COVID Thread Part Deux

[Kyyle23]

1 minute ago, Chisoxfn said:

Lets be clear in this example - person thought they had allergies...instead had COVID. Someone can say they still shoudln't have or whatever...but this wasn't someone who woke up, tested positive for COVID, or who was feeling terrible who walked into a school.  The point is - masks matter, etc...but I'm not about to be ushering said teacher to prison....come on.  

Let's be more clear, person isn't vaccinated and shouldn't be taking that chance.

[he gone.]

 

12 minutes ago, Tony said:

I don't want to speak for everyone, but I think the frustration comes from.....we didn't have to just "live with this." But because a bunch of people are so obsessed with party lines....we're probably going to have to live with it, you're right. 

is it party lines or is that what they want you to think? just like all these stories focus on FL ... when in reality FL vaccination rates are just about the same as IL. The reason they focus on FL is because it's a swing state with a prospectus candidate to come out of that state. (i've voted democrat over the past three elections ... so can't pin me here)

Which state do you think has higher vaccination %: Colorado or Florida? 

The truth is that less than 20% of black, Hispanic and Asians are vaccinated. 

by age per cdc: 

75 and older: 75%

65 to 74:  78%

50-64: 75%

40-49: 66%

25-39: 57%

18-24: 54%

I don't disagree that party lines DOES play a role. it surely does. but i would say age and race very much drive the decision as well. 

[Quin]

5 hours ago, BrianAnderson said:

Food for thought ... What if I told you that per CDC website, not me, not Fox News, not a university study ... per the CDC that approximately 600 kids 0-18 died of the flu in 2017?

Then what if I told you that 444 kids have died of Covid in 2021 through 3 quarters. Extrapolate that number out one more quarter and you're sitting at exactly 600. 

 

Now think if in 2017 they made kids mask up, socially distance, and generally put fear into a whole generation of kids that year for the flu. 

 

Just saying. When you can't go anywhere for more than like 8 minutes without hearing the word Covid? It gets scary. But if you take facts, numbers, and take a few steps back? All of a sudden it's not so bad. 

That's all while we're taking society-wide preventative measures against COVID (adults getting vaccinated, masks, remote learning, work from home, social distancing, less travel). Like others have said, delta is here. 

Months ago you said you essentially said that the vaccinated people can stop bothering unvaccinated people, who are living at their own risk. Well, I got COVID despite being vaccinated - because the unvaccinated people are letting delta spread like wildfire. We're going backwards because of delta due to unvaccinated people. You may not want to hear about it so much, but maybe if people didn't handwave this as the flu (which, note, less than half of adults take the vaccine for the flu) and took the damn vaccine, we'd be looking towards a future where we don't have to be worrying about kids getting the delta variant.

 

[southsider2k5]

26 minutes ago, BrianAnderson said:

That sounds like a great alternative. SS2k has convinced me. I want to live in that world. Let's all lockdown like China and Australia. Then if i go to the grocery store and catch covid as a vaccinated individual and give it to some obese 75 year old i get to go to jail!! personal responsibility! 

 

  And this is why this thread goes off the rails every ... single ... time ... 

 

the argument went from talking about the rate of hospitalizations in kids, to how and when do we move away from current protocols, what are the reasonable next steps, to we should prosecute and track every individual like some sort of nanny state government. shocking. 

See, that's just it.  When the exact same language gets used to try to save people's lives, as is being used to justify killing people, it goes completely off of the rails.  Apparently personal responsibility doesn't include not killing people, but if it did, we'd be communists.

[mqr]

7 minutes ago, BrianAnderson said:

 just like all these stories focus on FL ... when in reality FL vaccination rates are just about the same as IL.

Ignoring voting results, I'm not really sure Florida is all that more red than Illinois in terms of the actual makeup of people. Regardless, It's hard to ignore how much better the large municipalities are doing right now pretty much across the board. 

But you're right the minority hesitancy is real. 

[Quin]

10 minutes ago, BrianAnderson said:

 

is it party lines or is that what they want you to think? just like all these stories focus on FL ... when in reality FL vaccination rates are just about the same as IL. The reason they focus on FL is because it's a swing state with a prospectus candidate to come out of that state. (i've voted democrat over the past three elections ... so can't pin me here)

Which state do you think has higher vaccination %: Colorado or Florida? 

