I imagine that the exact opposite is happening in the commercial real estate market, seems like there's room for some creative solutions in there.

Sleep in the vacant office next to yours for a fraction of your monthly mortgage payment!

We paid 300k for our house exactly a year ago. Spent about $35k in renovations. Realtor friend said she can get us over $500k if we put it on the market. It still needs a bathroom remodel, painting, a deck remodel, and landscaping.

Tempted to get out, but haven't seen anything I'd want in the price range we're currently paying.

That's our situation. The good holy shit of "Our house is worth how much!?!?!" is offset by the holy shit of "It would cost how much to buy a bigger house?!?!?"

We just refinanced, so we are staying put. But it is fun to go to zillow and look at all the non-liquid value I am sitting on with no way to access it :-)

My girlfriend doesn't like my plan of selling now, cashing in, and living in a van but eating at fancy restaurants every night and taking expensive vacations.

That's exactly the situation we were in in 2005 in Tallahassee. Our house was worth twice as much as we paid for it brand new in 2001, and with 2 young kids we were busting out of a 1500 sq. ft. house. But if we sold, it was going to cost us $450-500K to upgrade to what we wanted.

Got a job opportunity in Lexington, sold the house in 3 days after insisting the realtor list it for $15K more than she recommended, then bought a 4500 sq. ft. house (including finished basement) in KY for about $350K. Total no brainer.

Only time I've ever timed a financial decision on the head. We sold at the height of the bubble in 3 days. The a-hole who lived next to me put his house up a month after we sold (I'm going to guess it had something to do with the fact that we happened to sell to a young A-A woman...) and he couldn't sell for over 18 months. I hope he took a loss.

I wouldn't want to live in a van either. But tell her its going be below and she might go for it.

Flying Cloud Travel Trailer 30FB Office Floor Plan | Airstream

I know I should believe her but her warning of "impending doom" rings hollow/exaggerated to me. I admit it may be me but it seems she is overplaying it.

143M doses administered. 93M with at least one shot. US population of 330M . Everything I've read says at least 1 shot significantly reduces severity if you get Covid, quite possibly reduces transmissibility etc.

So yeah, there will be another uptick, but I find it hard to believe we will go back to the "dark" days or that deaths would go back near that level.

https://www.cnn.com/2021/03/29/healt...day/index.html

I LOL'd.

I think that is the majority of our country right now. My brother listed his house in Bloomfield, NJ in August for $370k (a 3/1.5) and after a weekend had 12 offers including $430k with appraisal protection and a waiver of the first $5k of inspection items.

Houses in our Emory-area unincorporated hood are now starting in the $500k area (probably like low/mid 400s pre-covid). But where would we move? To buy a house in our area we'd either need to gut it or spend >600k. Move to Gwinnett or Cobb? No danke!

More on the lack of homes jacking up prices.

‘We can’t compete with all cash’: The struggle is real to buy a home during COVID-19 - MarketWatch

Good News Everybody!

Good News: It Looks Like Vaccinated People Can’t Carry Or Spread The Virus

The husband of the new couple next door to me was hospitalized with COVID about two weeks after they moved in He spent about seven weeks in the hospital including extensive time in ICU on a ventilator where he received last rites twice. He then spent about two weeks at a rehab facility before coming home. He has nurse visits at least two to three times per week. I saw him once since he made back home wearing a face shield and dragging an oxygen tank behind him. Today, I walked out of my house to take my son to baseball practice when I met an ambulance blocking my way. About a minute later, they wheeled my neighbor out of his house and into the ambulance.

Just a quick reminder of some of the consequences of COVID for me.

Saw a JAMA article on leading causes of death in 2020 and suicides were down about 6% from 2019. There were, percentage-wise, pretty big jumps in unintentional injuries, Alzheimer's, and diabetes.

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...tm_term=033121

Am I the only one that thinks this whole "we will be able to work from home forever" is completely overstated and companies will be pushing to have most people back in the office by beginning of 2022 if not sooner?

