The Politics of Covid 19, mask wearing and the vaccination process

[malchior]

It's only in the Western countries like US, UK, Australia, and some parts of EU that have antivaxxers, who, as my late grandma used to say, "stomach full, brain empty" and needed something to amuse themselves.

Pakistan would like a word.

The sad truth is, anywhere you find vaccines, you find people with doubts about them. But frankly, in most of the world you're not going to get a vaccine unless you really, REALLY go looking for it, so anti-vaxxers only stand out as a group in Western countries.

It's super weird to group people who were legitimately targeted with a fake vaccine with the typical antivaxxer in the United States. There are pockets in Europe too , some of that is empty brain stuff, but a lot were targeted with fake vaccines at some point. We have no such history in mainstream America.

[Kasey Chang]

In other WTF vaccine related news...

New Zealand man found to be a vaccine ringer, takes 10 COVID vax for other people... on the same day, for money.

The person reportedly visited several vaccination centers in Auckland and received the Covid-19 vaccine several times on behalf of other people who paid for the “service”. He was able to accomplish this because, in order to get the shot, someone only needs to provide the health care worker with their name, date of birth and physical address. No photo identification is required.

[Little Raven]

Uh, wow. Humanity, you never fail to surprise.

[Kraken]

California announces statewide mask mandate beginning Dec 15

Hoping Mass. won't be far behind. Baker is getting that advice, and as a lame duck he's free to do the right thing.

[Smoove_B]

Hoping Mass. won't be far behind. Baker is getting that advice, and as a lame duck he's free to do the right thing.

MA was a state I was specifically seeing named as one that was being told (allegedly) by Zients not to worry about masking and instead to push vaccination and boosters.

[Freyland]

In other WTF vaccine related news...

New Zealand man found to be a vaccine ringer, takes 10 COVID vax for other people... on the same day, for money.

The person reportedly visited several vaccination centers in Auckland and received the Covid-19 vaccine several times on behalf of other people who paid for the “service”. He was able to accomplish this because, in order to get the shot, someone only needs to provide the health care worker with their name, date of birth and physical address. No photo identification is required.

Wow. I bet he charged an arm and a... well, probably just an arm.

[Isgrimnur]

USA Today

Keith Smith, whose wife had gone to court to have his COVID-19 infection treated with ivermectin, died Sunday evening, a week after he received his first dose of the controversial drug.

He was 52.

Smith was in a hospital in Pennsylvania for nearly three weeks and had been in the hospital’s intensive care unit in a medically induced coma on a ventilator since Nov. 21. He had been diagnosed with the virus on Nov. 10.
...
York County Court Judge Clyde Vedder’s Dec. 3 decision did not compel the hospital to treat Keith with the drug, but it did allow Darla to have an independent physician administer it. He received two doses before Keith’s condition grew worse, and the doctor halted the treatment.

[Kraken]

Hoping Mass. won't be far behind. Baker is getting that advice, and as a lame duck he's free to do the right thing.

MA was a state I was specifically seeing named as one that was being told (allegedly) by Zients not to worry about masking and instead to push vaccination and boosters.

And Charlie says no mask mandate.

“Five million people are fully vaccinated, 1.5 million of those people have received booster shots, and another million people have at least one dose,” Baker said during a news conference when asked if the state is considering mandating masks to help curb the spread of the virus ahead of the holidays. “The fundamentally best and most important way for people to keep themselves and their family members safe is to get vaccinated.”

There are mask mandates in place in individual cities and towns but the statewide mandate was lifted back in May.

For context, the population of MA is about 7 million.

[Smoove_B]

...and yet, knowing vaccinated people can still spread the virus you'd think maybe doing *something* to stop the uncontrolled spread would come up.

[ImLawBoy]

California, once again, leading the response.

California announces statewide mask mandate beginning Dec 15

If by leading you mean following in the footsteps of Illinois (and HI, NV, NM, OR and WA), then California is in the front! Just because we're flyover country doesn't mean Illinois' still-existing mask mandate doesn't count! (I suspect it's largely ignored outside of Chicago and the collar counties, of course.)

[Smoove_B]

I legitimately had no idea about all those states - not sure how it slipped my radar. Noted!

[LordMortis]

And Charlie says

Love my Good'n'Plenty

Blech. As much as I have a sweet tooth I never liked anything jelly bean or jelly bean like, and most certainly not licorice flavored.