The truth is that less than 20% of black, Hispanic and Asians are vaccinated. 

by age per cdc: 

75 and older: 75%

65 to 74:  78%

50-64: 75%

40-49: 66%

25-39: 57%

18-24: 54%

I don't disagree that party lines DOES play a role. it surely does. but i would say age and race very much drive the decision as well. 

No, that is not the truth. Stop propagating falsehoods. 

https://www.kff.org/coronavirus-covid-19/issue-brief/latest-data-on-covid-19-vaccinations-race-ethnicity/

[mqr]

At the end of the day the real issue is we're still not getting shots into kids

[he gone.]

Just now, southsider2k5 said:

See, that's just it.  When the exact same language gets used to try to save people's lives, as is being used to justify killing people, it goes completely off of the rails.  Apparently personal responsibility doesn't include not killing people, but if it did, we'd be communists.

we're so far off in our personal values that we won't ever come close to agreeing. if there was a venn diagram, we'd overlap zero. And for that reason, you're muted good sir. 

 

[southsider2k5]

Just now, BrianAnderson said:

we're so far off in our personal values that we won't ever come close to agreeing. if there was a venn diagram, we'd overlap zero. And for that reason, you're muted good sir. 

 

If valuing people's lives is this controversial for you, than a mute makes some sense.

[Chisoxfn]

21 minutes ago, Kyyle23 said:

Wait what is the difference here?  Our country straight up has refused contact tracing and those countries embraced it and have become extremely successful in mitigating the virus while using it.  Almagest was asking SS2k5 for proof that other countries use contact tracing.  I understand that they aren't prosecuting which is what SS2k5 Was asking if we should do it, but I answered his question

I had no issue with your comment -> more pointing out / reiterating the prosecution perspective. I agree with pretty much everything you have ever said on COVID.  

[pcq]

We know where the talking points are coming from. The pols who want to succeed Trump.

[he gone.]

6 minutes ago, Quin said:

No, that is not the truth. Stop propagating falsehoods. 

https://www.kff.org/coronavirus-covid-19/issue-brief/latest-data-on-covid-19-vaccinations-race-ethnicity/

hand up you are right here. i was looking at the chart on figure one which notes "of the 58% of people who have received one dose" and then breaks out by race. In that one the highest is hispanic is 17%. However that is using a denominator of just vaccinated individuals, not subsets of each race. which in this case, theres a shit ton of white people in this country, so that's not a great graph. 

figure 3 is the correct graph i should've been referencing. asians at 67%, hispanic 45% and black 40%. White is 50%. Much more even . 

 

I wouldn't use a base word of "propaganda" there, but to each their own. i was wrong in my graph reading. 

 

[he gone.]

2 minutes ago, pcq said:

We know where the talking points are coming from. The pols who want to succeed Trump.

oh definitely. desantis is just as, if not more guilty than 98% of the news out there. he's playing theatre too. all it's pick and choose. it's actually a lot like a conversation on this board to be honest ... it's picking out statistics the protect a narrative in order to make one feel better about their choices and decisions. 

its like ss2k saying "well i guess you don't care about human life" it's blanket statements with no truth it. everybody is a hypocrite in some right. the key is to try not to be a hypocrite all the time.

You can do it for any topic ... the same people who talk about the environment drive an suv and live in a 4,000 sq house, buying useless clothes, take long showers, jump on a plane to their vacations, etc. everybody is full of shit in life, the key is to not be less full of shit. 

 

[Quin]

11 minutes ago, BrianAnderson said:

hand up you are right here. i was looking at the chart on figure one which notes "of the 58% of people who have received one dose" and then breaks out by race. In that one the highest is hispanic is 17%. However that is using a denominator of just vaccinated individuals, not subsets of each race. which in this case, theres a shit ton of white people in this country, so that's not a great graph. 

figure 3 is the correct graph i should've been referencing. asians at 67%, hispanic 45% and black 40%. White is 50%. Much more even . 

 

I wouldn't use a base word of "propaganda" there, but to each their own. i was wrong in my graph reading. 

 

While it does have the same root as propaganda, that was not my intent.

[Marqhead]

The bottom line (for me) is that it’s not that hard to wear a mask or get an approved vaccine, yet many people have chosen not to do that and the rest of us have to suffer the consequences. I’ll feel a lot better when there’s a vaccine approved for kids, but in the meantime there’s some pretty simple steps people can take, but are refusing to. It’s selfish and harms others, even when that’s not the intent. 