You're probably not the only one, and I'm sure there will be certain kinds of businesses doing a lot of push-back, but this trend started before the pandemic and will not go away.

My old employer started this after Superstorm Sandy had them out of their offices in Manhattan for almost 6 months. Within a couple of months after offices reopened, they revamped their work-from-home policy and shrunk their footprint in Manhattan because the past several months had proved commuting every day and paying for expensive real estate was unnecessary.

Now, the alternative for more menial jobs may be a trend toward more direct oversight at the home (cameras, etc. - think call enters) and at that point, you may see push-back from employees. But for middle/upper management desk jobs, there's very little reason to be in the office every day if you trust your workforce and are still getting the results you expect.

My employer is looking to bring everyone back in August, with some adjustments to allow for more work from home.

My company is only 12 people and in the before-times we were almost entirely in office. There is a very high probability that we will be all-remote from now on. I worked remotely from 2007-2018. I really like having an office.

The guy who essentially took my job at my old employer and who I walked through the job process told me that he and his wife (no kids) had decided during the pandemic to make a change to their lives - he would look for a new job, and she would look for a new place to live. The two things were totally unrelated to each other.

They live in NY. He took a job working with a group of people based out of Louisville metro (Indiana, across the river). They are currently deciding where in the US to move.

If more employers are doing this, there's no way to put the toothpaste back in the bottle. You can't just tell someone, "Well, it's been a year since the pandemic so now you need to make arrangements to move closer to the office where we expect you to work 3 days a week."

I don't think everyone will be working from home. I do think we will have both employers and employees asking themselves why does everyone need to be back in the office. Being in the office is no longer the only way to do business. It may be the preferred way for some. It may be the only way for others. It feel like just as many people who have said that they love working from home have said the complete opposite. I think the pandemic just allowed everyone to see that working from home is a viable option in areas that we did not believe was possible before.

Dola,

I wonder how much of bringing people back in the office will involve upgrading the office experience. I am thinking about the differences between football locker rooms and weight room in college recruiting.

We just got an email that everybody is now "encouraged" to come back to work in the office, and that we will be required to at some point in the next 2-3 months.

I've been back in the office for months, from the second we were "encouraged" to stay home, but allowed to come in if it didn't get too crowded. It is not too crowded. In fact, I'm still the only one out of about 12 people in my unit in the office except for one of my supervisors.

I like going into work every day, and having the capability to do a little extra at home when I need to on nights and weekends. And I've always had that.

I went from being the youngest employee by far when I started, to now in the older half. Maybe that's part of it. But I love coming downtown, walking around outside on breaks, grabbing lunch somewhere, coming in with my coffee and taking those first few minutes to get settled, chatting in the hallway about nonsense. It makes me think of my first office job years and years ago and how important that felt for me as a new adult to start doing that. I don't remember as much about the job as being a part of the NYC commute, happy hours, lunches and wanderings in the city, etc.

Working at home this time, it was just a daily 12 hour blah block of work mixed with household stuff. The view never changed. And then when it was over and I was STILL home, then that just made me feel like I was in a rut, and wasting away.

I've been working from home 3-4 days a week for almost 10 years. I love it. I can work out every day during lunch. I don't have a 2-hour roundtrip commute and save gas and miles on the car, plus I get an extra 90 minutes of sleep. I'm in the office at least once every week and when needed. It works out great.

I've been working from home for 6 years, so I know all the benefits. But I think people are missing some of the potential downsides. Ignoring anything specific to your current job, you don't make the same sort of connections with people so you are less likely to get recruited by a former co-worker that switched jobs. And if you want to change jobs, hopefully you can find another remote one or that house out in a rural area is gonna seem like a really bad idea in retrospect.

I'm a manager and am really struggling with what are reasonable expectations for employees and office time once this is basically behind us. I'm certainly among the many who have moved dramatically on this point of view, after seeing what has worked (and what hasn't) through this so far.

