How can we continue to let shit like this go unpunished, as if this is acceptable behavior from public servants?

The state of Missouri commissioned a study to see if mask mandates worked. When the results came in, showing they saved lives, the state blocked publication in order to maintain its attempt to force cities like St. Louis to end their mask mandates: https://t.co/nGon9yi7nC

— Timothy Burke (@bubbaprog) December 2, 2021

It's frustrating because it seems so simple to me.

Step 1: Vax/boost the heck out of everyone.

Step 2: not needed

That's it really. It won't be perfect, but it will turn this into the flu, not a world-stopping pandemic. Instead, we are taking half-measures that are keeping concrete shoes on the world economy and leading to more death and serious illness from the virus. All to protect the delicate feelings of the FreeDumbs crowd.

You don't like masks? Me neither! You want to be able to travel? Me too! You like going to sporting events? Hey, we have that in common! You want your grandmother to be alive? Sounds like we should start a club of people with common interests!

You know the deep, secret, insidious reason we pro-vaccine people want people to be vaccinated? So we can all get back to normal as quickly as possible. So we can have all of that good stuff that we lost.

And while I am a patient person, I am starting to run out of patience with the "I read something on FreedomEagle.Facebook.Russia that says that vaccines are bad" crowd.

A strong majority of Americans are vaccinated and believe in the germ theory of disease. Biden needs to turn the conversation away from mandates and toward putting the blame where it belongs.

We shouldn't need vaccine mandates in the same way we shouldn't need "don't pour battery acid in your eyes" mandates. Remind the country of who is keeping us in the mess.

Germany and Austria are doing what should have been done a while ago (tho Germany is going a step further with compulsory vaccinations coming up) and what we probably don't have the stomach or political structure to do at this point.

Look, you don't want to get the vaccine? I was about to say "fine, that's your right" reflexively, but, really, it's not that simple when we're talking about public health. Right to self harm, sort of, but this is harming others and we do have quite a few laws about that. You are the ones who are barred from doing things, not the people doing the right thing. Currently, those doing the right things and making the sacrifices are rewarded with having to be more cautious because of these plague rats. They can go ahead and be stuck at home, watching Netflix and getting takeout while the rest of us get back to life because we did what we were supposed to do to get back to living in a society. Instead, we're at "you have the right to sacrifice more because I refuse to make sacrifices", which is so backwards.

SI

Apparently, DeSantis wants his own private gestapo

DeSantis proposes a new civilian military force in Florida that he would control

Kindof surprised he didn't think of this sooner. Abbott has his watching for Jade Helm in Texas a few years back. How'd that go, anyway?

SI

I'm not for the Germany lockdown here in the US. I can see that if/when hospitalization & mortality get back up there. I am for allowing insurers not having to pay treatment costs or increasing premiums substantially.

Just got back from Paris. France has a 'Pass Sanitaire'. You need to be vaccinated to get one (or a negative COVID test can get you one valid for 3 days). You need to show it to get into restaurants/theatres/museums/sporting events/etc.

I wish we forced the unvaccinated to miss out on some of the benefits of living in a society.

How is it a lockdown? Unless I'm mistaken on how it works, people are allowed to do whatever they are legally allowed, provided they have a vaccine. Vaccinated or not, people can still go to work and get essential supplies and do what they need to. But you don't get to go do fun leisure activities unless you've taken precautions to stop harming those around you. Businesses are not closed, as far as I am aware.

Instead, here, we have the de facto inverse of that here where people who have done what they can are worried about those who aren't. So, of course, we're punishing those who do what's right and rewarding those who do what's wrong, creating a negative incentive. I am shocked, shocked that it's not working.

SI

This is what I read about Germany's lockdown.

https://www.cnn.com/2021/12/02/europ...ntl/index.html

Everytime I hear about the Omicron variant I think about Omicron Persei 8 from Futurama.

Well, you know what they say. Women are from Omicron Persei 7, men are from Omicron Persei 9.

SI

:D

You know things are bad when the biggest producer of homeopathic 'medicine', whose proponents very often denounce vaccines, are sposoring a big advertisement campaign in a dozen national papaers for Vaccination. Cynically one could ask if they are just afraid for their bottom line if too many buyers die. Or that government and regulatory bodies finally stop giving them special treatment if they aren't seen as quite so harmless now.

Chances are increasing that Omi is a dud relatively speaking.

https://apnews.com/article/coronavir...a972d7ebd9556b

Ideally, survival of the fittest dictates that you spread rapidly and in order to do that you don't kill the host. The end result hopefully is something that long term looks more like the common cold and less like something that kills indiscriminately.

Got an email from the middle school principle last night. 20 kids out in the last week and another 120 are in the process of being notified they have to quarantine. We dodged those bullets, but I am not hearing a rumor they are closing the school for 3 days.

My Dad is in the hospital for an infection. They are looking to discharge him today. He said a doctor told him they are trying to get ready for a surge, and that this wasn't a place you want to be right now.

We just got the email. Closed for three days. The email left it open to be closed more. My guess is we don’t go back until after New Years. Curios what they do with the high school and 4 elementary schools.

Wrong thread?

My 13-year-old son's school (grades 6-8, about 800 students) just sent home the entire 8th grade (his grade) until January. They only had this week and next week left before break, so it's 1 1/2 weeks of virtual instruction. WONDERFUL. My son continues to test negative, and he's pretty good about keeping his mask on, as much as that sucks. He said mask compliance has been slipping, and I understand from other parents that it's been basically non-existent at the local high school.

My daughter was informed that she was exposed, but she's fully vaccinated, so she doesn't have to quarantine.

Posted this in the school and covid, but I'm not sure which one will get a clearer answer:

So forgive my confusion to all of this:

My kids are now vaccinated, my wife and I are vaccinated (my wife already got the booster), my parents are vaccinated (and booster I believe)

Are the large majority of cases now for COVID, since I'm reading that there is a shortage of beds again with the winter surge, still unvaccinated people?

Because I am aware of breakthrough cases but they themselves don't seem to require hospitalization.

So why are wearing masks and trying to follow these guidelines for unvaccinated (and this is not against those who cannot vaccinate but those unwilling to)?

At this point, I'm no longer sympathetic to those unwiring to vaccinate, let them eat horse medicine.

Here are the cases / 100K in Ontario (Canada) stats for yesterday:
Unvaccinated: 15.3
Partially Vaccinated: 5.69
Fully Vaccinated: 4.47

87.4% of all 12+ people in Ontario are fully vaccinated

Now the telling stat is 69 unvaxxed in the ICU, and only 24 vaccinated in the ICU. So 13% of the population is putting 3x as many people in the ICU as the 87% vaccinated. The age is also important, I think there have only been 2 people under 60 that are fully vaccinated which have gone into the ICU to date.

I don't mind wearing masks if it means everything stays open.

Thank you. I too wear a mask mainly in public areas (which I must admit I rarely go to).

I scheduled my booster for today.

I just read that my son will have to play basketball with a mask on at the one school which district requires it. I'm sure there will be wailing and gnashing of teeth for some people, but me, . He's 9.

It proves a point there are many selfish stupid people out there, the COVID ain't making them smarter, but it is doing it's best to kill them.

As with so many things the answer is: It depends.

Now the much longer version than the one you likely wanted ;)

If you mean by "majority" the total number, then it largely depends on vaccine uptake and how it's distributed among age groups and other demographics (not very surprisingly poverty corelates with worse health and thus worth outcomes for this illness, same as many others). In regions with very high uptake you might actually have a majority of cases be vaccinated, in those with even higher uptake this might even be the case for Hospital Cases or even ICU or Dead.
This is the case, at least it was a few weeks ago, the case in the UK. Where you should not let the relatively "good but not great" total Uptake numbers fool you as 1) pretty much all groups 40+ are veeeery highly vaccinated and 2) the younger groups make up quite a seizable part of the population (for example 17 and younger, of which 0-11 isn't vaccinated and 12-17 the UK started very lare, are like 21.5% compared to 16.5 in Germany, won't be that different for 18-25 yo)

Any way, the short answer is: In these circumstances you might have a majority of even ICU cases be vaccinated, but the overall number will be lowish. The cutoff point is somewhere around 90ish uptake for 30+ adults and 95% for 60+.
So yes, of course vaccinated also get very sick at times. And cynically the protections is worst (which does not mean bad ! But slightly worse makes a difference) for those most likely to get very sick, meaning people with prior immune deficiencies or simply 80+ years old.

