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?

 

[SystemShock]

What valley are you talking about? I was just saying “que le vaya bien.”

It should be very obvious to you that you typed "que le valle bien", not "que le vaya bién".
It should also be very obvious to you that I was poking fun at that.

Regarding your quest to determine which social justice causes are worth it, and which ones aren’t. I would love to have a good faith discussion on that matter, but I don’t think that’s on the table.

Stop it with the BS.

As for Operation Warp Speed, while it had its hiccups (state and federal government weren’t on the same page, bottlenecks in delivery, perhaps preferential treatment as to who received vaccines initially), by the government purchasing vaccines prior to regulatory approval, it shortened wait times, and cut through a great amount of red tape which usually slows down the process. It also delivered on over 300 million dosages.

None of that is accurate.

What has the current administration gotten right?

You first tried whataboutism with BLM, now with the Biden administration, and with a vague open ended question to boot. But in this case, I'll tell you: the Biden administration had to scramble to get vaccine acquisition and distribution in a somewhat effective way after the mess the previous administration left. You continue to bring up the cutting of red tape, but there was none, as protocols have been in place for years to deal with pandemics and emergency approval of medications/vaccines.

..and speaking of whataboutism... really, stop it. You are not talking with who you think you are.

 

[el caliente]

It should be very obvious to you that you typed "que le valle bien", not "que le vaya bién".
It should also be very obvious to you that I was poking fun at that.


Stop it with the BS.


None of that is accurate.


You first tried whataboutism with BLM, now with the Biden administration, and with a vague open ended question to boot. But in this case, I'll tell you: the Biden administration had to scramble to get vaccine acquisition and distribution in a somewhat effective way after the mess the previous administration left. You continue to bring up the cutting of red tape, but there was none, as protocols have been in place for years to deal with pandemics and emergency approval of medications/vaccines.

..and speaking of whataboutism... really, stop it. You are not talking with who you think you are.

I think I will stop. Q’ le vaya bien.

 

[BullSheetBuddha]

Florida governor Ron DeSantis scolds students for wearing masks – video

Ron DeSantis had strong words for a group of students at the University of South Florida who were wearing face masks before a press conference

www.theguardian.com

What an arse. I love the sigh at the end.

 

[MT15]

What an arse. I love the sigh at the end. Makes you want to punch him straight in the mouth.

He’s the opposite of a conservative. He’s willing to tell everybody exactly what they can and cannot do, and he isn’t very smart about it.

 

[MT15]

This is what is so disturbing about the anti-vaxxers: if this doctor wants to have an opinion that children don’t need the vaccine, it is a free country and he has the right to hold a wrong opinion. What is truly damaging this country is the BS that people who follow the science as best they can and have a different opinion are trying to oppress him. It’s insane. And it will cause some children to get very sick or even die because he is being dishonest about the issue.

 

[Lapaz]

DeSantis is a peabrain and so is his Attorney General. There is plenty of evidence that masks do prevent the spread of viruses, and I think if he ever has to have surgery, then he should tell his physician that he should take off his mask, because it doesn't do anything. I'm willing to bet that he won't tell that to any physician that is performing surgery on anyone he cares about, but he doesn't care about Floridians, so they should take off their masks. The reality is it is just a crass political image that he's manipulating.

I think we're letting our guard down too soon. Some places are doing fine, but we're still averaging over 1400 deaths per day in the U.S. There are many places that are still hot zones. The trends are good, and we'll probably be fine to stop masking up everywhere within a few weeks, but there are many places that should still be masking and keeping other protective measures in place. If we kept losing 1000 per day, that would result in 365,000 deaths in a year. That is still horrible! I know it is trending down very fast, so the remaining hot spots just need to be patient for a few more weeks.

 

[MT15]

These tweets kind of sum up how I feel about the huge numbers of people who are just batshit crazy about taking some normal precautions:

 

[Optimus Prime]

Interesting read on what we all suspected
========================

Republicans are killing us.


No, really.


Until now, we’ve known that covid-19 death rates were higher among the unvaccinated, and also higher in counties that went for Donald Trump, whose supporters were more likely to resist vaccinations, masks and other pandemic precautions.

Now that the omicron wave is over, a couple of new analyses of state-by-state data both point to an inescapable conclusion: Living in states run by a Republican governor is dangerous to your health.


Using data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, consultant Doug Haddix reported Sunday that since July 1 (when the lifesaving vaccine was widely available), the 14 states with the highest death rates were all run by Republican governors.

This included Florida (at about 153 deaths per 100,000 residents), Ohio (142 deaths per 100,000), Arizona (138) and Georgia (134). Contrast that with the deep-blue District of Columbia (only 27 deaths per 100,000) and California (58 per 100,000).


For verification, I checked with health-care analyst Charles Gaba, whose data on covid-19 and voting patterns has been widely cited. He ran the numbers for me using data mostly from Johns Hopkins and found similar results.

The 16 states with the highest coronavirus death rates since July 1 were all run by Republicans. The worst was West Virginia (about 204 deaths per 100,000), followed closely by Oklahoma, Tennessee, Wyoming and the aforementioned Florida.


The states with the lowest death rates, by contrast, were all run by Democrats — or, in the case of Vermont, Maryland and Massachusetts, by moderate Republican governors who had heavily Democratic legislatures and embraced vaccines and masks.

The best jurisdictions were D.C., Vermont, Hawaii and California. Looking at data from the period since May 1 (by which time all U.S. adults theoretically could have been vaccinated) produced similar results……..

