by a factor of 5. So that is where the ~50,000 comes from.
You are repeating dangerous anti-vax disinformation. VAERS doesn't record any deaths from any vaccine, that is not what the system is. It reports things that happen at some point after a vaccination, regardless of cause. Anyone can report any event, for any reason.
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I'm in the UK, but my dad is becoming more and more of an anti-vaxxer on the matter of covid by the week. It's gotten to the point where I can't believe he genuinely thinks the stuff he says lately... he told me the other day that I'm more likely to die of the vaccine than of covid and that 50000 people in the US died of the vaccine but they covered it up... genuinely I don't know where he heard this clown logic. I have had both my vaccines and plan to get the booster as soon as it's been extended to my age group.
At least we managed to get him to have his first jab back in the summer, before he was so sceptical. He never got his second jab, though.
I think the problem is the YouTube algorithm. He's always been right-wing (UK edition), but it's only since he discovered YouTube about 3 years ago and started listening to right wing US youtubers all the time that he's got steadily more and more wild in his ideas. He used to be relatively sensible. I think he must click on the YouTube recommendations a lot and never listen to any counterbalancing stuff that would take him out of the bubble.
Unfortunately, once he's made up his mind on a topic, he doesn't really listen to me any more. If I suggest that maybe some of these people he's listening to online might not be accurate, he'll just laugh at me and call me stupid, probably.
Peter McCullough (I'm paraphrasing here) points to the VAERS system which has 9,000 recorded deaths from the vaccine. It is generally accepted that what VAERS records is under estimated by a factor of 5. So that is where the ~50,000 comes from.
It is not at all "generally accepted" that the VAERS records are underestimating.
Also, this is not at all what the VAERS system is designed to do. Also, literally anyone can submit something to the system, for any reason, without any sort of proof. Also, the system would count an individual and that individual's lawyer filing an entry as two separate cases.
https://www.nbcconnecticut.com/news/national-international/some-vaccine-skeptics-are-citing-a-little-known-government-website-heres-what-vaers-really-shows/2602989/
Exactly. If I forgot to take my daily dose of loratadine for seasonal allergies the day before I got vaccinated in mid-May and then had an itchy eyes–runny nose reaction when I visited a botanical garden with loads of lilacs and other flowering trees later that day, I could report that reaction to VAERS as a vaccine side effect (despite the fact that I'm all too well-aware of my seasonal allergies to flowering trees).
Of course, I wouldn't, as I have a decent understanding of logical cause and effect and no anti-vax agenda.
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I'm in the UK, but my dad is becoming more and more of an anti-vaxxer on the matter of covid by the week. It's gotten to the point where I can't believe he genuinely thinks the stuff he says lately... he told me the other day that I'm more likely to die of the vaccine than of covid and that 50000 people in the US died of the vaccine but they covered it up... genuinely I don't know where he heard this clown logic. I have had both my vaccines and plan to get the booster as soon as it's been extended to my age group.
At least we managed to get him to have his first jab back in the summer, before he was so sceptical. He never got his second jab, though.
I think the problem is the YouTube algorithm. He's always been right-wing (UK edition), but it's only since he discovered YouTube about 3 years ago and started listening to right wing US youtubers all the time that he's got steadily more and more wild in his ideas. He used to be relatively sensible. I think he must click on the YouTube recommendations a lot and never listen to any counterbalancing stuff that would take him out of the bubble.
Unfortunately, once he's made up his mind on a topic, he doesn't really listen to me any more. If I suggest that maybe some of these people he's listening to online might not be accurate, he'll just laugh at me and call me stupid, probably.
Peter McCullough (I'm paraphrasing here) points to the VAERS system which has 9,000 recorded deaths from the vaccine. It is generally accepted that what VAERS records is under estimated by a factor of 5. So that is where the ~50,000 comes from.
It is not at all "generally accepted" that the VAERS records are underestimating.
Also, this is not at all what the VAERS system is designed to do. Also, literally anyone can submit something to the system, for any reason, without any sort of proof. Also, the system would count an individual and that individual's lawyer filing an entry as two separate cases.
https://www.nbcconnecticut.com/news/national-international/some-vaccine-skeptics-are-citing-a-little-known-government-website-heres-what-vaers-really-shows/2602989/
This is what happens when a person's conviction drives their search for data, rather than the other way around.
It's also the primary reason why my state hit an all-time number of critical-care patients with COVID, of which 90% are unvaccinated (out state vaccination level stand just above 70%, so <30% of people are driving 90% of the most severe cases).
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I'm in the UK, but my dad is becoming more and more of an anti-vaxxer on the matter of covid by the week. It's gotten to the point where I can't believe he genuinely thinks the stuff he says lately... he told me the other day that I'm more likely to die of the vaccine than of covid and that 50000 people in the US died of the vaccine but they covered it up... genuinely I don't know where he heard this clown logic. I have had both my vaccines and plan to get the booster as soon as it's been extended to my age group.
At least we managed to get him to have his first jab back in the summer, before he was so sceptical. He never got his second jab, though.
I think the problem is the YouTube algorithm. He's always been right-wing (UK edition), but it's only since he discovered YouTube about 3 years ago and started listening to right wing US youtubers all the time that he's got steadily more and more wild in his ideas. He used to be relatively sensible. I think he must click on the YouTube recommendations a lot and never listen to any counterbalancing stuff that would take him out of the bubble.
Unfortunately, once he's made up his mind on a topic, he doesn't really listen to me any more. If I suggest that maybe some of these people he's listening to online might not be accurate, he'll just laugh at me and call me stupid, probably.
Peter McCullough (I'm paraphrasing here) points to the VAERS system which has 9,000 recorded deaths from the vaccine. It is generally accepted that what VAERS records is under estimated by a factor of 5. So that is where the ~50,000 comes from.
It is not at all "generally accepted" that the VAERS records are underestimating.
Also, this is not at all what the VAERS system is designed to do. Also, literally anyone can submit something to the system, for any reason, without any sort of proof. Also, the system would count an individual and that individual's lawyer filing an entry as two separate cases.
https://www.nbcconnecticut.com/news/national-international/some-vaccine-skeptics-are-citing-a-little-known-government-website-heres-what-vaers-really-shows/2602989/
Exactly. If I forgot to take my daily dose of loratadine for seasonal allergies the day before I got vaccinated in mid-May and then had an itchy eyes–runny nose reaction when I visited a botanical garden with loads of lilacs and other flowering trees later that day, I could report that reaction to VAERS as a vaccine side effect (despite the fact that I'm all too well-aware of my seasonal allergies to flowering trees).
Of course, I wouldn't, as I have a decent understanding of logical cause and effect and no anti-vax agenda.
VAERS own guide to using it's data does indicate that it tends towards underreporting of adverse effects:
"Underreporting" is one of the main limitations of passive surveillance systems, including VAERS. The term, underreporting refers to the fact that VAERS receives reports for only a small fraction of actual adverse events. The degree of underreporting varies widely. As an example, a great many of the millions of vaccinations administered each year by injection cause soreness, but relatively few of these episodes lead to a VAERS report. Physicians and patients understand that minor side effects of vaccinations often include this kind of discomfort, as well as low fevers. On the other hand, more serious and unexpected medical events are probably more likely to be reported than minor ones, especially when they occur soon after vaccination, even if they may be coincidental and related to other causes.
- https://vaers.hhs.gov/data/dataguide.html (https://vaers.hhs.gov/data/dataguide.html)
As mentioned, major complications (death, serious illness) tend to be better reported than minor ones.
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I'm in the UK, but my dad is becoming more and more of an anti-vaxxer on the matter of covid by the week. It's gotten to the point where I can't believe he genuinely thinks the stuff he says lately... he told me the other day that I'm more likely to die of the vaccine than of covid and that 50000 people in the US died of the vaccine but they covered it up... genuinely I don't know where he heard this clown logic. I have had both my vaccines and plan to get the booster as soon as it's been extended to my age group.
At least we managed to get him to have his first jab back in the summer, before he was so sceptical. He never got his second jab, though.
I think the problem is the YouTube algorithm. He's always been right-wing (UK edition), but it's only since he discovered YouTube about 3 years ago and started listening to right wing US youtubers all the time that he's got steadily more and more wild in his ideas. He used to be relatively sensible. I think he must click on the YouTube recommendations a lot and never listen to any counterbalancing stuff that would take him out of the bubble.
Unfortunately, once he's made up his mind on a topic, he doesn't really listen to me any more. If I suggest that maybe some of these people he's listening to online might not be accurate, he'll just laugh at me and call me stupid, probably.
Peter McCullough (I'm paraphrasing here) points to the VAERS system which has 9,000 recorded deaths from the vaccine. It is generally accepted that what VAERS records is under estimated by a factor of 5. So that is where the ~50,000 comes from.
It is not at all "generally accepted" that the VAERS records are underestimating.
Also, this is not at all what the VAERS system is designed to do. Also, literally anyone can submit something to the system, for any reason, without any sort of proof. Also, the system would count an individual and that individual's lawyer filing an entry as two separate cases.
https://www.nbcconnecticut.com/news/national-international/some-vaccine-skeptics-are-citing-a-little-known-government-website-heres-what-vaers-really-shows/2602989/
Exactly. If I forgot to take my daily dose of loratadine for seasonal allergies the day before I got vaccinated in mid-May and then had an itchy eyes–runny nose reaction when I visited a botanical garden with loads of lilacs and other flowering trees later that day, I could report that reaction to VAERS as a vaccine side effect (despite the fact that I'm all too well-aware of my seasonal allergies to flowering trees).
Of course, I wouldn't, as I have a decent understanding of logical cause and effect and no anti-vax agenda.
VAERS own guide to using it's data does indicate that it tends towards underreporting of adverse effects:
"Underreporting" is one of the main limitations of passive surveillance systems, including VAERS. The term, underreporting refers to the fact that VAERS receives reports for only a small fraction of actual adverse events. The degree of underreporting varies widely. As an example, a great many of the millions of vaccinations administered each year by injection cause soreness, but relatively few of these episodes lead to a VAERS report. Physicians and patients understand that minor side effects of vaccinations often include this kind of discomfort, as well as low fevers. On the other hand, more serious and unexpected medical events are probably more likely to be reported than minor ones, especially when they occur soon after vaccination, even if they may be coincidental and related to other causes.
- https://vaers.hhs.gov/data/dataguide.html (https://vaers.hhs.gov/data/dataguide.html)
As mentioned, major complications (death, serious illness) tend to be better reported than minor ones.
I would dispute your use of "better" here. As OtherJen mentioned, she could report something that had literally nothing to do with a vaccine as a side effect, merely because she believed it to be so.
Likewise, if I am an anti-vaxxer, and my pro-vax sister got very ill or died, and I firmly believed it was because she was vaccinated -- even if that was not the case -- I could report that in VAERS. So could the other eleven members of my anti-vax family. And that would count as twelve separate reports.
I think it's very likely that a LOT of serious medical events are being reported to VAERS and falsely attributed to the vaccines. And the system has no way of correcting for that. Because it wasn't designed to.
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500 million covid vaccine doses given in the USA. 9,000 recorded deaths after receiving a vaccine (ie not even demonstrated to be because of the vaccine but potentially any cause). That's a 0.002% chance of dying after receiving a vaccine. Chance of dying if they catch covid significantly higher in every case of someone eligible for the vaccine. That's how the vaccine got approved.
I wish statistics were taught in school alongside civics.
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I'm in the UK, but my dad is becoming more and more of an anti-vaxxer on the matter of covid by the week. It's gotten to the point where I can't believe he genuinely thinks the stuff he says lately... he told me the other day that I'm more likely to die of the vaccine than of covid and that 50000 people in the US died of the vaccine but they covered it up... genuinely I don't know where he heard this clown logic. I have had both my vaccines and plan to get the booster as soon as it's been extended to my age group.
At least we managed to get him to have his first jab back in the summer, before he was so sceptical. He never got his second jab, though.
I think the problem is the YouTube algorithm. He's always been right-wing (UK edition), but it's only since he discovered YouTube about 3 years ago and started listening to right wing US youtubers all the time that he's got steadily more and more wild in his ideas. He used to be relatively sensible. I think he must click on the YouTube recommendations a lot and never listen to any counterbalancing stuff that would take him out of the bubble.
Unfortunately, once he's made up his mind on a topic, he doesn't really listen to me any more. If I suggest that maybe some of these people he's listening to online might not be accurate, he'll just laugh at me and call me stupid, probably.
Peter McCullough (I'm paraphrasing here) points to the VAERS system which has 9,000 recorded deaths from the vaccine. It is generally accepted that what VAERS records is under estimated by a factor of 5. So that is where the ~50,000 comes from.
It is not at all "generally accepted" that the VAERS records are underestimating.
Also, this is not at all what the VAERS system is designed to do. Also, literally anyone can submit something to the system, for any reason, without any sort of proof. Also, the system would count an individual and that individual's lawyer filing an entry as two separate cases.
https://www.nbcconnecticut.com/news/national-international/some-vaccine-skeptics-are-citing-a-little-known-government-website-heres-what-vaers-really-shows/2602989/
I gave them a lead on where the number came from. I would leave it up to them to make up their own mind.
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I'm in the UK, but my dad is becoming more and more of an anti-vaxxer on the matter of covid by the week. It's gotten to the point where I can't believe he genuinely thinks the stuff he says lately... he told me the other day that I'm more likely to die of the vaccine than of covid and that 50000 people in the US died of the vaccine but they covered it up... genuinely I don't know where he heard this clown logic. I have had both my vaccines and plan to get the booster as soon as it's been extended to my age group.
At least we managed to get him to have his first jab back in the summer, before he was so sceptical. He never got his second jab, though.
I think the problem is the YouTube algorithm. He's always been right-wing (UK edition), but it's only since he discovered YouTube about 3 years ago and started listening to right wing US youtubers all the time that he's got steadily more and more wild in his ideas. He used to be relatively sensible. I think he must click on the YouTube recommendations a lot and never listen to any counterbalancing stuff that would take him out of the bubble.
Unfortunately, once he's made up his mind on a topic, he doesn't really listen to me any more. If I suggest that maybe some of these people he's listening to online might not be accurate, he'll just laugh at me and call me stupid, probably.
Peter McCullough (I'm paraphrasing here) points to the VAERS system which has 9,000 recorded deaths from the vaccine. It is generally accepted that what VAERS records is under estimated by a factor of 5. So that is where the ~50,000 comes from.
It is not at all "generally accepted" that the VAERS records are underestimating.
Also, this is not at all what the VAERS system is designed to do. Also, literally anyone can submit something to the system, for any reason, without any sort of proof. Also, the system would count an individual and that individual's lawyer filing an entry as two separate cases.
https://www.nbcconnecticut.com/news/national-international/some-vaccine-skeptics-are-citing-a-little-known-government-website-heres-what-vaers-really-shows/2602989/
I gave them a lead on where the number came from. I would leave it up to them to make up their own mind.
You also stated false information. Which I corrected.
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I'm in the UK, but my dad is becoming more and more of an anti-vaxxer on the matter of covid by the week. It's gotten to the point where I can't believe he genuinely thinks the stuff he says lately... he told me the other day that I'm more likely to die of the vaccine than of covid and that 50000 people in the US died of the vaccine but they covered it up... genuinely I don't know where he heard this clown logic. I have had both my vaccines and plan to get the booster as soon as it's been extended to my age group.
At least we managed to get him to have his first jab back in the summer, before he was so sceptical. He never got his second jab, though.
I think the problem is the YouTube algorithm. He's always been right-wing (UK edition), but it's only since he discovered YouTube about 3 years ago and started listening to right wing US youtubers all the time that he's got steadily more and more wild in his ideas. He used to be relatively sensible. I think he must click on the YouTube recommendations a lot and never listen to any counterbalancing stuff that would take him out of the bubble.
Unfortunately, once he's made up his mind on a topic, he doesn't really listen to me any more. If I suggest that maybe some of these people he's listening to online might not be accurate, he'll just laugh at me and call me stupid, probably.
Peter McCullough (I'm paraphrasing here) points to the VAERS system which has 9,000 recorded deaths from the vaccine. It is generally accepted that what VAERS records is under estimated by a factor of 5. So that is where the ~50,000 comes from.
It is not at all "generally accepted" that the VAERS records are underestimating.
Also, this is not at all what the VAERS system is designed to do. Also, literally anyone can submit something to the system, for any reason, without any sort of proof. Also, the system would count an individual and that individual's lawyer filing an entry as two separate cases.
https://www.nbcconnecticut.com/news/national-international/some-vaccine-skeptics-are-citing-a-little-known-government-website-heres-what-vaers-really-shows/2602989/
I gave them a lead on where the number came from. I would leave it up to them to make up their own mind.
When you're repeating or reinforcing dangerous misinformation such as you did here, you need to make clear right up front that what follows is discredited / wrong / misleading, and ideally you want to at least attempt to write out why what you've decided to share is wrong. And if you didn't do those things initially because you simply didn't know, the correct response is "thanks - I did not know that" not "that's not my job". Leaves the impression that you actually do not care about the veracity of what you write publicly.
All you had to do was prefix your post with "it is nonsense, but that baseless figure is being put out there by . . ." and you've achieved both giving them the lead as to where the misinformation came from and instead of spreading it, made some effort to discredit it. A few additional words turns that into a much more powerful statement.
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There's no sense in trying to make up peoples minds. There are idiots catching covid, spending weeks in the ICU, LIVING somehow and then continuing to support their antivax position. Like.... How?
Will 2020-2022 be a measurable time in history where survival of the fittest altered the gene pool towards those with higher fact determining abilities? Idk - it's starting to seem like it though. I guess technically it won't alter the gene pool cause most of the dead are past child rearing age.
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I'm in the UK, but my dad is becoming more and more of an anti-vaxxer on the matter of covid by the week. It's gotten to the point where I can't believe he genuinely thinks the stuff he says lately... he told me the other day that I'm more likely to die of the vaccine than of covid and that 50000 people in the US died of the vaccine but they covered it up... genuinely I don't know where he heard this clown logic. I have had both my vaccines and plan to get the booster as soon as it's been extended to my age group.
At least we managed to get him to have his first jab back in the summer, before he was so sceptical. He never got his second jab, though.
I think the problem is the YouTube algorithm. He's always been right-wing (UK edition), but it's only since he discovered YouTube about 3 years ago and started listening to right wing US youtubers all the time that he's got steadily more and more wild in his ideas. He used to be relatively sensible. I think he must click on the YouTube recommendations a lot and never listen to any counterbalancing stuff that would take him out of the bubble.
Unfortunately, once he's made up his mind on a topic, he doesn't really listen to me any more. If I suggest that maybe some of these people he's listening to online might not be accurate, he'll just laugh at me and call me stupid, probably.
Peter McCullough (I'm paraphrasing here) points to the VAERS system which has 9,000 recorded deaths from the vaccine. It is generally accepted that what VAERS records is under estimated by a factor of 5. So that is where the ~50,000 comes from.
It is not at all "generally accepted" that the VAERS records are underestimating.
Also, this is not at all what the VAERS system is designed to do. Also, literally anyone can submit something to the system, for any reason, without any sort of proof. Also, the system would count an individual and that individual's lawyer filing an entry as two separate cases.
https://www.nbcconnecticut.com/news/national-international/some-vaccine-skeptics-are-citing-a-little-known-government-website-heres-what-vaers-really-shows/2602989/
Exactly. If I forgot to take my daily dose of loratadine for seasonal allergies the day before I got vaccinated in mid-May and then had an itchy eyes–runny nose reaction when I visited a botanical garden with loads of lilacs and other flowering trees later that day, I could report that reaction to VAERS as a vaccine side effect (despite the fact that I'm all too well-aware of my seasonal allergies to flowering trees).
Of course, I wouldn't, as I have a decent understanding of logical cause and effect and no anti-vax agenda.
VAERS own guide to using it's data does indicate that it tends towards underreporting of adverse effects:
"Underreporting" is one of the main limitations of passive surveillance systems, including VAERS. The term, underreporting refers to the fact that VAERS receives reports for only a small fraction of actual adverse events. The degree of underreporting varies widely. As an example, a great many of the millions of vaccinations administered each year by injection cause soreness, but relatively few of these episodes lead to a VAERS report. Physicians and patients understand that minor side effects of vaccinations often include this kind of discomfort, as well as low fevers. On the other hand, more serious and unexpected medical events are probably more likely to be reported than minor ones, especially when they occur soon after vaccination, even if they may be coincidental and related to other causes.
- https://vaers.hhs.gov/data/dataguide.html (https://vaers.hhs.gov/data/dataguide.html)
As mentioned, major complications (death, serious illness) tend to be better reported than minor ones.
I would dispute your use of "better" here. As OtherJen mentioned, she could report something that had literally nothing to do with a vaccine as a side effect, merely because she believed it to be so.
Likewise, if I am an anti-vaxxer, and my pro-vax sister got very ill or died, and I firmly believed it was because she was vaccinated -- even if that was not the case -- I could report that in VAERS. So could the other eleven members of my anti-vax family. And that would count as twelve separate reports.
I think it's very likely that a LOT of serious medical events are being reported to VAERS and falsely attributed to the vaccines. And the system has no way of correcting for that. Because it wasn't designed to.
I meant "better" in that they are less likely to be underreported, whereas mild effects are probably wildly underreported.
It's certainly possible that many serious medical events are being reported to VAERS falsely. Do you have any real evidence for this claim, or is it just surmise?
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I'm in the UK, but my dad is becoming more and more of an anti-vaxxer on the matter of covid by the week. It's gotten to the point where I can't believe he genuinely thinks the stuff he says lately... he told me the other day that I'm more likely to die of the vaccine than of covid and that 50000 people in the US died of the vaccine but they covered it up... genuinely I don't know where he heard this clown logic. I have had both my vaccines and plan to get the booster as soon as it's been extended to my age group.
At least we managed to get him to have his first jab back in the summer, before he was so sceptical. He never got his second jab, though.
I think the problem is the YouTube algorithm. He's always been right-wing (UK edition), but it's only since he discovered YouTube about 3 years ago and started listening to right wing US youtubers all the time that he's got steadily more and more wild in his ideas. He used to be relatively sensible. I think he must click on the YouTube recommendations a lot and never listen to any counterbalancing stuff that would take him out of the bubble.