EDIT: As Mota demonstrated, many regions/cities/countries will have this data available if you look for it.

Almost everywhere i am aware of the Efficacy against preventing hospitalisation/ICU is somewhere around 85-90%. Meaning in most regions you end up with unvaccinated having like 9 times higher per capita Hosp/ICU cases.

With "cases" it depends on testing as well, as often vaccinated aren't required to test in as many situations and quite simply aren't seeing the need to as often, because the whole "not getting as sick" thingy applies to every subgroup pretty much (even those in the ICU are on average less sick if vaccinated and those simply having a mild/'mild' case tend to be less sick as well and recover faster. Remember the Vaccine's main trick really is giving the immune system a major headstart).

The problem re:shortages is (at least) fourfold:

1) It bears repeating: Covid19 is an absolute MF to treat. It takes a lot of time, effort, manpower and expertise. A friend of mine in hospital says at a minimum 1 Covid patient 'counts' as 4 average patients because they need at least twice as many people and they need treatment for twice as long. And that's a hospital where patients tend to skew more severe for other illnesses, this ratio will be even more extreme in other hospitals that don't usually have as many high-demand patients.
When you see these "but they are cutting hospital bed capacity in a pandemic ! It's all a hoax" things (dunno how prevalent in the US, it sure is in Germany), this is the explanation. The more Covid Patients a hospital gets, the lower it's overall capacity will drop. (and the reason it almost never is 0 is quite simply that you don't wait till that point because you always need to keep some beds free for people that need help immediately).

2) With no real concerted prevention of Covid you also get a much higher number of patients with other communicable diseases that spread very similar. While Influenza still, best i can tell, isn't making a huge comeback, others are.

3) You also get all the deferred treatments/procedures, many regions likely never managed to work through their backlog. The UKs system is under pressure despite okish number of Covid patients (though that still adds up fast ...) because there are many millions of people on waitlists where now often you can't wait. Remember that for many individual hospitals "10% of beds free" can mean "1 bed free". Even in sizeable towns you don't have hospitals with dozens of ICU beds and those genereally take on the 'overspill' from smaller hospitals, many of whome are simply not equipped to treat Covid (same with other diseases/procedures. Most smaller hospitals will defer quite a few to bigger and/or more specialized hospitals).

4) Quite a few people will have quit, gone on medical leave, are sick themselves.

All of this also means that when hospitals are overloaded (to which the Unvaccinated contribute the single biggest factor above baseline...) this then bites everybody in the ass that is sick or needs a procedure. So unfortunately this can become a problem for anybody, regardless of getting Covid and/or being vaccinated or not against it. There's regions in Germany where i would not want to get hit with a health issue right now of any kind ...

Texas launches hotline to report 'illegal' vaccine mandate

Well, I hope this is filled with the same Shrek porn that the abortion reporting site crashed under.

(For those who forgot that story: TikTokers flood Texas abortion whistleblower site with Shrek memes, fake reports and porn | Texas | The Guardian )

SI

I thought the people who were against mask mandates were also against the government encouraging citizens to snitch on citizens in this way?

Wait, what? The people most against mask mandates appear to be the biggest bootlickers.

SI

Just got my booster. Will drink plenty of fluids this time and hope to avoid a repeat of symptoms from shot #2.

I tried this but only ended up with a massive hangover.

Just got back from Hawaii - definitely an interesting contrast from Idaho. Masks required everywhere, and vaccination cards required to dine anywhere in Honolulu. There's a whole system just to get there that involves proof of vaccination, registering on an app, etc.

Also stayed at the Navy Lodge in Ford Island in Pearl Harbor for the 80th anniversary (sponsored by a friend who is a Navy commander) and fended off a blizzard warning on the big island THEN a state of emergency flooding warning in Honolulu. I've traveled a few times since I was vaccinated but this was the first time I really out there doing stuff like I used to do. Was definitely great for my mental health. I know I have some super-cautious friends who probably were judging me in silence (I have a lot of friends who don't do indoor dining yet, let alone travel), but, anywhere is safer than Idaho probably.