But... but... everyone who to claim the pandemic is overstated or a conspiracy has told me that that suicides are way up (and they care so much about those people they didn't before and it's definitely not about their own feelings).

SI

It's going to be hard to overcome the "downsides" of work at home for that big block of micromanaging managers, directors, etc.

Where I work, upper management isn't allowing anyone into the building unless you have a good business case because they don't want to waste PPE on people who could work from home. There are a number in my management who are cheap and would love to save money from using less office space but their micromanaging is even more important to them

We'll be "encouraged" to come back in September, I expect, and those who don't take this encouragement will be next on the layoff list just as they have been in the past.

It's dumb, as I've been more productive since being at home. However, our management has started having even more unrealistic expectations of workloads, available hours, etc.

And then there's the downsides of networking and job security mentioned above. It's easy to commit career suicide if you're out of sight, out of mind. Even if it's something as stupid as the subconcious "well, I need to lay off one person; Person A does more but Person B is more likable so we'll get rid of A".

SI

This is the part that I find super interesting. How do you manage people who have been more or less on their own for a year plus? Assuming they have been doing a good job during that time frame.

On the 'have they been doing a good job' front, I have pretty close to zero accountability or oversight since my work has gone entirely remote. I'm not exactly complaining about it, but it doesn't feel sustainable or stable.

Re: Productivity during WFH

It is easy to remain productive and on track when 1) you are really trying to keep a job during a pandemic and 2) there isn't anywhere to go anyway due to pandemic.

People will get REALLY comfortable disappearing for 30 minutes here and 60 minutes there to run errands or whatever else when things return to normal.

Maybe you personally don't do any of that or your company is filled with high achievers that won't do that. Most companies aren't.

Yeah, along these lines when I first returned to this job I was very proactive about seeking out work and trying to be as visible as possible until I got the impression that I was bothering/interrupting my managers peace more than I was making any kind of positive impression & now I just wait to be explicitly pointed at any work and/or responsibilities.

I find the accountability thing to be just the opposite. I guess it depends on what percentage of the population is responsible. And that goes back to, on a grand scale, the type of job.

For me, I find that when I work from home, I make sure I am available at any second because if I miss a call or don't respond to an email, I don't want people thinking I'm doing something else - even if I'm eating, or in the bathroom, or working on something else. Whereas, if I was BSing with someone in the office next to me, I wouldn't think twice about a missed call reflecting on my work ethic.

But I can see for lower level jobs, the accountability isn't going to be there. And of course, no matter the job, you're always going to have people abuse the system.

Yep.

Depending on your work and how often you are in larger group settings like meetings of 5+ people, having some people at home and some in the office is more challenging to communicate. Being that one person on the phone it can be challenging to read the room and know when to speak up.

If you are primarily working independently, working from home is great.

Our company is likely to go to a hybrid approach but have every do the same thing each day; so either all in the office or all at home.

I am in and around OTHER peoples homes all day. I didn't miss a single day due to quarantine or anything. Still, I do work from home (more out of my home). I only have to go by the office once a week for paperwork, and get my work once a month. As long things are getting done and people aren't complaining, I am good. This industry goes to both extremes. From companies that have you in at the beginning and end of the day, gps track your every movement, constant group meetings, etc. etc. To companies that hardly ever require you to go to the office, everything is done electronic, the company drop ships you supplies, etc.

One local company has one office that they work the entire state from, and they higher techs to work from home in separate markets. Those guy barely ever have to go to the office.

My wife’s company is basically transitioning to closing offices and working from home exclusively. Mid sized company. They learned people can do just as good a job if not better. They are also in sales so a lot of time they were out of the office anyway meeting customers.

Both of our employers have office space in multiple cities, and both are dropping leases like they're hot potatoes. In both cases, it seems that large office spaces are to some degree being viewed as unnecessary expenses.

