Covid #35: I am the Alpha and the Omega.

[DireWolfSpirit]

Not sure if this was mentioned yet, now Italy will be requiring proof of vaccination for people to visit museums, restaurants and other public attractions.

https://www.travelandleisure.com/travel-news/italy-covid-green-passes-for-restaurants-museums-and-more

[Pebble thats Stubby]

1 hour ago, Heartofice said:

Anyone wanting to laugh and then feel terrified and depressed, here is a Twitter thread showing some of the ‘highlights’ from today’s Lockdown protest in london. Featuring Katie Hopkin, and  Ike and Corbyn family members

 

dammit, Australia is just too efficient when it came to deporting her.

[Zorral]

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/23/us/covid-vaccine-boosters.html

The article says the over 65's are included in that Vulnerable category.  Wonder how they will handle this?  Will they do any better than this winter and spring for vaccinations?

"Biden Officials Now Expect Vulnerable Americans to Need Booster Shots
The growing consensus that at least some Americans will need a booster is partly tied to research suggesting that Pfizer’s vaccine is less effective after about six months."

Damn those enemies of the people.  States like Florida, Alabama and Nebraska are now not even publishing the numbers of their surges of new cases and hospitalizations. They are even taking down the state public health online dashboards so 'we can use the money for important matters in the state.'

My stupid brother, his daughter and 1 1/2 grand-daughter are driving this week to North Dakota for 1) family reunion of stepmother's family; sister and bil from CO are coming too; 2) high school reunion for the class in which both bro and bil were members. All of stepmother's family are rabid tRumpistas and anti-vaxxers, like most of ND.

 

[Deadlines? What Deadlines?]

1 hour ago, Pebble thats Stubby said:

dammit, Australia is just too efficient when it came to deporting her.

They should have put her on a boat.

From 4 days ago.

 

[williamjm]

3 hours ago, Heartofice said:

Anyone wanting to laugh and then feel terrified and depressed, here is a Twitter thread showing some of the ‘highlights’ from today’s Lockdown protest in london. Featuring Katie Hopkin, and  Ike and Corbyn family members

 

I know it's difficult to choose the most idiotic and bizarre segment from that but I'd like nominate:

He says "the street light outside your home" is "the biggest risk" to everyone. "Microcells on street furniture, LED street lights" are "biologically toxic to all life", which is why insects don't fly around them, he adds.

[Fragile Bird]

I knew those lights were evil!

[The Anti-Targ]

3 hours ago, Zorral said:

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/23/us/covid-vaccine-boosters.html

The article says the over 65's are included in that Vulnerable category.  Wonder how they will handle this?  Will they do any better than this winter and spring for vaccinations?

"Biden Officials Now Expect Vulnerable Americans to Need Booster Shots
The growing consensus that at least some Americans will need a booster is partly tied to research suggesting that Pfizer’s vaccine is less effective after about six months."

Damn those enemies of the people.  States like Florida, Alabama and Nebraska are now not even publishing the numbers of their surges of new cases and hospitalizations. They are even taking down the state public health online dashboards so 'we can use the money for important matters in the state.'

My stupid brother, his daughter and 1 1/2 grand-daughter are driving this week to North Dakota for 1) family reunion of stepmother's family; sister and bil from CO are coming too; 2) high school reunion for the class in which both bro and bil were members. All of stepmother's family are rabid tRumpistas and anti-vaxxers, like most of ND.

 

Concerning data out of Israel suggests protection against infection and mild-moderate symptoms drops off in that kind of time-frame. But protection against severe symptoms, hospitalisation and death still appears to be strong. The concern is less for the vaccinated than for the unvaxxed, since vaccination will become less and less effective against spreading with time, meaning the whole point of herd immunity (the vaccinated protect the unvaccinated from being exposed to the infection) becomes extremely difficult to achieve.

There appears to possibly be a different pattern emerging in the UK, with protection from becoming symptomatic seems to be higher there than in Israel. Possible speculation that a longer time between first and second shot could provide longer term protection against symptoms (and presumably infection). But I think maybe a booster some time after 6 months after the second shot would be good everywhere. However priority needs to be to get as many people as possible double shot.

2 hours ago, williamjm said:

He says "the street light outside your home" is "the biggest risk" to everyone. "Microcells on street furniture, LED street lights" are "biologically toxic to all life", which is why insects don't fly around them, he adds.

Dunno what that person is smoking, but I have insects (mostly flies, in the summer) landing on my LED TV all the bloody time, it's annoying!...not that my house is infested with flying insects. It's just when there is one inside it almost always lands on the TV screen at some point.

 

[Zorral]

1 hour ago, The Anti-Targ said:

protection against severe symptoms, hospitalisation and death still appears to be strong.