You're supposed to drink water. :p

We're scheduled for 2 weeks in Kuaui end of June through early July and I'm hoping all of the restrictions are relaxed by then. I did manage to secure a reasonable rental car; now I just have to hope I'm not playing out the Seinfield "take the reservation/hold the reservation" scene.

Kauai is my favorite island, and the good news at least is there is so much outdoor stuff to do there, you hopefully won't be affected. Be sure to get in a tour of the Rum planation if you can

Basically, vaccinations didn't do that much to prevent infection. I don't think the article explicitly said that vaccinations help/reduced (or how much) the seriousness of the infection compared to non-vaccinated.

Surely there were non-vaccinated people that caught omicron and since there's been no deaths as a cause of omicron ... another piece of evidence that it's a dud.

https://www.cnn.com/2021/12/10/healt...cdc/index.html

Out of the 800k in the US that have died, 600k are in the 65 and older group. That means roughly 1% of that US demographic have died from Covid. That's absolutely insane.

It seems likely that Omicron is currently sweeping through the United States, right? The NFL and the NBA are getting tons of asymptomatic positives. And that's because they are testing everyone pretty much every day.

The good news is that is looks like these are mild cases--though the NFL/NBA population is vaxxed, so we don't really know for unvaxxed. If long COVID also isn't a thing with them, then Omicron + vaccines might be the key to "living with the virus."

I just read yesterday that they think approximately 30% of all COVID cases in Canada are already Omicron. Numbers are blowing up here for sure, the RT of Omicron here is 4.0 so far. The doubling number is 3 days, so it'll bump out Delta really quickly.

I've been as pro-vaxx and pro-mask as anyone (particularly someone who still considers themselves to be "conservative" (in the apparently ancient/irrelevant meaning of the term today)), but I'm struggling to understand what the go-forward strategy is for dealing with Covid. My assumption is that Covid isn't going away; we'll have multiple variants and the end state is likely a seasonal/ongoing flu-type infection.

So when I see things like the NBA canceling games between teams that are fully vaxxed (including many who have gotten the booster), I don't understand what is going on. These kinds of decisions seem to me to cut directly against the messaging that vaccines are safe and effective, and that by getting vaxxed, we can get back to normal life. If I'm a vaccine-skeptic, seeing this kind of decision tells me that is not true. Why get vaxxed if I'm still at risk for getting Covid AND activities are still going to be canceled/restricted regardless of whether I'm vaxxed?

WTF are we doing? There doesn't appear to be any kind of off-ramp or soft landing/next phase from the original view that any positive test is the next current crisis and requires drastic action, irrespective of any advancements we've made to cut down on the transmission and severity of Covid.

The Trump administration failed by ignoring Covid; the Biden administration is failing by not coming up with a logical roadmap that goes beyond the next quarter mile to communicate to people what the new normal is supposed to look like and that it started with vaccines.

It's tough, though, because the GOP has encouraged so much resistance. We're currently averaging 1270 deaths a day over the past seven days. We have states with only 50% of adults vaccinated. The exit ramp is that everyone gets vaccinated and boosted, but so many people refuse that I don't know how we move on other than just stop caring about deaths.

I think we're doing the same thing we do on many issues; taking actions based on perception, CYA, etc. at times to go along with the reasonable steps that happen.

There's a situation for example that I have knowledge of where a church board was concerned about mandating vaccines for a pastor who has medical conditions exempting them from both vaccines and masks-wearing. A legitimate concern on the surface. They voiced this concern to the next level up the hierarchy on a zoom call in which the lot of them were sitting shoulder-to-shoulder in a conference room. Not a one of them wearing masks. So it's like, you're worried about your pastor who is in the very small minority of people who can't take the vaccine, but you're not even doing your part?

My stance has been for a while that once we reached the point - last March or April - where the vaccine was widely available and anyone who wanted it could get it is the last point at which these kinds of measures made any sense. I think we'll gradually and eventually get past most of it just because people can only keep up the anxiety about it for so long, but some of it is just performative obeisance to the concept of doing everything you possibly can as a public figure to promote safety, even if what you're doing doesn't make any sense and doesn't actually serve public health.