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/03/14/covid-death-rates-republican-states-disparity/

 

[SaulGoodmanEsq]

Natural Selection at its finest.

 

[MT15]

Pretty good discussion of the responsibility certain politicians must bear for the deliberate Covid disinformation they spewed.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/03/31/ivermectin-is-signature-example-politics-trumping-health/

“There is no real question that right-wing political leaders touted ivermectin specifically as a way to score partisan points. Consider Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s (R-Ga.) rhetoric last December.
“Ivermectin, monoclonal antibodies, & other treatments are saving lives,” she wrote on Twitter. " …[O]ur response to #COVID19 should be working towards ending obesity, promote covid treatments that are proven to work, & stop the politically driven mass hysteria.”

“Allow people to choose natural immunity or vaccines, w/o discrimination,” she added. Her account was later suspended for repeatedly sharing coronavirus misinformation.

That formulation — vaccines vs. “natural immunity” gained by catching and recovering from the virus — is key. To justify rejecting effective vaccines, you need to both denigrate the vaccines’ efficacy and propose an alternative. That was the role ivermectin played: It was hyped as something you could take to feel better in the event you caught the virus. Then you get “natural immunity” and you’re covered as well as if you had been vaccinated — if you lived.

The challenge, of course, is that many people didn’t live. The Kaiser Family Foundation estimates that about 163,000 people died during the delta surge because they weren’t vaccinated. Those deaths were disproportionately in places that had preferred Donald Trump in 2020.”

So, the deliberate path they chose to denigrate medical knowledge in order to court people who could be easily led away from medically sound treatment cost about 163,000 lives just during the Delta wave alone. And they were killing the very people most likely to vote for them in the future. This is Trump-thinking. Do whatever will give you the upper hand in this moment. Doesn’t matter what’s best in the long run, or what’s best for the people you are supposed to be leading. They are responsible for these deaths.

The article concludes:

“We will never know how many Americans who might have lived had they been vaccinated decided against it, trusting that drugs such as ivermectin would keep them alive. We do know, though, that there was a concerted effort to convince people that ivermectin would do so, an effort that intertwined with partisan rejection of government expertise. We can say with confidence that the atmosphere of disinformation about ivermectin led to people dying who would otherwise have lived.”

 

[el caliente]

Isn’t the responsibility on the individuals making decisions (and not the politicians making claims). If we ever again held politicians responsible for things they said, that would be the first time.

Besides, the consequences of any politicians actions are born out in the voting booth.

 

[SaulGoodmanEsq]

Isn’t the responsibility on the individuals making decisions (and not the politicians making claims). If we ever again held politicians responsible for things they said, that would be the first time.

Besides, the consequences of any politicians actions are born out in the voting booth.

That sounds good in theory but it seems like everyone hates all politicians except their own particular Senators/Congressmen. As far as personal choice re: COVID vaccination/treatment, the problem is those who make awful choices can overload the system by requiring hospitalization at greater rates. If there was some awesome way to screen out the Darwin Award winners from taking a hospital bed away from the more responsible then I'd be all for it.

 

[MT15]

That sounds good in theory but it seems like everyone hates all politicians except their own particular Senators/Congressmen. As far as personal choice re: COVID vaccination/treatment, the problem is those who make awful choices can overload the system by requiring hospitalization at greater rates. If there was some awesome way to screen out the Darwin Award winners from taking a hospital bed away from the more responsible then I'd be all for it.

Exactly - in the medical field we are hearing about a larger than normal amount of more advanced than usual cancers being diagnosed recently. People who were unable to get their cancer screenings done due to the overload by Covid patients was a real thing. I myself had an OP diagnostic procedure rescheduled 2 x this winter resulting in a 3 month delay. (And I had put it off for one year already due to Covid.) They told me they didn’t have the personnel to do the test one time, the other time they said they were cancelling all OP procedures.

It’s another thing we’ll likely never know for sure, but the number of patients who died because Covid-denier/anti-vaxxers were taking up all the spaces is not close to zero.

 

[el caliente]

Still, how are you going to blame elected officials for blowing smoke up your arse about Covid? People have free agency. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.

 

[MT15]

Still, how are you going to blame elected officials for blowing smoke up your arse about Covid? People have free agency. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.

I don’t think anyone is saying they are blameless, but the people who deliberately mislead them are scum of the earth.

 

[el caliente]

I don’t think anyone is saying they are blameless, but the people who deliberately mislead them are scum of the earth.

It’s not the strippers fault that you think they love you. They were just doing their job in trying to make a dollar dollar bill y’all.

Politicians are you different.

 

[MT15]

It’s not the strippers fault that you think they love you. They were just doing their job in trying to make a dollar dollar bill y’all.

Politicians are you different.

You and I have a difference of opinion here. Lying to people about a vaccine or about a deadly pandemic and increasing their odds for dying or being seriously ill, as well as clogging up the health care system so that regular illnesses cannot be treated is scum of the earth behavior. It’s damn near sociopathic. Not something that a moral, ethical person would do. So it’s easy to think badly of them. They’re horrible people.

 

[MT15]

Look, el, maybe it’s just easy for you to be cavalier about this. Maybe the deaths don’t mean anything to you. But my neighbor died. And my BIL spent several days in the hospital, and my sister was so sick she felt like she was dying. All of them unvaccinated and convinced that Covid was no big deal.

I think if my BIL and sister had gotten sick earlier they would have died as well, but they were both able to get infusions of monoclonal antibodies. That wasn’t available for my neighbor.