Unfortunately, once he's made up his mind on a topic, he doesn't really listen to me any more. If I suggest that maybe some of these people he's listening to online might not be accurate, he'll just laugh at me and call me stupid, probably.
Peter McCullough (I'm paraphrasing here) points to the VAERS system which has 9,000 recorded deaths from the vaccine. It is generally accepted that what VAERS records is under estimated by a factor of 5. So that is where the ~50,000 comes from.
It is not at all "generally accepted" that the VAERS records are underestimating.
Also, this is not at all what the VAERS system is designed to do. Also, literally anyone can submit something to the system, for any reason, without any sort of proof. Also, the system would count an individual and that individual's lawyer filing an entry as two separate cases.
https://www.nbcconnecticut.com/news/national-international/some-vaccine-skeptics-are-citing-a-little-known-government-website-heres-what-vaers-really-shows/2602989/
Exactly. If I forgot to take my daily dose of loratadine for seasonal allergies the day before I got vaccinated in mid-May and then had an itchy eyes–runny nose reaction when I visited a botanical garden with loads of lilacs and other flowering trees later that day, I could report that reaction to VAERS as a vaccine side effect (despite the fact that I'm all too well-aware of my seasonal allergies to flowering trees).
Of course, I wouldn't, as I have a decent understanding of logical cause and effect and no anti-vax agenda.
VAERS own guide to using it's data does indicate that it tends towards underreporting of adverse effects:
"Underreporting" is one of the main limitations of passive surveillance systems, including VAERS. The term, underreporting refers to the fact that VAERS receives reports for only a small fraction of actual adverse events. The degree of underreporting varies widely. As an example, a great many of the millions of vaccinations administered each year by injection cause soreness, but relatively few of these episodes lead to a VAERS report. Physicians and patients understand that minor side effects of vaccinations often include this kind of discomfort, as well as low fevers. On the other hand, more serious and unexpected medical events are probably more likely to be reported than minor ones, especially when they occur soon after vaccination, even if they may be coincidental and related to other causes.
- https://vaers.hhs.gov/data/dataguide.html (https://vaers.hhs.gov/data/dataguide.html)
As mentioned, major complications (death, serious illness) tend to be better reported than minor ones.
I would dispute your use of "better" here. As OtherJen mentioned, she could report something that had literally nothing to do with a vaccine as a side effect, merely because she believed it to be so.
Likewise, if I am an anti-vaxxer, and my pro-vax sister got very ill or died, and I firmly believed it was because she was vaccinated -- even if that was not the case -- I could report that in VAERS. So could the other eleven members of my anti-vax family. And that would count as twelve separate reports.
I think it's very likely that a LOT of serious medical events are being reported to VAERS and falsely attributed to the vaccines. And the system has no way of correcting for that. Because it wasn't designed to.
I meant "better" in that they are less likely to be underreported, whereas mild effects are probably wildly underreported.
It's certainly possible that many serious medical events are being reported to VAERS falsely. Do you have any real evidence for this claim, or is it just surmise?
I linked to an article above. I first heard an explainer about the history of VAERS many months ago on public radio, which discussed what it was, how it worked, and how anti-vaxxers have been misusing it since Andrew Wakefield first published his fake study on vaccines and autism. It was in that explainer that I learned multiple people could report the same "incident" resulting in multiple entries.
Also, here are some other sources. The second one is the one you linked. If you read to the bottom, you will see that the database makes no claim at all to accuracy.
https://www.mcgill.ca/oss/article/covid-19-critical-thinking-health/dont-fall-vaers-scare-tactic
https://vaers.hhs.gov/data/dataguide.html
ETA: I wanted to add that it was in that explainer that I learned it was a known phenomenon that there's a history of shady personal injury lawyers "seeding" the VAERS database with incident reports in order to pad the cases of their clients. Wish I could find the piece itself. I will link to it if I do.
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The reports don't have to be reported falsely in order for them to be misleading. The VAERS system captures symptoms (including deaths) following a vaccination, not necessarily caused by vaccination. So, one can search the number of deaths associated with a specific vaccine, not realizing (or caring) that those deaths may have nothing to do with the vaccination other than being temporally correlated.
For example, look at the following VAERS ID numbers:
0958443-1
1478430-1
1116094-1
1535608-1
1627712-1
They all list the cause of death as "gunshot wound", one of whom was an elderly cancer patient one had PTSD and bipolar disorder. Yet they are listed as a post-vaccine death and therefore included in the VAERS figures.
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Here is another article, which explains the origins of the VAERS system.
"There's very little control over what can be accessed and what can be manipulated," says Melanie Smith, director of analysis at Graphika, a company that tracks vaccine misinformation online. She says that she sees VAERS data being shared across a wide variety of anti-vaccine social media channels. "I would say almost every mis- and disinformation story that we cover is accompanied by some set of VAERS data."
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2021/06/14/1004757554/anti-vaccine-activists-use-a-federal-database-to-spread-fear-about-covid-vaccine
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The reports don't have to be reported falsely in order for them to be misleading. The VAERS system captures symptoms (including deaths) following a vaccination, not necessarily caused by vaccination. So, one can search the number of deaths associated with a specific vaccine, not realizing (or caring) that those deaths may have nothing to do with the vaccination other than being temporally correlated.
For example, look at the following VAERS ID numbers:
0958443-1
1478430-1
1116094-1
1535608-1
1627712-1
They all list the cause of death as "gunshot wound", one of whom was an elderly cancer patient one had PTSD and bipolar disorder. Yet they are listed as a post-vaccine death and therefore included in the VAERS figures.
More evidence that the vaccines really do make you magnetic!!
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I learned that a family friend out in MO is currently receiving care from her doctor for COVID. Apparently doctor prescribed her Ivermectrin.
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I learned that a family friend out in MO is currently receiving care from her doctor for COVID. Apparently doctor prescribed her Ivermectrin.
Sorry to hear about the covid, and the worms.
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I'm choosing optimism.
Doctor is probably deciding her case isn't very serious, giving her sugar pills and telling her it's ivermetcin.
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I'm choosing optimism.
Doctor is probably deciding her case isn't very serious, giving her sugar pills and telling her it's ivermetcin.
Oh, but it's a miracle drug! My anti-vaxx friend just told me yesterday that that was the reason Israel was able to recover from a high number of cases. Apparently it has nothing to do with their high vaccination rate. /s
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I haven't been keeping up with it. Is the science in on Ivermectin for covid treatment? Last I checked there were a bunch of ongoing studies.
I remember hearing that Remdesivir was useless a while back too, but it's on the list of approved treatments for Covid by Health Canada . . . so I'm guessing that has changed?
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I remember hearing that Remdesivir was useless a while back too, but it's on the list of approved treatments for Covid by Health Canada . . . so I'm guessing that has changed?
A phase 3 Remdsivir trial just came out.
Individuals received the remdesivir treatment in the double-blind, placebo-controlled, randomized trial and of those individuals and had an 87% reduction in risk for the composite primary endpoint of COVID-19-related hospitalization or all-cause death by day 28. - https://www.pharmacytimes.com/view/gilead-sciences-announces-results-of-phase-3-study-of-remdesivir-for-covid-19-treatment
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This is the most recent publication that popped up on PubMed in a search for "ivermectin COVID-19": https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7709596/ (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7709596/)
It's a single-center trial in Bangladesh with only 72 subjects, sponsored by a pharmaceutical company that produces ivermectin. The 24 patients who received ivermectin alone had a statistically significantly shorter mean virological clearance time (9.7 days vs. 12.7 days with placebo alone). None of the other measured parameters—hospital stay duration, clinical symptoms—were significantly different between the ivermectin and placebo groups. The subject sample was carefully selected to exclude people older than 65 years and those with chronic illnesses that might affect their response to the virus (i.e., those most at risk).
The published data currently are insufficient to make fully informed conclusions. I don't blame desperate physicians for trying it on hospitalized patients, especially those who've drunk the Fox News/Qcult koolaid, as it's probably safer than COVID in a controlled environment with a dose intended for humans. There's no rational excuse for taking veterinary formulations to prevent or self-treat COVID. That's ridiculous.
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There's no rational excuse for taking veterinary formulations to prevent or self-treat COVID. That's ridiculous.
It certainly would be. But ivermectin has been used to treat various problems in humans since the late '80s, right? It has been well studied and has a long medical use history . . . in 2017 (well before any discussion about possible usage for covid) more than 300,000 prescriptions for ivermectin were prescribed to people in the United States (https://ghostarchive.org/archive/G6aj2 (https://ghostarchive.org/archive/G6aj2)).
Calling a well-established human medication a "veterinary formulation" doesn't really make much sense to me.
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I did some research on ivermectin recently in response to questions from my son. Here's some info I find that was sensible...
This article talks about how medical studies on ivermectin were misleading: https://www.wfyi.org/news/articles/ivermectin-studies-overseas-misinformation-americans
Both the article and the review of the published studies (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34318930/) clearly state that ivermectin is not proven or unproven against COVID19, because there is not enough data.
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Sounds like things are about where they were when last I looked into it then.
Don't get me wrong - I don't have any strong feelings about Ivermectin, or any other drug being investigated for covid treatment. But these days there often seems to be a tendency for people to either claim effectiveness that simply isn't in evidence, or claim uselessness based upon the same inconclusive data.
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There's no rational excuse for taking veterinary formulations to prevent or self-treat COVID. That's ridiculous.
It certainly would be. But ivermectin has been used to treat various problems in humans since the late '80s, right? It has been well studied and has a long medical use history . . . in 2017 (well before any discussion about possible usage for covid) more than 300,000 prescriptions for ivermectin were prescribed to people in the United States (https://ghostarchive.org/archive/G6aj2 (https://ghostarchive.org/archive/G6aj2)).
Calling a well-established human medication a "veterinary formulation" doesn't really make much sense to me.
I could be mistaken, but I read OtherJen's post as saying that a prescription for a *human* dose of Invermectin in a controlled environment when the alternative is Covid is far superior to someone taking a veterinary formulation of Invermectin. She seemed to be drawing a distinction between a human dose and a veterinary formulation, not simply referring to all Invermectin as a "veterinary formulation".
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There's no rational excuse for taking veterinary formulations to prevent or self-treat COVID. That's ridiculous.
It certainly would be. But ivermectin has been used to treat various problems in humans since the late '80s, right? It has been well studied and has a long medical use history . . . in 2017 (well before any discussion about possible usage for covid) more than 300,000 prescriptions for ivermectin were prescribed to people in the United States (https://ghostarchive.org/archive/G6aj2 (https://ghostarchive.org/archive/G6aj2)).
Calling a well-established human medication a "veterinary formulation" doesn't really make much sense to me.
I could be mistaken, but I read OtherJen's post as saying that a prescription for a *human* dose of Invermectin in a controlled environment when the alternative is Covid is far superior to someone taking a veterinary formulation of Invermectin. She seemed to be drawing a distinction between a human dose and a veterinary formulation, not simply referring to all Invermectin as a "veterinary formulation".
Thank you. Yes, you are correct. I'm a trained immunologist and science editor, so I aim to use precise language.
The data on doses and formulations of ivermectin that have been approved for humans are inconclusive. We simply don't know whether ivermectin is any better than placebo. Still, the human doses have actually been tested for safety in humans and are not likely to cause more harm than the virus itself. When prescribed by a licensed physician, ivermectin seems unlikely to cause undue harm. With more study, we may find that ivermectin in this context is useful, or it may be no better than placebo.
Contrast that with the preventative use of doses and formulations of ivermectin intended for use in livestock, which (in my country, at least) are being purchased and used by people who've been misled by quack science.
I assume that all of the regular posters here have the good sense to read my post as written and understand the difference on these scenarios.
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Sorry, I did misread you. I've heard so many 'horse pills' comments at this point that I jumped on something that obviously wasn't there.
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A lot of the Ivermectin stuff floating around the web talks about horse pills, so it is easy to not realize that as a really effective anti-parasitic it comes in formulations for several species, including us. The human dosage is well established. So it is unlikely to hurt.
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It's often called horse pills since certain people have been buying it in farm supply stores to get around a need for a prescription.
Apparently, a human doze still can hurt: https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc2114907
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Well, I think we can fairly confidently say that - seeing the amount it was taken and the lack of big results - that it does not seem to be better than the other stuff that showed actual results in clinical tests. So take that and leave the horse pills to the poor horsies.
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It's often called horse pills since certain people have been buying it in farm supply stores to get around a need for a prescription.
Apparently, a human doze still can hurt: https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc2114907
I know why it was called that. It's just that so much of the discussion ignored the human use. If I had parasites I would be happy to take it.
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I used to have horses and they regularly got a dose of Ivermectin in paste form with a syringe (ever try giving a horse a pill, lol?) for parasite treatment. I wouldn't personally be keen to take it in any form. The horses didn't seem too keen on it either.
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I used to have horses and they regularly got a dose of Ivermectin in paste form with a syringe (ever try giving a horse a pill, lol?) for parasite treatment. I wouldn't personally be keen to take it in any form. The horses didn't seem too keen on it either.
We are supposed to be smarter than horses, right? If I were a horse I would object to having a syringe of stuff shoved down my throat too because I wouldn't know it would get rid of my parasites. I have a med I would love to get off of because of side effects, but I take it anyway (for now! I am trying to fix the problem so I don't need it).
There is speculation on the web that Japan is doing well because of vaccination, physical distancing including masking, and Ivermectin. But nothing definite and factual. I'd like something more concrete before I depended on off-label use.
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I used to have horses and they regularly got a dose of Ivermectin in paste form with a syringe (ever try giving a horse a pill, lol?) for parasite treatment. I wouldn't personally be keen to take it in any form. The horses didn't seem too keen on it either.
We are supposed to be smarter than horses, right? If I were a horse I would object to having a syringe of stuff shoved down my throat too because I wouldn't know it would get rid of my parasites. I have a med I would love to get off of because of side effects, but I take it anyway (for now! I am trying to fix the problem so I don't need it).
There is speculation on the web that Japan is doing well because of vaccination, physical distancing including masking, and Ivermectin. But nothing definite and factual. I'd like something more concrete before I depended on off-label use.
Japan is certainly doing good because of masking. Less because of distancing (seen the christmas crowds?) and definitely because of a lack of testing (if that hasn't changed in the last month).
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The reason that ivermectin isn't used for covid-19 is because there is weak data to support even doing a randomized trial on humans, especially when we have known effective treatments.
Most of the Pubmed studies on Ivermectin are garbage, and published in garbage journals. Several have been retracted because of said garbageness. A few trials aren't garbage but under-powered, thus unable to identify any real benefits.
The Oxford and Imperial College London groups did a meta-analysis, which tries to piece together garbage into some sensible data. This showed no benefit to any endpoint (survival, hospitalization, time to clinical recovery) after combining data from 3349 patients in 23 RCTs. They also note the overall poor quality of the data, with most RCTs thrown out for various reasons due to poor design. In fact, they had to re-do the analysis after publication because it turns out one of the studies had fraudulent data and was retracted!! If you look closely, the larger the trial, the less "benefit" was seen.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34796244/
Maybe when we had no effective treatments for covid-19 trying these in a non-experimental setting would be valid ethically, but at this point it is not. There is absolutely no evidence of benefit in severe COVID-19, which is the one scenario where it could even be considered (due to lack of other effective treatments).
Japan is doing reasonably well because they have a very robust track-and-trace program, a well-enforced quarantine program and high vaccination rates.
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My horse always resisted her ivermectin paste when I gave it to her with the syringe but then one day I just put it on her grain and she gobbled it up. It doesn't taste particularly terrible. Kind of like vaseline.
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The reason that ivermectin isn't used for covid-19 is because there is weak data to support even doing a randomized trial on humans, especially when we have known effective treatments.
Most of the Pubmed studies on Ivermectin are garbage, and published in garbage journals. Several have been retracted because of said garbageness. A few trials aren't garbage but under-powered, thus unable to identify any real benefits.
The Oxford and Imperial College London groups did a meta-analysis, which tries to piece together garbage into some sensible data. This showed no benefit to any endpoint (survival, hospitalization, time to clinical recovery) after combining data from 3349 patients in 23 RCTs. They also note the overall poor quality of the data, with most RCTs thrown out for various reasons due to poor design. In fact, they had to re-do the analysis after publication because it turns out one of the studies had fraudulent data and was retracted!! If you look closely, the larger the trial, the less "benefit" was seen.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34796244/
Maybe when we had no effective treatments for covid-19 trying these in a non-experimental setting would be valid ethically, but at this point it is not. There is absolutely no evidence of benefit in severe COVID-19, which is the one scenario where it could even be considered (due to lack of other effective treatments).
Japan is doing reasonably well because they have a very robust track-and-trace program, a well-enforced quarantine program and high vaccination rates.
Yeah, I don't recommend any drug that isn't proven.
At the same time I also remember a few months back when everything you're saying above about Ivermectin applied to Remdesivir too. Fraudulent studies, absolutely no valid evidence of benefit, meta-analysis shows no better than placebo, WHO strongly recommends against usage in any Covid case . . . but here we are now recommending usage since it turns out that the drug works pretty well.
It'll be interesting to eventually find out if any of these other controversial drugs work or don't when all the data is in.
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The reason that ivermectin isn't used for covid-19 is because there is weak data to support even doing a randomized trial on humans, especially when we have known effective treatments.
Most of the Pubmed studies on Ivermectin are garbage, and published in garbage journals. Several have been retracted because of said garbageness. A few trials aren't garbage but under-powered, thus unable to identify any real benefits.
The Oxford and Imperial College London groups did a meta-analysis, which tries to piece together garbage into some sensible data. This showed no benefit to any endpoint (survival, hospitalization, time to clinical recovery) after combining data from 3349 patients in 23 RCTs. They also note the overall poor quality of the data, with most RCTs thrown out for various reasons due to poor design. In fact, they had to re-do the analysis after publication because it turns out one of the studies had fraudulent data and was retracted!! If you look closely, the larger the trial, the less "benefit" was seen.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34796244/
Maybe when we had no effective treatments for covid-19 trying these in a non-experimental setting would be valid ethically, but at this point it is not. There is absolutely no evidence of benefit in severe COVID-19, which is the one scenario where it could even be considered (due to lack of other effective treatments).
Japan is doing reasonably well because they have a very robust track-and-trace program, a well-enforced quarantine program and high vaccination rates.
Yeah, I don't recommend any drug that isn't proven.
At the same time I also remember a few months back when everything you're saying above about Ivermectin applied to Remdesivir too. Fraudulent studies, absolutely no valid evidence of benefit, meta-analysis shows no better than placebo, WHO strongly recommends against usage in any Covid case . . . but here we are now recommending usage since it turns out that the drug works pretty well.
It'll be interesting to eventually find out if any of these other controversial drugs work or don't when all the data is in.
Difference for remdesivir specifically is it had a plausible mechanism of action supported by over a decade of studies in other virus families. This was confirmed in several animal models before proceeding to human trials. Similarly, molnupiravir, the newly approved (on emergency basis) oral antiviral was also developed in a similar fashion (pre-pandemic), and rapidly evaluated in multiple animal models before a large randomized trial confirmed efficacy (albeit limited - 30% relative reduction and 3% absolute reduction in hospitalization). Ritonavir is an old anti-viral with known efficacy in hepatitis B, and was repurposed in combination with other agents for COVID.
Ivermectin does not have this foundation - studies have been limited to rudimentary pre-clinical evaluations on cell lines and mosquito models for specific viruses transmitted in this way. That is more in line with HCQ, for example.
All of that needs to considered in recommendations on use. I know you understand this, but a lot of people do not. I'm just not sure why people are so caught up on ivermectin when we have multiple effective medications.
So far a brief summary:
Anti-parasitic agents:
HCQ - ineffective, potentially harmful
Ivermectin - ineffective
Anti-viral agents:
remdesivir - effective in hospitalized patients
molnupiravir - moderate efficacy for non-hospitalized patients
ritonavir - more effective for non-hospitalized patients (preferred over molnupiravir)
Other agents:
Dexamethasone - effective in hospitalized patients, not effective for outpatients
monoclonal antibodies - effective for outpatients (depending on strain)
polyclonal antibodies (from plasma of recovered COVID patients) - not effective
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^^^^^^^^^^^
My particular friend is a believer in Ivermectin and HCQ because it fits into the conspiracy theory that Big Pharma is pushing vaccines because of the huge amount of money to be made, while the former products are no longer under patent, so aren't profitable. Plus she believes the studies for their effectiveness is sound, but they have been suppressed for the above reason. Everything boils down to conspiracy theories in her world view. I'm sure other people have other reasons, but that is hers.
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^^^^^^^^^^^
My particular friend is a believer in Ivermectin and HCQ because it fits into the conspiracy theory that Big Pharma is pushing vaccines because of the huge amount of money to be made, while the former products are no longer under patent, so aren't profitable. Plus she believes the studies for their effectiveness is sound, but they have been suppressed for the above reason. Everything boils down to conspiracy theories in her world view. I'm sure other people have other reasons, but that is hers.
How is it that ZERO PEOPLE in today's generation seem to subscribe to the conspiracy theory that there is money to be made by being a social media influencer and the way you get views/clicks is to say outlandish things and spread conspiracy theories?
Folks are taking life-and-death medical advice from Joe fucking Rogan because they think their doctor is a quack profiteer (and perhaps Joe told them so). Meanwhile Joe's a multi-millionaire.
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^^^^^^^^^^^
My particular friend is a believer in Ivermectin and HCQ because it fits into the conspiracy theory that Big Pharma is pushing vaccines because of the huge amount of money to be made, while the former products are no longer under patent, so aren't profitable. Plus she believes the studies for their effectiveness is sound, but they have been suppressed for the above reason. Everything boils down to conspiracy theories in her world view. I'm sure other people have other reasons, but that is hers.
How is it that ZERO PEOPLE in today's generation seem to subscribe to the conspiracy theory that there is money to be made by being a social media influencer and the way you get views/clicks is to say outlandish things and spread conspiracy theories?
Folks are taking life-and-death medical advice from Joe fucking Rogan because they think their doctor is a quack profiteer (and perhaps Joe told them so). Meanwhile Joe's a multi-millionaire.