My wife, who worked in the office 5 days a week prior to the pandemic, is looking at 2 days/week max, with 0 being a possibility. The building she used to work out of is technically open now, but with no encouragement to attend. ("Just letting you know that the building is there if you need it, but wear masks, exercise social distancing, etc., if you decide to go there.") Neither she nor nearly anyone who was housed there goes in on any sort of regular basis. There's one fairly low-level employee there who doesn't have good space to work from home, so she goes to the office every day, and she's usually alone. I don't think my wife has gone there 10 times since last March.

I've been officially remote for almost a decade. However, there's still been a massive shift in company culture. All of our offices nationwide were shut down as of 3/15/2020, but we hit 118% of our projected 2020 performance. That, uh, got executive leadership's attention. ;) The last communication we received about re-opening buildings was in early March and it said "August at the earliest." They've massively changed the overall workforce strategy as well; a ton of positions that used to require a move to a city with an office are now remote--including most middle management and some upper management positions, all of which required working out of an office before the pandemic. To understand how big of a shift this was, prior to June of 2020, the policy was that they were hiring NO new remote employees, and if you were remote and wanted to take a new position within the company, you had to move. The old-school SVP who was most responsible for that policy was dumped unceremoniously in June 2020--as in a company-wide terse email saying basically, "as of today, Oldfart Whiteman is no longer an employee. Newschool Whiteman will cover his responsibilities until we determine if we're going to restructure or backfill the position," and a few days later, the new policy was announced. It was...{chef's kiss.} :lol: (Typically when even a lower-level manager or highly-regarded individual contributor leaves, the email is sent in advance of their last day, and with all sorts of flowery stuff about everything the person accomplished, how much they meant to the company, well-wishes for future endeavors, etc. None of that in this email, just...we'll have to figure out how to cover his role, 'cause he ain't working here another day.)

Regarding home prices, went to Zillow and my house value is probably higher than it's ever been. Not by a significant amount but still noticeable. Also, we live in a fairly large subdivision of 200+ houses and there were no red dots (for sale) in the neighborhood.

Realtor.com has our house $20K higher than Zillow but not sure I trust it more/less.

There's that itch to sell the house, rent an apt and invest the profits, and when houses stabilize in X years, buy a smaller house. Kids are in college, house is paid off, and missus and I agree to downsizing when retired. House is about 20 year old, stuff is "breaking". If both kids end up working & living close by us, I can see us keeping the house but, all things equal, I rather be close to salt water.

Good to know. Here's to a grand re-opening of the US sometime this year.

Spoke to kids about visiting Galaxy's Edge this Christmas holiday. The only con is the expected really large crowds because of the pent up demand.

https://www.cnn.com/2021/04/02/healt...ess/index.html

That guidance is laughable given that people have been traveling for most of the past 8-9 months. It's like advising teens shouldn't have sex before they are married.

So the latest from our pro-Trump GOP work buddy is that he has the antibodies, so he doesn't need the vaccine. I haven't heard a single person mention some sort of antibody exemption from the vaccine. Is this another Rand Paul special?

Disney is very concerned about this and got rid of its annual pass. I think they'll be doing limited-admission entry indefinitely. (X number of tickets to sell in a day).

Though Christmas week will probably be maxed out and hugely crowded, as it always was.

Caught bits of Fauci on CNN yesterday. The one thing that stood out was him supporting Brix saying she was in a tough spot.

Acosta was pressing on "shouldn't she has stood up and said something even if it cost her job" and Fauci said (paraphrased) "give her a break, she was in a tough spot".

I like Fauci.

I agree with Fauci. It is easy to Monday morning QB with the whole "she should have done the right thing" argument until you're in that spot.

Apparently, the whole team felt the same way. At some point, it is on them to tell the truth while it still matters. They all thought they could manage Trump, but it's impossible to manage him.

Even if you agree with Fauci, it doesn't excuse Birx's over-the-top praise of Trump.

