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| Silverfiddle Rant! |
Government messaging on covid has never been coherent. Do the vaccines protect you from covid? If so, why do the vaccinated need masks? If not, why push them? If the purpose of the vaccine is to lessen the severity of covid if you get it, then tell us that and advertise it as such.
This absurd statement caught my eye from Grandpa Joe's tough guy propaganda show on Thursday:
“We’re going to protect vaccinated workers from unvaccinated co-workers.”
WHAT??? Why do the vaccinated need protection from the unvaccinated?
According to data from the field, over 95% of the hospital cases are unvaccinated. This spike appears to be the unvaccinated infecting other unvaccinated.
Joe's propaganda ministers are brilliant. Current data indicates we are probably on the downhill side of this latest peak, which was one-half the magnitude of the January spike, which was the greatest peak of the pandemic. So Joe's handlers dress him up, give him a script and put him at the front of the parade. The spike continues its inevitable downward trend and Joe is a hero.
What say you?
I still think the WuFlu is just a new flu and not severe enough to justify all the panic.
ReplyDeleteWhich raises the question "So why did we panic?"
Well look what would be dictators around the world have done with it.
"Two weeks to flatten the curve"? Yeah right.
Hey, the did flatten the economy!
DeleteIf I have to quit my job, I'm gonna have a lot of time on my hands.
ReplyDeleteSay when.
Govt messaging is seldom adequate, but you do know the answer which is that vaccine performance is not binary. An effective but imperfect vaccine works well so long as prevalence is below some threshold (google "epidemeology outbreak threshold"). That is why efforts to reduce prevalence (either through increasing vaccine coverage or other means) do not belie the effectiveness of the vaccine. The measles vaccine works well, we all agree, but it's still bad news when hotspots arise of that disease.
ReplyDeleteFirst, we will never eradicate covid.
DeleteSecond, please explain again why the government must protect the vaccinated from the unvaccinated.
1. Perhaps not (although historically some strains have dwindled away to nothing, sometimes mysteriously -- but I agree CV19 is an unlikely candidate for that outcome). But can we keep it below the outbreak threshold?
Delete2. I think infectious disease can be a ligitimate interest of government. I'm not the guy to get into federal vs state vs local, but when an outbreak has the potential to threaten infrastructure (don't forget how real that prospect was in some cities eg. NYC, Bergamo, Wuhan obviously) a governmental response is no more controversial to me than the government responding to a big storm or a terrorist attack.
Jez, you missed the point of my question. Why do the vaccinated need to be protected from the unvaccinated? This makes no sense.
DeleteI repeat that the protection any vaccine confers is not absolute. Efficacy is always strictly less than 100%.
Delete“ ... outbreak has the potential to threaten infrastructure” when government dictates close down national economies as its immediate response to a challenge that no one knows much about. Besides, how real was the prospect of pandemic level death rates in NYC when, after the Navy provided a hospital ship, no one associated with NY government saw fit to employ it? Given the number of deaths caused by Cuomo’s idiotic decisions, I would say that the greatest threat to humankind is not the virus created in Wuhan (paid for by the American taxpayer), but politicians and government officials who, in knowing nothing at all, “know best.”
DeleteThere were 80,000 hospitalizations over about 40 days. How many ICU units do you think there are in NY? I understand that we all have different biasses and dispositions but how hard must you be working to ignore this reality that's staring just as hard in your face as it is in mine.
DeleteSilver asked… "Why do the vaccinated need to be protected from the unvaccinated?"
DeleteThe vaccines reduce the severity of Covid. I recently was exposed to Covid by someone who lied and said he was vaccinated. Because he said he was vaccinated, I behaved a certain way, not maintaining social distance and not masking up around him.
As a result, I caught a breakthrough infection. I was sick for over two weeks. That person’s unwillingness to get vaccinated, and not inform those around him, he literally said he was asserting his freedoms, cost me money, infected not just me, but numerous others and only by some quick medical attention, did we avoid losing people who spent days on oxygen.
People who get breakthrough cases of Covid, while not typically needing hospitalization, are sick and may miss work, school and then can infect people unable to get vaccines who live in their homes. An infection can cost them money and have long term consequences. More people vaccinated lessens these numbers.