This is an excellent point that I may try and use down the line in conversations that require it.
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^^^^^^^^^^^
My particular friend is a believer in Ivermectin and HCQ because it fits into the conspiracy theory that Big Pharma is pushing vaccines because of the huge amount of money to be made, while the former products are no longer under patent, so aren't profitable. Plus she believes the studies for their effectiveness is sound, but they have been suppressed for the above reason. Everything boils down to conspiracy theories in her world view. I'm sure other people have other reasons, but that is hers.
How is it that ZERO PEOPLE in today's generation seem to subscribe to the conspiracy theory that there is money to be made by being a social media influencer and the way you get views/clicks is to say outlandish things and spread conspiracy theories?
Folks are taking life-and-death medical advice from Joe fucking Rogan because they think their doctor is a quack profiteer (and perhaps Joe told them so). Meanwhile Joe's a multi-millionaire.
Remember when Fauci lied about masks at the beginning of the pandemic and then later said there was nothing wrong with lying to people for the greater good? Or when he lied about the US funded gain of function covid research in Wuhan? Or when youtube removed senate hearings where front line doctors were testifying about covid treatments they were using?
It's hard to convince someone that you're telling the truth when you've been publicly caught lying . . . or that you're open to the truth when you're working as hard as possible to silence dissent. At that point they've got a choice between someone who's a known liar who they kinda like and someone who's a known liar who they don't really like. Shouldn't be surprising that things end up the way they do.
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^^^^^^^^^^^
My particular friend is a believer in Ivermectin and HCQ because it fits into the conspiracy theory that Big Pharma is pushing vaccines because of the huge amount of money to be made, while the former products are no longer under patent, so aren't profitable. Plus she believes the studies for their effectiveness is sound, but they have been suppressed for the above reason. Everything boils down to conspiracy theories in her world view. I'm sure other people have other reasons, but that is hers.
How is it that ZERO PEOPLE in today's generation seem to subscribe to the conspiracy theory that there is money to be made by being a social media influencer and the way you get views/clicks is to say outlandish things and spread conspiracy theories?
Folks are taking life-and-death medical advice from Joe fucking Rogan because they think their doctor is a quack profiteer (and perhaps Joe told them so). Meanwhile Joe's a multi-millionaire.
Same logic: climate scientists cannot be trusted because grants introduce a motive to lie for profit. Oil, gas, and coal companies, on the other hand, cannot possibly be lying.
In the end, almost no one starts or stops believing things after a careful consideration of all available facts. People believe things that intuitively appeal to them, or popular in their tribe. Introduction of facts contradicting beliefs is shown to reinforce beliefs.
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Remember when Fauci lied about masks at the beginning of the pandemic and then later said there was nothing wrong with lying to people for the greater good? Or when he lied about the US funded gain of function covid research in Wuhan? Or when youtube removed senate hearings where front line doctors were testifying about covid treatments they were using?
It's hard to convince someone that you're telling the truth when you've been publicly caught lying . . . or that you're open to the truth when you're working as hard as possible to silence dissent. At that point they've got a choice between someone who's a known liar who they kinda like and someone who's a known liar who they don't really like. Shouldn't be surprising that things end up the way they do.
Are you saying that Joe Rogan has a better score from fact-checkers? Or the army of other anti-science influencers? Why does your criteria only apply to Fauci? (setting aside your allegations for a second)
None of it is rational. People don't believe conspiracy theories because someone was caught lying. People believe conspiracy theories because they intuitively appeal to them, or because their tribe believes in them.
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Remember when Fauci lied about masks at the beginning of the pandemic and then later said there was nothing wrong with lying to people for the greater good? Or when he lied about the US funded gain of function covid research in Wuhan? Or when youtube removed senate hearings where front line doctors were testifying about covid treatments they were using?
Everything red here is misinformation and you fell for it hook and sinker.
You are parroting right wing drivel here and I think you are promoting propaganda and that should be stopped.
I did not agree with Fauci's position on masks at the time but remember very well that, in the context of the time, he was not lying.
There was no US funded gain of function Covid research that was US funded performed at Wuhan. The US sponsored gain of function research performed at Wuhan involved viruses that are far removed from SARS-CoV-2.
I personally know members of the front line physicians and I can assure you that they are dangerous quacks who should not have been given a platform to spew their nonsense to begin with.
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^^^^^^^^^^^
My particular friend is a believer in Ivermectin and HCQ because it fits into the conspiracy theory that Big Pharma is pushing vaccines because of the huge amount of money to be made, while the former products are no longer under patent, so aren't profitable. Plus she believes the studies for their effectiveness is sound, but they have been suppressed for the above reason. Everything boils down to conspiracy theories in her world view. I'm sure other people have other reasons, but that is hers.
How is it that ZERO PEOPLE in today's generation seem to subscribe to the conspiracy theory that there is money to be made by being a social media influencer and the way you get views/clicks is to say outlandish things and spread conspiracy theories?
Folks are taking life-and-death medical advice from Joe fucking Rogan because they think their doctor is a quack profiteer (and perhaps Joe told them so). Meanwhile Joe's a multi-millionaire.
Why the Rogan hate? Do you listen to him whenever he has doctors on discussing COVID or are you just gathering "news articles" from secondary sources?
I listen to him occasionally and I think he's easily a net positive for society if we're operating under the assumption that everyone would take care of their bodies in the manner he does. I do not follow his "advice" on many things and he says not to all the time. Granted, anyone with a microphone that people listen to will inevitably have a degree of influence and I do wish he would own up to that more (similar to John Stewart back in the day when he initially refused the mantle of a news person and kept trying to say he was only a comic when millions of teens and 20 somethings were actually getting the "news" from him, albeit in his sarcastic and comedy show format). He's a curious truth seeker and interacts with a fantastic range of personalities and backgrounds. There is something to long form conversations that is better than the short sound bytes we're accustomed to. If you think Rogan is a conspiracy theorist about COVID or at least an anti-vaxxer who is trying to convince people to join his "cause", it's really weird then how he personally took his parents to get vaccinated after they were hesitant, has recommended it to many subgroups, has tested every guest for the last 18+ months, has had doctors and scientists on to get into the weeds and discuss treatments and statistics, and there was lot more that he took when he was sick than just ivermectin but that's all everyone outside of the JRE seems to hone in on. It's really strange. I do disagree with his apathy toward the vaccines and wish he would be more pro (and due to his influence) but there have been many topics discussed related to COVID that he's been on the forefront on. It's been a constantly evolving phenomenon involving illness and death, I think it can be okay to take some precaution and read more. He likes to know the "why" behind things and does not rapidly buy in just because an official tells him to - that's his schtick. If that's not for you, cool, don't listen but I think he gets a disproportionate amount of flak for being a hater or anti- this when really he just has a bit of a cynicism mixed in with genuine inquisitiveness.
I mean, it's really strange to take what a non-medical person says (when they're constantly saying to NOT listen to them and they're just describing their own journey) and then apply it to your own life in the hopes you will fare better than those that follow actual recommendations from medical staff. Rogan would agree with that. Everything gets twisted up into these farcical binary choices. You can listen to Rogan and be vaccinated. You can be vaccinated and also make sure you get tons of Vitamin D, zinc, etc. You can understand that MRNA vaccines are good in general for adult society but also that the effects do not last forever.
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Remember when Fauci lied about masks at the beginning of the pandemic and then later said there was nothing wrong with lying to people for the greater good? Or when he lied about the US funded gain of function covid research in Wuhan? Or when youtube removed senate hearings where front line doctors were testifying about covid treatments they were using?
Everything red here is misinformation and you fell for it hook and sinker.
You are parroting right wing drivel here and I think you are promoting propaganda and that should be stopped.
I did not agree with Fauci's position on masks at the time but remember very well that, in the context of the time, he was not lying.
You're saying that Antony Fauci himself is a purveyor of right wing drivel and that I shouldn't trust his own words describing his own advice about masks early on in the pandemic?
Why weren't we told to wear masks in the beginning?
"Well, the reason for that is that we were concerned the public health community, and many people were saying this, were concerned that it was at a time when personal protective equipment, including the N95 masks and the surgical masks, were in very short supply. And we wanted to make sure that the people namely, the health care workers, who were brave enough to put themselves in a harm way, to take care of people who you know were infected with the coronavirus and the danger of them getting infected." - Antony Fauci
- https://www.thestreet.com/video/dr-fauci-masks-changing-directive-coronavirus (https://www.thestreet.com/video/dr-fauci-masks-changing-directive-coronavirus)
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Remember when Fauci lied about masks at the beginning of the pandemic and then later said there was nothing wrong with lying to people for the greater good? Or when he lied about the US funded gain of function covid research in Wuhan? Or when youtube removed senate hearings where front line doctors were testifying about covid treatments they were using?
Everything red here is misinformation and you fell for it hook and sinker.
You are parroting right wing drivel here and I think you are promoting propaganda and that should be stopped.
I did not agree with Fauci's position on masks at the time but remember very well that, in the context of the time, he was not lying.
You're saying that Antony Fauci himself is a purveyor of right wing drivel and that I shouldn't trust his own words describing his own advice about masks early on in the pandemic?
Why weren't we told to wear masks in the beginning?
"Well, the reason for that is that we were concerned the public health community, and many people were saying this, were concerned that it was at a time when personal protective equipment, including the N95 masks and the surgical masks, were in very short supply. And we wanted to make sure that the people namely, the health care workers, who were brave enough to put themselves in a harm way, to take care of people who you know were infected with the coronavirus and the danger of them getting infected." - Antony Fauci
- https://www.thestreet.com/video/dr-fauci-masks-changing-directive-coronavirus (https://www.thestreet.com/video/dr-fauci-masks-changing-directive-coronavirus)
I disagreed with the assessment that Covid was not airborne early in the pandemic. My opinion at the time was, in the absence of clearly demonstrated airborne transmission, that Covid transmission was very likely transmitted airborne. The pressure on the relevant authorities not to compromise already overstretched supplies of PPEs for medical personnel in the absence of clearly demonstrated airborne transmission is not too difficult to understand. Once it was clear that Covid is airborne and that transmission can be mitigated with cloth masks etc. the recommendations were changed.
What makes what you wrote right wing drivel and propaganda is calling it lies and disregarding the historical context, while the truth is that they made a wrong call - glaringly obvious in retrospect.
But imagine if things had turned out the other way around and Covid transmission had been fomite and droplet driven and a general recommendation for masks had been issued and led to depletion of PPEs for medical settings. That would have been a disastrous error capable of crippling the health care system much worse than we have seen.
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Remember when Fauci lied about masks at the beginning of the pandemic and then later said there was nothing wrong with lying to people for the greater good? Or when he lied about the US funded gain of function covid research in Wuhan? Or when youtube removed senate hearings where front line doctors were testifying about covid treatments they were using?
Everything red here is misinformation and you fell for it hook and sinker.
You are parroting right wing drivel here and I think you are promoting propaganda and that should be stopped.
I did not agree with Fauci's position on masks at the time but remember very well that, in the context of the time, he was not lying.
You're saying that Antony Fauci himself is a purveyor of right wing drivel and that I shouldn't trust his own words describing his own advice about masks early on in the pandemic?
Why weren't we told to wear masks in the beginning?
"Well, the reason for that is that we were concerned the public health community, and many people were saying this, were concerned that it was at a time when personal protective equipment, including the N95 masks and the surgical masks, were in very short supply. And we wanted to make sure that the people namely, the health care workers, who were brave enough to put themselves in a harm way, to take care of people who you know were infected with the coronavirus and the danger of them getting infected." - Antony Fauci
- https://www.thestreet.com/video/dr-fauci-masks-changing-directive-coronavirus (https://www.thestreet.com/video/dr-fauci-masks-changing-directive-coronavirus)
I disagreed with the assessment that Covid was not airborne early in the pandemic. My opinion at the time was, in the absence of clearly demonstrated airborne transmission, that Covid transmission was very likely transmitted airborne. The pressure on the relevant authorities not to compromise already overstretched supplies of PPEs for medical personnel in the absence of clearly demonstrated airborne transmission is not too difficult to understand. Once it was clear that Covid is airborne and that transmission can be mitigated with cloth masks etc. the recommendations were changed.
What makes what you wrote right wing drivel and propaganda is calling it lies and disregarding the historical context, while the truth is that they made a wrong call - glaringly obvious in retrospect.
But imagine if things had turned out the other way around and Covid transmission had been fomite and droplet driven and a general recommendation for masks had been issued and led to depletion of PPEs for medical settings. That would have been a disastrous error capable of crippling the health care system much worse than we have seen.
Why the need to qualify it as which side of the political aisle it falls on? I think that's a disingenuous dichotomy and unnecessary here and serves to quiet those who don't fall in with the tribalism of the political party that someone identifies with at least 51% (not 100%!) of the time. In a democracy, there has to be an element of faith in that what our leaders tells us is true. There was a decision made by our medical leaders in early 2020 to not convey full disclosure regarding facial coverings in conjunction with COVID. You can point to the TP and hand sanitizer crazes and assume the same would've happened (and kinda did for awhile) with masks. Of course they had their reasons! However you want to slice it, Fauci was not honest. That bothers some people - and they don't all come from the same side politically. That can erode faith in the democratic process (If "they" weren't entirely truthful about X, how can we trust what "they" say about Y - and so on). To others, that is just considered breaking a few eggs en route to an omelet and is no big deal. Perhaps the plurality don't even pay attention and don't have an opinion nor care.
You can argue in retrospect what would've been the optimal path all you want but it doesn't take anything away from the mental gymnastics required to come to the conclusion that Fauci didn't lie (wasn't truthful, didn't give full disclosure, whatever synonymous phrase you want to insert that carries the least amount of political heft so it mitigates the distraction) in the first place.
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Remember when Fauci lied about masks at the beginning of the pandemic and then later said there was nothing wrong with lying to people for the greater good? Or when he lied about the US funded gain of function covid research in Wuhan? Or when youtube removed senate hearings where front line doctors were testifying about covid treatments they were using?
Everything red here is misinformation and you fell for it hook and sinker.
You are parroting right wing drivel here and I think you are promoting propaganda and that should be stopped.
I did not agree with Fauci's position on masks at the time but remember very well that, in the context of the time, he was not lying.
You're saying that Antony Fauci himself is a purveyor of right wing drivel and that I shouldn't trust his own words describing his own advice about masks early on in the pandemic?
Why weren't we told to wear masks in the beginning?
"Well, the reason for that is that we were concerned the public health community, and many people were saying this, were concerned that it was at a time when personal protective equipment, including the N95 masks and the surgical masks, were in very short supply. And we wanted to make sure that the people namely, the health care workers, who were brave enough to put themselves in a harm way, to take care of people who you know were infected with the coronavirus and the danger of them getting infected." - Antony Fauci
- https://www.thestreet.com/video/dr-fauci-masks-changing-directive-coronavirus (https://www.thestreet.com/video/dr-fauci-masks-changing-directive-coronavirus)
I disagreed with the assessment that Covid was not airborne early in the pandemic. My opinion at the time was, in the absence of clearly demonstrated airborne transmission, that Covid transmission was very likely transmitted airborne. The pressure on the relevant authorities not to compromise already overstretched supplies of PPEs for medical personnel in the absence of clearly demonstrated airborne transmission is not too difficult to understand. Once it was clear that Covid is airborne and that transmission can be mitigated with cloth masks etc. the recommendations were changed.
What makes what you wrote right wing drivel and propaganda is calling it lies and disregarding the historical context, while the truth is that they made a wrong call - glaringly obvious in retrospect.
But imagine if things had turned out the other way around and Covid transmission had been fomite and droplet driven and a general recommendation for masks had been issued and led to depletion of PPEs for medical settings. That would have been a disastrous error capable of crippling the health care system much worse than we have seen.
Fauci (in his own words) said above that he told people not to wear masks because he was concerned that medical professionals wouldn't have enough access to them. I completely understand the reasoning behind why he lied, but (even assuming the best of intentions) it was still a lie.
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y'all need to check out this group in Reddit called Herman Cain Award. Created based on late GOP presidential candidate Herman Cain's death.
https://www.reddit.com/r/HermanCainAward/
Everyday whole lot of stories get posted about people who rail against masks and vaccines on social media overtime and finally end up in hospital or worse, dead.
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I think one of the lures of ivermectin is that people can get it without a doctor's prescription if they are willing to use formulations for other species.
That may sound odd, but a long time ago Quebec outlawed beekeepers from being able to buy antibiotics for foulbrood at bee supply stores, because they were antibiotics that were also used for human diseases and could be used for people without a prescription. It was a bit comical in a sad way watching beekeepers trying to explain to veterinarians about foulbrood so they could get what they needed.
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That doesn't sound odd to me. I believe that a certain horse tranquilizer which happens to be a Schedule III controlled substance in the USA is still available at farm supply stores in Mexico without a prescription. But only at the farm supply store, not the pharmacy.
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Why the need to qualify it as which side of the political aisle it falls on? I think that's a disingenuous dichotomy and unnecessary here and serves to quiet those who don't fall in with the tribalism of the political party that someone identifies with at least 51% (not 100%!) of the time.
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There seems to be a misunderstanding here. You must have missed that what I have been writing is actually not partisan by any stretch. The GOP is not monolithic, as much as they try to discipline dissenters - in fact, the infighting we see is evidence of that.
There is also a good number of people on the left who do not want to hear some of the things I am saying here and who certainly do not want to hear some choice things I could say but won´t because it would serve no purpose ... at this time.
The way out of the current situation is not going to be appeasement of the current GOP in which the extreme right has found a home, but rather by helping to drive the already existing wedge further into the GOP and make it impossible for a sufficient number of decent people to vote for them until they purge their extremists and assorted nutters.
By now you must have guessed it, I believe that the way out of the current crisis leads through a reform of US conservatism which currently is in a much worse state than American democracy. Just remember that conservatives are the first to get either purged or are coerced into compliance once a populist extreme right wing authoritarian government has consolidated its grasp on power.
So the theme is not finding common ground between the existing GOP and the Democrats but rather to promote polarization and division between conservatives and right wing extremists in the GOP - and for that we do not need to agree with each others policies and world views beyond a belief in the centrality of accountability in a liberal democracy, the importance of fair elections and the rule of law.
And where I agree with you is that it is counterproductive to pursue a strategy of polarization between the GOP and the left - that is the right wing extremist strategy.
But that does not mean that I would agree that putting faith into the pronouncements of any political leader, or, God forbid, into the dear leader himself, or appointee is warranted at any time - to the contrary.
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In a democracy, there has to be an element of faith in that what our leaders tells us is true.
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That is a naive proposition. I have never entertained that what any politician says has to refer to some external standard of truth that then allows one to exercise faith once it passes the test. In reality, that sort of faith will always be disappointed eventually for the simple reason that an external standard of truth does not exist. In an evolving situation, things change and what looks reasonable or might have even be true at the time may not look like that further down the road. The right wing playbook is to take whatever was said out of context, temporal and circumstantial, expose the apparent inconsistencies and then spice it with fighting words (lies, deception, corruption etc.) to increase the outrage potential. After it has been condensed sufficiently, it is put on endless replay on all accessible media and the internet in the hope to start just another self-sustaining bullshit mill.
The most important thing to realize is that the initial error one has to commit in order to fall for it is this "there has to be an element of faith in that what our leaders tells us is true.", and those are your words.
There is absolutely no evidence that leaders in liberal democracies are held or have been held to an external standard of truth that allows the intrusion of faith, but there is plenty of evidence that they are not. The right has succeeded in making people believe that such a standard exists and that the current administration has violated this nonexistent commitment. Not disclosing facts, findings, rumors etc. known to the government is standard practice and a large part of the government´s dasily activity revolves around what to disclose and what not. This is simply how things work.
However, there is a standard to which democratic governments are held accountable to and that is that everything they do has to be done in the interest of the common good and that it is lawful. That is a test right wing governments and especially the last one routinely fail - and that is not to say that left wing governments do not fail it as well.
The problem is that a lot of things can only be investigated long after the fact as circumstances that led to political decisions were not known to the public at the time and that, in turn, is reponsible for the profusion of congressional investigations, panels and comissions and for the existence of laws to preserve executive records - it is the price we pay for the acceptance of the secrecy surrounding goverment decisions while they are occurring and the outcome of any such investigation typically reveals varying levels of honesty on the part of the political actors and not more.
So, the central question of any post hoc, and it has to be post hoc because of the secrecy, in any assessment of government action is if the agents in question have acted in order to maximize the common good (that´s why candidates once elected pledge to be president of all Americans). And if any problems are discovered, it has to be determined if these simply represent errors committed in good faith in pursuit of the common good or if other interests came into play. I hope it is becoming clear that faith in that a politician speaks the truth has so far made no appearance.
Did Fauci commit errors communicating during the pandemic? Of course he did.
Did Fauci commit errors in good faith while pursuing show a commitment to the common good? I do think so, even while personally disagreeing with the recommendation against masks, but then the pursuit of the common good is certainly not synonymous with the implementation of some expert's opinion.
So, please forget the idea that we should be able to have faith in what politicians and administrators tell us in real time. All we can have is trust in the government pursuing the common good at the time action is happening and trust that there will be mechanisms available holding the actors accountable once the habitual veil of secrecy surrounding government operations has lifted.
Faith by the plebes in political leaders' pronouncements is a central right wing idea because they want to avoid accountability at all cost.
And this is why the GOP opposition to the Jan 6 commission is such a brazen attack
on democratic norms, it strikes at the central theme of democratic government: accountability and that is why Donald J Trump and accomplices cannot be allowed to get away with this.
Conversely, that is also why Cheney´s and Kinzinger`s support of the commission is as strong a commitment to democracy as one could possibly get from them
And all that also explains why 45´s social media platform is called Truth Social - He creates the applicable truth in which his followers can place their faith while letting him escape accountability.
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Why the need to qualify it as which side of the political aisle it falls on? I think that's a disingenuous dichotomy and unnecessary here and serves to quiet those who don't fall in with the tribalism of the political party that someone identifies with at least 51% (not 100%!) of the time.
There seems to be a misunderstanding here. You must have missed that what I have been writing is actually not partisan by any stretch. The GOP is not monolithic, as much as they try to discipline dissenters - in fact, the infighting we see is evidence of that.
