All things political. Coronavirus Edition. (4 Viewers)

[Maxp]

I fear we are really going to be in a bad place due to the obvious cuts to the federal agencies that deal with infectious disease, but also the negative effect the Affordable Care act has had on non urban hospitals. Our front line defenses are ineffectual and our ability to treat the populous is probably at an all time low. Factor in the cost of healthcare and I can see our system crashing. What do you think about the politics of this virus?

 

[MT15]

This should be on a crawl across the bottom of every TV in the entire country.

 

[Saintamaniac]

All of this is starting to remind me of Noah and the great flood. The masses made fun of Noah for building the ark right up until it started raining and didn't stop. Then they started beating on the door asking to be let in. Unfortunately, the door was already closed (and sealed by God as the story goes) and it was too late. That's what the non-vaccinators infected with Covid-19 are facing; wanting to get a vaccine to save their life after it's too late to take the vaccine because they chose to believe Facebook and the most prolific liar in US political history rather than science.

 

[samiam5211]

All of this is starting to remind me of Noah and the great flood. The masses made fun of Noah for building the ark right up until it started raining and didn't stop. Then they started beating on the door asking to be let in. Unfortunately, the door was already closed (and sealed by God as the story goes) and it was too late. That's what the non-vaccinators infected with Covid-19 are facing; wanting to get a vaccine to save their life after it's too late to take the vaccine because they chose to believe Facebook and the most prolific liar in US political history rather than science.

Nah, if these people had been around in Noah's time, they would have burned the ark down, and had a BBQ with all the animals he had collected to celebrate their freedom.

 

[superchuck500]

 

[SystemShock]

That must've hurt.

 

[JRad]

Unfortunately, Louisiana has a "liberal Democrat" for governor, so it's not going help here. Assuming this push works anywhere.

 

[Lapaz]

I need to revise my numbers, because according to Worldometer, we had 6.3M back on 1 SEP, not DEC, and by 1 SEP we had about 192k deaths, which doesn't agree with the Vox link that I posted, but I trust Worldometer more. Also, I need to compare against the entire US population, not just the number infected. Worldometer doesn't graph hospitalizations, so I'll just compare deaths.

United States COVID - Coronavirus Statistics - Worldometer

United States Coronavirus update with statistics and graphs: total and new cases, deaths per day, mortality and recovery rates, current active cases, recoveries, trends and timeline.

www.worldometers.info

Some vaccinated people have gotten Covid-19. That’s no reason to panic.

Keep an eye on breakthrough Covid-19 cases, but remember that they’re expected.

www.vox.com

Per Worldometer, about 3% (192,000/6,300,000) of unvaccinated people in the U.S. died before the vaccine become available.

We've been vaccinating people since January, but no one was fully vaccinated until February. I'll assume that Vox's number of breakthroughs of vaccinated people is correct, so 0.000646% (988/153,000,000) of vaccinated people have died over the course of the last 5 months.

The denominator for the total unvaccinated population is continually changing, but the vaccination rate didn't get to about 40% until about 2 months ago, so I'll just use the deaths from the last couple of months to compare against.
https://usafacts.org/visualizations/covid-vaccine-tracker-states/

The average number of unvaccinated people over the last 2 months is about 180M. During that time, about 42k people have died, of which something less than 988 (probably no more than 500) were vaccinated. That correlates closely to what the media is reporting about 99.5% of deaths being unvaccinated.

We've had about 1.2M new infections in the last 60 days, and less than 5000 (probably less than 3000 since the 5000 is over 5 months) of those were vaccinated breakthroughs. Using 5k, still means that only about 0.4% of all new infections over the last 60 days were vaccinated, and that's a time period during which nearly half of the population was vaccinated.

So my conclusion is still true that not only are you very well protected from getting infected with the vaccine, but you're also much less likely to die. This information needs to sink in to all unvaccinated people that are almost certainly going to get the Delta variant unless a much higher percentage of people get vaccinated or we institute draconian lockdowns again.

 

[SaulGoodmanEsq]

It is not coincidence that when the Dow plummeted 800 points attributed to the rise of the new variant, in a matter of 48 hours you see a massive GOP pivot to encourage people to get the vaccine after months of pandering to anti-vaxxers and Trumpistas. Scalise, McConnel, DeSantis, Sean Hannity. They got their marching orders from the Koch family and Murdoch who were losing millions in the market.