Even two weeks of being very sick and having a long recuperation is considered mild.  You know what?  I REALLY REALLY REALLY don't want to experience this, and I shouldn't have to.  It's THEM forcing people like me into this situation. If any of Them die don't expect me to weep for Them, not one second, one frackin' bit.  If THEY had gotten vaccinated -- if They'd ever cooperated from the git go with the safety protocols even before the vaccines, and after, I AND MY FRIEDS WOULD NOT BE IN THIS SITUATION.

[Deadlines? What Deadlines?]

Gee, I hope this person doesn't have to go to the hospital... like, ever.

https://www.rawstory.com/anti-vaxxer-2653941555/

I was talking about the conspiracy theory stuff with my mom the other day. She then gave me 5 minutes of how it's a good thing she's not on social media. She and my father, who are both in their 70's, are fully vaccinated and she still wears he mask every time she leaves the house, indoors, outdoors, no matter what.  Heaven help the newly-made corpse who ever decides to get in her face about it. 

[The Anti-Targ]

5 hours ago, Zorral said:

Even two weeks of being very sick and having a long recuperation is considered mild.  You know what?  I REALLY REALLY REALLY don't want to experience this, and I shouldn't have to.  It's THEM forcing people like me into this situation. If any of Them die don't expect me to weep for Them, not one second, one frackin' bit.  If THEY had gotten vaccinated -- if They'd ever cooperated from the git go with the safety protocols even before the vaccines, and after, I AND MY FRIEDS WOULD NOT BE IN THIS SITUATION.

I pity most of THEM, because they are actually ignorant and brainwashed, victims in other words. The people I reserve ire for are those who know and yet for whatever political or ideological reason promote lies and distrust of public institutions to lead the ignorant down a harmful path. The people who are vaccinated, but won't tell that to their base, and will promote distrust in the vaccine.

[Clueless Northman]

7 hours ago, The Anti-Targ said:

I pity most of THEM, because they are actually ignorant and brainwashed, victims in other words.

They're not innocent children who can't read and believe in Santa because their parents told them so, they're grown-ups with full rights and freedoms, they can and do vote. If we decide to pity them as ignorant and brainwashed, then we also have to take their rights away from them, because in such a case they would actually not be sensible adults but mentally deficient humans. Right-wing loves to talk about personal responsability; well, then let's apply it.

[Zorral]

3 hours ago, Clueless Northman said:

Right-wing loves to talk about personal responsability; well, then let's apply it.

In rightwing speke, "personal responsibility" mean I can do to you whatever what I want, no questions, no repercussion. And you have to pay for it!

This is a rural region.  One begins to wonder: Among the reasons presented for refusing vaccination is "too far away, too hard to get to"; however, These Same Sorts do manage to get Themselves to the hospital when They come down, inevitably, infected, and, inevitably, putting the health care personnel in danger of break through infection due to being surrounded day and night with infectious people.  None of this would happen if They had gotten vaccinated.

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2021/07/arkansas-cases-covid-19/619515/

Quote

. . . . The nurse at the health department told me that she and her co-workers had expected that some people would resist vaccination, but that “seeing that resistance persist despite education, despite outreach” had left her and her colleagues depressed and downtrodden. “Why are they not understanding how this is putting people’s lives in danger?” she asked. Like her, I’ve been haunted by this question. Sixty-two percent of my neighbors remain unvaccinated for complicated, interrelated reasons that map onto existing, bitter divisions. Any solutions, equally complicated, will likely come only after we’ve seen more death. . . .

 

[DireWolfSpirit]

Most of the unvaxxed I've been exposed to are of the most selfish mindset one can imagine.

They simply do not feel any need, care or responsibility to lift a finger to make life safer for anyone else even the most vulnerable among us. Coupled that cynicism with a sprinkling of those that believe the virus is fake, the vaccine won't do any good or the arrogance that they think they themselves are above contracting the virus because only dirty poor people get sick from it.

That's the disgusting mindset we are tasked with dealing with in willfully ignorant pockets of the U.S.

[Fragile Bird]

Well here’s a weird one.

Spanish golfer Jon Rahm had to withdraw from the Memorial tournament two months ago after being in the lead on day 3, because he tested positive for Covid-19. As soon as he could he got his second shot (he had had his first) and went on to win the US Open. He’s supposed to go to Japan after being in the British Open to play in the Olympics but has now tested positive again. So he’s had Covid, recovered, is fully vaccinated and now has Covid again. He would have been repeatedly tested after his original bout in order to play again. Eta I see Rahm had actually received his 2nd shot just before testing positive.