There is also a good number of people on the left who do not want to hear some of the things I am saying here and who certainly do not want to hear some choice things I could say but won´t because it would serve no purpose ... at this time.
The way out of the current situation is not going to be appeasement of the current GOP in which the extreme right has found a home, but rather by helping to drive the already existing wedge further into the GOP and make it impossible for a sufficient number of decent people to vote for them until they purge their extremists and assorted nutters.
By now you must have guessed it, I believe that the way out of the current crisis leads through a reform of US conservatism which currently is in a much worse state than American democracy. Just remember that conservatives are the first to get either purged or are coerced into compliance once a populist extreme right wing authoritarian government has consolidated its grasp on power.
So the theme is not finding common ground between the existing GOP and the Democrats but rather to promote polarization and division between conservatives and right wing extremists in the GOP - and for that we do not need to agree with each others policies and world views beyond a belief in the centrality of accountability in a liberal democracy, the importance of fair elections and the rule of law.
And where I agree with you is that it is counterproductive to pursue a strategy of polarization between the GOP and the left - that is the right wing extremist strategy.
But that does not mean that I would agree that putting faith into the pronouncements of any political leader, or, God forbid, into the dear leader himself, or appointee is warranted at any time - to the contrary.
In a democracy, there has to be an element of faith in that what our leaders tells us is true.
That is a naive proposition. I have never entertained that what any politician says has to refer to some external standard of truth that then allows one to exercise faith once it passes the test. In reality, that sort of faith will always be disappointed eventually for the simple reason that an external standard of truth does not exist. In an evolving situation, things change and what looks reasonable or might have even be true at the time may not look like that further down the road. The right wing playbook is to take whatever was said out of context, temporal and circumstantial, expose the apparent inconsistencies and then spice it with fighting words (lies, deception, corruption etc.) to increase the outrage potential. After it has been condensed sufficiently, it is put on endless replay on all accessible media and the internet in the hope to start just another self-sustaining bullshit mill.
The most important thing to realize is that the initial error one has to commit in order to fall for it is this "there has to be an element of faith in that what our leaders tells us is true.", and those are your words.
There is absolutely no evidence that leaders in liberal democracies are held or have been held to an external standard of truth that allows the intrusion of faith, but there is plenty of evidence that they are not. The right has succeeded in making people believe that such a standard exists and that the current administration has violated this nonexistent commitment. Not disclosing facts, findings, rumors etc. known to the government is standard practice and a large part of the government´s dasily activity revolves around what to disclose and what not. This is simply how things work.
However, there is a standard to which democratic governments are held accountable to and that is that everything they do has to be done in the interest of the common good and that it is lawful. That is a test right wing governments and especially the last one routinely fail - and that is not to say that left wing governments do not fail it as well.
The problem is that a lot of things can only be investigated long after the fact as circumstances that led to political decisions were not known to the public at the time and that, in turn, is reponsible for the profusion of congressional investigations, panels and comissions and for the existence of laws to preserve executive records - it is the price we pay for the acceptance of the secrecy surrounding goverment decisions while they are occurring and the outcome of any such investigation typically reveals varying levels of honesty on the part of the political actors and not more.
So, the central question of any post hoc, and it has to be post hoc because of the secrecy, in any assessment of government action is if the agents in question have acted in order to maximize the common good (that´s why candidates once elected pledge to be president of all Americans). And if any problems are discovered, it has to be determined if these simply represent errors committed in good faith in pursuit of the common good or if other interests came into play. I hope it is becoming clear that faith in that a politician speaks the truth has so far made no appearance.
Did Fauci commit errors communicating during the pandemic? Of course he did.
Did Fauci´s commit errors in good faith while pursuing show a commitment to the common good? I do think so, even while personally disagreeing with the recommendation against masks but then the pursuit of the common good is certainly not synonymous with the implementation of some expert's opinion.
So, please forget the idea that we should be able to have faith in what politicians and administrators tell us in real time. All we can have is trust in the government pursuing the common good at the time action is happening and trust that there will be mechanisms available holding the actors accountable once the habitual veil of secrecy surrounding government operations has lifted.
Faith by the plebes in political leaders' pronouncements is a central right wing idea because they want to avoid accountability at all cost.
And this is why the GOP opposition to the Jan 6 commission is such a brazen attack
on democratic norms, it strikes at the central theme of democratic government: accountability and that is why Donald J Trump and accomplices cannot be allowed to get away with this.
Conversely, that is also why Cheney´s and Kinzinger`s support of the commission is as strong a commitment to democracy as one could possibly get from them
And all that also explains why 45´s social media platform is called Truth Social - He creates the applicable truth in which his followers can place their faith while letting him escape accountability.
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What exactly is the misunderstanding? You brought up "right wing drivel" just because another poster pointed out that Fauci was not forthcoming with regard to masks. I don't see how that's related to the political spectrum at all. I'm not going to engage about the right or the left simply because it's irrelevant and distracting to the claim in which Fauci presented masks in the first half of 2020.
Of course having faith in our leaders is naive - but it didn't used to be or at least not as much. The amount of faith you place in a person or entity is not binary - it's a continuum. Blame J Edgar Hoover, Operation MK Ultra, the Vietnam War, could list a thousand things - whatever event or combination of events that has unfolded (mostly after WW2) that has led us to having lower and lower amounts of faith/confidence that our elected leaders and what we hear from our various levels of government have American citizens' best interests in mind. I'm not sure what you mean by external standard - I'm just saying we as a country used to have higher levels of trust in authority and it has been eroding over the years for many different reasons (there are many pros and cons to this). Fauci lying doesn't help in that vein, that's all I'm saying.
Honestly, the rest of your response is hard to read in the bolded font and you started going on again about Trump and the GOP - which again, are not relevant to Fauci lying about masks. If you do not consider what Fauci said constitutes a lie because of the context surrounding the situation, we agree to disagree on that point even if we agree on everything else surrounding COVID or if we agree on nothing else. I think he wasn't truthful and there are repercussions from that.
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Of course having faith in our leaders is naive - but it didn't used to be or at least not as much. The amount of faith you place in a person or entity is not binary - it's a continuum. Blame J Edgar Hoover, Operation MK Ultra, the Vietnam War, could list a thousand things - whatever event or combination of events that has unfolded (mostly after WW2) that has led us to having lower and lower amounts of faith/confidence that our elected leaders and what we hear from our various levels of government have American citizens' best interests in mind.
This is precisely why I am bringing up 45 etc. It is because you are bringing him up. You have bought into a narrative that entails a decrease in trust (or faith if you will) in authority or authority figures over time interpreted as a cultural and political decline. It is not a stretch to assume that you feel that restoration of faith or trust in authority would be a good thing. Unfortunately, restoration of trust in authority would be contingent on the authority in question being more trustworthy as what we are seeing currently. How more convenient could it be then that we have a past in which trust still existed and everything was great. So all we have to do is make America great again, right?
That way we can restore trust and everybody will be happy!
Sadly, I have to disappoint you. The reason that trust and faith in authority evaporated is not due to a general deterioration over time of the material politicians and people are made of but simply due to the fact that trust and faith are misplaced when put into authorities; and the decline of trust and faith over time is just a realization of that.
And, of course, there is the unavoidable fact that life absolutely sucked for many who had to live under the conditions prevalent in the past, and that still persist under the now crumbling veneer of false decency and meritocratic deceit.
To conclude, what I quoted above is the bread and butter of trumpism and you do not have to bring it up explicitly for me to notice this.
So please do not tell me that I brought up Trump when you actually did it without saying his name. And I do not want to give Trump more credit than he is due. He did not invent this and that is why many are offended when one points out the trumpism in their heads. Trump just tapped into what was already sloshing about in between the ears of the susceptible.
I´m afraid that I still have not made my case strongly enough.
The mere idea that a restauration of trust and faith in authority, like in the good old days, is a good idea, marks you as an extremist.
The past decades have seen a marked decrease in faith and trust in authorities and an increase in scrutiny and imposition of accountability on authorities, which are salutary things in my book.
Any attempt to turn back the clock on this would inevitably require disenfranchisement of those who have benefitted from the notion of government not being a benevolent force for the common good unless put under continual scrutiny and held accountable.
(as an aside, the extreme right political elite has belatedly discovered that they needed to get in front of the parade questioning government authority due to the attractiveness of misunderstood libertarian attitudes, but they are doing that only in the hope to become the authority themselves and do away with accountability and being able to steal whatever they want whenever they want)
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Of course having faith in our leaders is naive - but it didn't used to be or at least not as much. The amount of faith you place in a person or entity is not binary - it's a continuum. Blame J Edgar Hoover, Operation MK Ultra, the Vietnam War, could list a thousand things - whatever event or combination of events that has unfolded (mostly after WW2) that has led us to having lower and lower amounts of faith/confidence that our elected leaders and what we hear from our various levels of government have American citizens' best interests in mind.
This is precisely why I am bringing up 45 etc. It is because you are bringing him up. You have bought into a narrative that entails a decrease in trust (or faith if you will) in authority or authority figures over time interpreted as a cultural and political decline. It is not a stretch to assume that you feel that restoration of faith or trust in authority would be a good thing. Unfortunately, restoration of trust in authority would be contingent on the authority in question being more trustworthy as what we are seeing currently. How more convenient could it be then that we have a past in which trust still existed and everything was great. So all we have to do is make America great again, right?
That way we can restore trust and everybody will be happy!
Sadly, I have to disappoint you. The reason that trust and faith in authority evaporated is not due to a general deterioration over time of the material politicians and people are made of but simply due to the fact that trust and faith are misplaced when put into authorities; and the decline of trust and faith over time is just a realization of that.
And, of course, there is the unavoidable fact that life absolutely sucked for many who had to live under the conditions prevalent in the past, and that still persist under the now crumbling veneer of false decency and meritocratic deceit.
To conclude, what I quoted above is the bread and butter of trumpism and you do not have to bring it up explicitly for me to notice this.
So please do not tell me that I brought up Trump when you actually did it without saying his name. And I do not want to give Trump more credit than he is due. He did not invent this and that is why many are offended when one points out the trumpism in their heads. Trump just tapped into what was already sloshing about in between the ears of the susceptible.
I´m afraid that I still have not made my case strongly enough.
The mere idea that a restauration of trust and faith in authority, like in the good old days, is a good idea, marks you as an extremist.
The past decades have seen a marked decrease in faith and trust in authorities and an increase in scrutiny and imposition of accountability on authorities, which are salutary things in my book.
Any attempt to turn back the clock on this would inevitably require disenfranchisement of those who have benefitted from the notion of government not being a benevolent force for the common good unless put under continual scrutiny and held accountable.
(as an aside, the extreme right political elite has belatedly discovered that they needed to get in front of the parade questioning government authority due to the attractiveness of misunderstood libertarian attitudes, but they are doing that only in the hope to become the authority themselves and do away with accountability and being able to steal whatever they want whenever they want)
Well, that was something! Your creative extrapolation of flimsy assumptions, reductionism, and connectivity to other ideas is impressive and entertaining, I'll grant you that!
You keep bringing up strawman arguments. I have not made any assumptions about your beliefs and values but you have made plenty about mine - many of which are erroneous and have nothing to do with the original premise of why I engaged with you in the first place. Namely, I view that Fauci was not forthright regarding masks in the first half of 2020. That's really it. If you disagree with me on that facet, that's okay.
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Of course having faith in our leaders is naive - but it didn't used to be or at least not as much. The amount of faith you place in a person or entity is not binary - it's a continuum. Blame J Edgar Hoover, Operation MK Ultra, the Vietnam War, could list a thousand things - whatever event or combination of events that has unfolded (mostly after WW2) that has led us to having lower and lower amounts of faith/confidence that our elected leaders and what we hear from our various levels of government have American citizens' best interests in mind.
This is precisely why I am bringing up 45 etc. It is because you are bringing him up. You have bought into a narrative that entails a decrease in trust (or faith if you will) in authority or authority figures over time interpreted as a cultural and political decline. It is not a stretch to assume that you feel that restoration of faith or trust in authority would be a good thing. Unfortunately, restoration of trust in authority would be contingent on the authority in question being more trustworthy as what we are seeing currently. How more convenient could it be then that we have a past in which trust still existed and everything was great. So all we have to do is make America great again, right?
That way we can restore trust and everybody will be happy!
Sadly, I have to disappoint you. The reason that trust and faith in authority evaporated is not due to a general deterioration over time of the material politicians and people are made of but simply due to the fact that trust and faith are misplaced when put into authorities; and the decline of trust and faith over time is just a realization of that.
And, of course, there is the unavoidable fact that life absolutely sucked for many who had to live under the conditions prevalent in the past, and that still persist under the now crumbling veneer of false decency and meritocratic deceit.
To conclude, what I quoted above is the bread and butter of trumpism and you do not have to bring it up explicitly for me to notice this.
So please do not tell me that I brought up Trump when you actually did it without saying his name. And I do not want to give Trump more credit than he is due. He did not invent this and that is why many are offended when one points out the trumpism in their heads. Trump just tapped into what was already sloshing about in between the ears of the susceptible.
I´m afraid that I still have not made my case strongly enough.
The mere idea that a restauration of trust and faith in authority, like in the good old days, is a good idea, marks you as an extremist.
The past decades have seen a marked decrease in faith and trust in authorities and an increase in scrutiny and imposition of accountability on authorities, which are salutary things in my book.
Any attempt to turn back the clock on this would inevitably require disenfranchisement of those who have benefitted from the notion of government not being a benevolent force for the common good unless put under continual scrutiny and held accountable.
(as an aside, the extreme right political elite has belatedly discovered that they needed to get in front of the parade questioning government authority due to the attractiveness of misunderstood libertarian attitudes, but they are doing that only in the hope to become the authority themselves and do away with accountability and being able to steal whatever they want whenever they want)
Well, that was something! Your creative extrapolation of flimsy assumptions, reductionism, and connectivity to other ideas is impressive and entertaining, I'll grant you that!
You keep bringing up strawman arguments. I have not made any assumptions about your beliefs and values but you have made plenty about mine - many of which are erroneous and have nothing to do with the original premise of why I engaged with you in the first place. Namely, I view that Fauci was not forthright regarding masks in the first half of 2020. That's really it. If you disagree with me on that facet, that's okay.
Thanks - but you forgot hyperbole, exaggeration and intentional omission among other things.
I meant it to be entertaining and I haven't made any assumptions about you as this is not meant as an ad hominem attack, but rather a polemic against the pernicious notion that the past was better than the present, of which "...whatever event or combination of events that has unfolded (mostly after WW2) that has led us to having lower and lower amounts of faith/confidence that our elected leaders and what we hear from our various levels of government have American citizens' best interests in mind..." is just one of many possible manifestation.
(I don´t disagree with what you are saying about Fauci, but there are other fish to fry. It is a distraction and is meant to be one)
Let´s just examine the idea that things were better in the past. Just ask whenever that comes up to pinpoint the time when things were still ok, or at least substantially better. Or ask to pinpoint a few political leaders in the past that deserve admiration beyond what is typical today. Then look at the answers you get - if any. (Do not do this if you do not have a sense of humor)
So, while the idea that things were better in the past superficially appears to be a reactionary political stance pressing for a return to a mythical past, the vast majority of people accepting the idea are unable to articulate any coherent opinion to which point in the past we are supposed to turn for edification.
So what could it be then if not a reactionary political stance?
I think we first have to look at the cognitive bias that leads us to to see the past in a more favorable light than it actually deserves. Of course, the flip side of this bias is that the present looks unfavorable when compared with the biased view of the past, thus causing a perception of decline in societal mores etc. over time.
And here we meet a quintessentially American affliction: widespread declinism.
In its positive incarnation, declinism forces a continual reevaluation and questioning of the state of affairs, lest the feared decline goes unchecked. In other words, declinism often results in a healthy sceptical attitude towards the status quo, and that, paradoxically, results in a strong sense that things can be improved upon as they have declined from a better place and are therefore malleable.
In other words, the seemingly reactionary stance of declinism serves as one of the most important drivers of innovation and cultural change, particularly among conservatives. There is no other country in which conservatives are shedding previous convictions, beliefs and attitudes at a similar breathtaking pace as US conservatives just to replace them with another set of grievances.
Leaving fascist and organized white supremacism aside, for the average person declinism is not a reactionary stance pointing to a concrete period, or really anything specific in the past, and is rather the biased view of the messy present as a situation worse than the past as a foregone conclusion. While we might ask ourselves what the standard is against which the present is supposed to look like a disaster in the making, that is actually not necessary as the illusion is maintained via the cognitive bias of declinism and by confirmation bias fed by the perennial shitstorm of news and whatnot from traditional and increasingly important social media.
Declinism is thus an emotional phenomenon, a feeling of things getting worse and worse, a feeling of doom regarding the state of society etc.
Declinism, being void of any concrete content, is extraordinary flexible by being confirmed by virtually anything negative thrown at it, making it the perfect receptacle for any grievance that might arise. This has been the main electoral strategy of the GOP, allowing them to create collective grievances in order to pursue various culture war and other issues while pursuing political ends that often are inconsistent with the interests of their constituency.
D T understood this perfectly even back in the nineties when he said that if he ever ran for office he would run as a Republican because Republicans would believe anything. And he is right, declinism means to leave one's brains at the door, it is a willingness to believe what feels right and that is what a con man is looking for; because a con is fundamentally an operation that aims at manipulating how a mark feels about something or other. Thus, the GOP electorate looked like one fat mark to him given its long history of unquestioned declinism.
Make America Great Again is nothing more than an overt appeal at declinism and as a political movement it is extraordinarily empty of any concrete goals beyond elcting the candidate. Thankfully, the GOP confirmed that this is the case by not even issuing a platform for the 2020 campaign, making this uncontroversial.
MAGA successfully addressed the psychological needs of people suffering from declinism by promising a better future and by allowing the marks to collectively enjoy their violent fantasies without reproach. In other words, the con succeeded by making the marks feel better and by making them feel even better when they send money in.
Declinism is the original sin an indivdual commits before going down the rabbit hole of emotional reasoning, that is making feeling good about something or bad about something the truth criterion.
Accepting declinism as the emotional lens through which the world is to be seen and working hard on confirmation bias explains the vortex of lunacy in which a large number of Americans can be found today and whose heads can be filled with the grievance du jour by a skilled operator.
Due to the emotional nature of the underpinnings of their beliefs, victims of the con identify strongly with their beliefs and are very likely to react in a hostile or violent way to any challenges - they got a lot to lose, and not just psychologically but also in terms of peer acceptance.
I hope I made it clear that the con can only work as long as the referenced past stays as untethered from past reality as posssible to allow space for manufactured and actual grievances; and the same is true for the future which, under the terms of the con, is saved by intervention in the insufferable present which would otherwise turn into an even more insufferable future without vigorous, and if necessary, violent and destructive intervention.
I also hope that it is clear why there is such a visceral response to attempts to correct the narrative of American history - it challenges declinism and therefore the very base of GOP/MAGA politics. As it happens, that is also why the historical narrative as it is taught in schools etc must remain a prime target in combating the threat emanating from delusional declinism.
The dynamic between a not well defined past that is referenced to demonstrate and justify intervention in the present to create a better future, despite the perceived trend towards decline immanent to the world, is not characteristic for a reactionary movement, notwithstanding that it calls itself MAGA.
What it is typical for, however, is the secular salvation cult found for example in communist ideology. When dealing with right wing nonsense and the propensity of right wingers to projection, it is often instructive to look at their most vicious attacks, as it often the case that one finds the attackers being involved in themselves.
It is no different here; the MAGA cult is fundamentally a utopian salvation cult with a propensity for violence and a belief that seizing power is justified and can bring salvation, very similar to the marxist revolutionary cult.
If you haven´t guessed it yet, any communist worth his or her salt would be within the MAGA cult already, patiently waiting for the revolutionary moment to arrive to seize power from within the movement, because that is how they tick. My advice to the MAGA crowd is to look over their shoulder and not to talk too much about your guns, you know what I mean.
So here you have it, a violent utopian cult under a leader (who is not a conservative BTW) that maintains its cohesion by careful nurturing of two cognitive biases, ie declinism and confirmation bias, and by careful avoidance of placing any demands on its members that could make them uncomfortable.
Add to this the immediate abandonment of even the pretense of fiscal responsibility after the 2016 election (the infrastructure bill was only not passed under Trump because of incapability of the GOP to come up with complex legislation and because of immaturity on the part of the leader), a leader who insists seeing his name on government handout checks, and the discovery of the working class voter as worthy of their attention, and you have a significant turn to the left in the GOP.
Here is also where one can see the predicament the GOP finds itself. The impression one might get from seeing GOP politicians groveling to their vindictive leader is that they are doing this to maintain the grip on their positions, but that is only partially true. D T took their long running racket and ruined it for them. Most of the grassroots money is now going to him for that reason, and there was never a plan B.
As bad as all this sounds, it is even worse considering that victims of the con are now dying en masse from a preventable disease as antivaxxerism has become one major factor in showing allegiance to the cult.
Their cognitive bias of declinism is now killing them by the hundreds of thousands with no clear end in sight.
Is there a way to address this at the root? I really do not know for sure, but I know one thing: when I bring this up, people are surprised and many have never heard about it.
It appears that declinism is so baked into and accepted in US society, that it is not even perceived by most as the source of the most dangerous terrorist threats at this time and that it is responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths already. All promoted by actors expecting to benefit from the situation in one way or another.
If I have only convinced one person that declinism is not benign but can lead to loss of life, limb, sanity and economic devastation, and that it warrants attention, I´d consider it worthwhile having posted this.
more about declinism here:
https://thedecisionlab.com/biases/declinism/
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The "Golden Age" is when we were young and strong and the world lay before us. As we get older the world gets worse. ;-)
Yes a bit of cynicism there. But in so many ways this is a great time to be in the world. I can think of good things and bad things for every decade I have been alive.
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Yes a bit of cynicism there. But in so many ways this is a great time to be in the world. I can think of good things and bad things for every decade I have been alive.
Right?
And I would argue that a female person who hasn't been brainwashed into giving up her power, or a person of color, isn't quiiite as apt to look to the past for better days. Not in the history of the United States, and not really anywhere or anywhen else either.