[El Guapo]

Hoping Mass. won't be far behind. Baker is getting that advice, and as a lame duck he's free to do the right thing.

MA was a state I was specifically seeing named as one that was being told (allegedly) by Zients not to worry about masking and instead to push vaccination and boosters.

And Charlie says no mask mandate.

“Five million people are fully vaccinated, 1.5 million of those people have received booster shots, and another million people have at least one dose,” Baker said during a news conference when asked if the state is considering mandating masks to help curb the spread of the virus ahead of the holidays. “The fundamentally best and most important way for people to keep themselves and their family members safe is to get vaccinated.”

There are mask mandates in place in individual cities and towns but the statewide mandate was lifted back in May.

For context, the population of MA is about 7 million.

Baker also announced that MA is going to start giving away rapid tests, focusing on poor communities.

Good that we're focused on getting testing distributed and going, to deal with this new pandemic. Wait what's that - it's Dec. 2021 and not April 2020?? Oh man I guess we should've gotten on this sooner. Why didn't Smoove warn us???

[naednek]

California, once again, leading the response.

California announces statewide mask mandate beginning Dec 15

If by leading you mean following in the footsteps of Illinois (and HI, NV, NM, OR and WA), then California is in the front! Just because we're flyover country doesn't mean Illinois' still-existing mask mandate doesn't count! (I suspect it's largely ignored outside of Chicago and the collar counties, of course.)

Well to be fair, After things were getting better earlier this year in CA, the State made it so counties can make their own decisions. Most of the state was already wearing masks during the summer. They are just applying to those who did it (ie Red voting counties)

Our kids school district sent out an email a few weeks ago announcing they are no longer requiring kids to sit in the cafeteria with the same group of kids (for contact tracing) and halted other safety methods because cases were dropping. I feel they did this too late, and now they will be caught flat footed as we see cases going back up with holidays visitations. I wished they just kept it and waited till spring.

[LawBeefaroni]

(I suspect it's largely ignored outside of Chicago and the collar counties, of course.)

I can tell you it's about 60% ignored in Bollingbrook, if the Bass Pro there is any indication.

[Unagi]

(I suspect it's largely ignored outside of Chicago and the collar counties, of course.)

I can tell you it's about 60% ignored in Bollingbrook, if the Bass Pro there is any indication.

Lol. I mean, possibly not.
Heh. But probably so...

[malchior]

[Zaxxon]

[malchior]

[Kraken]

I'm getting black screens instead of seeing tweets...again. This has happened before, and sorted itself out before. Meanwhile, if y'all could post the spoiler text, that would be helpful.

(edit) It's only in Firefox. Must be an ad blocker, or maybe Duck Duck Go. Looks fine in Chrome.

[stessier]

Which one are you reacting to?

[malchior]

Which one are you reacting to?

Both? Though the second probably encourages people to come to work sick more.

[stessier]

Which one are you reacting to?

Both? Though the second probably encourages people to come to work sick more.

I fully support the Kroger plan as long as you have required testing for unvaccinated people and anyone showing any symptoms has to show a negative test.

[Unagi]

I felt ‘the 2nd one’ was marginally good news.

It’s a step in the direction of unvaccinated people having to ‘pay’ for their own downtime and hospital expenses.

I didn’t get the impression that people would be allowed ‘in’ while sick.

Edit: more or less, what Saint Essier said.

[Blackhawk]

The anti-vaxxers don't worry about it because the consequences aren't personal. They're not worried about getting sick, and if they spread it to somebody else, it doesn't affect them personally, so why bother? Now it affects them. Now it has consequences that people pay attention to.

If people are going to be selfish dicks and prioritize money and convenience over human lives, I'm all in favor of things that cause it to impact their money and convenience. So make them test all the damned time, and if they get sick, take it out of their pocket. Use their self interest as leverage.

[Defiant]

A study showing how much vaccines have done that also partly explains why everyone is putting their eggs into vaccinations. When it's "easy" to use vaccines to dramatically reduce deaths and hospitalizations, why do other things that are more difficult and don't produce results that are as dramatic?