And Bryson DeChambeau, who was supposed to represent the US, has also tested positive and is being replaced by Patrick Reed. DeChambeau was also at The Open. I wonder if, even with all the care that was taken, they picked it up in England.

[Deadlines? What Deadlines?]

Comedy gold.

Dinesh, "Fuck your feelings." 

$20 says Mike Rowe makes and appearance on Tucker Carlson's show next week.

 

[DireWolfSpirit]

The Tucker's of our society deserve NO quarter!

[The Anti-Targ]

8 hours ago, Clueless Northman said:

They're not innocent children who can't read and believe in Santa because their parents told them so, they're grown-ups with full rights and freedoms, they can and do vote. If we decide to pity them as ignorant and brainwashed, then we also have to take their rights away from them, because in such a case they would actually not be sensible adults but mentally deficient humans. Right-wing loves to talk about personal responsability; well, then let's apply it.

So, anyone who gets scammed is mentally incompetent and should not be allowed to vote? It's certainly one way to structure a democracy.

[Clueless Northman]

11 minutes ago, The Anti-Targ said:

So, anyone who gets scammed is mentally incompetent and should not be allowed to vote? It's certainly one way to structure a democracy.

No. It's just that they can't have it both ways. Either they're responsible adults and have to face consequences, or they're so intellectually limited that they are, basically, like children, legal minors, and have to be stripped of some key rights. I don't choose which option should be considered, both have their pros and cons. But I just can't see how it's defensible to consider them as weak-minded people that can't be blamed for their actions and have no personal responsibility in their ludicrous actions and still let them vote and have full-grown adult rights so that they can't fuck up our society even more.

[The Anti-Targ]

1 hour ago, Clueless Northman said:

No. It's just that they can't have it both ways. Either they're responsible adults and have to face consequences, or they're so intellectually limited that they are, basically, like children, legal minors, and have to be stripped of some key rights. I don't choose which option should be considered, both have their pros and cons. But I just can't see how it's defensible to consider them as weak-minded people that can't be blamed for their actions and have no personal responsibility in their ludicrous actions and still let them vote and have full-grown adult rights so that they can't fuck up our society even more.

It's not either or like that though is it? It's not fully formed mature adults vs children in adult's bodies. The scam is very sophisticated, and unless you have well developed critical thinking and access to sources of actual truth that you trust then you are vulnerable. When you have actual registered medical doctors, who should be a trusted profession, putting out falsehoods and misinformation, along with a well developed mistrust of public institutions and government, when your own president was undermining the credibility of his own top health official, it's not so simplistic.

And I would suggest most of us here don't buy into the absoluteness of individual responsibility, because only perfect knowledge and capability can be held to such a standard in all circumstances. So, sure shine a light on the illogic and hypocrisy of personal responsibility in all things. But don't hold them to this standard unless you believe in it yourself. We can't go around saying social media companies (and mainstream media), and celebrities and "influencers" need to be held to account for their lies and conspiracies or the lies and conspiracies that go unchecked on their platforms, and then just say all those 20%-30% of USA people who are not intended to get vaccinated are root cause of the problem. They are the symptom, not the cause. Personal responsibility is the excuse these people give for not taking responsibility for the influence they are having.

On a related note: https://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/covid-19-coronavirus-us-americas-vaccine-dilemma-dealing-with-anti-vaxxers/2WAXXMCDC6UYXXPYOJTMECH6H4/

Quote

So was the palpable frustration of Kay Ivey, the conservative Republican Governor of Alabama, whose population has the lowest percentage of fully vaccinated people in the country.

"Folks are supposed to have common sense," Ivey vented on Friday, with the air of a person at the very end of her tether.

"It's time to start blaming the unvaccinated folks, not the regular folks. It's the unvaccinated folks that are letting us down.

"I've done all I know how to do. I can encourage you do to something, but I can't make you take care of yourself."

It's interesting to hear an American politician, particularly someone with Ivey's conservative bona fides, call for unvaccinated people to be "blamed".

Other Republican leaders – even the ones encouraging vaccination, as opposed to the ones actively spreading misinformation about the vaccines and comparing health officials to Nazis – have typically warned against being too aggressive in efforts to convince the hesitant.

"You're seeing some people try to bully people into doing things instead of just encouraging them," pro-vaccine Congressman Steve Scalise said, for instance.

"We should be encouraging people to get it, not trying to threaten people."

But gentle encouragement only goes so far.

"I have not and I will not [get the vaccine]. I'm not a guinea pig. There's not a chance," Mike Clark, an elderly gentleman from rural Arkansas, told CNN reporter Elle Reeve this week.

"I believe that it's a freedom issue."