Which is, of course, not to say that we haven't a LOT further to go. While at the same time, the Golden Agers are still trying their damndest to stuff women and people of color back into the box.
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Of course having faith in our leaders is naive - but it didn't used to be or at least not as much. The amount of faith you place in a person or entity is not binary - it's a continuum. Blame J Edgar Hoover, Operation MK Ultra, the Vietnam War, could list a thousand things - whatever event or combination of events that has unfolded (mostly after WW2) that has led us to having lower and lower amounts of faith/confidence that our elected leaders and what we hear from our various levels of government have American citizens' best interests in mind.
This is precisely why I am bringing up 45 etc. It is because you are bringing him up. You have bought into a narrative that entails a decrease in trust (or faith if you will) in authority or authority figures over time interpreted as a cultural and political decline. It is not a stretch to assume that you feel that restoration of faith or trust in authority would be a good thing. Unfortunately, restoration of trust in authority would be contingent on the authority in question being more trustworthy as what we are seeing currently. How more convenient could it be then that we have a past in which trust still existed and everything was great. So all we have to do is make America great again, right?
That way we can restore trust and everybody will be happy!
Sadly, I have to disappoint you. The reason that trust and faith in authority evaporated is not due to a general deterioration over time of the material politicians and people are made of but simply due to the fact that trust and faith are misplaced when put into authorities; and the decline of trust and faith over time is just a realization of that.
And, of course, there is the unavoidable fact that life absolutely sucked for many who had to live under the conditions prevalent in the past, and that still persist under the now crumbling veneer of false decency and meritocratic deceit.
To conclude, what I quoted above is the bread and butter of trumpism and you do not have to bring it up explicitly for me to notice this.
So please do not tell me that I brought up Trump when you actually did it without saying his name. And I do not want to give Trump more credit than he is due. He did not invent this and that is why many are offended when one points out the trumpism in their heads. Trump just tapped into what was already sloshing about in between the ears of the susceptible.
I´m afraid that I still have not made my case strongly enough.
The mere idea that a restauration of trust and faith in authority, like in the good old days, is a good idea, marks you as an extremist.
The past decades have seen a marked decrease in faith and trust in authorities and an increase in scrutiny and imposition of accountability on authorities, which are salutary things in my book.
Any attempt to turn back the clock on this would inevitably require disenfranchisement of those who have benefitted from the notion of government not being a benevolent force for the common good unless put under continual scrutiny and held accountable.
(as an aside, the extreme right political elite has belatedly discovered that they needed to get in front of the parade questioning government authority due to the attractiveness of misunderstood libertarian attitudes, but they are doing that only in the hope to become the authority themselves and do away with accountability and being able to steal whatever they want whenever they want)
Well, that was something! Your creative extrapolation of flimsy assumptions, reductionism, and connectivity to other ideas is impressive and entertaining, I'll grant you that!
You keep bringing up strawman arguments. I have not made any assumptions about your beliefs and values but you have made plenty about mine - many of which are erroneous and have nothing to do with the original premise of why I engaged with you in the first place. Namely, I view that Fauci was not forthright regarding masks in the first half of 2020. That's really it. If you disagree with me on that facet, that's okay.
Thanks - but you forgot hyperbole, exaggeration and intentional omission among other things.
I meant it to be entertaining and I haven't made any assumptions about you as this is not meant as an ad hominem attack, but rather a polemic against the pernicious notion that the past was better than the present, of which "...whatever event or combination of events that has unfolded (mostly after WW2) that has led us to having lower and lower amounts of faith/confidence that our elected leaders and what we hear from our various levels of government have American citizens' best interests in mind..." is just one of many possible manifestation.
(I don´t disagree with what you are saying about Fauci, but there are other fish to fry. It is a distraction and is meant to be one)
Let´s just examine the idea that things were better in the past. Just ask whenever that comes up to pinpoint the time when things were still ok, or at least substantially better. Or ask to pinpoint a few political leaders in the past that deserve admiration beyond what is typical today. Then look at the answers you get - if any. (Do not do this if you do not have a sense of humor)
So, while the idea that things were better in the past superficially appears to be a reactionary political stance pressing for a return to a mythical past, the vast majority of people accepting the idea are unable to articulate any coherent opinion to which point in the past we are supposed to turn for edification.
So what could it be then if not a reactionary political stance?
I think we first have to look at the cognitive bias that leads us to to see the past in a more favorable light than it actually deserves. Of course, the flip side of this bias is that the present looks unfavorable when compared with the biased view of the past, thus causing a perception of decline in societal mores etc. over time.
And here we meet a quintessentially American affliction: widespread declinism.
In its positive incarnation, declinism forces a continual reevaluation and questioning of the state of affairs, lest the feared decline goes unchecked. In other words, declinism often results in a healthy sceptical attitude towards the status quo, and that, paradoxically, results in a strong sense that things can be improved upon as they have declined from a better place and are therefore malleable.
In other words, the seemingly reactionary stance of declinism serves as one of the most important drivers of innovation and cultural change, particularly among conservatives. There is no other country in which conservatives are shedding previous convictions, beliefs and attitudes at a similar breathtaking pace as US conservatives just to replace them with another set of grievances.
Leaving fascist and organized white supremacism aside, for the average person declinism is not a reactionary stance pointing to a concrete period, or really anything specific in the past, and is rather the biased view of the messy present as a situation worse than the past as a foregone conclusion. While we might ask ourselves what the standard is against which the present is supposed to look like a disaster in the making, that is actually not necessary as the illusion is maintained via the cognitive bias of declinism and by confirmation bias fed by the perennial shitstorm of news and whatnot from traditional and increasingly important social media.
Declinism is thus an emotional phenomenon, a feeling of things getting worse and worse, a feeling of doom regarding the state of society etc.
Declinism, being void of any concrete content, is extraordinary flexible by being confirmed by virtually anything negative thrown at it, making it the perfect receptacle for any grievance that might arise. This has been the main electoral strategy of the GOP, allowing them to create collective grievances in order to pursue various culture war and other issues while pursuing political ends that often are inconsistent with the interests of their constituency.
D T understood this perfectly even back in the nineties when he said that if he ever ran for office he would run as a Republican because Republicans would believe anything. And he is right, declinism means to leave one's brains at the door, it is a willingness to believe what feels right and that is what a con man is looking for; because a con is fundamentally an operation that aims at manipulating how a mark feels about something or other. Thus, the GOP electorate looked like one fat mark to him given its long history of unquestioned declinism.
Make America Great Again is nothing more than an overt appeal at declinism and as a political movement it is extraordinarily empty of any concrete goals beyond elcting the candidate. Thankfully, the GOP confirmed that this is the case by not even issuing a platform for the 2020 campaign, making this uncontroversial.
MAGA successfully addressed the psychological needs of people suffering from declinism by promising a better future and by allowing the marks to collectively enjoy their violent fantasies without reproach. In other words, the con succeeded by making the marks feel better and by making them feel even better when they send money in.
Declinism is the original sin an indivdual commits before going down the rabbit hole of emotional reasoning, that is making feeling good about something or bad about something the truth criterion.
Accepting declinism as the emotional lens through which the world is to be seen and working hard on confirmation bias explains the vortex of lunacy in which a large number of Americans can be found today and whose heads can be filled with the grievance du jour by a skilled operator.
Due to the emotional nature of the underpinnings of their beliefs, victims of the con identify strongly with their beliefs and are very likely to react in a hostile or violent way to any challenges - they got a lot to lose, and not just psychologically but also in terms of peer acceptance.
I hope I made it clear that the con can only work as long as the referenced past stays as untethered from past reality as posssible to allow space for manufactured and actual grievances; and the same is true for the future which, under the terms of the con, is saved by intervention in the insufferable present which would otherwise turn into an even more insufferable future without vigorous, and if necessary, violent and destructive intervention.
I also hope that it is clear why there is such a visceral response to attempts to correct the narrative of American history - it challenges declinism and therefore the very base of GOP/MAGA politics. As it happens, that is also why the historical narrative as it is taught in schools etc must remain a prime target in combating the threat emanating from delusional declinism.
The dynamic between a not well defined past that is referenced to demonstrate and justify intervention in the present to create a better future, despite the perceived trend towards decline immanent to the world, is not characteristic for a reactionary movement, notwithstanding that it calls itself MAGA.
What it is typical for, however, is the secular salvation cult found for example in communist ideology. When dealing with right wing nonsense and the propensity of right wingers to projection, it is often instructive to look at their most vicious attacks, as it often the case that one finds the attackers being involved in themselves.
It is no different here; the MAGA cult is fundamentally a utopian salvation cult with a propensity for violence and a belief that seizing power is justified and can bring salvation, very similar to the marxist revolutionary cult.
If you haven´t guessed it yet, any communist worth his or her salt would be within the MAGA cult already, patiently waiting for the revolutionary moment to arrive to seize power from within the movement, because that is how they tick. My advice to the MAGA crowd is to look over their shoulder and not to talk too much about your guns, you know what I mean.
So here you have it, a violent utopian cult under a leader (who is not a conservative BTW) that maintains its cohesion by careful nurturing of two cognitive biases, ie declinism and confirmation bias, and by careful avoidance of placing any demands on its members that could make them uncomfortable.
Add to this the immediate abandonment of even the pretense of fiscal responsibility after the 2016 election (the infrastructure bill was only not passed under Trump because of incapability of the GOP to come up with complex legislation and because of immaturity on the part of the leader), a leader who insists seeing his name on government handout checks, and the discovery of the working class voter as worthy of their attention, and you have a significant turn to the left in the GOP.
Here is also where one can see the predicament the GOP finds itself. The impression one might get from seeing GOP politicians groveling to their vindictive leader is that they are doing this to maintain the grip on their positions, but that is only partially true. D T took their long running racket and ruined it for them. Most of the grassroots money is now going to him for that reason, and there was never a plan B.
As bad as all this sounds, it is even worse considering that victims of the con are now dying en masse from a preventable disease as antivaxxerism has become one major factor in showing allegiance to the cult.
Their cognitive bias of declinism is now killing them by the hundreds of thousands with no clear end in sight.
Is there a way to address this at the root? I really do not know for sure, but I know one thing: when I bring this up, people are surprised and many have never heard about it.
It appears that declinism is so baked into and accepted in US society, that it is not even perceived by most as the source of the most dangerous terrorist threats at this time and that it is responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths already. All promoted by actors expecting to benefit from the situation in one way or another.
If I have only convinced one person that declinism is not benign but can lead to loss of life, limb, sanity and economic devastation, and that it warrants attention, I´d consider it worthwhile having posted this.
more about declinism here:
https://thedecisionlab.com/biases/declinism/
Again, you are making assumptions using my words so you can get on your soapbox.
I never meant that the past was better - simply pointing out the political landscape and trust/faith in our leaders has been eroding for decades - which I tied in to what Fauci said regarding masks in the first half of 2020. I even said there are pros and cons to this disintegration of public trust. You wanted to take this awareness that "things aren't like they used to be" and utilize the perceived negative sense of that, tie it to Trumpism, and then you were off to the races and I felt like I was the catalyst/target/representative-of-a-group-I-wasn't-even-aware-I-was-a-part-of. Persecution complex on my part? Perhaps! It was bizarre and icky to read your response(s) and see a fictitious extrapolation of my words tied up in the genesis of your monologues (because I felt like you were putting me in a box I've never put myself in). You can say whatever you like and postulate to your heart's content (much of which I would agree with or in the least find interesting), but please do not feel like I am a roadblock to your diction nor twist my words to suit your narrative.
Regarding a sense of humor and if things are better today: "Everything's amazing and no one is happy" - specifically the bit about wifi on airplanes
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdFB7q89_3U
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Anti-vaxers are nothing new. The cartoon in the link below is from smallpox days. So much has (not) changed in almost 100 years. I take it as people are people, and people don't really change; just the immediate circumstances surrounding them do.
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/1930s-cartoon-vaccine-warning/
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^^^
And people are just more aware of the actions of public people. JFK was a womanizer, but the press covered it up. Everyone knew about Clinton.
So the debate can/should become, how do we think of people in public office when their private lives show selfishness and dishonour. Can we trust them with our government? A lot of US voters said, sure, when they voted for Trump. Here in Ontario our Premier is useless in the pandemic, horrible for the environment, and wasting our tax dollars, and we have an election in the next 2 years. It will be interesting to see how that turns out.
Re the anti-vaxxers for smallpox cartoon, that is priceless.
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Let´s just examine the idea that things were better in the past. Just ask whenever that comes up to pinpoint the time when things were still ok, or at least substantially better. Or ask to pinpoint a few political leaders in the past that deserve admiration beyond what is typical today. Then look at the answers you get - if any. (Do not do this if you do not have a sense of humor)
So, while the idea that things were better in the past superficially appears to be a reactionary political stance pressing for a return to a mythical past, the vast majority of people accepting the idea are unable to articulate any coherent opinion to which point in the past we are supposed to turn for edification.
So what could it be then if not a reactionary political stance?
I think we first have to look at the cognitive bias that leads us to to see the past in a more favorable light than it actually deserves. Of course, the flip side of this bias is that the present looks unfavorable when compared with the biased view of the past, thus causing a perception of decline in societal mores etc. over time.
And here we meet a quintessentially American affliction: widespread declinism.
In its positive incarnation, declinism forces a continual reevaluation and questioning of the state of affairs, lest the feared decline goes unchecked. In other words, declinism often results in a healthy sceptical attitude towards the status quo, and that, paradoxically, results in a strong sense that things can be improved upon as they have declined from a better place and are therefore malleable.
In other words, the seemingly reactionary stance of declinism serves as one of the most important drivers of innovation and cultural change, particularly among conservatives. There is no other country in which conservatives are shedding previous convictions, beliefs and attitudes at a similar breathtaking pace as US conservatives just to replace them with another set of grievances.
Leaving fascist and organized white supremacism aside, for the average person declinism is not a reactionary stance pointing to a concrete period, or really anything specific in the past, and is rather the biased view of the messy present as a situation worse than the past as a foregone conclusion. While we might ask ourselves what the standard is against which the present is supposed to look like a disaster in the making, that is actually not necessary as the illusion is maintained via the cognitive bias of declinism and by confirmation bias fed by the perennial shitstorm of news and whatnot from traditional and increasingly important social media.
Declinism is thus an emotional phenomenon, a feeling of things getting worse and worse, a feeling of doom regarding the state of society etc.
Declinism, being void of any concrete content, is extraordinary flexible by being confirmed by virtually anything negative thrown at it, making it the perfect receptacle for any grievance that might arise. This has been the main electoral strategy of the GOP, allowing them to create collective grievances in order to pursue various culture war and other issues while pursuing political ends that often are inconsistent with the interests of their constituency.
D T understood this perfectly even back in the nineties when he said that if he ever ran for office he would run as a Republican because Republicans would believe anything. And he is right, declinism means to leave one's brains at the door, it is a willingness to believe what feels right and that is what a con man is looking for; because a con is fundamentally an operation that aims at manipulating how a mark feels about something or other. Thus, the GOP electorate looked like one fat mark to him given its long history of unquestioned declinism.
Make America Great Again is nothing more than an overt appeal at declinism and as a political movement it is extraordinarily empty of any concrete goals beyond elcting the candidate. Thankfully, the GOP confirmed that this is the case by not even issuing a platform for the 2020 campaign, making this uncontroversial.
MAGA successfully addressed the psychological needs of people suffering from declinism by promising a better future and by allowing the marks to collectively enjoy their violent fantasies without reproach. In other words, the con succeeded by making the marks feel better and by making them feel even better when they send money in.
Declinism is the original sin an indivdual commits before going down the rabbit hole of emotional reasoning, that is making feeling good about something or bad about something the truth criterion.
Accepting declinism as the emotional lens through which the world is to be seen and working hard on confirmation bias explains the vortex of lunacy in which a large number of Americans can be found today and whose heads can be filled with the grievance du jour by a skilled operator.
Due to the emotional nature of the underpinnings of their beliefs, victims of the con identify strongly with their beliefs and are very likely to react in a hostile or violent way to any challenges - they got a lot to lose, and not just psychologically but also in terms of peer acceptance.
I hope I made it clear that the con can only work as long as the referenced past stays as untethered from past reality as posssible to allow space for manufactured and actual grievances; and the same is true for the future which, under the terms of the con, is saved by intervention in the insufferable present which would otherwise turn into an even more insufferable future without vigorous, and if necessary, violent and destructive intervention.
I also hope that it is clear why there is such a visceral response to attempts to correct the narrative of American history - it challenges declinism and therefore the very base of GOP/MAGA politics. As it happens, that is also why the historical narrative as it is taught in schools etc must remain a prime target in combating the threat emanating from delusional declinism.
The dynamic between a not well defined past that is referenced to demonstrate and justify intervention in the present to create a better future, despite the perceived trend towards decline immanent to the world, is not characteristic for a reactionary movement, notwithstanding that it calls itself MAGA.
What it is typical for, however, is the secular salvation cult found for example in communist ideology. When dealing with right wing nonsense and the propensity of right wingers to projection, it is often instructive to look at their most vicious attacks, as it often the case that one finds the attackers being involved in themselves.
It is no different here; the MAGA cult is fundamentally a utopian salvation cult with a propensity for violence and a belief that seizing power is justified and can bring salvation, very similar to the marxist revolutionary cult.
If you haven´t guessed it yet, any communist worth his or her salt would be within the MAGA cult already, patiently waiting for the revolutionary moment to arrive to seize power from within the movement, because that is how they tick. My advice to the MAGA crowd is to look over their shoulder and not to talk too much about your guns, you know what I mean.
So here you have it, a violent utopian cult under a leader (who is not a conservative BTW) that maintains its cohesion by careful nurturing of two cognitive biases, ie declinism and confirmation bias, and by careful avoidance of placing any demands on its members that could make them uncomfortable.
Add to this the immediate abandonment of even the pretense of fiscal responsibility after the 2016 election (the infrastructure bill was only not passed under Trump because of incapability of the GOP to come up with complex legislation and because of immaturity on the part of the leader), a leader who insists seeing his name on government handout checks, and the discovery of the working class voter as worthy of their attention, and you have a significant turn to the left in the GOP.
Here is also where one can see the predicament the GOP finds itself. The impression one might get from seeing GOP politicians groveling to their vindictive leader is that they are doing this to maintain the grip on their positions, but that is only partially true. D T took their long running racket and ruined it for them. Most of the grassroots money is now going to him for that reason, and there was never a plan B.
As bad as all this sounds, it is even worse considering that victims of the con are now dying en masse from a preventable disease as antivaxxerism has become one major factor in showing allegiance to the cult.
Their cognitive bias of declinism is now killing them by the hundreds of thousands with no clear end in sight.
Is there a way to address this at the root? I really do not know for sure, but I know one thing: when I bring this up, people are surprised and many have never heard about it.
It appears that declinism is so baked into and accepted in US society, that it is not even perceived by most as the source of the most dangerous terrorist threats at this time and that it is responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths already. All promoted by actors expecting to benefit from the situation in one way or another.
If I have only convinced one person that declinism is not benign but can lead to loss of life, limb, sanity and economic devastation, and that it warrants attention, I´d consider it worthwhile having posted this.
more about declinism here:
https://thedecisionlab.com/biases/declinism/
This was a great read that made me really think about the self-defeating nature of declinism. Thanks for that.
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Again, you are making assumptions using my words so you can get on your soapbox.
I never meant that the past was better - simply pointing out the political landscape and trust/faith in our leaders has been eroding for decades - which I tied in to what Fauci said regarding masks in the first half of 2020. I even said there are pros and cons to this disintegration of public trust. You wanted to take this awareness that "things aren't like they used to be" and utilize the perceived negative sense of that, tie it to Trumpism, and then you were off to the races and I felt like I was the catalyst/target/representative-of-a-group-I-wasn't-even-aware-I-was-a-part-of. Persecution complex on my part? Perhaps! It was bizarre and icky to read your response(s) and see a fictitious extrapolation of my words tied up in the genesis of your monologues (because I felt like you were putting me in a box I've never put myself in). You can say whatever you like and postulate to your heart's content (much of which I would agree with or in the least find interesting), but please do not feel like I am a roadblock to your diction nor twist my words to suit your narrative.
Regarding a sense of humor and if things are better today: "Everything's amazing and no one is happy" - specifically the bit about wifi on airplanes
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdFB7q89_3U
@PeteD01 One thing that your thesis leaves out is that things ARE worse for a particular group - white, xenophobic Evangelicals/Fundamentalists. As Rusted Rose pointed out, there are segments of society for whom things are indeed much better and for whom a peek into the past would indeed almost always yield a better view of the present.
While those segments have gained, the God-fearing, end-times, xenophilic whites absolutely do yearn for earlier days when they were more free to publicly practice exercise their views. I went to college with a stupidly high number of these types, and I can say with a reasonable amount of confidence that they provide much of the momentum for Declinism among the boarder conservative movement. Without them (again, those who want a return to segregation and fundamentalist Christian-centric schooling), the snowball of Declinism just doesn't have the momentum.
@simonsez - to Pete's point, and (at my own peril) without sources to hand you, I'd venture to say that the leadership of the present is no less trustworthy than leadership of the past. Or, in other terms, that the rapid improvement of access to information for the general public has simply exposed a truth that's always been present - those in power are far less trustworthy than they would like to present themselves as. Ironically, it's the access to information that's eroded our trust and not leaders themselves. It was going to happen regardless of which political party did what and when - people are people at the end of the day and we all have our biases and heuristics that lead us to be less than stellar examples of trustworthiness. Think about how much trust was placed in the hands of priest, or a boy scout leader, or a corporate executive before information about those individuals was publicly accessible...
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- to Pete's point, and (at my own peril) without sources to hand you, I'd venture to say that the leadership of the present is no less trustworthy than leadership of the past. Or, in other terms, that the rapid improvement of access to information for the general public has simply exposed a truth that's always been present - those in power are far less trustworthy than they would like to present themselves as. Ironically, it's the access to information that's eroded our trust and not leaders themselves. It was going to happen regardless of which political party did what and when - people are people at the end of the day and we all have our biases and heuristics that lead us to be less than stellar examples of trustworthiness. Think about how much trust was placed in the hands of priest, or a boy scout leader, or a corporate executive before information about those individuals was publicly accessible...
Well said!
I only wish that same access to information was better informing people of their own false beliefs. My cousin posted something on FB that essentially said "They didn't make people get smallpox vaccination!" A few seconds of googling, and I found that, of course, "they" did, and the SCOTUS ruled in favor of it.
Also, @PeteD01, thanks for the info on declinism. I'm going to explore that further.
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The problem is that debunking is pointless, and may even be counter-productive (https://dornsife.usc.edu/news/stories/3227/media-mythbusting-can-make-false-beliefs-stronger/).
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The problem is that debunking is pointless, and may even be counter-productive (https://dornsife.usc.edu/news/stories/3227/media-mythbusting-can-make-false-beliefs-stronger/).
Something that could not be shown in other studies and anyway if it happens does only happen to a certain extent. After that people do get convinced.
Of course you always have some that just wont go of their believes.
Anyway, the method to convince is in the ABA.
The sky is blue. <- truth
Some claim that the sky is black. <- wrong
But science has shown that through the prism effect the sky is blue. <- truth, with different wording, explanation, whatever
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The problem is that debunking is pointless, and may even be counter-productive (https://dornsife.usc.edu/news/stories/3227/media-mythbusting-can-make-false-beliefs-stronger/).
Something that could not be shown in other studies and anyway if it happens does only happen to a certain extent. After that people do get convinced.
Of course you always have some that just wont go of their believes.
Anyway, the method to convince is in the ABA.
The sky is blue. <- truth
Some claim that the sky is black. <- wrong
But science has shown that through the prism effect the sky is blue. <- truth, with different wording, explanation, whatever
But those scientists have an agenda. They get funding to say that the sky is blue.
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The problem is that debunking is pointless, and may even be counter-productive (https://dornsife.usc.edu/news/stories/3227/media-mythbusting-can-make-false-beliefs-stronger/).
Something that could not be shown in other studies and anyway if it happens does only happen to a certain extent. After that people do get convinced.
Of course you always have some that just wont go of their believes.
Anyway, the method to convince is in the ABA.
The sky is blue. <- truth
Some claim that the sky is black. <- wrong
But science has shown that through the prism effect the sky is blue. <- truth, with different wording, explanation, whatever
Have you had the experience in person of this formula changing somebody's mind on an important public health topic?
-
The problem is that debunking is pointless, and may even be counter-productive (https://dornsife.usc.edu/news/stories/3227/media-mythbusting-can-make-false-beliefs-stronger/).
Something that could not be shown in other studies and anyway if it happens does only happen to a certain extent. After that people do get convinced.
Of course you always have some that just wont go of their believes.
Anyway, the method to convince is in the ABA.
The sky is blue. <- truth
Some claim that the sky is black. <- wrong
But science has shown that through the prism effect the sky is blue. <- truth, with different wording, explanation, whatever
But those scientists have an agenda. They get funding to say that the sky is blue.
Story of my life.
I, obviously, am I a scientist. I do not voluntarily offer my opinion on scientific matters but it's requested anyway.
"Chemistk, you're a scientist - tell me what you think about x, y, and/or z".
Well, based on <facts>, <evidence>, and/or <reasons>, x,y, or z is <true> or <false> (depending on the thing being discussed).
"But chemistk, how can you know for sure - that's not your area of expertise"
Well, I tend to agree with experts in their field so long as the science is sound and the findings are credible.
"But chemistk, isn't it true that scientists lie, embellish, or obfuscate data and conclusions to reach a politically salient response?"*
Yes, It's true that scientific data and interpretations can be manipulated, but this is far less common than you'd be led to believe and the media often plays a major role in this.
"But chemistk, here's a 'scientific' article refuting those claims and instead claiming <opposite of x, y, or z>"
[Reviews article] This probably isn't true, because of reason a, b, or c.
"But chemistk, how can you be so sure? By my own research, the findings look sound, and it <suspiciously confirms exactly the line of thought intended>"
We can never be absolutely sure, but based on my interpretation, it's much more likely that x, y, or z is true and not the opposite like you've found. Unfortunately science isn't an exact process
and natural variation, methodological issues, or extrapolations and interpretations bring a level of uncertainty to just about everything.
"So you're saying that <findings I want to believe> could be true"
Technically yes, but realistically no.
'We're just going to have to agree to disagree"
(Why did you even ask me?!?)
*Usually not articulated as eloquently.
-
The problem is that debunking is pointless, and may even be counter-productive (https://dornsife.usc.edu/news/stories/3227/media-mythbusting-can-make-false-beliefs-stronger/).
Something that could not be shown in other studies and anyway if it happens does only happen to a certain extent. After that people do get convinced.
Of course you always have some that just wont go of their believes.
Anyway, the method to convince is in the ABA.
The sky is blue. <- truth
Some claim that the sky is black. <- wrong
But science has shown that through the prism effect the sky is blue. <- truth, with different wording, explanation, whatever
Have you had the experience in person of this formula changing somebody's mind on an important public health topic?
In my personal life I'm running about a 30-40% hit rate with that approach. The problem with it is that it requires a shared agreement on exactly what reality is. A great many people are not willing to meet you that far.
-
The problem is that debunking is pointless, and may even be counter-productive (https://dornsife.usc.edu/news/stories/3227/media-mythbusting-can-make-false-beliefs-stronger/).
Something that could not be shown in other studies and anyway if it happens does only happen to a certain extent. After that people do get convinced.
Of course you always have some that just wont go of their believes.
Anyway, the method to convince is in the ABA.
The sky is blue. <- truth
Some claim that the sky is black. <- wrong
But science has shown that through the prism effect the sky is blue. <- truth, with different wording, explanation, whatever
But those scientists have an agenda. They get funding to say that the sky is blue.
Story of my life.
I, obviously, am I a scientist. I do not voluntarily offer my opinion on scientific matters but it's requested anyway.
"Chemistk, you're a scientist - tell me what you think about x, y, and/or z".
Well, based on <facts>, <evidence>, and/or <reasons>, x,y, or z is <true> or <false> (depending on the thing being discussed).
"But chemistk, how can you know for sure - that's not your area of expertise"
Well, I tend to agree with experts in their field so long as the science is sound and the findings are credible.
"But chemistk, isn't it true that scientists lie, embellish, or obfuscate data and conclusions to reach a politically salient response?"*
Yes, It's true that scientific data and interpretations can be manipulated, but this is far less common than you'd be led to believe and the media often plays a major role in this.
"But chemistk, here's a 'scientific' article refuting those claims and instead claiming <opposite of x, y, or z>"
[Reviews article] This probably isn't true, because of reason a, b, or c.
"But chemistk, how can you be so sure? By my own research, the findings look sound, and it <suspiciously confirms exactly the line of thought intended>"
We can never be absolutely sure, but based on my interpretation, it's much more likely that x, y, or z is true and not the opposite like you've found. Unfortunately science isn't an exact process
and natural variation, methodological issues, or extrapolations and interpretations bring a level of uncertainty to just about everything.
"So you're saying that <findings I want to believe> could be true"
Technically yes, but realistically no.
'We're just going to have to agree to disagree"
(Why did you even ask me?!?)
*Usually not articulated as eloquently.
Can confirm.
I have a PhD in immunology and years of experience in cancer research. I've learned not to bother with further discussions on health-related topics once the discussion gets to "well, isn't it true that all cancers could be cured tomorrow but there's just too much money to be made in research?" or "I don't believe in exposing my kids to chemicals like vaccines. I don't know why there isn't more research on these essential oils I bought at a Young Living party."
-
The problem is that debunking is pointless, and may even be counter-productive (https://dornsife.usc.edu/news/stories/3227/media-mythbusting-can-make-false-beliefs-stronger/).
Something that could not be shown in other studies and anyway if it happens does only happen to a certain extent. After that people do get convinced.
Of course you always have some that just wont go of their believes.
Anyway, the method to convince is in the ABA.
The sky is blue. <- truth
Some claim that the sky is black. <- wrong
But science has shown that through the prism effect the sky is blue. <- truth, with different wording, explanation, whatever
But those scientists have an agenda. They get funding to say that the sky is blue.
Story of my life.
I, obviously, am I a scientist. I do not voluntarily offer my opinion on scientific matters but it's requested anyway.
"Chemistk, you're a scientist - tell me what you think about x, y, and/or z".
Well, based on <facts>, <evidence>, and/or <reasons>, x,y, or z is <true> or <false> (depending on the thing being discussed).
"But chemistk, how can you know for sure - that's not your area of expertise"
Well, I tend to agree with experts in their field so long as the science is sound and the findings are credible.
"But chemistk, isn't it true that scientists lie, embellish, or obfuscate data and conclusions to reach a politically salient response?"*
Yes, It's true that scientific data and interpretations can be manipulated, but this is far less common than you'd be led to believe and the media often plays a major role in this.
"But chemistk, here's a 'scientific' article refuting those claims and instead claiming <opposite of x, y, or z>"
[Reviews article] This probably isn't true, because of reason a, b, or c.
"But chemistk, how can you be so sure? By my own research, the findings look sound, and it <suspiciously confirms exactly the line of thought intended>"
We can never be absolutely sure, but based on my interpretation, it's much more likely that x, y, or z is true and not the opposite like you've found. Unfortunately science isn't an exact process
and natural variation, methodological issues, or extrapolations and interpretations bring a level of uncertainty to just about everything.
"So you're saying that <findings I want to believe> could be true"
Technically yes, but realistically no.
'We're just going to have to agree to disagree"
(Why did you even ask me?!?)
*Usually not articulated as eloquently.
This sounds a lot like my very frequent interactions with various people.
One core problem is that the lexicon scientists use when speaking to one another is different than the general public uses. One example is the word "significant", which to the general public typically means "large" or "substantial" but to us scientists merely means it is statistically different from something else (and in fact that difference can be very small and biologically irrelevant).
We also talk differently when it comes to whether something is possible but not probable. Non-scientists want to hear what will happen or won't happen, and typically ignore unlikely outcomes
-
...
@PeteD01 One thing that your thesis leaves out is that things ARE worse for a particular group - white, xenophobic Evangelicals/Fundamentalists. As Rusted Rose pointed out, there are segments of society for whom things are indeed much better and for whom a peek into the past would indeed almost always yield a better view of the present.
...
Yes, things are worse for that segment of the extreme right, but in my book that would be an improvement and not a deterioration of conditions.
The reverse is true for others, whose improved fortunes are seen as a deterioration of conditions by many on the right.
It just shows once more that the sentiment of societal decline in some ill-defined general way has no explanatory power whatsoever and really represents nothing but a cognitive bias once perspective is introduced into the analysis.
So I do not think that my thesis does not include the groups disfavored during recent history but rather includes their experience as my thesis also includes the seeking of confirmation of the sentiment of declinism. The extreme religious right then generalizes their experience and senses a general deterioration of societal mores - which, from their perspective, does hold some truth thus confirming their declinist stance.
Declinism is like a distorted lens that can´t be taken off but can be dealt with with a corrective lens.
Cognitive biases are like that, they do not go away once they are pointed out, but can be dealt with on that rational level.
-
Anyway, the method to convince is in the ABA.
The sky is blue. <- truth
Some claim that the sky is black. <- wrong
But science has shown that through the prism effect the sky is blue. <- truth, with different wording, explanation, whatever
It may be better than straight debunking, but it still appeals to higher-order thinking. In the meantime, the part of our brain responsible for survival feels that letting go of a belief will make your tribe to not like you. And if they don't like you, you'll be left alone to face all the dangers of African savanna, and probably be eaten by a lion. And so the lizard part of our brain furiously sends signals to higher-order thinking part of the brain, demanding that it sticks to the belief system of the tribe, because it is a matter of life and death (as the lizard brain sees it).
And so we end up rejecting something that can save us because of a survival instinct that developed long before the dawn of civilization.
-
...
@PeteD01 One thing that your thesis leaves out is that things ARE worse for a particular group - white, xenophobic Evangelicals/Fundamentalists. As Rusted Rose pointed out, there are segments of society for whom things are indeed much better and for whom a peek into the past would indeed almost always yield a better view of the present.
...
Yes, things are worse for that segment of the extreme right, but in my book that would be an improvement and not a deterioration of conditions.
The reverse is true for others, whose improved fortunes are seen as a deterioration of conditions by many on the right.
It just shows once more that the sentiment of societal decline in some ill-defined general way has no explanatory power whatsoever and really represents nothing but a cognitive bias once perspective is introduced into the analysis.
So I do not think that my thesis does not include the groups disfavored during recent history but rather includes their experience as my thesis also includes the seeking of confirmation of the sentiment of declinism. The extreme religious right then generalizes their experience and senses a general deterioration of societal mores - which, from their perspective, does hold some truth thus confirming their declinist stance.
Declinism is like a distorted lens that can´t be taken off but can be dealt with with a corrective lens.
Cognitive biases are like that, they do not go away once they are pointed out, but can be dealt with on that rational level.
I agree, with the major caveat being that the extreme white religious right has access to some of the biggest megaphones that other groups for whom things got worse historically and/or for whom things are currently better just don't. It only takes a few of those characters who have indeed technically seen a decline in their relative social standing to make such a dust storm around themselves that their plight seems much worse than it actually is.
Corrective lenses won't go very far when one small group keeps intentionally knocking them away to distort the truth. And so long as that keeps happening, there will be others who identify on some level with the crybabies who believe that declinism is indeed real and that they are really experiencing societal injustices.
I have family who, in an abstract sense, could care less about gay marriage (among many other issues). But they (white, straight) feel as though opportunities have actively been taken away from them and their economic and social standing would have been better, even if marginally, had gay marriage not been widely accepted. There's no logic to their thesis but they have internalized it as a factual representation of the decline of our country, thus turning the perception that is declinism into a verifiable reality for themselves and for their social circle who all conveniently agree with them.
No amount of logic can sway them to see that something that's good for someone else, which they don't agree with, can be good for other people without marginalizing or disenfranchising themselves. All because there are a few fringe groups who are so violently repulsed by gay marriage that their idealized view of a Christian-state has indeed been damaged such social tolerance.
Again, I completely agree with you on the subject but want to point out that declinism can turn from a self-correctible cognitive bias into a real affliction that people really do take with them to the grave. I don't know what the answer is other than hoping that the groups that can precipitate a real affliction among others fade slowly over time. History does seem to indicate otherwise.
-
In short -> Propaganda works!!! Especially if it appeals to your caveman/reptile brainstem!
-
I have family who, in an abstract sense, could care less about gay marriage (among many other issues). But they (white, straight) feel as though opportunities have actively been taken away from them and their economic and social standing would have been better, even if marginally, had gay marriage not been widely accepted. There's no logic to their thesis but they have internalized it as a factual representation of the decline of our country, thus turning the perception that is declinism into a verifiable reality for themselves and for their social circle who all conveniently agree with them.
Gay people want more
https://youtu.be/NzDhm808oU4?t=165
-
The problem is that debunking is pointless, and may even be counter-productive (https://dornsife.usc.edu/news/stories/3227/media-mythbusting-can-make-false-beliefs-stronger/).
Something that could not be shown in other studies and anyway if it happens does only happen to a certain extent. After that people do get convinced.
Of course you always have some that just wont go of their believes.
Anyway, the method to convince is in the ABA.
The sky is blue. <- truth
Some claim that the sky is black. <- wrong
But science has shown that through the prism effect the sky is blue. <- truth, with different wording, explanation, whatever
I was thinking with this example. Someone could just point to the sky when it's red at sunset and make your blanket truth statement look wrong.
So now even though you were only describing a general truth, it was really only 90% true. But stating it as though it was 100% leaves that opening for people to doubt your authority on the matter. Science is full of caveats and scientists work so much with caveats that they tend to speak as though they don't exist because otherwise their language would forever be bogged down in stating all of the exceptions, all of the time.
This is partially due to a lack of education, but even educated people can still fall for these kinds of tricks. Once your brain starts going down the path of conspiracies, further education isn't always going to bring you back.
-
The problem is that debunking is pointless, and may even be counter-productive (https://dornsife.usc.edu/news/stories/3227/media-mythbusting-can-make-false-beliefs-stronger/).
Something that could not be shown in other studies and anyway if it happens does only happen to a certain extent. After that people do get convinced.
Of course you always have some that just wont go of their believes.
Anyway, the method to convince is in the ABA.
The sky is blue. <- truth
Some claim that the sky is black. <- wrong
But science has shown that through the prism effect the sky is blue. <- truth, with different wording, explanation, whatever
But those scientists have an agenda. They get funding to say that the sky is blue.
Story of my life.
I, obviously, am I a scientist. I do not voluntarily offer my opinion on scientific matters but it's requested anyway.
"Chemistk, you're a scientist - tell me what you think about x, y, and/or z".
Well, based on <facts>, <evidence>, and/or <reasons>, x,y, or z is <true> or <false> (depending on the thing being discussed).
"But chemistk, how can you know for sure - that's not your area of expertise"
Well, I tend to agree with experts in their field so long as the science is sound and the findings are credible.
"But chemistk, isn't it true that scientists lie, embellish, or obfuscate data and conclusions to reach a politically salient response?"*
Yes, It's true that scientific data and interpretations can be manipulated, but this is far less common than you'd be led to believe and the media often plays a major role in this.
"But chemistk, here's a 'scientific' article refuting those claims and instead claiming <opposite of x, y, or z>"
[Reviews article] This probably isn't true, because of reason a, b, or c.
"But chemistk, how can you be so sure? By my own research, the findings look sound, and it <suspiciously confirms exactly the line of thought intended>"
We can never be absolutely sure, but based on my interpretation, it's much more likely that x, y, or z is true and not the opposite like you've found. Unfortunately science isn't an exact process
and natural variation, methodological issues, or extrapolations and interpretations bring a level of uncertainty to just about everything.
"So you're saying that <findings I want to believe> could be true"
Technically yes, but realistically no.
'We're just going to have to agree to disagree"
(Why did you even ask me?!?)
*Usually not articulated as eloquently.
This sounds a lot like my very frequent interactions with various people.
One core problem is that the lexicon scientists use when speaking to one another is different than the general public uses. One example is the word "significant", which to the general public typically means "large" or "substantial" but to us scientists merely means it is statistically different from something else (and in fact that difference can be very small and biologically irrelevant).
We also talk differently when it comes to whether something is possible but not probable. Non-scientists want to hear what will happen or won't happen, and typically ignore unlikely outcomes
Oh so much this. Add "population" to the word list.
My biology friends and I basically find we don't talk about issues like climate change outside our group, because it is wearying and useless. And the mother of a girl on DD's soccer team who thought vaccines were toxic because of mercury - her daughter was in school so had to have been vaccinated, but yikes. Oh, yes, she was also into essential oils. And people who think all plant oils are beneficial, when lemon oil is used in cleaning products, and lots of really nasty chemicals are produced by plants? Any botanist or microbiologist or ecologist can point out that bacteria invented chemical warfare and fungi and plants and animals all followed their example.
Sorry, that got a bit OT.
-
...
Again, I completely agree with you on the subject but want to point out that declinism can turn from a self-correctible cognitive bias into a real affliction that people really do take with them to the grave. I don't know what the answer is other than hoping that the groups that can precipitate a real affliction among others fade slowly over time. History does seem to indicate otherwise.
I think you misunderstood what I am saying or I was not clear enough. A cognitive bias is not something that can be gotten rid of nor is it self-correcting and is better thought of as being hardwired in. We all have it, not declinism but a sense of things being on a downward trajectory when observing events in the present.
When this cognitive bias (rosy colored view of the past) becomes declinism (a sentiment of general decline of society), you have the typical Republican. The extremists have nothing to do with imparting declinism onto unwitting conservatives; it is a defining feature of the conservative mind (as well as of a good part of the Democrat constituency that for some reason is considered to be on the left) and not always a bad thing.
Where it gets bad is when the general sentiment of decline, that has no basis in fact, shared by a majority of conservatives (just think of conservative women), is used to fabricate a sense of commonality in experience with actual experiences suffered by right wing extremists. That´s when you find seemingly normal people right next to terrorist dressed for war engaging in terrorist activities.
Of course, any commonality beyond a sentiment of commonality in experience between these groups is having engaged together in said activities and facing the legal consequences together as well.
Currently, we are seeing efforts from the extreme right trying to reinforce the commonality of experience by clamoring for light sentences and accusations of inappropriate harshness in dealing with them. Of course, right wing extremists calling attention to themselves is not exactly soemthing that would help anyone who is trying to distance herself from the ideology that precipitated the crimes - but that is not the point - iy need sto be understood as a rallying cry directed at those who do not yet face legal problems but need a little booster for group cohesion.
So here you have it: a radical white christian nationalist movement with reactionary as well as utopian that has joined forces with a more moderate and diverse group of conservatives on the basis of the sentiment of declinism that creates the perception of common experience which overrides any differences in interests while committing, getting ready to commit, or at least reveling in fantasies of, violence.
As all this is based on a cognitive bias, reinforced by confirmation bias and maintained and further reinforced by endless repetition of the grievance du jour, held together by emotional reasoning, it is obvious that direct attacks on particular aspects of the belief system (that is rational arguments) are counterproductive as it necessarily involves further repetitions of trigger beliefs.
It really has to be emphasized that one cannot argue against a belief that has no factual basis when the belief in question did not come into being ground in reality and whose psychological function is group coherence, identity affirmation, the creation of a sense of direction of action and that functions strictly as a means for regulating ones emotional state. That many of the beliefs are absolute lunacy makes perfect sense in this view because the psychological function is served as well or better the farther the belief is from actual reality and therefore from fact based rational attack. Lunacy is a necessary feature, not a bug; and the ridiculousness of all does not indicate stupidity but the workings of a mind that has accepted emotional reasoning as a strategy for emotion regulation.
I cannot see any strategy being successful that does not include the creation of division between the reactionary right and the right that has been suckered into complicity. That would involve going as hard as possible against the former and leniency and support for the latter - and it emphatically does not involve talking them out of their dysfunctional beliefs as they cannot see the dysfunction until the de facto realization of that dysfunction which today typically is a sensation of drowning experienced in an ICU or a sensation of confinement in a federal prison etc.
The still developing catastrophe among the members of this group might provide an opening. Yes, this is very unfortunate that this opportunity arises because of the immensity of death and suffering that is creating serious needs far into the future. Yes, it really looks like bad form trying to benefit politically from the situation but as helping the afflicted lines up perfectly with the political interest, I see no ethical objection but possibly an esthetic one.
Practically speaking, rolling out Covid treatments, providing material support for victims, implementing measures to assure access to healthcare in the future and all this without moral judgment whatsoeveris the most likely successful strategy to bring people to the poiint at which they can begin to act in their own interest again.
-
The problem is that debunking is pointless, and may even be counter-productive (https://dornsife.usc.edu/news/stories/3227/media-mythbusting-can-make-false-beliefs-stronger/).
Something that could not be shown in other studies and anyway if it happens does only happen to a certain extent. After that people do get convinced.
Of course you always have some that just wont go of their believes.
Anyway, the method to convince is in the ABA.
The sky is blue. <- truth
Some claim that the sky is black. <- wrong
But science has shown that through the prism effect the sky is blue. <- truth, with different wording, explanation, whatever
But those scientists have an agenda. They get funding to say that the sky is blue.
Story of my life.
I, obviously, am I a scientist. I do not voluntarily offer my opinion on scientific matters but it's requested anyway.
"Chemistk, you're a scientist - tell me what you think about x, y, and/or z".
Well, based on <facts>, <evidence>, and/or <reasons>, x,y, or z is <true> or <false> (depending on the thing being discussed).
"But chemistk, how can you know for sure - that's not your area of expertise"
Well, I tend to agree with experts in their field so long as the science is sound and the findings are credible.
"But chemistk, isn't it true that scientists lie, embellish, or obfuscate data and conclusions to reach a politically salient response?"*
Yes, It's true that scientific data and interpretations can be manipulated, but this is far less common than you'd be led to believe and the media often plays a major role in this.
"But chemistk, here's a 'scientific' article refuting those claims and instead claiming <opposite of x, y, or z>"
[Reviews article] This probably isn't true, because of reason a, b, or c.
"But chemistk, how can you be so sure? By my own research, the findings look sound, and it <suspiciously confirms exactly the line of thought intended>"
We can never be absolutely sure, but based on my interpretation, it's much more likely that x, y, or z is true and not the opposite like you've found. Unfortunately science isn't an exact process
and natural variation, methodological issues, or extrapolations and interpretations bring a level of uncertainty to just about everything.
"So you're saying that <findings I want to believe> could be true"
Technically yes, but realistically no.
'We're just going to have to agree to disagree"
(Why did you even ask me?!?)
*Usually not articulated as eloquently.
Can confirm.
I have a PhD in immunology and years of experience in cancer research. I've learned not to bother with further discussions on health-related topics once the discussion gets to "well, isn't it true that all cancers could be cured tomorrow but there's just too much money to be made in research?" or "I don't believe in exposing my kids to chemicals like vaccines. I don't know why there isn't more research on these essential oils I bought at a Young Living party."
100% accurate. This is exactly why nearly all scientists I know agree that clear communication with laypersons about science is vital, and also absolutely DREAD trying to communicate with said laypersons. There's always a few scientists around who are great communicators, bless them. But not enough.
It's funny b/c I know a lot of people who work with and know a certain very high profile 'science communicator' with a specialty in climate change. Most of them honestly have a little professional contempt for her actual research skills (not that she's incompetent or dishonest, just that she doesn't do much research...b/c so much of her time is spent on media or as an invited speaker). But I always tell them, SO WHAT? Someone has to do that job, and that someone had better be really good at it, and that someone is either going to be a journalist or a scientist and I'm pretty sure you'd prefer that it be a scientist. And even if said scientist doesn't actually do much research of her own as her press often represents but mostly communicates others' research, as long as it is honestly, clearly, and well-communicated, then we should support and commend her!
There's a kind of unhelpful culture in the sciences that anything related to the job that isn't actual research is often viewed as a tiresome waste of time. I totally understand this attitude (I went into the sciences partly so I could be left alone and not talk to the public all the time), but I recognize it isn't a remotely helpful attitude. But it can be overwhelming to start a conversation with a layperson, and have to remind yourself that most people don't even understand the most basic precepts of the scientific method, or what it can and cannot be used for, or that it doesn't actually 'prove things true' and that is a robust feature rather than a bug or flaw, etc. It exhausts me and I don't want to even try. Particularly when I see it in this thread, regularly, among posters who otherwise seem reasonably well-educated.
-
Anyway, the method to convince is in the ABA.
The sky is blue. <- truth
Some claim that the sky is black. <- wrong
But science has shown that through the prism effect the sky is blue. <- truth, with different wording, explanation, whatever
It may be better than straight debunking, but it still appeals to higher-order thinking. In the meantime, the part of our brain responsible for survival feels that letting go of a belief will make your tribe to not like you. And if they don't like you, you'll be left alone to face all the dangers of African savanna, and probably be eaten by a lion. And so the lizard part of our brain furiously sends signals to higher-order thinking part of the brain, demanding that it sticks to the belief system of the tribe, because it is a matter of life and death (as the lizard brain sees it).
And so we end up rejecting something that can save us because of a survival instinct that developed long before the dawn of civilization.
This. Our reptile brains 'decide' and then our prefrontal cortex lawyers up to support that decision.
-
y'all need to check out this group in Reddit called Herman Cain Award. Created based on late GOP presidential candidate Herman Cain's death.
https://www.reddit.com/r/HermanCainAward/
Everyday whole lot of stories get posted about people who rail against masks and vaccines on social media overtime and finally end up in hospital or worse, dead.
I've been following this one. Not only is one of them (at least) local to me, the guy's widow is the nurse who gave me my initial shot this time last year.
-
...
Again, I completely agree with you on the subject but want to point out that declinism can turn from a self-correctible cognitive bias into a real affliction that people really do take with them to the grave. I don't know what the answer is other than hoping that the groups that can precipitate a real affliction among others fade slowly over time. History does seem to indicate otherwise.
I think you misunderstood what I am saying or I was not clear enough. A cognitive bias is not something that can be gotten rid of nor is it self-correcting and is better thought of as being hardwired in. We all have it, not declinism but a sense of things being on a downward trajectory when observing events in the present.
When this cognitive bias (rosy colored view of the past) becomes declinism (a sentiment of general decline of society), you have the typical Republican. The extremists have nothing to do with imparting declinism onto unwitting conservatives; it is a defining feature of the conservative mind (as well as of a good part of the Democrat constituency that for some reason is considered to be on the left) and not always a bad thing.
Where it gets bad is when the general sentiment of decline, that has no basis in fact, shared by a majority of conservatives (just think of conservative women), is used to fabricate a sense of commonality in experience with actual experiences suffered by right wing extremists. That´s when you find seemingly normal people right next to terrorist dressed for war engaging in terrorist activities.
Of course, any commonality beyond a sentiment of commonality in experience between these groups is having engaged together in said activities and facing the legal consequences together as well.
Currently, we are seeing efforts from the extreme right trying to reinforce the commonality of experience by clamoring for light sentences and accusations of inappropriate harshness in dealing with them. Of course, right wing extremists calling attention to themselves is not exactly soemthing that would help anyone who is trying to distance herself from the ideology that precipitated the crimes - but that is not the point - iy need sto be understood as a rallying cry directed at those who do not yet face legal problems but need a little booster for group cohesion.
So here you have it: a radical white christian nationalist movement with reactionary as well as utopian that has joined forces with a more moderate and diverse group of conservatives on the basis of the sentiment of declinism that creates the perception of common experience which overrides any differences in interests while committing, getting ready to commit, or at least reveling in fantasies of, violence.
As all this is based on a cognitive bias, reinforced by confirmation bias and maintained and further reinforced by endless repetition of the grievance du jour, held together by emotional reasoning, it is obvious that direct attacks on particular aspects of the belief system (that is rational arguments) are counterproductive as it necessarily involves further repetitions of trigger beliefs.
It really has to be emphasized that one cannot argue against a belief that has no factual basis when the belief in question did not come into being ground in reality and whose psychological function is group coherence, identity affirmation, the creation of a sense of direction of action and that functions strictly as a means for regulating ones emotional state. That many of the beliefs are absolute lunacy makes perfect sense in this view because the psychological function is served as well or better the farther the belief is from actual reality and therefore from fact based rational attack. Lunacy is a necessary feature, not a bug; and the ridiculousness of all does not indicate stupidity but the workings of a mind that has accepted emotional reasoning as a strategy for emotion regulation.
I cannot see any strategy being successful that does not include the creation of division between the reactionary right and the right that has been suckered into complicity. That would involve going as hard as possible against the former and leniency and support for the latter - and it emphatically does not involve talking them out of their dysfunctional beliefs as they cannot see the dysfunction until the de facto realization of that dysfunction which today typically is a sensation of drowning experienced in an ICU or a sensation of confinement in a federal prison etc.
The still developing catastrophe among the members of this group might provide an opening. Yes, this is very unfortunate that this opportunity arises because of the immensity of death and suffering that is creating serious needs far into the future. Yes, it really looks like bad form trying to benefit politically from the situation but as helping the afflicted lines up perfectly with the political interest, I see no ethical objection but possibly an esthetic one.
Practically speaking, rolling out Covid treatments, providing material support for victims, implementing measures to assure access to healthcare in the future and all this without moral judgment whatsoeveris the most likely successful strategy to bring people to the poiint at which they can begin to act in their own interest again.
In another life I would have been a dual-major psychologist & behavioral economist -> I very much enjoy the field behind cognitive biases and I hope (once I have more free time when the kids are older) to self educate beyond the most popular books and podcasts. I should have phrased it differently - I don't expect that anyone can reverse a their biases but I do think one of the highlights of enlightened modern rationality is to recognize that the biases exist, and to develop tools to short-circuit them when necessary.
My family who believes that gay marriage hurts their own socioeconomic standing is more than intelligent enough to figure out that they're just plain wrong. But they don't, for....reasons.
I absolutely, 1000% agree especially with the bolded. It's baffling that, once you eschew your ability to get around your own biases, you can find refuge amongst very toxic ideas. I can't bring up Jan. 6, or Kenosha, or Let's Go Brandon, or anything that's been politicized for fear that the knee-jerk response is going to be overwhelmingly defensive and negative.
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The problem is that debunking is pointless, and may even be counter-productive (https://dornsife.usc.edu/news/stories/3227/media-mythbusting-can-make-false-beliefs-stronger/).
Something that could not be shown in other studies and anyway if it happens does only happen to a certain extent. After that people do get convinced.
Of course you always have some that just wont go of their believes.
Anyway, the method to convince is in the ABA.
The sky is blue. <- truth
Some claim that the sky is black. <- wrong
But science has shown that through the prism effect the sky is blue. <- truth, with different wording, explanation, whatever
But those scientists have an agenda. They get funding to say that the sky is blue.
Story of my life.
I, obviously, am I a scientist. I do not voluntarily offer my opinion on scientific matters but it's requested anyway.
"Chemistk, you're a scientist - tell me what you think about x, y, and/or z".
Well, based on <facts>, <evidence>, and/or <reasons>, x,y, or z is <true> or <false> (depending on the thing being discussed).
"But chemistk, how can you know for sure - that's not your area of expertise"
Well, I tend to agree with experts in their field so long as the science is sound and the findings are credible.
"But chemistk, isn't it true that scientists lie, embellish, or obfuscate data and conclusions to reach a politically salient response?"*
Yes, It's true that scientific data and interpretations can be manipulated, but this is far less common than you'd be led to believe and the media often plays a major role in this.
"But chemistk, here's a 'scientific' article refuting those claims and instead claiming <opposite of x, y, or z>"
[Reviews article] This probably isn't true, because of reason a, b, or c.
"But chemistk, how can you be so sure? By my own research, the findings look sound, and it <suspiciously confirms exactly the line of thought intended>"
We can never be absolutely sure, but based on my interpretation, it's much more likely that x, y, or z is true and not the opposite like you've found. Unfortunately science isn't an exact process
and natural variation, methodological issues, or extrapolations and interpretations bring a level of uncertainty to just about everything.
"So you're saying that <findings I want to believe> could be true"
Technically yes, but realistically no.
'We're just going to have to agree to disagree"
(Why did you even ask me?!?)
*Usually not articulated as eloquently.
Can confirm.
I have a PhD in immunology and years of experience in cancer research. I've learned not to bother with further discussions on health-related topics once the discussion gets to "well, isn't it true that all cancers could be cured tomorrow but there's just too much money to be made in research?" or "I don't believe in exposing my kids to chemicals like vaccines. I don't know why there isn't more research on these essential oils I bought at a Young Living party."
100% accurate. This is exactly why nearly all scientists I know agree that clear communication with laypersons about science is vital, and also absolutely DREAD trying to communicate with said laypersons. There's always a few scientists around who are great communicators, bless them. But not enough.
It's funny b/c I know a lot of people who work with and know a certain very high profile 'science communicator' with a specialty in climate change. Most of them honestly have a little professional contempt for her actual research skills (not that she's incompetent or dishonest, just that she doesn't do much research...b/c so much of her time is spent on media or as an invited speaker). But I always tell them, SO WHAT? Someone has to do that job, and that someone had better be really good at it, and that someone is either going to be a journalist or a scientist and I'm pretty sure you'd prefer that it be a scientist. And even if said scientist doesn't actually do much research of her own as her press often represents but mostly communicates others' research, as long as it is honestly, clearly, and well-communicated, then we should support and commend her!
There's a kind of unhelpful culture in the sciences that anything related to the job that isn't actual research is often viewed as a tiresome waste of time. I totally understand this attitude (I went into the sciences partly so I could be left alone and not talk to the public all the time), but I recognize it isn't a remotely helpful attitude. But it can be overwhelming to start a conversation with a layperson, and have to remind yourself that most people don't even understand the most basic precepts of the scientific method, or what it can and cannot be used for, or that it doesn't actually 'prove things true' and that is a robust feature rather than a bug or flaw, etc. It exhausts me and I don't want to even try. Particularly when I see it in this thread, regularly, among posters who otherwise seem reasonably well-educated.
So much this. Look at all David Suzuki has done. I'm sure his research suffered too.
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There's a kind of unhelpful culture in the sciences that anything related to the job that isn't actual research is often viewed as a tiresome waste of time. I totally understand this attitude (I went into the sciences partly so I could be left alone and not talk to the public all the time), but I recognize it isn't a remotely helpful attitude. But it can be overwhelming to start a conversation with a layperson, and have to remind yourself that most people don't even understand the most basic precepts of the scientific method, or what it can and cannot be used for, or that it doesn't actually 'prove things true' and that is a robust feature rather than a bug or flaw, etc. It exhausts me and I don't want to even try. Particularly when I see it in this thread, regularly, among posters who otherwise seem reasonably well-educated.
I was warned against going in by an MIT professor; she said it required complete devotion, and knowing myself, I just can't do one thing only. I have scientists in the family and it would have suited the way I think but, well, that's not the only factor, as I noted. But OMG, the bolded, I feel your pain. The basic misunderstanding of this drives me up a wall!
Here and in other places where I've been discussing the situation, it seems the salient issue is that people are very much not trained to think properly. You and I know that the best methods are not at all about conformity but about the best explanation. Which gets updated if things are done right.
But now, when thinking skills have been attacked for decades, we are dealing with millions of people who really can't think themselves out of a WET* paper bag. And it affects all of us badly.
*emphasis because a lot of people leave this word out, gutting the point of the phrase.
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Am I going to have to go wet a paper bag and crawl inside to understand why it's relevant?
Why must the bag be wet to challenge someone!?
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Thoughts aren't all that effective at tearing paper, wet or dry! Prayers on the other hand...
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In another life I would have been a dual-major psychologist & behavioral economist -> I very much enjoy the field behind cognitive biases and I hope (once I have more free time when the kids are older) to self educate beyond the most popular books and podcasts. I should have phrased it differently - I don't expect that anyone can reverse a their biases but I do think one of the highlights of enlightened modern rationality is to recognize that the biases exist, and to develop tools to short-circuit them when necessary.
I sort of did the dual-major thing, getting a bachelor's in psych, doing graduate work in social psych, and getting a master's in business/economics. In other words, I studied human irrationality before I studied rational actor theory.
It seems that when money is at stake, people snap into rationality. Vendors are careful to procure supplies at profitable rates, workers carefully shop for the highest wages and figure out career pathways, traders make careful or hedged investments or else they get picked off by a brutal evolutionary process. A 1% increase in the price of a thing almost always has an effect on aggregate demand and sales. No process of tribalism, sloganeering, ideology, or psychological manipulation can be relied upon to cause the gasoline station to sell to you for $1 less a gallon, a jeweler to sell you gold for $500/oz, or the options market to sell you an opportunity for half-off.
Irrational economic decisions - if they exist - are usually confined to the consumption of products that are of too-low or too-high quality, or which are sold for too much money through retail techniques such as mall shops and car lots, or high-interest debt. To some extent, these economic mistakes can be chalked up to consumers lacking information, non-economic motives such as buying social status along with the product, risk aversion, or duopolistic pricing. Buyers of new SUVs are making a bad personal finance choice, but maybe they're lacking info about how to buy a used car, making a good social status choice, and getting relief from their depression for a month.
However, when these same rational-capable people exit the realm of markets (individualism) and start providing answers to questions about how the government could be better (collectivism) they suddenly drop all sense of rationality, affiliate with whatever tribe their friends/family are following, intentionally seek out biased information sources, and get manipulated by the dumbest of slogans and sound bytes.
We could in theory identify aspects of value in government and do experiments to see which policies optimized these aspects of value (part of the point of federalism). However, we don't do that. Why don't we govern ourselves like the planet Vulcan, steadily maximizing all the things?
One level of explanation is that rational thinking is more effortful than reacting on the ape level. Unless we're motivated, we don't do it. Concrete economic exchanges with firm links between costs and expectations are big motivators. Abstract government policies are not. The question of what the U.S. should have as its trade policy toward China is a lot more complex than the question of which cell phone plan to get. It both requires more work and also doesn't put a concrete product or service in our hands. So why not think in terms of tribalism or rhyming slogans on these don't-immediately-matter questions? Those whose brains are out of shape, or worn out from being rational in the marketplace, are most likely to take a break when the topic is abstract and there's no immediate cost to being wrong or inconsistent. Perhaps we would become more motivated, and therefore more rational, if the stakes were higher - e.g. if we were on the edge of poverty, if we feared for our lives if the wrong policies are enacted, or if one of the candidates was going to directly harm us if elected.
Another level of explanation is that our culture tells us how to think about various topics. We are carefully instructed to use the rational method in the marketplace and at work, and then our parents take us to church to use the faith method. We are taught to carefully analyze things in the marketplace with big effects, such as mortgages, but we are taught to think of the national debt as a blunt tool to attack the other political team. We'll ruthlessly exploit the opportunity to buy a mis-priced item from an American vendor, but then in the political realm talk about how the American people are the best. All these things are learned, and a rational political environment doesn't exist because most of us don't think politics can be rational. Thus we elect people based on how we perceive their personality, as delivered to us through screens, and this is normal in our culture. This culture of electing actors and rooting for political sports teams might give way to a higher level of rationality if the stakes were higher, but we're too prosperous to care, and so we use politics as a spectator sport.
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@ChpBstrd definitely envious of your education arc, I keep hoping that one day I'll have the opportunity to get degrees in one or both simply for my own edification.
I completely agree, with a rider that the one thing (as it usually goes) that does create a sense of rationality in perceived irrational and abstract environments is loss aversion (which I do recognize as a 'monkey brain' thing).
The average human just isn't willing to move on past loss aversion. If only probability and general statistics could be so easily taught as driving a car, we'd probably as a species be able to avoid any of this.
But maybe that's why those ideas only exist, together, in fictionalized representations of a society - somehow we all recognize that we can't even get there so we project our best intentions onto a fictional culture if for nothing else than to gaze in awe of our own creation that seems just out of reach (or to laugh at it for being so naive, depending on the subject).
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I am enjoying this discussion, but I think everyone is giving people too much credit for behaving rationally in their private economic transactions. I do think there's some hidden resource: call it attention, or mental energy, or bandwidth or something like that, such that we are limited as to which transactions we can make truly rational.
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"Trump Backs Boosters. Clearly, Someone Did the Math for Him.
Trump is losing hundreds of voters a day to Covid — far more than the margins in the swing states."
https://donaldgmcneiljr1954.medium.com/trump-backs-boosters-clearly-someone-did-the-math-for-him-153a2ff62718
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What's so baffling to me is how Trump is so successful at moving opinion on so many issues, but he cannot seem to lead on this one. Trade Protections? No problem! Fearful of communism? How about some farm subsidies! But the minute he suggests people should get vaccinated against a disease...
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What's so baffling to me is how Trump is so successful at moving opinion on so many issues, but he cannot seem to lead on this one. Trade Protections? No problem! Fearful of communism? How about some farm subsidies! But the minute he suggests people should get vaccinated against a disease...
Do we really know that this isn't just a vocal minority? If you look at the data even the most red states, like where I live have ~80%+ of people 30+ with at least one dose. According to the Mayo Clinic in my state (Arkansas) 84.5% of those 40-49 have had at least one dose and each subsequent age group is higher, so a weighted average would have it closer to ~90%+ of those 40 and older in one of the reddest states have had at least one dose. Those are also the people most likely to vote for Trump. So are that many Trumpers really ignoring the vaccine message?
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What's so baffling to me is how Trump is so successful at moving opinion on so many issues, but he cannot seem to lead on this one. Trade Protections? No problem! Fearful of communism? How about some farm subsidies! But the minute he suggests people should get vaccinated against a disease...
I don't think he moves opinion at all. He taps into pre-existing sentiment, which usually doesn't have a consistent logical basis. Communism and farm subsidies are only a contradiction if you take it at face value. They really are just tribal markers, something that indicates that WE (real Americans) are against THEM (elites, whatever).
Vaccine resistance became yet another tribal marker. This is one area where I'm sure Trump could move an opinion, if he worked on it consistently. But working consistently isn't really his forte, for better and for worse.