Children are still unable to be vaccinated. People with compromised immune systems are always at a greater risk, even when vaccinated. Elderly are always at a greater risk.
In a sense, the unvaccinated need to be protected from the unvaccinated.
If unvaccinated people are accessing a hospital system for Covid that could be used for accident victims and heart attack victims for example, and causing bed, nursing and doctor shortages [all of which we have seen in various parts of the US] that too impacts the already vaccinated, as do the huge bills unvaccinated incur if they need to be hospitalized.
Finally, I lost my Mom over 30 years ago. She was 64 and had spent days on a ventilator with end stage COPD. I loved her with all of my heart but man was I mad. She was a nurse for crying out loud. Why didn’t she quit smoking? Days before she went on the vent in the hospital I went to visit her. She was in the sunroom. Smoking!
She missed years with her grandkids, years with family, dozens of birthday celebrations, baptisms, family dinners, Christmases. All because she didn’t want to quit. She liked smoking. Besides she said, when ppl died from smoking, they were old.
A Covid death is like that. It impacts people way beyond the one who gets sick. Even an illness can change a family forever. There are millions of people around us everyday who are unable to get vaccinated for age, prior health conditions, etc.
Don’t we as Americans, for the common good, have some level of responsibility for our fellow man, our neighbor and our families? Shouldn’t we do all we can, red and blue Americans, to avoid what for some admittedly is no more dangerous than the flu, but for others has proven to be extremely deadly?
I’d argue from a humanistic and a religious standpoint, that we do.
Dave, thank you for that answer. It's still makes no sense. We are going through all this rigmarole because of an infinitesimal amount of breakthrough cases that could hospitalize someone? We now are indeed in territory where this is compared to the flu for those of us who are vaccinated
DeleteSilver, I guess I'd ask this...
DeleteIs there a level of death above which we would say enough, we've got to solve this?
On another level, why should I have to pay, and I will, higher insurance and medical costs, so those providers can recoup losses from unvaccinated people? For the record, I ask the same of people who enter the country illegally.
Healthcare for the uninsured and underinsured who are unvaccinated, many illegal/undocmented ppl, but also including many others, perhaps self employed entrepenuaers, costs all of us.
Higher rates and higher taxes are a natural result.
Should that factor in?
Dave,
DeleteYour mindset is common among progressives, which belies what the left really means when they tout universal health care:
Health Care doled out in ways we dictate.
Also, the left does not want preexisting conditions factored into health insurance, which means premiums are peanut butter spread across the young and healthy and the old and infirm.
Covid vax status would operate just like a preexisting conditions. Pick a side and stick with it.
Dave,
DeleteThe "How many deaths?" argument is vapid. How many deaths are OK so we can burn fossil fuels? Allow people to drive? Swim?
Are you now going to declare each flu season an emergency requiring government diktats?
Silver... we do that very equation all the time. How many lives do we save with helmet mandates. How many lives are saved with clean air and water standards? And on and on. All of our actions are somewhat subject to this type of "vapid" argumentation.
DeleteFor example, I have no issue with people driving, but I'm not a fan of them driving without car seats for kids or personal seatbelts. And why should I be? When those guys wreck and little Johnny, or his dad go out the window, my tax money will be used to care for them.
Is that a true statement, or not?
Are you saying we should not consider those realities?
BTW... Average annual flu and flu related deaths in the US run to about 50K. Covid and covid related deaths in 2020 ran to about 350K.
Sadly, those numbers are easily lowered.
Reportedly, breakthrough deaths are rare. I think I saw estimated that 95% of deaths now are unvaxxed, so at the the top of this spike, that puts breakthrough deaths at most, at around 75/day. That puts the vaxxed population well below an average flu season death rate.
DeleteA non-dictatorial government would call it good. Stop pestering the vaxxed with mask mandates and other unscientific bs, and stop pestering the unvaxxed. If private entities want to set requirements, so be it.
