All things political. Coronavirus Edition. (2 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?

 

[Bigdaddysaints]

We need to get a handle on this problem.

Here's your sign!

 

[GrandAdmiral]

Yeah. Let's put more healthcare workers at risk instead of doing the reasonable thing... like MASKS!!! What an arse.

 

[Bolo]

I heard an incredibly cringy argument last night over a discord server I play an online game with. 30 people use the voice chat throughout various points of the day, I nearly spit my drink out. One was a doctor, she is sick of dealing with covid idiots who refuse to wear masks and take the vaccine, the other, a right-wing, anti-vaxxer moron. This guy had the gall to sit here and tell a doctor who has been on the front-lines since this all started about 18 months ago to "do the research" about the vaccine, lmao.

Stuff like that is why we're screwed. How you gonna tell a doctor who has been on the front-lines of the fight against covid to "read the research" when she's done nothing but read high level papers because she has to instruct her patients when they question her about vaccines.

 

[MT15]

I think we have to (politely) push back. I had a lady tell me that her friend who is anti-vax “really does her research, she’s got some good points”. I just gently said “no, she doesn’t do research, and no, she doesn’t have any good points, dear. What she is doing is watching quacks’ YouTube videos, and/or reading lies on Facebook. I have worked in a research lab in the past, the stuff out there on social media isn’t research.”

She just chuckled (we’ve known each other for 30 years). I’ve been trying to get her to get vaccinated. She says she’s not anti-vax, just “hesitant”. I’m trying to gently lead her to a space where she will feel comfortable getting the vaccine, which her husband already has done.

 

[Optimus Prime]

overthrowing school boards?
======================
Coronavirus cases are on the rise among children in North Carolina, where Republican Rep. Madison Cawthorn slammed a county’s new school mask mandate, calling the measure “psychological child abuse.”


“The greatest threat to our children today does not come from covid-19. It comes from woke, liberal government officials like you who think they are all-knowing and all-wise,” Cawthorn told members of the school board in Buncombe County, which sits on the western side of the state and includes Asheville.

The first-term congressman was one of the dozens who railed against the board’s decision on Thursday night. The board had voted earlier that day to require unvaccinated students and teachers to wear masks while inside or on buses when school starts later this month. The conservative firebrand’s comments were met with applause.


Stephanie Parsons later told the board she would not leave the meeting until its members reversed its mask mandate.
“Not … until you do a revote for the people, by the people, and of the people — now!” she shouted.


Board members did not meet her demand.
Parsons was part of a group that forced the school board into recess by disrupting the regularly scheduled meeting.

She and others then “overthrew” the board and instated themselves as the new leaders of the county’s public education system, according to the Asheville Citizen Times.

Parsons told the paper the board “acted as a dictatorship” when enacting the mask mandate earlier that day.
“[Therefore], the people then take it into our own hands to abolish that governance and reelect new members right then and there,” she said, according to the Citizen Times…….

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/08/09/madison-cawthorn-buncombe-county-school-board-mask-mandates/

 

[superchuck500]

I think we have to (politely) push back. I had a lady tell me that her friend who is anti-vax “really does her research, she’s got some good points”. I just gently said “no, she doesn’t do research, and no, she doesn’t have any good points, dear. What she is doing is watching quacks’ YouTube videos, and/or reading lies on Facebook. I have worked in a research lab in the past, the stuff out there on social media isn’t research.”

She just chuckled (we’ve known each other for 30 years). I’ve been trying to get her to get vaccinated. She says she’s not anti-vax, just “hesitant”. I’m trying to gently lead her to a space where she will feel comfortable getting the vaccine, which her husband already has done.

Yeah, I had an online conversation that included some people I didn't know and one said "Variants are always less lethal, always! Viruses mutate to survive, and so mutating to beat a vaccine is what happens - vaccines cause variants! Do your own research!"

I had to collect myself to not call him a raging jackass. Then responded,

That's just not accurate, and it only takes an elementary level of biology to understand - feel free to do your own research but please use quality sources. What you're saying is simply not how viral variation and evolution works. Variants are often more contagious (that's how they become dominant) but not necessarily less lethal. Variants come from natural viral mutation and evolution. Yes, a variant that beats vaccines would survive and then potentially dominate but vaccines don't cause variants, the virus doesn't somehow program itself to be resistant, that comes from natural variation. High community spread means more viral reproduction which comes with greater variation/mutation, and thus increases variant risk. Widespread vaccination reduces variant risk because it reduces overall viral reproduction. Consider that Delta emerged from India with very low vaccination, it's all you need to know about whether vaccines cause variants. That's a silly proposition, if you got that from doing your own research you need to do a better job of quality filtering.