Also, there's absolutely some double-think at play. Like mizzourah2006 noted, the numbers on vaccinations are not spectacular, but they are also not consistent with vast majority of Republicans being hard-line anti-vaxxers. And, high % of vaccinations for 65+ cohort shows beyond any benefit of the doubt that reality eventually beats rhetoric. The higher and more immediate the price of rejecting the reality, the easier the reality wins.
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From my experience the few conservative people I know or know of, none of them initially got vaccinated. All of them so far, have gotten COVID. Only after contracting covid the majority (but not all) went out and got the vaccine. Sometimes families are split (some in the family get it, some don't). For example family with 2 daughters not living at home, father, mother. The daughter up here got vaccinated when she was able (works a service job). Both parents did not get vaccinated. Both got COVID this summer. The wife went and got the vaccine. The father continues not, as well as the other daughter who ALSO works a service job (cutting hair) and also has asthma. Another conservative couple I know of, neither of them got vaccinated when they could, but they both got COVID. the husband was in the hospital for awhile. I believe but not 100% sure, after both getting very sick, they got the vaccine after that. What was disturbing is the man was talking and candidly said it "kicked his butt". But he also said but that was months ago and literally said "I'm all better now". He couldn't carry on a conversation, or walk 10 feet without wheezing and losing his breath, when that was NOT the case before. It made me wonder that is part of the constellation of symptoms of anti vax people, of denying or minimizing their own experience with COVID?
Yes, regarding the scientific method. I really really want for my birthday and Christmas, for this to be taught not just at college level but at elementary, middle, and HS (because either people never got it, or forgot when they did). Also how research papers are constructed. You have your intro, your methods, your results, and your conclusion. The methods have to be justified and consistent with what you are testing, and after you present your results, you interpret them in the conclusion. Not only are you required not to overstep or overstate what the results actually indicate, you are also required to list any weaknesses the study (lack of power, limitations of the population used, limits to methodology, etc) and what future research should look at. The scientific method is a process. Each paper is incomplete and only part of a larger process or body of knowledge. It may seem disappointing to those who think scientists have all the answers, or that science will provide a definitive unchanging "truth". I also see people read those limitations and conclude therefore the scientists don't know, or "nothing is known". That's also not true.
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Yes, regarding the scientific method. I really really want for my birthday and Christmas, for this to be taught not just at college level but at elementary, middle, and HS (because either people never got it, or forgot when they did). Also how research papers are constructed. You have your intro, your methods, your results, and your conclusion. The methods have to be justified and consistent with what you are testing, and after you present your results, you interpret them in the conclusion. Not only are you required not to overstep or overstate what the results actually indicate, you are also required to list any weaknesses the study (lack of power, limitations of the population used, limits to methodology, etc) and what future research should look at. The scientific method is a process. Each paper is incomplete and only part of a larger process or body of knowledge. It may seem disappointing to those who think scientists have all the answers, or that science will provide a definitive unchanging "truth". I also see people read those limitations and conclude therefore the scientists don't know, or "nothing is known". That's also not true.
Honestly, even very well educated people I know don't actually understand how the scientific method works or choose to ignore it. I had to explain to an entire lab of PhD students, many of which are faculty at schools like Georgia Tech, Rice, etc. now, that what they were describing wasn't the scientific method. They believed that by doing a literature review, writing hypotheses and collecting data, then analyzing that data and re-writing their lit review and hypotheses to fit the data that that was the scientific method. I tried to explain to them that that was p-hacking and that the scientific method would include collecting a new set of data after re-writing their hypotheses. They politely told me I was wrong because their professor taught them that what they were doing was correct. Moral of the story is read even peer-reviewed literature with a keen eye. A good portion of it, especially in social sciences was p-hacked. That's what you get from a publish or perish model to tenure.
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Can you explain "p-hacked?" Sorry, but that is the first time I have heard of it. What does the P stand for?
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Yes, regarding the scientific method. I really really want for my birthday and Christmas, for this to be taught not just at college level but at elementary, middle, and HS (because either people never got it, or forgot when they did). Also how research papers are constructed. You have your intro, your methods, your results, and your conclusion. The methods have to be justified and consistent with what you are testing, and after you present your results, you interpret them in the conclusion. Not only are you required not to overstep or overstate what the results actually indicate, you are also required to list any weaknesses the study (lack of power, limitations of the population used, limits to methodology, etc) and what future research should look at. The scientific method is a process. Each paper is incomplete and only part of a larger process or body of knowledge. It may seem disappointing to those who think scientists have all the answers, or that science will provide a definitive unchanging "truth". I also see people read those limitations and conclude therefore the scientists don't know, or "nothing is known". That's also not true.
Honestly, even very well educated people I know don't actually understand how the scientific method works or choose to ignore it. I had to explain to an entire lab of PhD students, many of which are faculty at schools like Georgia Tech, Rice, etc. now, that what they were describing wasn't the scientific method. They believed that by doing a literature review, writing hypotheses and collecting data, then analyzing that data and re-writing their lit review and hypotheses to fit the data that that was the scientific method. I tried to explain to them that that was p-hacking and that the scientific method would include collecting a new set of data after re-writing their hypotheses. They politely told me I was wrong because their professor taught them that what they were doing was correct. Moral of the story is read even peer-reviewed literature with a keen eye. A good portion of it, especially in social sciences was p-hacked. That's what you get from a publish or perish model to tenure.
I used to teach research methods, and had students each find a paper (life sciences) and take it apart. They were shocked at how many bad papers they could find in the peer-reviewed literature. No explanation of why that species or that strain of a species was chosen. Bad to terrible statistical analysis. Bad descriptions of materials and methods. And on and on. Of course there were lots and lots of good papers, but they were expecting to find almost all good papers.
And people don't understand why the M&M section matters. The insect hormones for moulting and pupation were found through really good M&Ms. Anyone should be able to replicate an experiment from the info in the M&M.
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Can you explain "p-hacked?" Sorry, but that is the first time I have heard of it. What does the P stand for?
the p stands for p-value from significance testing. There are multiple ways to do it, but in most cases it involves manipulating the data to get the result you want, potentially by cutting the trial or study short when you hit your value, by throwing out "outliers" that don't conform or in some cases completely re-writing your hypotheses to match the results of your analysis. Some people call it data dredging too. HARKing is also another form of this which probably more closely aligns with what I described above.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15647155/
https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.1002106
Whenever I write papers and we are hypothesizing we tend to pre-register our hypotheses now. I hope more researchers would do this, but unfortunately like I mentioned above untenured professors are rewarded via publications, and you can't publish null results to any reasonable journal. I'm not in academia and the professors I write with are all tenured, so we just want to contribute to the scientific literature.
https://www.cos.io/initiatives/prereg
Yes, regarding the scientific method. I really really want for my birthday and Christmas, for this to be taught not just at college level but at elementary, middle, and HS (because either people never got it, or forgot when they did). Also how research papers are constructed. You have your intro, your methods, your results, and your conclusion. The methods have to be justified and consistent with what you are testing, and after you present your results, you interpret them in the conclusion. Not only are you required not to overstep or overstate what the results actually indicate, you are also required to list any weaknesses the study (lack of power, limitations of the population used, limits to methodology, etc) and what future research should look at. The scientific method is a process. Each paper is incomplete and only part of a larger process or body of knowledge. It may seem disappointing to those who think scientists have all the answers, or that science will provide a definitive unchanging "truth". I also see people read those limitations and conclude therefore the scientists don't know, or "nothing is known". That's also not true.
Honestly, even very well educated people I know don't actually understand how the scientific method works or choose to ignore it. I had to explain to an entire lab of PhD students, many of which are faculty at schools like Georgia Tech, Rice, etc. now, that what they were describing wasn't the scientific method. They believed that by doing a literature review, writing hypotheses and collecting data, then analyzing that data and re-writing their lit review and hypotheses to fit the data that that was the scientific method. I tried to explain to them that that was p-hacking and that the scientific method would include collecting a new set of data after re-writing their hypotheses. They politely told me I was wrong because their professor taught them that what they were doing was correct. Moral of the story is read even peer-reviewed literature with a keen eye. A good portion of it, especially in social sciences was p-hacked. That's what you get from a publish or perish model to tenure.
I used to teach research methods, and had students each find a paper (life sciences) and take it apart. They were shocked at how many bad papers they could find in the peer-reviewed literature. No explanation of why that species or that strain of a species was chosen. Bad to terrible statistical analysis. Bad descriptions of materials and methods. And on and on. Of course there were lots and lots of good papers, but they were expecting to find almost all good papers.
And people don't understand why the M&M section matters. The insect hormones for moulting and pupation were found through really good M&Ms. Anyone should be able to replicate an experiment from the info in the M&M.
That is an invaluable skill. You effectively made them reviewers. I didn't learn how to do that until halfway through my PhD. It helps me to this day in every study I read. I don't know that I would have had the patience to do that with most of the undergrads I taught :)
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Yes, regarding the scientific method. I really really want for my birthday and Christmas, for this to be taught not just at college level but at elementary, middle, and HS (because either people never got it, or forgot when they did). Also how research papers are constructed. You have your intro, your methods, your results, and your conclusion. The methods have to be justified and consistent with what you are testing, and after you present your results, you interpret them in the conclusion. Not only are you required not to overstep or overstate what the results actually indicate, you are also required to list any weaknesses the study (lack of power, limitations of the population used, limits to methodology, etc) and what future research should look at. The scientific method is a process. Each paper is incomplete and only part of a larger process or body of knowledge. It may seem disappointing to those who think scientists have all the answers, or that science will provide a definitive unchanging "truth". I also see people read those limitations and conclude therefore the scientists don't know, or "nothing is known". That's also not true.
Honestly, even very well educated people I know don't actually understand how the scientific method works or choose to ignore it. I had to explain to an entire lab of PhD students, many of which are faculty at schools like Georgia Tech, Rice, etc. now, that what they were describing wasn't the scientific method. They believed that by doing a literature review, writing hypotheses and collecting data, then analyzing that data and re-writing their lit review and hypotheses to fit the data that that was the scientific method. I tried to explain to them that that was p-hacking and that the scientific method would include collecting a new set of data after re-writing their hypotheses. They politely told me I was wrong because their professor taught them that what they were doing was correct. Moral of the story is read even peer-reviewed literature with a keen eye. A good portion of it, especially in social sciences was p-hacked. That's what you get from a publish or perish model to tenure.
I'd like to ask a question by analogy.
In physics, a researcher observes a phenomenon, perhaps that the acceleration of falling objects seems to be the same. They will hypothesize something like "gravity provides constant acceleration" and then construct experiments to try to prove or disprove the hypothesis. Then they will try to compare a ball bearing and a feather, and it will seem to disprove their hypothesis.
If the physicist was operating like your students, she might create a new hypothesis that says something like "flat objects fall more slowly than round objects" and she would use the experimental data from the original experiment to determine how much more slowly.
But a more appropriate way to do this would be to create a more appropriate experiment. Instead of having a ball bearing and a feather, use a collection of objects with varying degrees of flatness and try and figure out the relationship between flatness and the acceleration that objects fall.**
In the physics example, the experiments are easy to carry out. But in social sciences the experiments are difficult to carry out because they require the participation of a statistically significant number of people. But too bad - if the experiment is not appropriate for the hypothesis, then you don't have good results.
Have I got it?
** Someone would eventually try the experiment in a vacuum and come up with a better theory...
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Exactly. You are describing the idea of creating new experiments and collecting "new" data to test an updated hypothesis or set of hypotheses. That is the scientific method. In the social sciences, because as you described, collecting data, especially laboratory data, is so cumbersome and they are in a hurry to get published they will analyze the data and either p-hack the results to get something that's statistically significant or re-write the hypotheses to fit the outcome of the analysis (HARKing).
This is honestly why meta-analyses are so important in the social sciences IMO. The chances that 10 different studies did something like that in the same direction are small, but the chances that one did are not as small as you might initially assume.
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It's also really important to emphasize that Social Sciences - especially those which involve general populations - are notoriously difficult to study. It's really hard to come up with specific conclusions about human behavior because there are just way, way, way too many variables.
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It's also really important to emphasize that Social Sciences - especially those which involve general populations - are notoriously difficult to study. It's really hard to come up with specific conclusions about human behavior because there are just way, way, way too many variables.
Many of the social "sciences" aren't very scientific in their approach.
For example, I've spent a fair amount of time reading psychological papers and from what I've read, it is a field riddled with manipulated data, poorly designed tests, and unreproducible results. The theories of the field change as a result of societal mood rather than fact/data. As you mentioned, this pseudo-scientific approach and general acceptance in the field appears largely caused by the difficulty of reducing variables to usable levels in testing of populations of people.
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Some numbers on the topic of this topic: https://split-ticket.org/2022/01/19/vaccines-and-partisanship/
TL;DR: impact of deaths is marginal at best.
But the impact of Covid not being over (this from me, not the article); and voters, in their infinite wisdom, taking their frustration on Biden, is likely much larger. Note that Dems are underwater on the generic congressional ballot, and they need to be like +7 for a tie.
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It's also really important to emphasize that Social Sciences - especially those which involve general populations - are notoriously difficult to study. It's really hard to come up with specific conclusions about human behavior because there are just way, way, way too many variables.
Many of the social "sciences" aren't very scientific in their approach.
For example, I've spent a fair amount of time reading psychological papers and from what I've read, it is a field riddled with manipulated data, poorly designed tests, and unreproducible results. The theories of the field change as a result of societal mood rather than fact/data. As you mentioned, this pseudo-scientific approach and general acceptance in the field appears largely caused by the difficulty of reducing variables to usable levels in testing of populations of people.
I'll grant you the last two, but do you have evidence that this is a widespread systemic issue?
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Some numbers on the topic of this topic: https://split-ticket.org/2022/01/19/vaccines-and-partisanship/
TL;DR: impact of deaths is marginal at best.
But the impact of Covid not being over (this from me, not the article); and voters, in their infinite wisdom, taking their frustration on Biden, is likely much larger. Note that Dems are underwater on the generic congressional ballot, and they need to be like +7 for a tie.
1. There have already been over 1 million excess deaths in the US from March 2020 - Dec 2021. By the time the 2022 election rolls around, it seems we will likely be at + 1 million for post vaccine numbers.
2. It wouldn't have affected the presidential outcome, but it would've affected 3 house outcomes. 3 house seats were determined by < .25%, and if the house is as competitive as people are making it out to be, then yes, there's a really big possibility that the house could be determined by a margin of covid deaths.
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It's also really important to emphasize that Social Sciences - especially those which involve general populations - are notoriously difficult to study. It's really hard to come up with specific conclusions about human behavior because there are just way, way, way too many variables.
Many of the social "sciences" aren't very scientific in their approach.
For example, I've spent a fair amount of time reading psychological papers and from what I've read, it is a field riddled with manipulated data, poorly designed tests, and unreproducible results. The theories of the field change as a result of societal mood rather than fact/data. As you mentioned, this pseudo-scientific approach and general acceptance in the field appears largely caused by the difficulty of reducing variables to usable levels in testing of populations of people.
I'll grant you the last two, but do you have evidence that this is a widespread systemic issue?
Just that it seems to be present more often than not in so much of the peer reviewed stuff that I've read. The tests regularly appear to be poorly designed in order to prove the hypothesis rather than to actually research the subject. The fact that results are so rarely reproducible also suggests shenanigans on the part of the researchers . . . I suppose it's possible that incompetence rather than intentional data manipulation could be at fault.
Certain areas of study in psychology appear to be far less prone to these problems - neuropsychology for example tends to be pretty good.
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2. It wouldn't have affected the presidential outcome, but it would've affected 3 house outcomes. 3 house seats were determined by < .25%, and if the house is as competitive as people are making it out to be, then yes, there's a really big possibility that the house could be determined by a margin of covid deaths.
I'm not sure which people make it out to be competitive. My understanding is that most indicators - pres.approval, generic ballot, shift in party affiliation, results in NY, NJ, VA in '21, number of retirements - point to a bloodbath for Democrats. About the only positive news is that the death by redistricting alone seems to have been avoided.
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2. It wouldn't have affected the presidential outcome, but it would've affected 3 house outcomes. 3 house seats were determined by < .25%, and if the house is as competitive as people are making it out to be, then yes, there's a really big possibility that the house could be determined by a margin of covid deaths.
I'm not sure which people make it out to be competitive. My understanding is that most indicators - pres.approval, generic ballot, shift in party affiliation, results in NY, NJ, VA in '21, number of retirements - point to a bloodbath for Democrats. About the only positive news is that the death by redistricting alone seems to have been avoided.
Just remember, a lot can change in 10 months. This time in 2020, I remember thinking Trump would be a shoe-in for reelection. This, of course, would of made it impossible to regain the Senate as well.
What will happen if Covid19 peters out, and people return to normal life over the summer?
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2. It wouldn't have affected the presidential outcome, but it would've affected 3 house outcomes. 3 house seats were determined by < .25%, and if the house is as competitive as people are making it out to be, then yes, there's a really big possibility that the house could be determined by a margin of covid deaths.
I'm not sure which people make it out to be competitive. My understanding is that most indicators - pres.approval, generic ballot, shift in party affiliation, results in NY, NJ, VA in '21, number of retirements - point to a bloodbath for Democrats. About the only positive news is that the death by redistricting alone seems to have been avoided.
Just remember, a lot can change in 10 months. This time in 2020, I remember thinking Trump would be a shoe-in for reelection. This, of course, would of made it impossible to regain the Senate as well.
What will happen if Covid19 peters out, and people return to normal life over the summer?
Provided no new variant emerges in the next little while, covid does seem to be on the way out and that will impact the elections. The extreme right wing activist nature of the current supreme court will become more evident - ending Roe v. Wade and continuing their erosion of the separation of Christianity and state (https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3825759 (https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3825759)) which might be noticed by voters. Who knows what new impacts climate change will have in that period . . . but major climate related disasters are likely to continue.
Too much change to make predictions.
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Some numbers on the topic of this topic: https://split-ticket.org/2022/01/19/vaccines-and-partisanship/
TL;DR: impact of deaths is marginal at best.
But the impact of Covid not being over (this from me, not the article); and voters, in their infinite wisdom, taking their frustration on Biden, is likely much larger. Note that Dems are underwater on the generic congressional ballot, and they need to be like +7 for a tie.
Interesting study linked. Even the marginal impact noted may be a little overstated since the author takes voters by county as all having the same propensity for vaccination. However as noted in other surveys, Republicans are overweighted in older and white populations which have more likelihood of being vaccinated. (at least white versus black populations. Asians have a higher vaccination percentage than whites and Hispanics roughly equal based on the study I saw).
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Can you explain "p-hacked?" Sorry, but that is the first time I have heard of it. What does the P stand for?
the p stands for p-value from significance testing. There are multiple ways to do it, but in most cases it involves manipulating the data to get the result you want, potentially by cutting the trial or study short when you hit your value, by throwing out "outliers" that don't conform or in some cases completely re-writing your hypotheses to match the results of your analysis. Some people call it data dredging too. HARKing is also another form of this which probably more closely aligns with what I described above.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15647155/
https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.1002106
Whenever I write papers and we are hypothesizing we tend to pre-register our hypotheses now. I hope more researchers would do this, but unfortunately like I mentioned above untenured professors are rewarded via publications, and you can't publish null results to any reasonable journal. I'm not in academia and the professors I write with are all tenured, so we just want to contribute to the scientific literature.
https://www.cos.io/initiatives/prereg
Yes, regarding the scientific method. I really really want for my birthday and Christmas, for this to be taught not just at college level but at elementary, middle, and HS (because either people never got it, or forgot when they did). Also how research papers are constructed. You have your intro, your methods, your results, and your conclusion. The methods have to be justified and consistent with what you are testing, and after you present your results, you interpret them in the conclusion. Not only are you required not to overstep or overstate what the results actually indicate, you are also required to list any weaknesses the study (lack of power, limitations of the population used, limits to methodology, etc) and what future research should look at. The scientific method is a process. Each paper is incomplete and only part of a larger process or body of knowledge. It may seem disappointing to those who think scientists have all the answers, or that science will provide a definitive unchanging "truth". I also see people read those limitations and conclude therefore the scientists don't know, or "nothing is known". That's also not true.
Honestly, even very well educated people I know don't actually understand how the scientific method works or choose to ignore it. I had to explain to an entire lab of PhD students, many of which are faculty at schools like Georgia Tech, Rice, etc. now, that what they were describing wasn't the scientific method. They believed that by doing a literature review, writing hypotheses and collecting data, then analyzing that data and re-writing their lit review and hypotheses to fit the data that that was the scientific method. I tried to explain to them that that was p-hacking and that the scientific method would include collecting a new set of data after re-writing their hypotheses. They politely told me I was wrong because their professor taught them that what they were doing was correct. Moral of the story is read even peer-reviewed literature with a keen eye. A good portion of it, especially in social sciences was p-hacked. That's what you get from a publish or perish model to tenure.
I used to teach research methods, and had students each find a paper (life sciences) and take it apart. They were shocked at how many bad papers they could find in the peer-reviewed literature. No explanation of why that species or that strain of a species was chosen. Bad to terrible statistical analysis. Bad descriptions of materials and methods. And on and on. Of course there were lots and lots of good papers, but they were expecting to find almost all good papers.
And people don't understand why the M&M section matters. The insect hormones for moulting and pupation were found through really good M&Ms. Anyone should be able to replicate an experiment from the info in the M&M.
That is an invaluable skill. You effectively made them reviewers. I didn't learn how to do that until halfway through my PhD. It helps me to this day in every study I read. I don't know that I would have had the patience to do that with most of the undergrads I taught :)
yes I was going to say that, p-hacking (or "massaging the data") is a lot more difficult to do, given that most funded studies need to register in clinicaltrials.org, and you specify your primary and secondary aims, and then after the study is done upload the results from those hypotheses. I do feel that looking at the data from a different perspective (post-hoc analysis) is not bad per say as it can point towards future research. But you can't write a paper making it seem like y was your primary hypothesis, after finding out x was not significant, etc.
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In the latest Kaiser Family Foundation poll, vaccination rate among Black and Latino adults is higher than among White; Dems lead Rs by nearly 30 percentage points (scroll about half way down).
https://www.kff.org/coronavirus-covid-19/poll-finding/kff-covid-19-vaccine-monitor-january-2022/
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Thanks the KFF link. I was only vaguely aware of them and their mission.