 

[superchuck500]

Lord what a jackass

Congressional Democrats have a 100% vaccination rate | CNN Politics

Democratic lawmakers in both chambers of Congress have a 100% vaccination rate against Covid-19, a CNN survey of Capitol Hill found this week, significantly outpacing Republicans in the House and Senate and illustrating the partisan divide over the pandemic.

www.cnn.com

 

[zztop]

^ whataboutism at it's finest
This is where a BELIEF is more important to a person than a fact. I'm sure even if they came forward and said they were vaccinated he would still believe some were not

also when was talking about or admitting being vaccinated such a deeply personal matter? Is this some new weird thing republicans are trying to pivot on? "I don't want to talk about it because it is very private"

 

[Optimus Prime]

this is about deflecting future blame

When masks and distancing mandates come back, when events are cancelled, when the economy declines, when hospitalizations and deaths skyrocket they desperately don't want the narrative to be "this is Republicans and right wing media's fault"

To be even more cynical - It's not even about the narrative, Jan 6th has shown they can spin a story and tell a large portion their base a bowl of shirt is chocolate pudding and they'll eat it up and say it was delicious

My cynical side says it's about pure numbers as in number of voters - and the 90%+ unvaccinated death rate and how much more contagious Delta is

Another 600K dead over the next year 95% of whom are unvaccinated and the majority of those in red states, well that wouldn't be good for mid terms would it?

I hope that's not the reasoning behind the 180 but I wouldn't be surprised

 

[Optimus Prime]

I'll take it but I still think people need to take it further

It's not enough to say 2+2=4 and show the math why it's 4

At some point you have to also say, "if you think 2+2= anything other than 4 you are wrong" "If you read or heard from so and so that 2+2 doesn't equal 4 so and so is wrong"

Influential People on the right need to also say "if you aren't taking the vaccine because you think it's unsafe or dangerous or experimental, or if you're worried about microchips or mind control or infertility or a liberal plot you are wrong (or misguided or misled or whatever - sweeten it up however you want to"

I just think the message needs to be more forceful than it's been

 

[samiam5211]

To be even more cynical - It's not even about the narrative, Jan 6th has shown they can spin a story and tell a large portion their base a bowl of shirt is chocolate pudding and they'll eat it up and say it was delicious

My cynical side says it's about pure numbers as in number of voters - and the 90%+ unvaccinated death rate and how much more contagious Delta is

Another 600K dead over the next year 95% of whom are unvaccinated and the majority of those in red states, well that wouldn't be good for mid terms would it?

I hope that's not the reasoning behind the 180 but I wouldn't be surprised

I do think they realize that by the midterms there won’t be any debate over whether getting vaccinated was a good idea. The backlash from those still living and voting would destroy them in the midterms.

They are so far on the wrong side of history that they are having to backtrack to stay on the right side of the present.

 

[coldseat]

To be even more cynical - It's not even about the narrative, Jan 6th has shown they can spin a story and tell a large portion their base a bowl of shirt is chocolate pudding and they'll eat it up and say it was delicious

My cynical side says it's about pure numbers as in number of voters - and the 90%+ unvaccinated death rate and how much more contagious Delta is

Another 600K dead over the next year 95% of whom are unvaccinated and the majority of those in red states, well that wouldn't be good for mid terms would it?

I hope that's not the reasoning behind the 180 but I wouldn't be surprised

It's absolutely about the numbers and elections. That's the only thing compelling the recent change in messaging on the right about vaccines.

May be too much schadenfreuden on my part, but it's mildly amusing watching the right twist themselves in knots trying to encourage vaccination and watching them fail to convince their own voters after all the misinformation and lies. Who could have known that all the lies and conspiracy theories would have a lasting affect?

 

[MT15]

I wonder why it has taken them so long to challenge this idiotic law?

Norwegian Cruise Line sues Florida surgeon general to end vaccine passport ban

Norwegian Cruise Line filed a lawsuit against Florida's surgeon general to put an end to the state's law preventing businesses from asking to see vaccination proof.

www.cnbc.com

 

[Optimus Prime]

 

[Saintamaniac]

Can Biden do an EO that allows hospitals to deny service to those who choose to not take the vaccine? At this point, the people who choose not to be vaccinated should be left to their own devices should they become infected. They take hospital beds and staff away from people who actually tried to prevent themselves from being infected.

 

[el caliente]

I’ll take Tweets that didn’t age well for $100.