DeleteSilver, say we stop distancing etc, and there is another spike and we hold our nerve and don't lock down. Would breakthrough deaths stop at 75/day? How high would they get? Are you confident that more vaccine -defeating variants won't arise?
DeleteI am not confident of anything. My statements are based upon the data. For the vaccinated, we are now in seasonal flu territory in terms of hospitalizations and deaths.
DeleteVaccine-defeating variants? Then we're screwed, aren't we? Lockdowns, distancing, masks forever... A totalitarian dream.
The little-discussed variable in all of this is the human immune system.
I like data, but there's no point basing our opinion on it if we keep overlooking the dynamics of the situation. Hospital cases and death are acceptable now, but it would be reckless to assume a highly infectious disease won't spread when given the chance. I don't advocate perpetual lockdown, but I do think some caution is appropriate.
DeleteVaccine defeating variants are undesirable, and (approximately) the more infections we permit, the more variants are likely to arise, any one of which could defeat the vaccine(s).
The human immune system has not been ignored, in fact it has seldom had so much attention. Vaccinators are not ignoring it, they are training it.
Covid will most likely become endemic. It is theoretically possible to 'eradicate' it if you live on an island where no one comes in or goes out, but that is not realistic. We are a globalized world. Millions enter and leave the US every day, so blaming the 20% or so (many of whom have immunity by was of having contracted covid) for endless variants is neither helpful nor supported by reality on the ground.
DeleteI listen to nothing that brain dead fool says as it come from his Puppet Masters. I will not take any vaccine that will not be 1)approved properly (that means tested for long term use), 2)that does not stop getting COVID again, and 3) causing side effects. There are other methods to be healthy if needed.
ReplyDeleteJG,. What is your primary source of information?
DeleteI did not vote for candidate Trump. But we should give him and his admin props for the fast development and spped with which it was brought to the American people.
DeleteTrump himself, while not as heartily as I'd prefer, has also urged his supporters to get the vaccine he is literally responsible for us having available with these words...
"I recommend: Take the vaccines. I did it – it's good"
The Pfizer Vaccine has full approval from the required govt agencies and has been shown in a multitude of studies around the world to have few side effects.
Ducky, I think you know that the whole bleach meme is a bit overblown. But I'm bemused by the fact that anti-vaxxers seem to be pretty thoroughly of the Trumpist persuasion [and mandates aside]....we didn't hear much from them until around the end of January, when they seemed to decide that they were against the Trump vaccine.
DeleteCI,
DeleteDucky was just describing his ideal fun Saturday night...
Duck... I try and be charitable. A president, whether we like him or not, gets credit for what goes right and what goes wrong during his or one day, admin.
DeleteIt's just the system we have.
At the end of the day, he pushed his folks to get a vaccine, and now we have them. In spite of everything else he may, or may not have done. Good or bad.
Proponents of the vaccine continue to invent meaningless new terms that are completely devoid of actual meaning: "outbreak threshold," the thought that illness rates will "threaten infrastructure," comparing it to "a big storm or a terrorist attack."
ReplyDeleteFor the first, how do you keep the disease below a level which it passed 18 months ago and has remained order of magnitude above ever since?
For the second, how ids Covid going to cause buildings and bridges to start falling down. The modern idea than money is infrastructure is nonsensical.
Repairing the damage from storms and terrorist attacks is a lot different than causing destruction of our economy in a futile attempt to prevent a natural phenomenon from running its course.
And I'm on board with the rest of you that the concept of "protecting the vaccinated from the unvaccinated" is the mindless prattling of zealotry and is completely irrational.
Hospitals are part of the infrastructure. In India they've been struggling to dispose of bodies, not necessarily a particular threat in the west but that is another example of infrastructure.
DeleteWe don't only repair damage caused by storms etc., we preparing for them too. We mitigate their effects, we run counter-terrorist operations etc.
Friendly reminder that not everything unfamiliar to you is meaningless, "outbreak threshold" is explained and justified eg. here.
Jayhawk said as it relates to infrastructure... "For the second, how ids Covid going to cause buildings and bridges to start falling down. The modern idea than money is infrastructure is nonsensical.
DeleteI think this relates to people. I spend significant time working in Mexico. One phrase I hear all the time is that every municipality [city] has a public health clinic. A building.
That, at least in my experience, is mostly true. When I hold health clinics there for people, I frequently use those facilities. But here's the thing...
Many of those buildings have no staff. Because there is no, and I know you'll hate the term, people infrastructure to make them effective, or even useful.
If our hospitals are chronically understaffed, and they were on the edge before Covid, how do we care for our people, our population?
I'm afraid of vaccinated people. Keep that mutated mRNA out of the air as much as possible by wearing a mask.
ReplyDeleteSilver, let me, if I may, pose a question for you and others.
ReplyDeleteHow did we get here? By that I mean what changed? We did not see this level of antivaccine rhetoric in the 50's and 60's as America mostly willingly lined up for an entire host of vaccines, some with known very dangerous side effects.
What changed from a population that once accepted vaccines as "normal" for school attendance, military service and more to what we are seeing today?
People don't trust the government. Back in the '60s it was just the left-wing hippie saying that. Now conservatives have joined them.
DeleteCase in point. Look at those documents coming out describing how we funded the Wuhan laboratory and gain of function research. What in the hell was our government doing giving China millions of dollars to research viruses? Our government has been seriously stupid since world war II ended
DeleteAgain, we come back to the question of whether we are able to hold two opposing realities in our minds at the same time.
DeleteLeaving aside Wuhan, let me just say for the sake of argument, I agree with you, it was/is a problem.
Does that automatically mean that vaccines, or anything else government provides is bad?
But most of the anti-vaxxers I know are not making an argument based on faulty science. The great majority of them are making the argument on freedom. A choice, A desire.
That freedom did not exist for the small pox vaccine, the polio vaccine and more. Even the SCOTUS affirmed the role of the fed to mandate vaccines.
Where is this freedom argument coming from?
Yes, people not trusting the government is a huge part of the problem. Thing is, most of these not trusting the government do so because they were told to do so by the leader of our government. This would be the very same leader of our government who convinced them to never believe or trust any news source who dared report anything negative about the leader of our government. Meanwhile, right wing media was having a field day indoctrinating their cult to denounce masks, rendered vaccines useless, fought to ban proof of vaccines for cruise ships, take horse medicine, and created an entire propaganda machine to sabotage any and all efforts of recovery. The GOP leadership largely either endorsed it or sat silently.
DeleteThis is why we are where we are today.
The obvious elephant in the room is that such a campaign was politically advantageous along with "owning the Dems" is more important than saving lives.
Ironically, the very people Biden seems to be trying to save are the very ones that will surely vote against him, a stark difference from our previous leader of our government.
The vaxxers are busy creating the environmental conditions necessary for the evolution of a super virus. They won't be happy until they've forced, through vaccination, the mutations into a much more deadly variant.
Delete:P
DeleteLook, political fervor has replaced thought, logic and reason on all sides. Look at all the good progressives wearing masks outside and endorsing locking people in their home, all un-scientific nonsense.
DeleteI have no doubt this is driving some of the anti-vaxx stuff, but I know unvaxxed people and they have provided very logical reasons, including:
"I had covid so I don't need the shot,"
"This is a new technology,"
"Not enough testing (which makes sense: Most new vaccines go through years of trials and even longitudinal studies)"
Just because one scientist or pseudo-scientist says it, doesn't make it so. That is not how science works. Science also doesn't work by censoring people.
Silver said... "Look, political fervor has replaced thought, logic and reason..."
DeleteAmen to that.
Dave beat me to it but "political fervor has replaced thought, logic and reason on all sides" is inconsistent with the MAGAnuts/Trump base/misinformation machine we're dealing with today, something completely unprecedented by any standard in recent history. As well as corporately funded and right wing media promoted as well.
Delete"but I know unvaxxed people and they have provided very logical reasons..."
DeleteLet's compared that to the number of people who've actually died, number of cases, hospital overflow, and how a multitude of life long doctors and scientist who've dedicated their lives to infectious diseases contradicts this verses what some guy said some of his friends said or what some guy on Facebook posted as logical reasons.
Ronald,
DeleteYou are one-eye blind.
I love Brett Weinstein, and his wife, Heather Heyer. Two intelligent and educated liberals, in the good and true sense of the word.
DeleteI also think what we are seeing is due to what he is explaining in this clip.
1. I'm vaccinated
ReplyDelete2. I don't find anti-vax arguments in anyway compelling or grounded in science or even reality.
3. I oppose the federal vaccine mandate
4. Most everyone is making the wrong legal argument
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people. ~10th Amendment
The only Supreme Court precedent affirming mandatory vaccination (Jacobson v. Massachusetts, 1905) doesn't assign any power to the federal government, it affirmed the power of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to mandate polio vaccines. Interestingly, this ruling was the one that was also used to justify the forced sterilization of the "feeble-minded" as a burden on the state.
This was also where we were prior to Biden's executive order, the states were handling it, he just didn't like how some of them were handling it.
Sorry Ron, but "political fervor has replaced thought, logic, and reason on all sides" is consistent with the administration trying to make it mandatory for American citizens to get vaccinated while simultaneously allowing 30% of detained immigrants in custody to decline vaccination. Where's the logic and reason there?
My final word? Get vaccinated if you can.
+++
DeleteHappy to see you pop your head up!
Finntann, the timeline of Trump/GOP political resistance along the QAnon, Newsmax, Hannity, Carson, and so on misinformation and propaganda far predates the Biden administration.
DeleteAnd even today, from your very own admission, the arguments of red states denial of science conflicts with your very own views. You seriously can't have it both ways in a world of reality and what we're seeing with our own eyes and hearing with our own ears.
I haven't argued the validity of vaccine mandates and with the plutocratic/social Darwinist court today, who knows what legitimacy is anyway? What I'm saying is that any recovery of COVID has been sabotaged and is continually sabotaged by the rabid right for political gain. The more they can keep people pissed and divisive, the better their chances of gaining seats and unseating Biden.
And realistically, from a policy perspective (with the exception of God, Guns, Gays, the Mexican coming to get you, and they're teaching our kids in kindergarten that the black man's coming after our wealth) this is pretty much all they have.
Way to go Ronald, you insist on inserting partisan politics into every thing, and you end up in a hog wallow.
DeleteYour idiotic comments are apropos of nothing, and its a shame, you were doing pretty good in your earlier comments.
We all know what you think of the "brainwashed fox news watcher." Guess what? You are the loony left mirror image.
Your rubber/glue accusation comes up short in explaining your very own admissions that the culprits are "political fervor has replaced thought, logic, and reason on all sides" and that of a distrust of the government.
DeleteLooking at the time line of events, actions of red state legislation, and the clear and obvious messaging from Fox and Friends et al, there really isn't even an argument where the resistance is coming from.
So the only logical question is why.
So now you've reverted to a third grader with your "rubber/glue" comment... Good Job little Ronnie!
DeleteI'll reiterate:
"political fervor has replaced thought, logic, and reason on all sides"
And you are exhibit A. Congrats.
I'll agree that a displacement of thought, logic, and reason has occurred but I can't go along with your blanket blame of all sides (talk about elementary convenience?).
DeleteI'll openly admit my political and ideological bias but there just comes a time when the cards on the table speak for themselves.
It wasn't all sides who denounced science, pointed blame at the CDC, Fauci, WHO, recommended a shot of Clorox and other non approved remedies, discouraged masks, turned their noses at vaccines, sent "liberators" into cities after encouraging those cities to follow CDC guidelines, applauded at a GOP super Pac convention when told COVID was increasing, and I could go on and on.
I don't agree with Biden on many things but I do applaud his statement to red states that if they aren't going to help get through this ordeal, get out of the way.
You keep invoking "science" and accusing those you disagree with of "ignoring the science." You are engaging in scientism.
DeleteThere is no evidence correlating mask mandates or lockdowns with covid outcomes, so there is no "science" pay attention to or ignore.
There is a very strong case that the vaccines stop covid (albeit not 100%), and that it lessens the symptoms if you contract covid.
Forcing people to stay in their homes and to wear masks outside is the height of totalitarianism fueled by un-scientific scientism and safetyism.
