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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


SI

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


Got to love facebook doctors...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Fwiw I don’t want anyone dying


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

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

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

SI

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

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

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

But there is still major life disruption for everyone.

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

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

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

They have done what they set out to do.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

— Dave Puglisi (@DavePuglisiTV) August 20, 2021

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

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

So have we reached the nadir of the Abyss?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

These are just great side by side

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

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

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

You just have to make better choices.

Article on this on the BBC website this morning

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

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

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

Nice problem to have being "stuck".

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