In the absence of a vaccination program, there would have been approximately 1.1 million additional COVID-19 deaths and more than 10.3 million additional COVID-19 hospitalizations in the U.S. by November 2021.
Without the U.S. vaccination program, COVID-19 deaths would have been approximately 3.2 times higher and COVID-19 hospitalizations approximately 4.9 times higher than the actual toll during 2021.
If no one had been vaccinated, daily deaths from COVID-19 could have jumped to as high as 21,000 per day — nearly 5.2 times the level of the record peak of more than 4,000 deaths per day recorded in January 2021.

https://www.commonwealthfund.org/public ... deaths-and

[Blackhawk]

I still think popular media (film and TV, not the news) is partly to 'blame' here. We've spent decades learning that a vaccine is the off button for a disease. It's developed, and the credits roll.

[malchior]

Which one are you reacting to?

Both? Though the second probably encourages people to come to work sick more.

I fully support the Kroger plan as long as you have required testing for unvaccinated people and anyone showing any symptoms has to show a negative test.

I can't help but shake the feeling it is fairly 'gappy' as a solution. But nothing is perfect. And in fairness to Kroger's they probably have enough non-compliance that they can't start laying people off and operate. It's a tough situation to be sure. I don't have Kroger's here but personally I wouldn't be shopping there with this sort of policy in place.

[stessier]

Stories like this are why I've begun to really feel the sacrifice of not living a normal life -

Cleveland announced on Wednesday morning that Stefanski has tested positive for COVID-19.

According to the Browns’ announcement, Stefanski is not only fully vaccinated, but has also received a booster shot. Cleveland says Stefanski is feeling fine and will continue his head coaching duties virtually.

Stefanski missed Cleveland’s postseason victory over Pittsburgh in the Wild Card round last year after testing positive for COVID-19.

I'm boostered, my wife if boostered, and my kids are still within 6 months of their Pfizer shots. Chances are if we got it, we'd either never notice or have a very mild case. Protecting those cute babies is the only thing that's keeping me home at this point because everyone else around my area has pretty much returned to life as normal.

[LawBeefaroni]

and anyone showing any symptoms has to show a negative test.

Which many may see as "hide your symptoms."

[stessier]

Which one are you reacting to?

Both? Though the second probably encourages people to come to work sick more.

I fully support the Kroger plan as long as you have required testing for unvaccinated people and anyone showing any symptoms has to show a negative test.

I can't help but shake the feeling it is fairly 'gappy' as a solution. But nothing is perfect. And in fairness to Kroger's they probably have enough non-compliance that they can't start laying people off and operate. It's a tough situation to be sure. I don't have Kroger's here but personally I wouldn't be shopping there with this sort of policy in place.

What do you mean by "gappy"? The only change to the current system is unvaccinated people feel an economic penalty for being sick. They have a free way to avoid the penalty. Seems downright capitalistic.

[Remus West]

Which one are you reacting to?

Both? Though the second probably encourages people to come to work sick more.

I fully support the Kroger plan as long as you have required testing for unvaccinated people and anyone showing any symptoms has to show a negative test.

I can't help but shake the feeling it is fairly 'gappy' as a solution. But nothing is perfect. And in fairness to Kroger's they probably have enough non-compliance that they can't start laying people off and operate. It's a tough situation to be sure. I don't have Kroger's here but personally I wouldn't be shopping there with this sort of policy in place.

For me, and we do have them here and I shop them frequently, this policy is good news. Kroger is still giving paid time off to vaccinated employees who contract CoVid so the burden is entirely on the unvaccinated. Getting sick means no pay coming in (for a group of people unlikely to be in a financial position to afford to go without pay). Get vaccinated, get sick, paycheck keeps coming until you're better. Seems a pretty big incentive/stick to encourage more vaccinations.

Also, I mask up and hand sanitize the instant I leave their stores and will continue to do both for the foreseeable future.

[malchior]

Which one are you reacting to?

Both? Though the second probably encourages people to come to work sick more.

I fully support the Kroger plan as long as you have required testing for unvaccinated people and anyone showing any symptoms has to show a negative test.

I can't help but shake the feeling it is fairly 'gappy' as a solution. But nothing is perfect. And in fairness to Kroger's they probably have enough non-compliance that they can't start laying people off and operate. It's a tough situation to be sure. I don't have Kroger's here but personally I wouldn't be shopping there with this sort of policy in place.

