coronavirus

[LetterRip]

Like I said, masks were working even with largely Republican disdain for them

The states with current low mask usage had already largely ended mask usage.

, until Biden decided to take them off precisely because they were working so well.

How do you acquire such bizarre beliefs so divorced from reality?  The CDC ended its mask mandate for vaccinated individuals as a way to encourage people to get vaccinated, and it did so because the evidence showed there was little or no risk of breakthrough for the strains that were prevalent at that time.  Biden likely had zero input on the decision.  It wasn't anticipated that governors would enact insane policies ending mask mandates completely.

[TheDrake]

Boosters guard against variants. That's why people who have had influenza still get flu shots. Also natural immunity fades even against the original.

Influenza shots are reformulated each year due to the way that Influenza mutates (it has a process analogous to sex, which allows dramatic variation when distant strains interact).  COVID-19 boosters aren't reformulated so their protection against variants actually depends on the antigens in the new variant remaining largely the same as in prior variants (which is mostly the case so far - the spike protein has mutated, but still reasonably good binding affinity) - what they do is

1) restore circulating antibody number - this fades about 10% per month - probably fades faster in immunocompromised and they have a lower 'peak'
2) improves antibody affinity for the antigens (the main benefit of a 2 seperated dose regimen for the initial dosing)
3) Increases T-cell and B-cell number


You do make a good point about hospital strain.

Thanks, I didn't realize they weren't changing anything.

[Fenring]

There are two main reasons for vaccine mandates or advocacy. One is spread, the other is strain on facilities. Neither of those really have anything directly to do with deaths. So it isn't very interesting to me whether you're unlikely to die from a covid reinfection.

The strain on facilities argument is one that was widely argued to be the main reason for lockdowns and other such measures nearer the start of the pandemic. The argument was that although it's not actually possible to stave off a certain amount of people being infected, it can at least be spread out over time so that the hospitals can avoid overload. This was a credible general argument, once, prior to anyone knowing anything and as a cautionary preventative measure.

However the reality has borne out a different scenario, where although certain areas did have huge influxes into hospitals this was not universal, and in fact many areas appeared to have lower than expected turnout in ER's. That's ok, a preventative measure is absolutely logical even if it doesn't turn out 100% as expected. But at this point in time if strain on facilities was really a criterion behind mandates of various kinds, it should at best only apply to areas where there is a potential strain on facilities (according to its own logic).

I am personally somewhat persuaded by the "avoid breeding variants" logic of maintaining some sort of vigilance, but sacrificing civil liberties in exchange for 'maybe' avoiding strain in facilities sounds dubious (both morally and practically). It's not like such proposals are made exclusively in areas with overburdened hospitals (if I'm guessing it's probably those areas that may actually be overburdened that are least likely to support mandates anyhow).

[TheDrake]

I agree that medical strain is regional. Here in Austin we already had strain on medical services from high population growth, and this made it worse. August was bad.

It is precisely because states with problems are not mandating appropriately for the situation that has given rise to the need for a blanket federal approach. Like requiring southwest to vaccinate if they want to keep their federal contracts.

[cherrypoptart]

"The CDC ended its mask mandate for vaccinated individuals as a way to encourage people to get vaccinated..."

But whose bright idea was that really?

We'll never know of course but I'm not going to believe it originated with the CDC especially with the enthusiastic way Biden took that victory lap. Everyone else is free of course to believe whatever they want.

[yossarian22c]

"The CDC ended its mask mandate for vaccinated individuals as a way to encourage people to get vaccinated..."

But whose bright idea was that really?

We'll never know of course but I'm not going to believe it originated with the CDC especially with the enthusiastic way Biden took that victory lap. Everyone else is free of course to believe whatever they want.

The cdc had a mask recommendation. All mask mandates are state or local. My town has one again. Blame your dumbA governor that no one in Texas can be required to wear a mask.

[LetterRip]

"The CDC ended its mask mandate for vaccinated individuals as a way to encourage people to get vaccinated..."

But whose bright idea was that really?

Almost certainly the CDC.  They had evidence there was no risk to the vaccinated and unvaccinated because the vaccine was so effective against Alpha, people clearly wanted the pandemic to be over and to quit wearing masks, and from their perspective no one could rationally refuse to get vaccinated.  They simply assumed politicians and the public were rational.

You may think they are hopelessly naïve and I'd agree.  I said at the time that I'd prefer something along the lines of 'any city with greater than X% vaccination rate'.

We'll never know of course but I'm not going to believe it originated with the CDC especially with the enthusiastic way Biden took that victory lap. Everyone else is free of course to believe whatever they want.

What 'victory lap' are you talking about?

Also CDC gets pretty pissy when politicians interfere - if there had been pressure or 'suggestions' from Biden - there would have been front page exposes after he had made promises of following the science.

[cherrypoptart]

https://www.marshallnewsmessenger.com/opinion/david-m-shribman-beware-the-premature-victory-lap/article_267dfc3a-e10b-11eb-bb6e-9bd3cb67ab6a.html

"David M. Shribman: Beware the premature victory lap
By David M. Shribman Columnist Jul 9, 2021 Updated Jul 9, 2021 Comments

Not so fast, Joe.

Last week, President Biden spoke words that Americans have waited 16 months to hear. “We are emerging from the darkness of ... a year of pandemic and isolation, a year of pain, fear and heartbreaking loss,” he said to a country that was celebrating its national day with picnics, cookouts, fireworks displays and parades.

With growing vaccination rates and with shrinking hospitalization and death rates, the president’s remarks sounded a lot like a declaration of “Mission Accomplished.”

And that’s the danger.

The last time a president proclaimed “Mission Accomplished” was 18 years earlier, when George W. Bush stood on the flight deck of the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln, a banner with that slogan behind him, and said that “in the battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed.”

What we have here is a potentially bad case of premature celebration.

Biden’s ardor is understandable, more so than Bush’s. The country is exhausted by COVID restrictions, and it harbors enormous pent-up demand for normal human exchanges and the resumption of the customary rituals of American life — from visits to the mall or the ballpark to holiday celebrations over the embers of a broiling grill and a watermelon sliced in half with the snap that sounds like summer.

But ...

But the Delta variant rages, huge swaths of many states remain vaccination deserts, and no one knows what a summer of day camps and outings at the lake will bring. Americans are surging — to the beach, to the ice cream counter, to the softball field. So might the virus."

----------------------------------------------

This guy saw it. Everyone and anyone with half a brain saw it. We didn't know for sure about delta but we did know for sure that we didn't know yet and anyone with the least bit of medical competence knew that we should wait to find out before throwing caution to the winds. It was still way too early to let our guard down. We knew Delta was dangerous and if we didn't know how dangerous just yet that ignorance called for continued discipline and prudence, not a victory celebration. This isn't just Monday morning quarterbacking either. This was a blatant disregard for public safety at the highest levels of our government. If the CDC was the instigator of the decision to unmask I would be very, very surprised. That decision reeks of politics and not science or health or common sense during a pandemic. It reeks of pressure from Joe Biden's puppet masters to put a win in the books before the game is even half over. Sure, we were winning but we hadn't won yet, and now we're back to losing again. Losing in so many ways. Against Covid for starters, and in Afghanistan, jobs, the supply chain, inflation, the border, and pretty much every which way Biden can manage to screw things up he is doing it big time.

Now I understand for many people Biden is your guy and you have to defend him. Believe me, I've been there so I know how tough it is to hold your own accountable, but good intentions are not enough and the results speak for themselves with one disaster after another and all of them looking to get much worse before we start seeing any movement in the right direction, movement that will never come until people can admit the mistakes that were made. The "nobody could have known" and "the decisions were made with the best information we had at the time" excuses are worn thin. People did know and shouted their warnings from the rooftops but were ignored or shouted down. And it wasn't the information that was the problem so much as the interpretation of that information by decision makers who just didn't do their jobs competently, who really look like they have no idea what they're doing but also obviously have no idea that they have no idea that they don't know what they're doing. They seem to think they are doing the best job that anybody could be expected to do under the circumstances. They believe in their own greatness so see no need to reflect or start listening to anyone else, a prime example of this undeserved inflated ego being Fauci whose massive blunders and lies have led to disaster that is only rivaled by Biden himself.

[cherrypoptart]

CNN has some good information here about Fauci and his gross incompetence:

https://edition.cnn.com/factsfirst/politics/factcheck_e58c20c6-8735-4022-a1f5-1580bc732c45

While Fauci, along with several other US health leaders, initially advised people not to wear masks, Fauci later said that he was concerned that there wouldn’t be enough protective equipment for health care workers. This was also early in the pandemic before public health experts fully knew how contagious the disease was and how it spread.

Fauci explained that at that time, “we were not aware that 40 to 45% of people were asymptomatic, nor were we aware that a substantial proportion of people who get infected get infected from people who are without symptoms. That makes it overwhelmingly important for everyone to wear a mask.”