To be fair, there was a lot of "she should have done the right thing" in the moment. The better argument in my opinion is that she sacrificed her reputation in order to try to help the country. I think eventually history will reflect kindly on her as more comes out about the pressure that was put on her to be more optimistic than the circumstances deserved

Anyone have any insights or bets if DisneyWorld will require (vs. recommend) masks by Christmas time?

It's me but would like to be able to walk around open air places without wearing a mask. However, my best guess is odds they'll still require masks in enclosed and open air, so looking if anyone has a different opinion.

Assume current trend and no massive upticks; everyone, that wants one, has been vaccinated by late Summer; and vaccinations are shown to still be "good" after 8-12 months. An unknown to me is Disney will get it's share of foreigners and who knows about what shape their countries will be in.

In a perfect world, Disney will require vaccinations (e.g. passports), require masks in enclose places (e.g. stores), voluntary in open air, and a bunch of cast members constantly sanitizing rides, tables, doors, bathrooms etc.

I agree with this. Also, if she wasn't around, Fauci would have to deal with more of the BS.

There was the blowup on whether Birx herself was following the "family gathering" recommendations they were asking everyone else to follow. She gave a defense that was kinda convoluted (and IMO, unconvincing).

But taken holistically, yeah I think history will be more positive than negative on her, especially now that Fauci supports her.

First family gathering I’ve had since this all started. Uncle died (fuck dementia and ALS) in California and wanted to be buried back here in the motherland. Distant relatives didn’t come but most of my cousins came.

Probably the highlight was all us cousins going to the assisted living and seeing our 97 year old grandma for the first time since this all started. She wasn’t able to attend the services for my Uncle and her mind is slipping quite a bit but by the time we all left she knew who we all were and that her son was buried that day. Then she went around and told us how fat, old, and in my case, bald, we are all getting.

Glad this all took place in the almost post-COVID world. Pretty much the whole crew had at least the first vaccination shot.

10+ week check-in.

Comparing to previous post, 78% now vs 76% distributed shots; approx 15 days supply now ((208M - 162M)/3M) vs 7+ days. Even if we use current 4M shots a day, that's still 12 days supply.

Overall, the metrics are same or worse than before but the situation is better because of the "scale" and seemingly end in sight now.

The schilling for a testing website that still doesn't exist and the praise for Trump reading all of the literature is never going to look good.

I was reading somewhere about EU internal angst on whether to accept the Sputnik vaccine.

Assuming that Sputnik will arrive much sooner than the equivalent other vaccines (let's say 2-4 weeks earlier), I think the EU will need to cave on "saving face/pride" and order it.

U.S. reaches 100m vaccinations Europe struggles speed up roll-out with just 10 per cent of EU jabbed | Daily Mail Online

Fauci says government won't mandate them but companies can/may. If government doesn't mandate, that'll probably mean vast majority of companies will not other than maybe theme parks, international travel, schools (just like other vaccination shots), and a few others.

Small to mid-size businesses would be loathe to ask for them without a mandate ("hey, just following rules") as they want every single piece of business they can get and don't want to offend customers.

I'm guessing no vaccine passports then unless in very specific circumstances. Interesting question/dilemma.

https://www.axios.com/covid-vaccine-...b547fe68b.html
Considering the mess the EU is in currently, I can understand their want for a passport for crossing borders.

Interesting ethical question. Should some states with the most infections get more doses than proportional population.

I think if this was in the early stages, maybe. But in current day, these states have the same information as others but have failed to control their infections.
Other states have done a relatively good job and shouldn't be penalized.

Texas didn't make the cut so looked it up in worldometers. They are #5 today on infections so they're probably #6 or #7 in news article list.

Nearly half of new US virus infections are in just 5 states

Can't wait for all the Florida spring breakers to spread the love upon their return home...

So a story from my mother who has become addicted to You Tube. One of the crafters she follows there lives in North Carolina (I want to say Hendersonville, but don't quote me on that). The crafter has a very big family, and she shows some of their shopping and cooking on the channel.