What do you mean by "gappy"? The only change to the current system is unvaccinated people feel an economic penalty for being sick. They have a free way to avoid the penalty. Seems downright capitalistic.

Gappy in the sense that AFAIK once a week testing on unvaccinated people is an insufficient control when masking is optional or worse. Sick people who mask symptoms will also get past the screen and now they are incentivized to report to work.

[Roman]

I still think popular media (film and TV, not the news) is partly to 'blame' here. We've spent decades learning that a vaccine is the off button for a disease. It's developed, and the credits roll.

%1000000000000000000 in agreement here. We've all seen, read & heard the argument from people saying: "if the vaccine works than why are people still getting Covid........."

The narrative OR definition of a vaccine needs to change ( honestly don't even know the definition myself )
I finally had enough on Twitter last night and posted this in response to a few threads: perhaps the definition of vaccine in the case of COVID needs to be changed. People are so hung up on if vaccines work why are people still blah blah blah. Perhaps saying that the vaccine reduces the chance of severe infection & hospitalization are the main drivers to get it.

[stessier]

Which one are you reacting to?

Both? Though the second probably encourages people to come to work sick more.

I fully support the Kroger plan as long as you have required testing for unvaccinated people and anyone showing any symptoms has to show a negative test.

I can't help but shake the feeling it is fairly 'gappy' as a solution. But nothing is perfect. And in fairness to Kroger's they probably have enough non-compliance that they can't start laying people off and operate. It's a tough situation to be sure. I don't have Kroger's here but personally I wouldn't be shopping there with this sort of policy in place.

What do you mean by "gappy"? The only change to the current system is unvaccinated people feel an economic penalty for being sick. They have a free way to avoid the penalty. Seems downright capitalistic.

Gappy in the sense that AFAIK once a week testing on unvaccinated people is an insufficient control when masking is optional or worse. Sick people who mask symptoms will also get past the screen and now they are incentivized to report to work.

I never said weekly testing - I personally think it should be a rapid test before every shift at the unvaccinated's expense.

[malchior]

For me, I'll probably sound like a broken record but it comes down to people are bad at understanding risk. I don't blame movies because I see this in my everyday across many areas. People naturally gravitate towards protections being 100% effective. Otherwise they aren't worth the effort and become useless. It's in my experience a real phenomena. The risk math often seemingly slams back and forth between black/white points.

[malchior]

I never said weekly testing - I personally think it should be a rapid test before every shift at the unvaccinated's expense.

Yeah I'm not trying to put words in your mouth. That's just the common alternative framework. If it truly was that prescriptive I'd be all for it.

[LawBeefaroni]

Krogers also:

The company said it will also begin charging a $50 monthly fee to unvaccinated salaried workers and managers who are enrolled in a company health care plan. Unionized workers and non-union hourly workers won’t be charged that fee.

Kroger(s) has nearly 500,000 employees in the U.S.; 66% belong to a union. The company won’t say what percent of its workers are vaccinated.

[Zaxxon]

For me, I'll probably sound like a broken record but it comes down to people are bad at understanding risk. I don't blame movies because I see this in my everyday across many areas. People naturally gravitate towards protections being 100% effective. Otherwise they aren't worth the effort and become useless. It's in my experience a real phenomena. The risk math often seemingly slams back and forth between black/white points.

Seconded/confirmed/+1/heckin'yah/etc.

[Smoove_B]

In case you want to see what the Anit-vax folks are up to elsewhere in the world:

Police in Germany's eastern state of Saxony have launched a series of raids after death threats were made against Premier Michael Kretschmer for backing coronavirus measures.

Far-right anti-vaccination activists are suspected of plotting violence with crossbows or other "piercing weapons".

Saxony has the lowest Covid vaccine take-up in Germany.

...

Police in Saxony said security forces including the special Soko Rex anti-extremist unit were raiding a number of locations, in response to the threats made against the state premier highlighted by a German TV documentary a week ago.

The plot against Mr Kretschmer was first exposed by the Frontal programme whose journalists had infiltrated a group of some 100 people communicating via the Telegram messaging app.

Calling themselves Dresden Online Networking, members would discuss ideas and even meet up in parks, public broadcaster ZDF reported. The programme monitored one conversation in which one man spoke of being armed and ready.

Police said statements had been made on plans to kill the state premier as well as other state representatives.

I'm sure no one here is thinking of doing the same thing.