He said, proudly, that he'd probably worn a face mask for a total of one hour throughout the whole pandemic, despite the public health guidance recommending masks for many months to help stymie the spread of the virus.

"If it's so communicable, why am I still standing?" Clark asked, as though declaring checkmate in a game of rhetorical chess.

The reason, I think, this governor is wanting to blame the unvaccinated, is because if she did the normal thing, which is to blame the liberal media, only this time it's the right-wing media she would create an enemy she can't fight. So she blames the people instead.

And "pro-vaccine Congressman...". That pretty much says it all, the fact a politician these days needs a qualifier as to their stance on vaccination. It's hopeless.

[Zorral]

13 hours ago, The Anti-Targ said:

this governor is wanting to blame the unvaccinated, is because if she did the normal thing, which is to blame the liberal media, only this time it's the right-wing media she would create an enemy she can't fight. So she blames the people instead.

It's still the people who are being irresponsible, selfish, idiots, jerkwaddies, putting everyone else in danger, including their own children, and CHOOSING this.  So, no.  I condemn 'the people' and she is right to condemn the people too -- which, let us haste to add, has to include herself too. Though now she's doing a volte-face it still remains the fact -- the people to whom she's referring (which oddly then, the people cannot include me, my friends, my colleagues -- which brings up another insane facet of the fascist international surge), are indeed responsible because they have chosen to be.

Really, in the end it comes down to, either one tries to excuse them for being indoctrinated by Their leaders, to choose to refuse vaccination and all other safety behaviors, or one has to admit They are stupid.  These are the Scylla and Charybdis, between rock and hard place, where the sorts who keep excusing the refusniks find themselves. Either  'the people' are dangerously pathetic, or Those They have chosen to follow are consciously evil. Proof for calling them evil is how much financial reward Those peddling the lies are raking in daily.

~~~~~~~

What the Delta surge means in the US. NY Mag is paywalled after a single article so long pull.

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/07/how-bad-could-the-delta-variant-get.html

Quote

 

. . . And we’re just not positioned as well [Israel]. Back in June, our [US] vaccination program just collapsed. It’s been horrible. Canada is the ultimate comparison. I mean, Canada is just chugging along. It’s going to be the top in the world pretty soon. So, no, I am disappointed.

How do you think it all plays out heading into the fall?

Looking ahead to the fall, I’m optimistic. Delta will have passed through by then — it’ll pass through by late August, or September, if it looks like India or the U.K. or Netherlands. We’ll have a rapid descent, and it’ll burn through. We’ll still have lots of COVID in this country, but it’ll be back to where it was before Delta came. It will be at a lower level. The only question is, is there something lurking that’s worse than Delta? There’s no sign of it yet, but there’s too much of this virus circulating to be confident — too many people in Indonesia and sub-Saharan Africa who are getting sick. But I hope not. I’m hoping that this is as bad as it gets. But if you talk to evolutionary biologists, they’ll tell you the variants are going to get worse.

Right, though, just to return to the beginning of the conversation, it’s still a very different-looking pandemic because of the vaccines, right? This variant is bad, future ones will be, too. There will be outbreaks and new cases and some amount of cases, including serious illnesses and death. Certain hospitals may be overwhelmed. None of this is pretty, none of this is happy. But, still, in the big picture, we’ve made so much progress from where we were six or nine months ago.

I don’t think it’s either-or. It’s both. If you emphasize that we made some progress, that’s true, but you could have made a lot more progress with more vaccinates. It’s fantastic that we’re going to see a whole lot less death, but, you know, haven’t we seen enough death already now? Haven’t we seen enough people suffering in the hospital? This nightmare we’ve had — you know, enough of this! To discount potentially hundreds of more deaths a day — it could be a thousand, it could get that high at peak — that’s a lot of people dying. We’ve never gotten it down much below 300.

I think we’ve gotten numb here. We’ve gotten numb to the point that if we had done a much better job vaccinating, like any other vaccine in our history — like polio or many others where everybody got vaccinated — we wouldn’t be dealing with nearly as many deaths, hospitalizations, or the big burden of cases and on and on. I think if you just pick the upbeat side of this, it ignores that. There is a real downside here that we can’t ignore. When you have 35-year-old people — healthy people, perfectly healthy — who wind up in the hospital and are teetering on death, when you have that, you say, God, what are we doing here? We could have prevented this.

 

In the meantime, this AM the mayor has announced all city employees must be vaccinated or be tested constantly.  This includes all them, from in-office personnel to fire fighters and cops -- who for the same reasons that the Arkansas gov's the people have chosen via their 'politics' to be irresponsible -- authoritarian, racist, bigoted, stupid, etc. etc. etc. Screaming bloody murder They are, They are.