Please, confine your comments to the topic at hand. This isn't about Trump, Fox or the other rightwing bugaboos haunting your head, so shutup your partisan political BS and confine your comments to the subject at hand.
You're the one who said: "People don't trust the government. Back in the '60s it was just the left-wing hippie saying that. Now conservatives have joined them", not me.
DeleteSo unless one just has to remain silent for fear your feathers get ruffled, I disagree. Today's so-called conservatives have not joined them but rather have become them.
You're the one who said: "Look, political fervor has replaced thought, logic and reason on all sides", not me.
So again, poppycock. Not on both sides at all which I've detailed and you've done nothing to debunk.
I would say that if you want to cram your grandkids on overcrowded unmasked school buses, stuffed classrooms, and elbow to elbow school auditoriums to sneeze and cough all over every one, that would be your business and above all, your freedumbs.
But when my grandkids are turned away from hospitals with a ruptured appendix or such because your grandkids are occupying all the rooms because you just don't buy into the masks nonsense, it's no longer about your business or your freedumbs.
"There is no evidence correlating mask mandates or lockdowns with covid outcomes, so there is no "science" pay attention to or ignore"---------Silverfiddle (not me)
Deletehttps://www.npr.org/sections/back-to-school-live-updates/2021/09/10/1035954587/yes-gov-desantis-studies-do-show-masks-curb-covid-19-in-schools
I get that NRP is likely on the fake news list but there are multiple links to the research and studies.
Those were not controlled conditions. Let me help you, from the latest CDC report on masks in schools
Delete"The 21% lower incidence in schools that required mask use among students was not statistically significant compared with schools where mask use was optional. This finding might be attributed to higher effectiveness of masks among adults, who are at higher risk for SARS-CoV-2 infection but might also result from differences in mask-wearing behavior among students in schools with optional requirements. "
Do you understand what "Not statistically significant" means? I'll take CDC analysis over an NPR opinion piece.
https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7021e1.htm?
Here is a New York Magazine commentary
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/08/the-science-of-masking-kids-at-school-remains-uncertain.html
Here's a compendium of argument against masks.
https://polimath.substack.com/p/the-case-against-masks-in-schools
I'll repeat: No correlation between mask policy and covid. Doubt me? Read the CDC study I linked.
As for "debunking" comment, there is nothing to debunk in political opinion blather.
DeleteThree Charts from CDC data:
ReplyDeleteDeath rate by age, hospitalizations by age, and vaccination rate by age
People >50 years old have the highest vaccination rate
People >50 years old also have the highest hospitalization and death rate, overwhelmingly.
Despite the blaring headlines and inflammatory rhetoric emanating from our government, unvaccinated hospitalizations and deaths
are not fueling this spike.
https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#demographicsovertime
https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#vaccination-demographics-trends
https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#new-hospital-admissions
Now, who wants to blame our elderly neighbors, friends and kinfolk for clogging up the emergency rooms and morgues?
Delete:)
Delete"infectious disease can be a ligitimate [sic] interest of government." When? When it's a bad flu? Or smallpox wiping out 60% of the population? It certainly wasn't with AIDS where health officials cowered before rabid gay lobbyists who successfully fought contact tracing tooth and nail. And this in a time when fear of the spread of heterosexual aids was high, thanks in part to Dr. Faux Chi who panicked everyone then as now.
ReplyDeleteSF, your point is well taken. If the vaccine 'works' (prevents and greatly lessens infection) why do you care if you encounter an unvaccinated or a vaccinated with Covid? The 3 major vaccines being used in this country lower the risk of catching Covid by 1.6%. That's right - a whopping 1.6% reduced risk. Big for some people, perhaps. But get real. Now they confirm the vaccinated and unvaccinated carry the same nasal viral load when they get Covid, so are equally infectious.
Bigger question is why do so many doctors withhold safe, effective treatments that minimize infection? Who really wanted to see a lot of people get sick and die when probably 75% of that could have been prevented since July 2020 when good protocols used in many clinics were being published?
"Dr. Faux Chi"
DeleteThat's good. I like it!