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Oh really, he didn't know did he?

https://edition.cnn.com/interactive/2020/03/politics/coronavirus-trump-cdc-timeline/

"January 26

Chinese government health officials reveal for the first time that people who are infected with the coronavirus can spread the disease before they are showing any symptoms."

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So by January 26, very very early in the pandemic the Chinese government helpfully informed the world that asymptomatic infectoids were spreading the virus. Did Fauci not get that memo?

Right then was when the truth should have gone out that masks would be a good idea for the general public but the N95s that are in short supply would be reserved for frontline healthcare workers. If we didn't know how well makeshift masks would work then we would have found out instead of ignoring the Chinese warning and having the public stay maskless, vulnerable, and helpless just the way Fauci intended. And the whole boogeyman about touching your mask and then infecting yourself was always such a farce, just more of Fauci's incompetence on display. That guy got just about everything wrong that he could get wrong, and it looks like a lot of it was deliberate for ulterior motives, to cast aspersions at and doubt on masks for the general public which not only hurt us at the most crucial time in the pandemic but came back to bite us in the butt later and is still chomping on our rear to this very day.

[yossarian22c]

Cherry, it would be easier to take you seriously if you ever posted these reviews about how wrong Abbot and DeSantis have been about not just continuing to recommend masks for vaccinated people but actively prevent schools, cities, and businesses from having a mask mandate.

[ScottF]

Acting like we can accurately or reliably attribute the spread of this virus across incredibly diverse geographies, demographics and human behaviors is the height of hubris.

Florida now has the lowest rate of daily cases per capita of *any* state in the country. Desantis fans will say "see! mandates don't do sh*t". Detractors will hypothesize other reasons.

The virus has shown itself to be fairly unconcerned about our collective mitigation theories.

[TheDrake]

DeSantis detractors will point out that the most populous cities in Florida have defied deSantis and mandated masks, especially in schools. Florida remains #10 all time for cases/100,000. #7 in deaths. Numbers come from NY Times, current as of 11/1.

If you assume that these were inevitable, then you can say, "Aha, DeSantis has helped us get back to normal better than most states!"

If you assume they were not, then he's really screwed his state and is responsible for thousands of deaths.

[msquared]

When your job is on the line people seem to get the shot.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/york-prepares-fallout-vaccine-mandate-100632177.html

[TheDrake]

And it is inevitable that there will be at least one sad story about a bad reaction in some city, and that poor person will be paraded around as a political martyr as if we didn't know that in millions of vaccinations there are at least some bad reactions.

Somebody wins a Herman Cain award for being antivax on a daily basis. There's a reason there's no Compliant Sheep award for people who were pro vaccine and died of it.

[ScottF]

There's a reason there's no Compliant Sheep award for people who were pro vaccine and died of it.

There definitely are - they just don't tend to get much press.

[cherrypoptart]

"Cherry, it would be easier to take you seriously if you ever posted these reviews about how wrong Abbot and DeSantis have been about not just continuing to recommend masks for vaccinated people but actively prevent schools, cities, and businesses from having a mask mandate."

I agree with the assessment that to the extent things are getting better in Florida it's probably because DeSantis let the virus burn through the population to cull out the weak and it got thousands sickened and killed unnecessarily when simple masking would have saved them and reduced the chance of worse mutations which thankfully we haven't seen yet.

The problem is I didn't trust Republican governors like Abbot and DeSantis to hold the line on masks. Sure, it would have been a pleasant surprise but I didn't expect it and they predictably disappointed.

I trusted Biden though, at least on masks. He was the mask guy. He's the one who rubbed his mask in Trump's face and I loved that, finally got Trump to start wearing a mask.

Here's Biden starting his Presidency on the right foot:

https://www.vogue.com/article/joe-biden-mask-wearing-100-days-executive-order

"Joe Biden Begins His Presidency With a Simple Message for All of Us: Wear a Damn Mask"

"One of the first things Biden enacted this week was a “100 day mask challenge,” which consisted of two different executive orders, both mandating masks—one on federal property and the other on public transport. We all know by now the efficacy of a paper or cloth mask in slowing the spread the spread of a virus that is transmitted by microscopic droplets, a point Biden made when signing his executive order. “It’s not a political statement,” Biden said, “it’s a patriotic act.”

--------------------------------------------------------------

What happened to that guy? He had one thing going for him and he threw it away for no good reason.

Abbot and DeSantis didn't betray me because I never trusted them on masks. Biden I trusted and you can only be betrayed by the people you trust. That's what really hurts. And in this case kills.

[TheDrake]

There's a reason there's no Compliant Sheep award for people who were pro vaccine and died of it.

There definitely are - they just don't tend to get much press.

Or they aren't clever enough to set up a reddit account. But most of the alt-press screeching about this gets all their data wrong, including listing everything in VAERS as a vaccine death. So unless somebody can show me a list of people who posted on social media about how proud they were of their vaccine and then wound up with a gofundme for medical help, or a funeral announcement, then I assume there simply isn't any such animal.

"my dad died from covid":17,000
"my dad died from the vaccine":0
"my dad died from vaccine":0
"vaccine killed my dad":10

Just a quick search for anecdotes, but probably Google is suppressing the thousands of vaccine deaths, eh?

[ScottF]

[But most of the alt-press screeching about this gets all their data wrong, including listing everything in VAERS as a vaccine death.

Right, because getting data wrong is clearly in the owned domain of the alt-press, whatever that means.

Is the NY times considered alt-press? Because I'm old enough to remember back in October when their lead science and health reporter breathlessly reported that “nearly 900,000 children have been hospitalized from covid..."

Oopsy - just a small data error, whatever. 63K, 900K what's a little (lol) exaggeration as long as it advances the mission:  to make sure people understand how horribly at-risk children apparently are from the flu. Or covid. Same-same.

[TheDrake]

Fair. Except they fix their errors, they don't quote them over and over again as if repetition will make it true. There were other problems with that article as well. Detailed here by ABC.

It is also fair that alt-press is a nebulous shorthand.

Fox news, Tucker Carlson:

Between late December of 2020 and last month, a total of 3,362 people apparently died after getting the COVID vaccine in the United States, 3,362. That’s an average of roughly 30 people every day. So what does that add up to?

By the way, that reporting period ended on April 23 and we don’t have numbers past that. Not quite up to date.

But we can assume that another 360 people at that rate have died in the 12 days since. You put it all together and that is a total of 3,722 deaths. That’s almost 4,000 people who died after getting the COVID vaccines. The actual number is almost certainly higher than that, perhaps vastly higher than that.

A blatant misuse of VAERS and claiming deaths that haven't been caused by the virus.

This was rebroadcast by Breitbart, specifically. Newsmax does it too.

Newsweek was cited by Newsmax to cloak their reporting in legitimacy, despite the fact that the linked article is titled: Fact Check: Have 966 People Died After Receiving the COVID vaccine?

By contrast, their article states clearly:

Healthcare professionals are required to report certain adverse events that occur after vaccines to the system, but it is not designed to give information on what caused the events, such as deaths.

Why did Newsweek right the article? Because another "alt-press" outfit called the Epoch Times launched the tweetstorm of disinformation.

But even those sources often contained some kind of disclaimer about the use of the data, but they posted it in the midst or far end of articles that were anti-vax. Quoting ant-vaxxers that were using the data wrong.

[msquared]

Well yesterday we hit 80% over 18 with one shot.  Hopefully we will hit 70% over 18 with 2 shots later this week.

[yossarian22c]

...
What happened to that guy? He had one thing going for him and he threw it away for no good reason.

Abbot and DeSantis didn't betray me because I never trusted them on masks. Biden I trusted and you can only be betrayed by the people you trust. That's what really hurts. And in this case kills.

And again those are the guys controlling the mask mandates with have always been state or local. The CDC underestimated the stupidity of those guys and the unvaccinated. It was an idiotic mistake because it was entirely predictable. But mayors and governors where always the ones who created and had the power to keep, remove, or in the case of the worst offenders prevent mask mandates.

[ScottF]

...
What happened to that guy? He had one thing going for him and he threw it away for no good reason.

Abbot and DeSantis didn't betray me because I never trusted them on masks. Biden I trusted and you can only be betrayed by the people you trust. That's what really hurts. And in this case kills.

And again those are the guys controlling the mask mandates with have always been state or local. The CDC underestimated the stupidity of those guys and the unvaccinated. It was an idiotic mistake because it was entirely predictable. But mayors and governors where always the ones who created and had the power to keep, remove, or in the case of the worst offenders prevent mask mandates.

What is your hypothesis on FL currently having the lowest cases in the country per day, per capita in the country, despite preventing mask mandates?