At this point, I feel like the only people we should care about are the people who can't help themselves - the young, the old, the infirm. Protect them, fuck the rest, and penalize those who put those who need to be protected in harm's way. Everyone else should be free to live and take whatever additional precautions they feel are necessary (masking, virtual attendance, etc.) to deal with the unvaxxed assholes they unfortunately may come across in public.

I don't think its a matter of caring. We should care about all deaths. We should also accept that we cannot prevent all deaths, and that trying to do so can cause worse consequences.

The only thing that comes to mind is that hospitals need to be protected, since that impacts everyone. The easy solution to that is to not treat unvaccinated people at hospitals. Maybe they can have their own "Freedom hospitals" in docked ships or something.

Yep. At the very least, willfully unvaccinated people who get Covid should be put at the bottom of the pecking order for hospitals. Anyone who comes in with a broken arm gets served before all unvaccinated patients. If a bed is needed, kick an unvaccinated patient out. (The idea of entirely separate Covid hospitals sounds good. And insurance shouldn't cover trips to the Freedom Hospital. Freedom to not get vaccinated = Freedom to pay for your treatment yourself.)

I have a hard time caring about someone who willfully choses to put themselves at risk. If a drunk driver wraps their car around a telephone pole my only thought is glad they only killed themselves. I care about the kid who has cancer or the stroke victim who can't get the correct level of care because there anti vaxxers are overrunning hospitals once they realize prayers won't help them.

I think we're still in a bit of a transition period and that will, hopefully, end by the end of the school year.

While most adults could get vaccines by last summer, kids under 12 couldn't until less than a month ago. How do I know? We signed ours up the first week they were available and our 6 year old only gets to "full immunity" tomorrow (2nd shot + 2 weeks).

Once you get that huge population through the process, which should take a couple of months and also get us through this current wave, which will probably roll into early Spring, people will have their first real ideas of "what living with it" looks like. But we've seen on this board in the COVID and school- there are a lot of people who were not ready to even test some real level of normalcy until their kids were vaccinated.

Because of that, a lot of schools are living with rules that were made for months ago during the Delta surge, based on their experiences during the pre-Alpha and Alpha surges. I think next school year, schools will have a more "normal" way of doing things. And considering how kids are huge vectors for disease, these aren't the actions of insane people on school boards.

I think Biden was also hoping for more of an uptake with the mandates - get your vaccinated adult population up to 80%+, even if by force, so there's just less of a reservoir of unvaccinated to clog up hospitals. I also think he was trying to establish more of a framework to allow the unvaccinated to be excluded from activities.

Again, there's this stupid ass backwards perverse incentive system still in play. You don't want to get vaccinated, you can go almost anywhere in the US. You get vaccinated and are still concerned about your health, you're restricted.

A while ago, we decided that smoking sections are a load of crap - we all know how well smoking and non-smoking sections worked (i.e. didn't) and how one person's action actually did affect everyone around them. So, we said "for the greater good, the less desirable option is more difficult when in public". It's not that it's illegal to smoke and there are no restrictions in the privacy of your own home, but it's more expensive to do it and more expensive to get insurance. And if you want to do it out in public, you're the one going outside in the rain in front of the restaurant or during the play or whatever, not the people who you are affecting with your actions. This is how vaccine status should be.

They tried to create a similar framework and it has taken hold in a few places but judges have gotten involved and started treating unvaccinated people like a protected class in a lot of cases and that's made things more difficult.

SI

I hope the schools get it together. We had friends over Sunday night, our daughters are buddies. We were lamenting that the last normal year the girls had was kindergarten and now they are in third grade.

This year has been a pretty normal school year for us. Masks to begin the year but that was dropped and now if you're vaxxed and exposed, there's no quarantine required. As a parent, the main difference I've seen is a benefit - all event tickets are purchased online rather than requiring cash at the table. Masks are required at indoor events, but about 10% of the people wear them. Haven't had a single NTI day this year - that will likely only happen for a snow day.

What can schools do to "get it together" and be more normal?

EDIT: Not trying to be a smartass about this - but like schools in Texas have mostly been back to normal with optional masking and security theater-esque cleaning protocols. They pass out rare exposure emails like a week late but I don't even know if you have to take action anymore.

Of course, Texas stopped providing COVID data for kids because, if it you can't track it, it's not a problem: https://downloads.aap.org/AAP/PDF/AA....9%20FINAL.pdf

SI