Anyway Walmart tells them their order is ready for pickup. They go there and the pickup lines are full and overflowing. Worse yet they have just two teenage boys putting the orders in cars. They wait a while, a long while, before talking to someone working there and they tell them to go back home and they will call when the order is ready. They call and they go back after dinner.

They wait a while again, no order still, so they decide to just go in and do the shopping themselves. About three hours after they came back for the pickup, they have most of what they came for and their pickup order is still not there. They go back home and cancel their pickup order in the morning.

That is by far the worst grocery pickup story I have heard during the Pandemic, and I'm glad it wasn't me it happened to.

We stopped pickup orders a while ago when supply ramped up. Also reassured that our local Kroger, Publix, Costco, Walmart were (for the most part) keeping folks honest on wearing masks. We also went in the mornings or later in the evening.

It was good for the need/time but invariably our pickup orders had produce that we would not have picked (e.g. browning leaves) or missing stuff or cannot fulfil orders. Sometimes we got extras too which was nice.

Nowadays, we go in whenever. It's almost like normal except everyone is wearing masks. No shortage of much here.

My daughter does Kroger Clicklist because she's so busy student teaching during softball season. She showed up at 9am for a pick-up only to be told that her order got put into the car in front of her. So she sat there for 20 minutes while they speed-shopped her order and they gave her $15 off for her trouble.

We used Clicklist 3 or 4 times, mostly when we were on quarantine. I don't see a need for it anymore. I'll make the time to shop.

We've done Kroger (or HEB or both) weekly for over a year now. We've had the sub problem while there were shortages but in the past couple of months, it's been a couple of items, at most, each time. Back when Houston was at its peak, we would have to wait maybe 10 mins for a parking space (our Kroger only has 4 spaces) or HEB had 2 particular days where they were hours behind. But, generally, it's worked like clockwork so we're going to keep doing it until the pandemic dies down more. I'll be happy to go back into a store when it's time, but it's not time yet.

SI

I don't have any issues grocery shopping (of course, I'm now fully vaccinated so it's even less of an issue). Stores here are very big, people are spread out enough, and I usually don't see more than 1 or 2 people unmasked.

Now restaurants, I've done twice since the beginning of March. One was sitting outside and the other there was only one couple eating at the same time we were, on the other side of the place.

It's interesting when these types of situations arise, what each person's individual preference becomes as far as what they will and won't permanently change. I don't mind eating out, but I've found that it's more for the convenience rather than the food. I have greatly preferred bringing the food home and giving it the finishing touch myself to make it as hot, crispy, etc., as I want it. In the restaurant, I'd be an a-hole if I sent food back to get it exactly as I want it. No problem with that at home. But I enjoy grocery shopping, so I don't feel the need to have someone do that for me.

Bloomberg - Are you a robot?

Ontario, including Toronto, just went into a 4 week lockdown as cases have shot up again in the past month:



Happy to report our store is fully compliant with the new law. : ontario

One Reddit post has some pictures of how a WalMart there was arranged where they have to block off lots of products and sections of the store due to the restrictions.

I can only imagine the screeching that would go on here with something like this.

SI

Germany in negotiations for Sputnik. Regardless of the political ramifications, it's probably the right thing to do - place the order now but decide whether to use it when the time comes.

In retrospect, this is what the EU countries should do. Place the order and if you don't need it (when it's actually delivered), donate it to developing countries.

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/04/09/germ...n-vaccine.html

Exactly. If you have the cash, by all means do this

SI

One of the many mistakes the EU made with vaccines was being frugal and haggling on price. They made deals weeks later they could have, and lost out on some distribution to the U.K.

The U.S. and U.K. realized right away that cost was really irrelevant, because the economic benefits of getting back to normal faster far outweighed any price difference that the EU was holding out on.

The EU prioritized cheaper instead, and they have access to cheaper now.

It is extremely early in the process but this is a side effect of the COVID vaccine I think we can all get behind!

https://www.refinery29.com/en-us/202...-response-rate

Wow, this is fantastic news if it works out. I wonder if there is a possibility for a cancer "vaccine" also.