[yossarian22c]

...
What happened to that guy? He had one thing going for him and he threw it away for no good reason.

Abbot and DeSantis didn't betray me because I never trusted them on masks. Biden I trusted and you can only be betrayed by the people you trust. That's what really hurts. And in this case kills.

And again those are the guys controlling the mask mandates with have always been state or local. The CDC underestimated the stupidity of those guys and the unvaccinated. It was an idiotic mistake because it was entirely predictable. But mayors and governors where always the ones who created and had the power to keep, remove, or in the case of the worst offenders prevent mask mandates.

What is your hypothesis on FL currently having the lowest cases in the country per day, per capita in the country, despite preventing mask mandates?

Florida has a higher than the national average of vaccination rate. Also they burned hot with the delta variant through the unvaccinated this summer. 13 million vaccinated + 4 million cases gets Florida to about 80% of the population with a antibody response which is close to the herd immunity threshold for Covid. There is probably an overlap in some of the vaccinated and cases. So maybe Florida is closer to 75% of people with an antibody response to covid.

But as has also been mentioned the bigger cities and counties of Florida required masks in public. So while the governor fought masks local governments that represent a majority of the population have still required them.

[LetterRip]

Florida has a higher than the national average of vaccination rate. Also they burned hot with the delta variant through the unvaccinated this summer. 13 million vaccinated + 4 million cases gets Florida to about 80% of the population with a antibody response which is close to the herd immunity threshold for Covid.

Herd immunity is based on Ro and vaccine effectiveness.  80% was the threshold for Alpha version (Ro of 4-5, vaccine close to 100% effective (1-1/5)*100 = 80%),.   Ro for delta is around 9, and vaccine prevention of infection is around 80%.  So (1-1/9)*100/80% = 111% for herd immunity (greater than 100% means it isn't possible to reach herd immunity without additional procedures such as mask wearing.)

[msquared]

70% over 18 fully vaccinated as of yesterday.

[msquared]

Trump staffers at the time are sure they killed Herman Caine.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/killed-herman-cain-trump-staffers-181542040.html

[yossarian22c]

Trump staffers at the time are sure they killed Herman Caine.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/killed-herman-cain-trump-staffers-181542040.html

This is just now news? It was pretty clear by the timing they killed him. Lots of Trump people were diagnosed around the time and his positive test was right in the middle of the incubation period for COVID.

[msquared]

Well the anti vaxx people have found a new way to fleece the gullible.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/covid-vaccine-holdouts-caving-mandates-110008317.html

Ways to "get rid of the vax" after you have been vaxxed.

[cherrypoptart]

Covid misinformation...

I was going to go off again about the covid misinformation that the vaccines are the superior way through the pandemic compared to masks, of course both are best but if you had to choose one then Japan is showing us masks are better, and certainly scrapping masks just because there are vaccines was a huge mistake, but then I saw this part:

"Buck Sexton, host of a program syndicated by Premiere Networks, an iHeart subsidiary, recently floated the theory that mass COVID-19 vaccinations could speed the virus' mutation into more dangerous strains. He made this suggestion while appearing on another Premiere Networks program, “The Jesse Kelly Show.”

The theory appears to have its roots in a 2015 paper about vaccines for a chicken ailment called Marek’s disease. Its author, Andrew Read, a professor of biology and entomology at Pennsylvania State University, has said his research has been “misinterpreted” by anti-vaccine activists. He added that COVID-19 vaccines have been found to reduce transmissions substantially, whereas chickens inoculated with the Marek’s disease vaccine were still able to transmit the disease. Sexton did not reply to a request for comment."

---------------------------------------------

Is it really misinformation that "COVID-19 vaccinations could speed the virus' mutation into more dangerous strains" or is that actually established science?

"... chickens inoculated with the Marek’s disease vaccine were still able to transmit the disease."

Um... news flash, people inoculated with the covid vaccines are still able to transmit the disease, contrary to the misinformation Biden and the CDC put out when they said it was safe for the vaccinated to take off their masks.

Of course that's no reason to give up on vaccines which do tremendous good but it is a good reason to keep masking even with vaccines.

For visual learners, here's a cute little visual of what a country with a population of 125 million with less than 19,000 covid deaths looks like.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFSeq0lAfnk

Spoiler Alert: It looks like masks.

Just a little math here. Our population is 329 million and theirs is 125 million. Our Covid deaths are 762,000 and theirs are 18,321. About .23 percent of our population died of Covid. About .015 percent of their population died of Covid. If we had the same death rate we'd have less than 49,000 dead. The difference is their leadership never told them that masks won't help them and never told them that if they are vaccinated they don't need to wear a mask anymore.

https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/average-iq-by-country

According to this the average IQ in America is 97.43 and in Japan it's 106.48. It's amazing what a difference a few IQ points makes, the difference between life and death. We see a lot about how we need to fix the structural problems in America and yeah that would be nice but unfortunately you can't fix stupid.

[NobleHunter]

Which leadership, exactly, is telling people they don't need to wear masks?

[cherrypoptart]

All of them. Trump was against it before he was finally for it. Then we had it going on great and the cases and deaths were plummeting until Biden opened his mouth and said it was safe for vaccinated people to take off their masks and delta came along and smacked him and the whole country upside the head with a great big "Whatcha talkin bout Willis" while hundreds of thousands more died because of that government promulgated covid misinformation. Even though Biden and his CDC have now admitted their mistake we still haven't gotten back to the mask utilization that we saw before they spewed out their deadly covid misinformation and that's why we are still having the problems we're having, still spreading the virus even with people vaccinated and still giving it more chances to dangerously mutate.

As for the "masks are dangerous" crowd, which is largely made up of Republicans and not the Democrats, Japan and other Asian countries demonstrate that's nonsense too. If they were dangerous then we'd see some evidence of it over there by now especially since they have decades of experience with masks, and even more now with so many more people using them over the past couple of years.

[TheDrake]

So its come up before, why push vaccination more than masks?

1. Getting somebody to do a thing twice is easier than getting someone to do a thing day in and day out indefinitely.

2. Employer mandates are possible and easier to enforce. There's no way an employer can verify if employees are masking outside the workplace, and they face permanent backlash and crabbing from employees about asking them to wear it.

3. It's hard to validate any exemptions with mask wearing. A person unable to vaccinate can cite medical and legitimate religious objections in a verifiable way. There are legitimate cases where wearing a mask can be detrimental to some individuals, but none is possible to verify.

4. Some mask wearers now face berating from the unmasked, shouting at them to take them off. Many more face more subtle pressures. Random members of the public can't tell if you're vaccinated unless you're wearing a declaration.

[cherrypoptart]

I agree with all of that. Those are very good points. Masking only works if people are willing to do it, if people make it work, if they care enough about others to make an ongoing personal sacrifice. Americans have proven that to a large extant that's just not in our character. We're not willing to make the small sacrifice to stop the bigger sacrifice. Though on the other hand we were doing it and it was working for a while there, and a large percentage of people are still masking, just not enough to turn the tide. I've got a bad feeling the vaccination priority route isn't going to work well either though for some of the same reasons, because too many people just aren't going to do it, but also for the other reason that it's more likely the virus will mutate its way around the vaccine than around the mask. The vaccinations over masks approach looks a lot like trying to fix stupid.

[msquared]

Cherry

This is why I hold Trump more responsible for the pandemic than Biden.  If Trump had come out and given a speech about personal sacrifice for the greater good and convinced his supporters that this was the type of thing their grandparents did during WWII, I think we would be at 80-85% fully vaxed and the US economy would be will on its way back.

And Trump would have won re-election.

[TheDrake]

Cherry

This is why I hold Trump more responsible for the pandemic than Biden.  If Trump had come out and given a speech about personal sacrifice for the greater good and convinced his supporters that this was the type of thing their grandparents did during WWII, I think we would be at 80-85% fully vaxed and the US economy would be will on its way back.

And Trump would have won re-election.

And we would have been more masked as well. Trump in particular could have used the control over his base to hammer Republican governors into following his lead. But that ship has sailed, so it really doesn't matter to hold Trump responsible. Also, his control over his base isn't absolute, they support him only because he fuels their selfishness with his own. Had he started mask wearing and supporting, he would likely have been booed by many of his supporters. We saw that type of thing when he gently suggested that his followers should voluntarily get vaccinated.

[msquared]

TheDrake, you might not be wrong, and we all know Trump would never do any action that might cost him popular opinion, even if it was right.

But if he had started from the beginning, wording it as a patriotic action it would have been somewhat effective. Hell, he could have said it was the American way of fighting the China virus.

[msquared]

Tucker and Fox are having an event with vaccine mandate and/or proof of negative test.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/tucker-carlson-other-fox-hosts-223539787.html

How dare they violate my rights.

It is sort of like the State of Texas saying the Federal Gov is overreaching with a vaccine mandate and that the companies should decide but then making it illegal for the companies to put in a mandate of their own. So State overreach is OK but not Federal.