 

[JRad]

Yeah. Let's put more healthcare workers at risk instead of doing the reasonable thing... like MASKS!!! What an arse.

I feel like there isn't some well of out of state healthcare workers just waiting to be placed. Especially in an area where "leadership" would rather be reactive than proactive.

 

[insidejob]

Yeah, I had an online conversation that included some people I didn't know and one said "Variants are always less lethal, always! Viruses mutate to survive, and so mutating to beat a vaccine is what happens - vaccines cause variants! Do your own research!"

I had to collect myself to not call him a raging jackass. Then responded,

That's just not accurate, and it only takes an elementary level of biology to understand - feel free to do your own research but please use quality sources. What you're saying is simply not how viral variation and evolution works. Variants are often more contagious (that's how they become dominant) but not necessarily less lethal. Variants come from natural viral mutation and evolution. Yes, a variant that beats vaccines would survive and then potentially dominate but vaccines don't cause variants, the virus doesn't somehow program itself to be resistant, that comes from natural variation. High community spread means more viral reproduction which comes with greater variation/mutation, and thus increases variant risk. Widespread vaccination reduces variant risk because it reduces overall viral reproduction. Consider that Delta emerged from India with very low vaccination, it's all you need to know about whether vaccines cause variants. That's a silly proposition, if you got that from doing your own research you need to do a better job of quality filtering.

Once contracted, delta variant 'bites on and doesn't let go'

To address the uncertainty of the Delta variant, Dr. Peter Chin-Hong, Professor of Medicine and Associate Dean for Regional Campuses at UCSF, joined KCBS Radio’s Dan Mitchinson and Holly Quan on Monday.

www.audacy.com

There are many aspects of the delta variant that make it feel more sinister than the original virus, including how contagious it is. "When it gets onto the nose and the mouth, it bites on and doesn’t let go," Dr. Peter Chin-Hong, professor of medicine and associate dean for regional campuses at UCSF, said on KCBS Radio’s "Ask An Expert" on Monday.

The delta variant also produces more of the virus than other variants, and there can be just as much of it present in vaccinated and unvaccinated people once infected.

However, in vaccinated people, the symptoms of the delta variant typically feel more like the common cold, because the vaccine is doing its job.

But it can still be spread to others, regardless of symptoms. Right now what medical experts are most worried about are the people who have these mild symptoms and assume they’re allergies, or something similar, said Chin-Hong.

According to Chin-Hong, the top five symptoms of vaccinated people are:

- Headache
- Runny nose
- Sore throat
- Loss of smell
- Sneezing (which hasn’t been seen before with COVID-19)

Of course, unvaccinated people are more susceptible to the worst effects.

Goes on to say that hospitalizations are up eightfold at UCSF. But yeah, variants are always less lethal.

ETA: It also says that they've been able to manage the hospitalized patients, so deaths may be down, but I also read somewhere else yesterday that this variant is likely to cause more long haulers who have to deal with lifelong symptoms from catching it in the first place, unless they're vaccinated when they catch it.

 

[GrandAdmiral]

I think we have to (politely) push back. I had a lady tell me that her friend who is anti-vax “really does her research, she’s got some good points”. I just gently said “no, she doesn’t do research, and no, she doesn’t have any good points, dear. What she is doing is watching quacks’ YouTube videos, and/or reading lies on Facebook. I have worked in a research lab in the past, the stuff out there on social media isn’t research.”

She just chuckled (we’ve known each other for 30 years). I’ve been trying to get her to get vaccinated. She says she’s not anti-vax, just “hesitant”. I’m trying to gently lead her to a space where she will feel comfortable getting the vaccine, which her husband already has done.

At this point, I just tell them to tell me where to send the flowers...

 

[Optimus Prime]

That's just not accurate, and it only takes an elementary level of biology to understand - feel free to do your own research but please use quality sources. What you're saying is simply not how viral variation and evolution works. Variants are often more contagious (that's how they become dominant) but not necessarily less lethal. Variants come from natural viral mutation and evolution. Yes, a variant that beats vaccines would survive and then potentially dominate but vaccines don't cause variants, the virus doesn't somehow program itself to be resistant, that comes from natural variation. High community spread means more viral reproduction which comes with greater variation/mutation, and thus increases variant risk. Widespread vaccination reduces variant risk because it reduces overall viral reproduction. Consider that Delta emerged from India with very low vaccination, it's all you need to know about whether vaccines cause variants. That's a silly proposition, if you got that from doing your own research you need to do a better job of quality filtering.

Chuckspeak for: You're a raging jackass

 

[Bigdaddysaints]

I feel like there isn't some well of out of state healthcare workers just waiting to be placed. Especially in an area where "leadership" would rather be reactive than proactive.