Edited September 2, 2021 by Marqhead

[he gone.]

2 minutes ago, Marqhead said:

The bottom line (for me) is that it’s not that hard to wear a mask or get an approved vaccine, yet many people have chosen not to do that and the rest of us have to suffer the consequences. I’ll feel a lot better when there’s a vaccine approved for kids, but in the meantime there’s some pretty simple steps people can take, but are refusing to. It’s selfish and harms others, even when that’s not the intent. 

simply put, yes. this. 

the other hardest part is trying to decipher what we are chasing as a society .... zero transmission? zero deaths? zero deaths that are preventable? we don't have a clear goal, so then it gets jumbled and complicated. 

 

[Marqhead]

1 minute ago, BrianAnderson said:

simply put, yes. this. 

the other hardest part is trying to decipher what we are chasing as a society .... zero transmission? zero deaths? zero deaths that are preventable? we don't have a clear goal, so then it gets jumbled and complicated. 

 

I think one of the big metrics is hospitalizations and ICU use. In my mind that's another big difference between this and the flu, it's much more transmissible and people are much more likely to land in intensive care. We need to get this to a point where those in need will be guaranteed a hospital bed and our healthcare facilities/workers aren't overstressed - just like we do in the worst flu seasons. They are comparable, but it's not apples to apples.

[hogan873]

5 minutes ago, Marqhead said:

The bottom line (for me) is that it’s not that hard to wear a mask or get an approved vaccine, yet many people have chosen not to do that and the rest of us have to suffer the consequences. I’ll feel a lot better when there’s a vaccine approved for kids, but in the meantime there’s some pretty simple steps people can take, but are refusing to. It’s selfish and harms others, even when that’s not the intent. 

Those refusing to get a vaccine are very selfish, and they don't care if others are potentially harmed.  They'll say they care about others, but they don't mean it.  I got vaccinated for me, my family, and my job.  People refusing to get vaccinated are doing it for themselves, that's it.

Mandatory vaccines are coming.  Some employers are already requiring it.  Some venues (United Center, for example) are requiring it.  If people lose their jobs or are refused entry to an event, good.  One less thing for the rest of us to worry about.

As far as masks, no one likes wearing one.  But they are the most effective prevention against infection.  Vaccinated people can still catch COVID, although the risk is lower and the risk of severe effects is much lower.  If an infected person, wearing a mask, is in a room full of vaccinated and/or unvaccinated masked people, risk of transmission is very low.  Wearing masks, while a nuisance, is easy.  And people are acting like...well, like the spoiled fucks they are.  If everyone threw a mask on today, nothing would have to be shut down, and COVID infections would drop off sharply.

COVID will probably never go away.  But we can drive it down to an endemic virus like the flu or the common cold that we can protect ourselves from with yearly shots and have treatments that we can buy over the counter (not horse deworming pills).  But we have to get more people vaccinated and more people to actually wear masks for a while.

[Balta1701]

4 minutes ago, BrianAnderson said:

simply put, yes. this. 

the other hardest part is trying to decipher what we are chasing as a society .... zero transmission? zero deaths? zero deaths that are preventable? we don't have a clear goal, so then it gets jumbled and complicated. 

 

The right answer should always have been to end the virus - because it is so transmissible and so much more deadly than the flu that if you try to "live with it", it explodes - as it has in this country 4 or 5 times now in various spots, and in the process people start dying from all sorts of things because they can't get into hospitals, they overdose on the latest miracle cure, and so on. It would definitely take a couple of years, but if you set that goal - you get everyone vaccinated that you can, you institute vaccination requirements in as many places as are feasible, you require masks in places like schools where vaccination isn't possible yet, you make use of testing tracing and isolation - even with the transmissible variants we have right now, it remains possible to get cases decreasing to a level where you can push towards eliminating it from this country. You then have to work internationally on the same goal, but with the weapons we now have in the vaccines, it remains do-able. The reason it can't be done, of course, is specific people who are on the side of the virus.

[Marqhead]

4 minutes ago, hogan873 said:

Those refusing to get a vaccine are very selfish, and they don't care if others are potentially harmed.  They'll say they care about others, but they don't mean it.  I got vaccinated for me, my family, and my job.  People refusing to get vaccinated are doing it for themselves, that's it.