[TheDrake]

In fairness, there's a huge gap between vaccine requirements to attend an entertainment event and being able to keep your job. Plus, the negative test allowance means it doesn't require vaccination exclusively. The people getting bounced from Southwest Airlines aren't given the option of daily testing.

[TheDrake]

Any bets on whether the hospitalized unvaxxed will clamor for the "experimental" antiviral pill?

[Grant]

Any bets on whether the hospitalized unvaxxed will clamor for the "experimental" antiviral pill?

Of course they will.  It's because it costs money and because Democrats and health experts are not clamoring for them to take it.  I told yall a long time ago that they should have charged $1000 a pop for the vaccine and everyone would have been demanding insurance pay for it and then we wouldn't be in this pickle. 

[cherrypoptart]

https://news.yahoo.com/breakthrough-infections-raise-health-death-192154873.html

Just more of the usual evidence that our government messed up big time and still won't fix their mistake of underestimating the virus and being lackadaisical about reducing infections and deaths. Still over a thousand deaths per day and it seems like most people still aren't wearing masks because they got the message that vaccination only was enough.

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"But compared to people who never had COVID-19, those who had breakthrough infections had a 53% higher risk of death and a 59% higher risk of having at least one new medical condition, particularly problems affecting the lungs and other organs. Even when breakthrough infections did not require hospitalization, the increased risks of death and lasting effects were "not trivial," the research team reported on Monday on Research Square ahead of peer review. "The overall burden of death and disease following breakthrough COVID-19 will likely be substantial," the researchers conclude...

... Surprisingly," in August 2021, the rate of positive tests among vaccinated travelers was more than double the rate among the unvaccinated, said Retsef Levi of the MIT Sloan School of Management, coauthor of a report posted on the SSRN server ahead of peer review...

... When they analyzed results from eight of the studies in detail, they saw a 53% reduction in the incidence of COVID-19 with mask wearing and a 25% reduction with physical distancing."

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I thought this fact check was interesting.

https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2021/04/30/fact-check-post-detailing-covid-deaths-under-biden-ignores-trend/4889416001/

Apparently, they are celebrating the fact that Covid deaths were on a drastic downward trend under Biden toward the end of April, and history after that showed us that downward trend continued until July, about a month and a half after Biden put out the deadly misinformation that it was safe for the vaccinated to take off their masks. I had wondered if we would have more Covid deaths under Biden than Trump and I'm pretty sure we're long past that by now. And as evidence in Japan indicates, it's not just because of delta either otherwise they would have had a massive spike in deaths too. It's because people stopped wearing masks because Biden lied to them. We get the stories like this one supporting that, we get half-hearted statements from our government that even the vaccinated should be wearing masks, but what we don't get is that actually happening. Everywhere I go I'm seeing less people than ever wearing masks, and I'm only referring to indoor crowded places too as it's pretty rare in the U.S. to have to go to an outdoor place that's crowded enough to be dangerous.

[LetterRip]

Cherry,

your wilful misinformation is getting annoying.

Delta is the cause in the resurgence, has zilch to do with Biden.  Every country in the world has experienced severe resurgences.  The biggest factor that reduces the significance of them is the percentage of the population with 2 (and now 3) vaccinations with effective vaccines (Pfizer, Moderna).

[cherrypoptart]

I do not think that's true and Japan proves it. If it was just delta they'd be getting a massive spike also but since they never dropped their masks they aren't getting what we're getting.

https://www.google.com/search?q=japan+covid+deaths&oq=japan+covid+deaths&aqs=chrome.0.69i59j0i433i512j0i512l3j0i457i512j0i512j69i60.3001j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

The first chart I'm seeing shows zero deaths on November 19th with a 7 day average of 3 per day. Japan has been in double digits since may and is now in single digits of daily covid deaths. We are in quadruple digits. They are less vaccinated and more densely populated. The difference is so obvious is right in front of our face. Masks. I even offered a video of a rickshaw tour around town and all you see is mask after mask after mask, even outside where I don't insist it's necessary, but if they are wearing them outside they are wearing them inside too and that's where it counts.

They have delta in Japan and they are doing okay even with less vaccination. Not even just okay either. They are doing fantastic.

