I've noticed more and more people voluntarily wearing masks at the grocery store here. I'm not but an interesting trend.

I'm starting to wear them again. I'm vaxxed and not that worried. But it is an incredibly light burden, and if I can make anyone with children or who is immunocompromised more comfortable, then why not do it?

I have been seeing more recently as well, which is surprising.

COVID exposure and racist slurs at raucous meeting under investigation | FOX 2

St Louis county council meeting about the mask mandate imposed by the County Executive.

I've noticed also, and I am currently on Nantucket where at least 50% of people are wearing them.

The interesting thing in my neck of the woods will be what happens when kids go back to school. There is a VERY vocal group of parents who are very much against kids wearing masks in schools.

I’m confused. Have I got this right, that Graham has caught a disease that isn’t really a big deal, but it was only mild for him because of the vaccine that Trump heroically produced, but that people shouldn’t take?

Hurrah, we hit it! Better late than never I guess. More first jabbers.

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/08/02/covi...th-behind.html

I was wondering if we would get a small surge in vaccinations with all the troubling news of the Delta variant. Had a friend who was more aloof than anti-vaxx who finally ran out and got their first shot.

Played a lot of Pirates sailing around the Caribbean so the 2 French colonies (?) caught my eye. Wonder what the deal is with such low vaccination rates (vs mainland France) ... have to believe the vaccines are readily available for them?

Guadeloupe is latest French island to lock down amid 'catastrophic' COVID situation | Euronews

Michigan still looks good in terms of case numbers despite being a little below the national average nation-wide, but it's starting to move in the wrong direction now. Curious to see if the Whitmer Wars resume in the fall.

Here's a perfect example of a flawed mindset.

Most people who aren’t vaccinated view vaccine as a greater risk than covid-19, poll finds

You can't tell me that these people are basing it on the available stats. I thought the cure couldn't be worse than the disease? That's what they said all along, and now they're like, um...this cure is worse than the disease, because I don't trust actual science. There is no available data that shows the vaccine is a greater risk than the disease itself.

Local stats showed up on my feed. A little disappointed that we are below national average but not too surprised. Definitely a GOP/Trump stronghold.

Other than schools, county isn't too "packed". I don't think I'll be wearing masks to Kroger (in and out) but I won't be sitting inside any restaurants anytime soon. Unfortunately the barber place I go to has gone maskless so may have to get haircut first thing in mornings to miss the crowd.

She basically said her hands are tied now because the 1945 Emergency Powers Act got rescinded. Winter will be a shitshow.

Another somewhat ethical dilemma. WHO is asking wealthier countries to not do booster shots (e.g. 3rd shots) until much/rest of world gets vaccinated.

I am sympathetic to the ask, but no western leader will survive if there is a massive 4th wave (or is it 5th next?). Although death tolls are unlikely to reach the heights of last year, it could still be bad enough to cause re-election issues. And it is a leaders responsibility to protect his/her citizens first.

So from a humanitarian POV, its the right thing to do. But from the best interest of a country, nope.

However, the US should continue donating anything that is excess and also continue $ contributions to the global fund.

We just basically did a tour of Florida via a travel baseball tournament in North Florida, quick stop back home and then down to South Florida to visit family. Since I visited the grocery store in all three locations, I observed the amount of mask wearing that I saw in each location. I did not do an actual count. This is not meant to be scientific.;)

WAYYY more mask usage than I expected in North Florida on a busy Saturday afternoon. My guess would be about 20-25% of the shoppers were wearing masks. If you asked me beforehand, I probably would have the percentage would have been less than 5% given what I learned living in that area in the past. Locally, we have been pretty steady around 30-35% for the past month but I saw a slight increase when we made the quick pit stop on Monday. In South Florida, it really felt like I was at the store in April 2020 instead of August 2021. There were less people in the store than the previous two times. At LEAST 60% of the store were wearing masks. The social distancing was noticeable as well. People were giving each other at least a couple of feet as they waited to grab a item from a shelf or waited in line at the checkout area. I even saw people use the sanitizing wipes to clean the credit card keypad. I can't remember the last time I saw that happen.

We're in St. Augustine for the week and we've noticed more mask-wearing as the week has gone on. Hearing about the lack of space in J-ville hospitals must be getting through to some.

We are in Nantucket for two weeks and mask wearing is off the charts. To the point I feel bad not wearing one. Some places close to70% I would say, and probably 50% of people just walking on the street. Some places requiring them, I wanted to go into Vineyard Vines and I couldn't because my masks were in the car (yes this is the definition of a first world problem)

I have come across a couple people online claiming to have made appointments with fake info in order to get a 3rd shot.

So credible!

Just to prove Brian's point that it's always both sides, this is an article about one of the current leaders of the local county GOP. He recently helped lead a hostile takeover because they didn't feel the elected officials were subservient enough to Trump, which was impossible.

Anyway, he's currently in the ICU about to be vented. His wife was just released. They are both unvaccinated. In his embedded Facebook post, he rails against vaccinations, masks and government healthcare. This is while is he currently in the hospital.

So I think both sides can come together and say that people like this deserve every terrible things that can happen to them and hopefully no one useful was infected by these deplorable people.

Greenville County GOP leader Pressley Stutts battling COVID-19

Are we at the point where we can say "ironically" that "I for one, don't want my government taxes going to support this man for one minute!"

One of the GOP Reps suing Pelosi over the mask mandate has tested positive for COVID.

Its just the flu unless he gets intubated or dies.

Let's us know when he or his family is quoted saying "should have gotten the stupid shot".

If he dies, he just needs the Missouri coroner to change the cause of death.