I don't know all the legal mumbo-jumbo nuances but in reading this article, it's reasonable to me. I don't want government to dictate who and how many I can have in my house. I do get these are extraordinary times and would be okay with this if the rule was applied consistently.

https://www.cnn.com/2021/04/10/polit...ies/index.html

HS softball is in full swing and we had a tournament this weekend (well, Friday since today got rained out). Tournament was at a 4-field park and there were 16 teams (4 pools playing at each field). It was one of those "ring"-type setups with bathrooms and concessions in the midde. So, there were probably anywhere from 12-16 teams, coaches, family, friends, etc., at the park at any one time, and everyone was on top of each other. I'd venture a guess that less than 10% of the people wore a mask at any time while in the park. Hundreds of people, no one social distancing. Luckily it was outdoors, of course, but it was still completely irresponsible.

TBH, I don't know the line but there is a certain age where I would be resistant in having my child vaccinated until there are a bunch of others first. As a parent, I certainly understand this concern. As <16 haven't been approved for the vaccine yet, that indicates not enough testing has been done so the article's conclusion, about need more info for parents, is correct.

Will you vaccinate your kids against COVID-19 once they’re eligible? Only half of U.S. parents say yes - MarketWatch

Some troubling news for the SA variant and Pfizer vaccine. Three questions the article didn't answer ...

Even if vaccinated people caught the SA variant, were symptoms less severe, mortality still much reduced?

How about Moderna?

What does it mean that vaccinated people were 8x more likely to catch/have it than unvaccinated? I can't quite make sense of the 8x other than maybe sampling size is way too small?

Im afraid this is the beginning of the end of our population problem. I imagine these viruses will continue to mutate and continue killing people.

There will always be viruses, but I think we're entering a period of new vaccines with mRNA tech that gives us a temporary leg up on the pathogens trying to live off of us.

On the one hand, we cannot go back to the last four years of the government lying to us as a matter of course. We need full transparency. So I am happy that these numbers are not being hidden

On the other hand, 6 blood clots out of 7 million J&J doses administered is basically nothing. And people are going to lose their minds over it b/c people don't understand math.

Sigh.

And it plays right into the hands of the anti-shutdown people who claim the other side is too cautious and not balanced enough. Perfection/zero risk is an unattainable goal.

Yea, can't help but feel this will have great effect on the push to get herd immunity via vaccine and ultimately prolong the pandemic. I know a few younger people that are hesitant but were going to try and get the J&J shot as it was only one shot.

Kentucky just announced yesterday that as soon as we hit 2.5M people who have had at least a 1st dose, we are dropping many capacity and social distancing restrictions for restaurants, bars, gyms, concert venues, etc., for 1K person capacity and fewer.

The way this is being reported is going to result in a lot of people having an excuse to not get vaccinated.

I think it was this thread where we were talking about pandemic home values.

Here's where the biggest increases have been.

My county is darkest colored county in the whole map that basically broke the scale.

https://i.redd.it/qsgt973982t61.png

new Monmouth University poll:

proportion who say they'll never get covid vaccine if they can avoid it

5% of Democrats
22% of independents
43% of Republicans

— John Harwood (@JohnJHarwood) April 14, 2021

The speed with which the GOP has become anti-vax is genuinely surprising and a real concern in terms of herd immunity. I have to think a media campaign featuring Trump would convince some percentage of these people.

Why would he do that? His entire platform and popularity is based on being contrarian, particularly here where it can be tied to a political divide.

$$$

ETA: He does like getting his ego stroked though

https://www.businessinsider.com/covi...-donors-2021-4

I don't expect him t do it, I just think that's the only way to move a significant number of GOPers that won't take the vaccine. He could save a lot of lives, but he won't.

In Toronto, we are roughly 30% up year over year. Crazy. The actual city is less (10-20%), as there was a rush out of the city as the "work from home" trend took hold. You can't buy a home without being in a bidding war, and everything is blind bids, so you get some crazy bids as people get more desperate.

https://www.foxnews.com/media/trump-...a-safe-vaccine

He has done that already.