And that's the real danger of our government's misinformation campaign, blaming this on delta instead of not masking. If we went back to the masking policy we had in April before Biden opened his mouth and destroyed months of progress getting people to accept masks, we would be in a much better place than we are now. If Japan is any indication, even with delta we would see lower rates of infection and death than we had before it came along because we'd be getting the increasing protection of vaccines along with the constant steady protection of masks.

I'm just glad Japan didn't listen to Biden (and our Republicans) so we could have a good control population to see what a difference masks make. But the sad thing is the longer it takes people to stop blaming delta and start realizing that the masks make a huge difference, are the deciding factor way above vaccinations, the longer it will take to turn this pandemic around. What's becoming more and more clear is that vaccinations alone are not going to work.

[cherrypoptart]

But I do appreciate the assist with my point insofar as agreeing with me that the generally accepted idea out there is that our problem is delta and not enough vaccinations instead of the problem being masks.

There's pretty much nobody in America right now clamoring for the masks to go back on and nobody saying they are ten times more important than vaccinations.

We just disagree on what the misinformation is.

The idea that we are going to vaccinate our way out of this problem was always just wishful thinking. Biden never should have gotten our hopes up about it in the first place. That was a fatal mistake.

I could say that time will tell but we already have the results and they already tell us. Over a thousand deaths per day speaks for itself and when you turn around and look at Japan with an average of only three per day the masks are practically yelling in our ears.

People don't want masks to be the best defense right now just because they simply don't want to wear them.

[TheDrake]

You know what Japan also didn't have? Anti mask protesters assaulting employees and invading businesses.

There is also ample science to suggest mask wearing isn't the dominant factor in Japan's low case count.

https://www.embopress.org/doi/full/10.15252/emmm.202012481

[LetterRip]

Interestingly Japan has had a 'negative' excess mortality during COVID-19

In 2020, we estimated an all-cause excess mortality of −20 982 deaths [95% empirical confidence intervals (eCI): −38 367 to −5472] in Japan, which corresponded to a percentage excess of −1.7% (95% eCI: −3.1 to −0.5) relative to the expected value. Reduced deaths were observed for both sexes and in all age groups except those aged <60 and 70–79 years.

https://academic.oup.com/ije/advance-article/doi/10.1093/ije/dyab216/6413683

[TheDrake]

With new antiviral treatments coming out, and effective vaccine penetration, and an understanding that covid is endemic now, are we approaching an equilibrium where we really will be able to treat it like influenza? There will always be differences of course, in terms of outcomes and risks, but it appears that in this country, the numbers can be managed without overwhelming healthcare in the near future. What do you guys think?

[Fenring]

With new antiviral treatments coming out, and effective vaccine penetration, and an understanding that covid is endemic now, are we approaching an equilibrium where we really will be able to treat it like influenza? There will always be differences of course, in terms of outcomes and risks, but it appears that in this country, the numbers can be managed without overwhelming healthcare in the near future. What do you guys think?

Oh, I agree. Part of the horror of covid hasn't been so much the fear of getting sick, but the fear of being a 'spreader' needing to go on self-lockdown in case of a positive test. And especially in regard to my kids, which exponentially made the whole thing worse. If it was just me, and no risk to my kids or anything like that, I wouldn't have been on such a high-stress living situation. If it could be reduced to 'the flu' where kids getting it meant a few days at home, I would be ok with that. But kids being sent home open-ended and no school for them, no work for me; that can't happen.

[msquared]

I was more worried about spreading it to my 90+ year old mother and in laws and my anorexic SIL and my imuno compromised sister.

[LetterRip]

There's pretty much nobody in America right now clamoring for the masks to go back on and nobody saying they are ten times more important than vaccinations.

Those vaccinated are also the ones almost exclusively doing all of the masking, they've largely given up on convincing the anti-vaxxers who are also anti-maskers.

The idea that we are going to vaccinate our way out of this problem was always just wishful thinking.

Not at all, if everyone in the US were fully vaccinated the COVID-19 would be a fairly minor issue.  Hospitals wouldn't be overrun and the death rate would be extremely low.

Over a thousand deaths per day speaks for itself and when you turn around and look at Japan with an average of only three per day the masks are practically yelling in our ears.

It doesn't there are plenty of countries with similar mask usage to Japan, but drastically higher infection rates.

See this comparison for case rate by country,

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/total-and-daily-covid-cases-per-million

People don't want masks to be the best defense right now just because they simply don't want to wear them.

Many vaccinated still wear masks.  The antivaxxers are those who predominantly don't wear masks.  They "don't wear masks" because they have been convinced it is a hoax and that masks don't work and other bizarre beliefs.