That isn't, wasn't, and will continue to not be my point at all.


Nah. They're still human beings. That's plenty to not wish extra suffering on them.

To add to the mask-wearing informal survey, it's still very low here in W. Michigan - it's a noticeable outlier when you see someone wearing one.

I am doing to a comic book convention with my kids tomorrow, and then to a Braves game Sunday. I am going to have to be in a mask all weekend. It's a bummer.

I was out and about yesterday a bit, went to Publix, and noticed the staff all wearing masks again, and a lot but certainly not all customers wearing them. I think mainly its because the Delta variant is a hotspot here-maybe the largest in the state, probably no doubt due to tourists flocking here for their missed vacations and a governor against mask mandates. I'll be curious to see how many parents go the homeschooling route given masks are not a requirement in schools here.

And like a lot of the country, the majority of covid patients are the unvaccinated.

My organization is holding a pretty large conference ahead, and just announced that we would be urging/recommending that everyone attending wear a mask regardless of vaccination status. We're going to get it from both sides, it's already starting from one.

I was working remotely at my kid's gymnastics practice yesterday morning. Normally I've been the only one there, but yesterday there were at least 40 people watching in a 75x15 room. I was one of three with a mask and just worked in my hot car for the next 3 hours after about 20 minutes.

This week was my first full week back in the office since March 2020. Yesterday I had a cough start to develop. Didn’t get any better overnight so I’m going to go get myself tested.

Incubation is approx 3 weeks, so you should be okay.

I’ve been other places too, just thought the timing was ironic.

I’m vaccinated so not too worried if I am positive.

This one is from the "I have a feeling it's about to get a lot worse here" pile. So, remember, Houston was a major outbreak zone last summer and I have suspected for a while that we actually had a worse outbreak then than during the winter. The case numbers were lower but the deaths appeared to be higher (https://usafacts.org/visualizations/.../harris-county) - however, I don't think our capacity to count either was all that great yet in the summer.

I think some of you have seen stories about how some places are using the amount of virus in the wastewater to forecast future outbreaks and it's been very reliable. Well, Houston's previous peak was in July of last year. Harris County (i.e. Houston) just recorded samples this week that are 320%(!!!) of their previous high. Not a little higher. 3x as high.

COVID-19 in Houston wastewater currently at levels 'never seen before' | khou.com

SI

19 days ago there were 250 cases reported in a day in South Carolina. 3200 were reported today. These are the cases from Wednesday and they no longer report weekend numbers, so shots going to be even more soon.

If that's where we are with half the country fully vaccinated and another 20% partway there, stick a fork in us pretty much.

I want to be positive, but it's hard to be under those conditions if they persist.

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

Imagine if we would’ve gotten a faster start on vaccinations… just imagine you know if say someone a huge amount of people looked up to stated that he himself got vaccinated and encouraged everyone else to ASAP because, you know, there’s not a micro chip in it, or it’s a threat to your freedom. Sounds like a song.


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for facehuggers?

Pretty sure they pop out of the chest quicker than 3 weeks.

I'm optimistic it won't get near as bad as last year for the vaccinated (and probably the partially vaccinated). Keep the faith.

I'm hopeful Delta will push the undecideds/partial to get vaccinated. 12-15 are now approved. Hopefully FDA approval soon.

I'm not a FDA expert and don't know about their inner workings, but article below implies FDA has been slow. It also explains some why we haven't seen more PSA/ads for vaccination (e.g. replace viagra-and-like ads with covid vaccinations).

With FDA approval, more would get COVID-19 vaccine | Commentary - Orlando Sentinel

I agree with that, I'm just talking more long-term. Whatever the ceiling is on the number of vaccinated people, I don't see it being enough to stop this kind of outbreak if we're seeing this now, nevermind in cooler weather/holidays/etc.

I did not realize the advertising part of full approval.

But why would the drug companies spend money advertising the vaccine? My sense is that, globally, they will be able to sell their shots for years without buying ads.

dola:

And I hope that I am being too cynical here and am wrong about this, but I think that a lot of the 49% waiting for full approval will just pass on to another excuse once full approval is out there. It will become "approval was rushed" or "We won't know anything about long term effects for 10 years" or something like that.

I had a friend who had no interest in football whatsoever. When the news started to come out about CTE, she jumped on her moral high horse and started talking about how she could never support entertainment that put people's brains at risk to such an extent. Of course, she had no interest in football; the CTE thing was just a convenient thing to say that sounded better than "I just don't like it."

I see a lot of the "full approval" folks the same way. They don't want the shot for whatever reason. And "waiting for full approval" sounds like a good reason to not do what they have no intention of ever doing.

I hope that I'm wrong and that there will be a rush of vaccinations when it is fully approved.

same on both counts

...you see it already. If "full approval" comes in a month or two, then lots of those people will shift to "well, you know they forced it through the approval process..."

Just got a text from a (vaccinated) friend. We ran into her on Tuesday evening outdoors in our neighborhood. She hadn’t seen my 12yo daughter in person in over a year and they hugged. Her 12yo daughter ran up and hugged Carter as well. Then on Thursday, Carter and her daughter volunteered together at an outdoor event, and worked in fairly close proximity to one another for 2.5 hours, all outside.

At least she told you and was honest. I wonder how many situations like this caused a much bigger outbreak, especially prior to vaccination, because people didn't want a scarlet letter.

I was trying to imagine the guilt you'd feel if you had to write an email like and were NOT vaccinated, but then I remembered that those people don't care about things like that.

I would imagine if you're still unvaccinated at this point you would feel just as bad spreading covid as you would spreading the common cold.