Mandatory vaccines are coming.  Some employers are already requiring it.  Some venues (United Center, for example) are requiring it.  If people lose their jobs or are refused entry to an event, good.  One less thing for the rest of us to worry about.

As far as masks, no one likes wearing one.  But they are the most effective prevention against infection.  Vaccinated people can still catch COVID, although the risk is lower and the risk of severe effects is much lower.  If an infected person, wearing a mask, is in a room full of vaccinated and/or unvaccinated masked people, risk of transmission is very low.  Wearing masks, while a nuisance, is easy.  And people are acting like...well, like the spoiled fucks they are.  If everyone threw a mask on today, nothing would have to be shut down, and COVID infections would drop off sharply.

COVID will probably never go away.  But we can drive it down to an endemic virus like the flu or the common cold that we can protect ourselves from with yearly shots and have treatments that we can buy over the counter (not horse deworming pills).  But we have to get more people vaccinated and more people to actually wear masks for a while.

I'm very happy to see private business starting to require vaccinations so I don't have to hear more complaining about "government mandates". The majority of people want to get back to normal. Let those of us who have chosen to take a logical and careful approach to this get back to normal, if others want to hop on they need to do the sensible thing and get vaccinated. There is zero reason not to, and as you stated those who are refusing are thinking of no one but themselves. It's beyond frustrating. 

[ScootsMcGoots]

1 minute ago, Marqhead said:

I'm very happy to see private business starting to require vaccinations so I don't have to hear more complaining about "government mandates". The majority of people want to get back to normal. Let those of us who have chosen to take a logical and careful approach to this get back to normal, if others want to hop on they need to do the sensible thing and get vaccinated. There is zero reason not to, and as you stated those who are refusing are thinking of no one but themselves. It's beyond frustrating. 

I do not disagree with the vaccinations. I believe they work. I am vaccinated myself. However, there are some people who are not able to get vaccinated due to health reasons, or whatever it may be. Not everyone can get them. Those that don't want it because they believe that it's evil conspiracy, or whatever, well, I think that's a whole other issue that needs to be dealt with at the heart. What has caused them to believe what they do?

[Marqhead]

1 minute ago, ScooterMcGee said:

I do not disagree with the vaccinations. I believe they work. I am vaccinated myself. However, there are some people who are not able to get vaccinated due to health reasons, or whatever it may be. Not everyone can get them. Those that don't want it because they believe that it's evil conspiracy, or whatever, well, I think that's a whole other issue that needs to be dealt with at the heart. What has caused them to believe what they do?

Of course there are always exceptions, but this is a very very very small percentage of people and it's being thrown around like 1 of every 2 people is going to die from the vaccine - by some, as a reason not to get it. I'm speaking in general terms for the majority of people. 

[southsider2k5]

 

[Tony]

1 hour ago, BrianAnderson said:

 

is it party lines or is that what they want you to think? just like all these stories focus on FL ... when in reality FL vaccination rates are just about the same as IL. The reason they focus on FL is because it's a swing state with a prospectus candidate to come out of that state. (i've voted democrat over the past three elections ... so can't pin me here)

Which state do you think has higher vaccination %: Colorado or Florida? 

The truth is that less than 20% of black, Hispanic and Asians are vaccinated. 

by age per cdc: 

75 and older: 75%

65 to 74:  78%

50-64: 75%

40-49: 66%

25-39: 57%

18-24: 54%

I don't disagree that party lines DOES play a role. it surely does. but i would say age and race very much drive the decision as well. 

I think party lines play a huge role, quite frankly. We're tribal in nature...and both sides are guilty of it on a number of issues. Obviously with COVID, the far-right has been very anti-mask, anti-mandates, anti-vax. What I find interesting is all the different "solutions" that side seems to be trying to come up with. Hydroxychloroquine, Ivermectin, etc....all things not proven to work (and in some cases be very dangerous for human health.) What it tells me is that they aren't taking COVID lightly. They know it's dangerous. It's why they are trying these things. But they are SO focused on sticking with their tribe and going along with the ideology that their leaders are telling them, the vaccine just isn't an option for them. They'd rather spread horse paste on their toast than take a now FDA-approved vaccine because of what their friend posted on Facebook. 

So yes, there are many factors that are driving the vaccination decision. And I think party lines plays a very large role.

[southsider2k5]