The problem with a Trump ad campaign is that you can't go to Trump and ask for something. As soon as he figures out he has something that someone else finds valuable, he won't give it up.

The way to get Trump on board is to make him think that you don't want him out there telling his folks to get vaccinated. Then he'll do it to spite you.

But that's a hard message to get to him without confusing people along the way.

I'm not talking about a line in an interview that most people will never see. If he did commercials and participated in vaccine promotions around the country he'd make a real difference.

But he won't.

And that would be counter-productive to his grift and his 2024 campaign hopes (why would he have any interest in helping Biden be a success in anything?).

Maybe if we put his signature on each needle?

Yeah, just call it "The Prick", which can be embossed in gold lettering on every box.

SI

We're not arguing, but I'd add that he's also too lazy to work that hard.

He's so petty and jealous of everyone else that he'd rather thousands of his supporters die.

Many of his supporters don't believe people are dying from Covid, but that Covid is being appended to every death certificate to turn an underlying cause of death into a Covid death. So those people were going to die anyway, in their minds. Yet another way this works in his favor. If at any point the calculus showed this doing him more harm than good, he'd change his position.

It feels like we are 2-3 weeks away from supply no longer being an issue and convincing folks to get a shot becomes the next challenge.

The irony is that the folks who are the most against lockdowns, masks, etc. are going to make lockdowns and masks go on for much longer than they would otherwise by refusing to get a vaccine.

We're already at that point in NY. On Friday I got an email asking for people to just show up that day with no appointment because they had @2000 available spots.

I think that the best thing that the WH could do would be to plant a reporter to ask something about Trump being able to convince his supporters to get the vaccine.

And for the WH to then answer something along the lines of we would of course welcome his help, and there is certainly a political breakdown in who is saying they won't get the vaccine. But it is unrealistic to think that Trump could do much to change their minds. These people are independent, and they won't just do what Trump says.

Get him to go out and convince his drones to get the vaccine and then brag about how he got everyone to do it.

We, the relatively well-to-do, are mostly there in most of the country. It's the hard-to-reach, suspicious-of-government, and so forth who are going to be the first and most serious challenge. The separate and separable challenge of the believing-the-bullshit component is its own problem.

I'm awfully worried that this may have some ugly demographics over time. The places where all the classes and points of view commingle are going to be pretty important - schools, airports, retail centers.

I think it would help if the CDC started opening up some more areas and private businesses and schools made vaccinations mandatory. There needs to be a carrot/stick approach with the idea that vaccinations are the way to go back to normal. People will scream initially, but then most of them will go get their shots.

That's the reason my boss finally got his. He asked his doctor whether he should and if it is safe. Basically the doctor said nothing is 100 percent,but we are never going to get back to normal until we reach a level of herd immunity through vaccination. That was enough to convince him.
Meanwhile, my daughter still refuses to take it. She fears future reproduction issues.

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Texas Gov. Greg Abbott issues order prohibiting 'vaccine passports' | TheHill

Of course, in Texas, Abbott put out an executive order banning any sort of vaccine passport /and/ (because, of course "local is better" only applies down to a state level not local one) forbidding smaller jurisdictions (say, Austin) from doing it.

SI

Can't say I'm a big fan of government mandated passports myself. I don't think people should have to carry around paperwork to simply go to the grocery store. It seems too Soviet-esque for my libertarian tastes.

On the other hand private businesses should require proof, then that is their business.

That's what we're attempting to do in KY - get to 2.5M vaccinated, many restrictions are lifted.

Domestically, I'm okay with passports for some situations. Wouldn't demand it of grocery stores and like. But I think passports to fly (including walking into an airport before getting into a plane), cruises, schools etc. should be required.

Internationally, I absolutely think countries and US should require passports and/or quarantine period until we get to "that" point (which is probably +1 year after the US).