I don't know if Texas hospitals are requiring the vaccine for their nurses and other healtcare workers but if they are not, then it could become a mecca for the unvaccinated health care workers, which is a frightening scenario.

 

[DaveXA]

Fork that idiot. I hate him more than the Trumper idiots in Congress.

 

[Optimus Prime]

Absolutely crazy
===============
As students in many Florida counties headed back to school Monday, Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis threatened to stop paying superintendents and school board members who defy his executive order banning classroom mask mandates.


In a statement Monday, DeSantis said district-level officials who implement covid-19 policies requiring masks for students could be subject to “financial consequences.”


“For example, the State Board of Education could move to withhold the salary of the district superintendent or school board members, as a narrowly tailored means to address the decision-makers who led to the violation of law,” said the statement from DeSantis’s office to CBS Miami and other news outlets.


The debate over mask mandates has grown even more contentious this summer as parents prepare to send their children back to school while coronavirus cases rise and new variants proliferate.

In North Carolina, parents in Buncombe County attempted to “overthrow” the school board after its members voted to require masks indoors and on buses.

One superintendent in Ohio told The Washington Post he knew of colleagues who had hired armed security guards to protect their homes because they feared retribution over school covid safety measures………

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/08/10/desantis-threatens-school-salaries-mask-mandates-florida/

 

[The moose]

Fork that idiot. I hate him more than the Trumper idiots in Congress.

I understand why his neighbor beat the crud out of him.

 

[samiam5211]

Absolutely crazy
===============
As students in many Florida counties headed back to school Monday, Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis threatened to stop paying superintendents and school board members who defy his executive order banning classroom mask mandates.


In a statement Monday, DeSantis said district-level officials who implement covid-19 policies requiring masks for students could be subject to “financial consequences.”


“For example, the State Board of Education could move to withhold the salary of the district superintendent or school board members, as a narrowly tailored means to address the decision-makers who led to the violation of law,” said the statement from DeSantis’s office to CBS Miami and other news outlets.


The debate over mask mandates has grown even more contentious this summer as parents prepare to send their children back to school while coronavirus cases rise and new variants proliferate.

In North Carolina, parents in Buncombe County attempted to “overthrow” the school board after its members voted to require masks indoors and on buses.

One superintendent in Ohio told The Washington Post he knew of colleagues who had hired armed security guards to protect their homes because they feared retribution over school covid safety measures………

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/08/10/desantis-threatens-school-salaries-mask-mandates-florida/

Soon DeSantis and Abbot will be putting sanctions on anyone promoting masks or vaccines.

 

[Optimus Prime]

Posted this on EE also
==================

Coronavirus vaccination mandates are spreading. So is resistance to them. A number of red states, including Texas and Florida, not only refuse to mandate vaccinations and masks but also are trying to prevent companies and local governments from doing so.

“We can either have a free society, or we can have a biomedical security state,” says Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) of Florida, where covid-19 cases and hospitalizations have reached record levels.
Talk about a false dichotomy.

Republicans who oppose “defunding the police” or support a “war on terrorism” recognize that there is no freedom without security. They are willing to accept substantial infringements on civil liberties to combat criminals and terrorists.

Yet they insist on dropping our guard against a pandemic that has already killed nearly as many Americans (617,000 and counting) as died in battle during all U.S. wars combined.


Ever since George Washington forced his troops to be inoculated against smallpox in 1777, Americans have routinely complied with vaccination mandates. Such mandates are, in fact, as American as apple pie.

As Scientific American noted: “Every state and Washington, D.C., requires routine vaccinations, such as for measles, mumps and rubella, as a condition of school attendance.”


The Supreme Court, in 1905 and 1922, upheld the legality of requiring people to get their shots. A three-judge panel of Republican appointees to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit just turned away a challenge to Indiana University’s vaccination requirement.

Judge Frank Easterbrook, a leading conservative, wrote that “vaccination requirements, like other public-health measures, have been common in this nation.”

So if vaccination mandates are legal and backed by ample precedent, what possible grounds can there be for rejecting them — other than catering to the conspiratorial fantasies of malign anti-vaxxer propagandists?

“I believe it makes sense to get vaccinated,” Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) tweeted, “but everyone must make their own choice.”

Sounds nice, but we don’t let everyone make their own choice about whether to smoke indoors, wear a seat belt, drive drunk, drive at 100 mph or myriad other public health matters.

Why should covid-19 — the deadliest plague in a century — be any different?……

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/08/10/vaccination-mandates-are-american-apple-pie/

 

[Optimus Prime]

 

[SaulGoodmanEsq]

Says it all: