CDC: Vaccinated People in COVID Hotspots Should Resume Wearing Masks (axios.com) 600
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued updated guidance on Tuesday recommending that vaccinated people wear masks in indoor, public settings if they are in parts of the U.S. with substantial to high transmission, among other circumstances. From a report: The guidance, a reversal from recommendations made two months ago, comes as the Delta variant continues to drive up case rates across the country. Millions of people in the U.S. -- either by choice or who are ineligible -- remain unvaccinated and at risk of serious infection. Community leaders in areas with high transmission rates should encourage vaccination and masking, the agency says. In another reversal, the CDC also recommends universal indoor masking for all teachers, staff, students and visitors to K-12 schools this incoming school year, regardless of vaccination status. Los Angeles County, New Orleans, Savannah and Chicago are among the major metropolitan areas that reinstated mask mandates amid a rise in cases.
Just imagine (Score:5, Insightful)
That today it was announced that asbestos was found to cause cancer. Wonder what the headlines would be? How many people would be having asbestos rallies and calling for the firing of the scientists who made the discovery?
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Even more so. Profits would be at stake.
Re:Just imagine (Score:4, Funny)
We'd be seeing news about people holding an asbestos snorting contest. The same people who won't wear a mask now would be wearing masks made of asbestos to show solidarity.
Re:Just imagine (Score:5, Insightful)
That's the real problem here - the tendency for people to evaluate everything in terms of extremes. i.e. Either vaccination is Right, or it's Wrong. It doesn't work like that. Everything has is benefits and its drawbacks. The drawbacks of vaccines are real, but the benefits outweigh them so heavily that it makes sense to get vaccinated. That's the rational line of reasoning which should lead one to get vaccinated. The people getting vaccinated because they think it's trendy or because the government told them to, are erring just as much as the people refusing to get vaccinated. It's just that their error happens to be in the same direction as the rational decision.
If you frame the argument in terms of Right or Wrong extremes, then it becomes vulnerable to things like celebrities arguing against vaccination because of their anecdotal experience. OTOH if you frame it in terms of the pros vs cons rational decision, then that confers resistance against anecdotal evidence. Yes some people get sick and even die after getting vaccinated. But that increase in death rate is minuscule compared to the drop in death rate for those who get vaccinated. Meaning on the balance, vaccination confers a huge benefit.
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There does seem to be a problem that people expect a precaution (vaccine or mask) to be 100% effective and 100% safe, or it is useless. What does not get through is the consequences of not taking any of the (somewhat effective) precautions, which is increased likelihood of infection, and in the case of not being vaccinated, increased likelihood of severe disease and death.
Another point that seems difficult to get across is that combining a number of moderately effective precautions (masks, washing hands, av
Re:Just imagine (Score:5, Informative)
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Quickly looking at wiki and asbestos.com, it is all potentially dangerous. Nonfriable asbestos products such as cement slabs and vinyl asbestos tiles are only dangerous if disturbed such as cutting them up. scraping them or crushing them. Perhaps that is what you mean by forms that aren't dangerous.
The history of asbestos is pretty horrible, with industry and government coverups. The asbestos industry has a powerful lobby.
Everyone employed the manufacture of aesbestos (Score:3, Insightful)
The biggest problem with COVID is that since we have almost zero safety net there were millions of folks who, facing homelessness and looking at how impossible it is to get even a pittance of unemployment [nytimes.com], would rather take their chances with the virus.
Austerity is expensive.
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That today it was announced that asbestos was found to cause cancer. Wonder what the headlines would be? How many people would be having asbestos rallies and calling for the firing of the scientists who made the discovery?
The difference is, they had a common sense approach to asbestos. They banned its use in future building projects, and gradually removed it from older buildings where it had become loose and was entering the ventilation systems. The response from the public would have been very different if, for example, there was a legal mandate for everyone who worked or lived in a building containing asbestos to wear masks! In fact, when I was a youngster, the grade school I attended had asbestos. I don't think it wou
Re:Just imagine (Score:5, Insightful)
Why, what is wrong with wearing masks. The reason it would be a problem in schools is because parents would panic over it - it would bring the problem home and be real instead of an abstract idea that only a few schools they never heard of or don't care about have asbestos.
Wearing a mask is NOT a big deal. Don't listen what Tucker Carlson with his mentally disturbed idea that you should consider a child wearing a mask to be child abuse. If we have to leave the house wearing clothes, by law, then the law is most certainly able to require a mask mandate. It is most definitely not an attack on anyone's freedoms! Going without a mask will cause more harm to children than exposing your butt to sunlight.
It is so amazingly easy to wear a mask. Why are people freaking out like it's a communist world takeover merely because they have to do an incredibly easy thing? Some people complain that they sweat and get acne with a mask, but that's a damn sight better than getting covid by far. If it's a problem, then work from home more often. Go into the store, buy what you need quickly, then get back out and then take the mask off. There is absolutely no need whatsoever to heap verbal and physical abuse upon the store employees for this, and no reason to send off death threats to county health officials.
A bunch of self-centered idiots who weren't required to take civics class in school who now have a distorted and incorrect view of what their rights are.
Re: Just imagine (Score:4, Informative)
It's the psychology of the bully, politicized. How people get this way (and how they can be cured) is explained in this (long but interesting) psychology lecture: https://youtu.be/q7mznfMI1T4 [youtu.be]
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I find wearing a mask makes me feel ill after a while, who knows what the long term effects restricting ones breathing would be. That being said if it protects others you should wear a mask and in confined public places is a total acceptable thing to ask the population to do.
Re:Just imagine (Score:5, Insightful)
I find wearing a mask makes me feel ill after a while, who knows what the long term effects restricting ones breathing would be
Ask the medical professionals who wore them every day before covid. Not a goddamn thing is what happens.
Re: Just imagine (Score:3)
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My favorite thing to bring up to the anti mask crowd.
The government can't tell me what to do with my body!
Alright, I'd like an abortion.
Government please do something to stop these people!
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It's interesting how in one case you say the government SHOULD be able to tel me what to do with my body (wear a mask) and in the other case you say the government should NOT be able to tell a woman what to do with her body (have an abortion).
So you say failing to wear a mask endangers the life of others who are vulnerable. The anti-abortionist will say that having an abortion takes the life of someone else who is the MOST vulnerable.
This argument exposes hypocrisy on both sides.
Re: Just imagine (Score:5, Insightful)
Abortions aren't contagious, respiratory infections are.
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That just shows you that studies are imperfect. Reality showed that masks and social distancing gave us one of the mildest flu seasons on record. I'll take hard data over "estimates" any day.
Almost all the studies cited in that metastudy involve wearing masks at home (or communal housing like school) but involved people who also went out in public where nobody else has one. Masks are relatively useless for situations where you spend time in close quarters with other people - that's why public health guid
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The WHO admitted they changed their mask advice due to lobbying, not because of medical evidence.
The UK Government have admitted they changed their mask advice due to economic factors, not because of medical evidence.
The CDC keep changing their fucking minds.
Then there's the Democrat poster boy. Here, take a listen to this and tell me what Fauci really fucking thinks: https://twitter.com/justin_har... [twitter.com]
Trump
Jesus will you cunts fucking give it a break. You can't blame all your shitty fucking life choices on one m
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[...]The response from the public would have been very different if, for example, there was a legal mandate for everyone who worked or lived in a building containing asbestos to wear masks! [...]
And yet, in actual reality, back on planet earth, where asbestos does not just get released by breathing or talking; in situations where we expect there to be asbestos in the air; where there might actually be a risk like with COVID there are actual regulations requiring the use of masks [epa.gov] and nobody complains about them.
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Asbestos was discovered to harm people in 1899, with the first documented death in 1906 and in various studies in the 1910's of asbestos factory towns showed a high death rate. By the early 1930's, the links between working with asbestos and pulmonary fibrosis and asbestosis were pretty clear. A hell of a lot of people worked with asbestos in the ship building industry during WWII and died of it.
Here in Canada, one of the biggest strikes ever was over working in an asbestos mill or mine, forget which. The
Yeah, no (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm not wearing a mask to protect people who refuse to protect themselves. The rule should be if you aren't vaccinated, stay home.
Re:Yeah, no (Score:5, Insightful)
Sadly, you're protecting yourself and those you care about as well. Every ICU bed occupied by someone who refuse a free vaccine is a bed that might not be available for someone you love if, God forbid, they should ever need it.
Re:Yeah, no (Score:5, Insightful)
That's why the unvaccinated should stay home until they get vaccinated. The idea that we are going to tolerate the unvaccinated returning to normal and ask the vaccinated to make sacrifices for them is just a no go for me. As in hell no.
Re: Yeah, no (Score:3)
Re: Yeah, no (Score:5, Interesting)
This.
Anyone who refuses vaccination by choice (as in, against medical recommendations) should be triaged to the back if they ever catch COVID.
Just common sense.
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I'm not wearing a mask to protect people who refuse to protect themselves. The rule should be if you aren't vaccinated, stay home.
How about someone who -- for whatever reason -- *cannot* take the vaccine, but is the primary/sole earner for a family and has a job that can't be done remotely. How about around kids under 12, that can't get the vaccine (yet) -- especially as school systems go back to in-class learning.
There are a bunch of things here that are out of your and others' control, so is it really going to even marginally inconvenience you to wear a mask when out at a store and help out a little?
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Unfortunately, vaccination is proving insufficient to end the problem altogether now. Real-world protection is being measured as low as 64% (Israel, the most vaccinated nation). They're already seeking out boosters because, while the vaccine is preventing serious illness and hospitalization most of the time, those people are still contagious and thus have the potential of being the source of further viral variation.
We had a chance to eliminate the virus, but I think that chance is now long-gone.
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Yes, still contagious. But if everyone around them were vaccindated then this seriously reduces the chances of needing hospitalization if they do catch covid. The vaccines ARE working, the problem is with the 97% hospitalizations being from people who are not vaccinated. If more people weren't more scared of vaccines than in being hospitalized then maybe would get get this pandemic down to manageable levels.
Instead statements like yours that seem to translate to "don't bother being vaccinated because it'
Then do it for people who can't (Score:3)
And that's before we talk about mutations. The reason for all those breakthrough infections is the Delta variant, which was created because Ind
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You should be listening to one person when it comes to you wearing masks; Common F. Sense.
Everything from skin rashes to "COVID toes" to Erectile Dysfunction has been reported in the short term, and if you think the CDC gives a shit about you getting COVID, think again.
And NO ONE has a fucking clue as to what COVID-19 does to you in the long term. We're not even there yet.
Evidence-based findings? Take a good hard look at the second wave of the Spanish Flu 100 years ago. It was extremely impactful and d
"Please wear masks inside" (Score:4, Insightful)
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Many African Americans have a stronger sense of distrust of the Government because it has regularly been weaponized against them. Read up on the Tuskegee Experiment for a classic example. That said only about a quarter of the US population is part of either minority group you site. That isn't to say that their lower vaccination rates aren't a problem to be addressed. But minorities having lower vaccination rates is less of a problem than the racial group that makes up 73% of the population doing poorly.
Re:"Please wear masks inside" (Score:5, Interesting)
Some data from late July is here: https://www.kff.org/coronaviru... [kff.org]
* 48% of white people in the US are vaccinated
* 36% of black people in the US are vaccinated
* 65% of asian people in the US are vaccinated
More data here, from May: https://www.goodrx.com/blog/co... [goodrx.com]
* 40% of $45k/year household income people in the US are vaccinated
* 50% of $75k/year household income people in the US are vaccinated
* 55% of $85k/year household income people in the US are vaccinated
More data here, from May: https://bloustein.rutgers.edu/... [rutgers.edu]
* 38% of folks with high school diploma or less in the US are vaccinated
* 50% of folks with college/vocational/associate's degree in the US are vaccinated
* 63% of folks with bachelor degree in the US are vaccinated
* 70% of folks with graduate or professional education in US are vaccinated
You picked the race statistics alone and asked whether they indicated antivaxx or Republican leanings. The data indicates multiple correlated variables, and hence it's meaningless (as in your question) to pick only one variable.
Re:"Please wear masks inside" (Score:4, Interesting)
Why not both? While we need to support African Americans increasing vaccination rates, one may forgive them for what historically white people have done to them though the use of the medical profession. Republicans on the other hand, what's their excuse? Their sky daddy threatened to take away their guns if the vaccinate?
By the way the census shows 13% of the USA is African American and 18% Latino or Hispanic. If you don't understand why this is significant when comparing percentages of a total population then please phone up your high-school math teacher and apologise for wasting his time.
Re:"Please wear masks inside" (Score:5, Interesting)
How are facts racist? Adjust for population? What does that mean? I am talking about percentages. Only 36% of African Americans are vaccinated. Only 41% of Latinos are vaccinated. Are they antivaxxers, or Republicans? You guys claim it is a Republican problem. How is that possible? Let us all know!
Re:"Please wear masks inside" (Score:5, Insightful)
The facts aren't racist, but presenting them without context is... Misleading at best.
Vaccine scepticism is correlated with poor education which is correlated with poverty. Access to vaccines is correlated with poverty. And in this case, correlation is causation.
There are also some historical reasons why Black people in particular might be sceptical, e.g. that time the government gave Black people horrible diseases claiming they were vaccines.
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How are facts racist? Adjust for population? What does that mean? I am talking about percentages. Only 36% of African Americans are vaccinated. Only 41% of Latinos are vaccinated. Are they antivaxxers, or Republicans? You guys claim it is a Republican problem. How is that possible? Let us all know!
Oh dear. Someone failed statistics. Here's a hint: You're talking about how a percentage of a percentage of population affects the whole population but ignoring one of those percentages. African Americans make up 13% of the population, Latino/Hispanics 18%. If you don't understand why this is significant then please apologise to your highschool math teach for wasting his time.
When he explains to you the math you may actually realise that it is a republican problem, AND a Latino problem, AND an African Ameri
the reason are simple (Score:3)
2) on average black neighborhood have less information/education access
3) time issue if you need half a day for an appointment due to distance
etc...
https://www.npr.org/2021/02/05/962946721/across-the-south-covid-19-vaccine-sites-missing-from-black-and-hispanic-neighbor
If you HAD researched the issue you would have known it isn't about vaccination hesitancy, but no, you cited the statistic as if it was significant with
Re:"Please wear masks inside" (Score:4, Informative)
Perhaps the memory of the Tuskegee experiment is still alive and well.. the US gov't doesn't have the best track record with black america regarding public health initiatives.
Wait a misrepresent what I said (Score:3, Interesting)
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If being vaxinated mattered you would not have to wear a mask.
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If being vaxinated mattered you would not have to wear a mask.
Black and white reasoning for a gray situation. We don't have perfect vaccines. The vaccines we have greatly reduce risk but they don't eliminate it. If the exposure rate is high enough, the vaccinated need masks too. More importantly, though, unvaccinated people can't avoid masking by pretending to be vaccinated.
Re:"Please wear masks inside" (Score:5, Insightful)
Black people are more conservative than you think. Especially when it comes to things like being gay or religion.
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Not precisely. It is what mRNA vaccines do, but not all vaccines, and I believe this is the first time an mRNA vaccine has ever been authorized for emergency use.
IMO (and this is not medical advice, I'm not a doctor, I'm not your doctor, I don't play one on TV, etc.), there are good reasons to be cautious and to use it only for those at serious risk for COVID-19 complications.
Vaccines usually simulate an immune response to the actual pathogen. Then, when the actual pathogen shows up, the immune system alr
Re:"Please wear masks inside" (Score:5, Informative)
Not precisely. It is what mRNA vaccines do, but not all vaccines, and I believe this is the first time an mRNA vaccine has ever been authorized for emergency use.
No, it's literally what all RNA virus vaccines do. The difference is that mRNA vaccines produce only the most interesting part of the virus's capsid, and do so without putting in enough of the virus's genetic material to have a risk of self-replication.
Put another way, traditional vaccines still put mRNA into your cells; they just do so indirectly by infecting them with a virus. :-)
IMO (and this is not medical advice, I'm not a doctor, I'm not your doctor, I don't play one on TV, etc.), there are good reasons to be cautious and to use it only for those at serious risk for COVID-19 complications.
Over a billion people have been vaccinated and over 2 billion partially vaccinated, with a large percentage of those vaccinated with an mRNA vaccine. That's a pretty strong case for these vaccines being safe.
Vaccines usually simulate an immune response to the actual pathogen. Then, when the actual pathogen shows up, the immune system already knows how to fight it, and can knock out the infection more quickly.
And even that sometimes ends up doing a great deal of harm, typically by also triggering an immune response to one's own cells. It is widely believed though not proven (AFAIK) that this may be due to some people's anomalous reactions to the adjuvants found in most vaccines.
Doubtful. I'd expect any reaction to the adjuvant to cause anaphylaxis, which happens within minutes after vaccination, typically. Long-term reactions are almost certainly caused by the body attacking the infected cells and somehow getting confused between the bad proteins being produced by the infected cells and aspects of the cells themselves.
And each of those side effects has a prevalence many orders of magnitude lower than the rate of those exact same symptoms when infected with the actual COVID-19 virus.
That harm sometimes does not manifest until years or even decades later, which is why long-term safety testing is ordinarily done wherever practicable.
To the best of my knowledge, no vaccine has ever caused harm that showed up years or decades later. Single-digit weeks, yes. Months, no. Years, definitely no.
It's even less likely that mRNA vaccines would be the first, given that all of the material in an mRNA vaccine is broken down by your body within a matter of days.
Getting infected with an actual virus, however, can cause harm that shows up decades later — various forms of cancer, shingles, etc. At least in theory, there's a possibility that the actual COVID-19 virus could lie dormant in humans and reactivate itself years or decades later to catastrophic effect. I *think* that all known examples of that behavior are DNA viruses, so it probably won't. But still....
IMO (again, see disclaimers above), mRNA vaccines should ONLY have been authorized for emergency use in the elderly and/or others at extreme risk for complications from COVID-19.
You do realize that mRNA vaccines have been studied for many years, right? The first mRNA vaccine experiments were almost thirty years ago. This is the first time they have been used en masse, but they're not new. If there were real problems with the delivery mechanism, we'd know it by now.
If there are problems caused by the spike protein itself, that's going to happen whether you get an mRNA vaccine, get a viral vector vaccine, or get sick with COVID-19 itself, so not getting vaccinated doesn't make you safer; getting the actual virus results in you getting exposed to the same material in a more uncontrolled fashion, which is why all of those fun side effects occur several orders of magnitude more often with the actual disease than with the vaccine.
That said, if
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IMO (and this is not medical advice, I'm not a doctor, I'm not your doctor, I don't play one on TV, etc.), there are good reasons to be cautious and to use it only for those at serious risk for COVID-19 complications.
Only if you don't understand the history of our studies on mRNA or immunology. People talk about mRNA as if it is some magical new miracle cure that Pfizer popped up overnight, rather than a molecule which we have been studying for 40 years, injecting into animals for 20 years, and injecting into people for a decade.
IMO (again, see disclaimers above), mRNA vaccines should ONLY have been authorized for emergency use in the elderly and/or others at extreme risk for complications from COVID-19.
Since you're not a doctor I suggest you take some of your own advice and actually trust the experts. The "emergency" in this case did not cut a single corner for any kind of drug testing. It acc
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That harm sometimes does not manifest until years or even decades later [...]
Can you cite a case where this happened from a vaccine?
Re:"Please wear masks inside" (Score:4, Interesting)
And yet the higher hospitalization rates, 97% of which are unvaccinated, are occuring in heavily red states.
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The demographics of the unvaccinated is higher among democrats, actually.
Is that why blue states have significantly higher vaccination rates? Actually [kff.org]
Pandemic for the Unvaccinated (Score:4, Insightful)
People who aren't vaccinated should either get vaccinated or wear a mask. It's their problem, not the vaccinated's problem.
Re:Pandemic for the Unvaccinated (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: Pandemic for the Unvaccinated (Score:3)
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No, it's my problem too. I have kids under 1 year old. They can't get vaccinated.
Every mouth breather without a mask I see might put my kids in a hospital. I apologize in advance if I appear hostile.
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Oh, that what you said were true. But it's not, for a few different reasons:
1) None of the vaccines available (at least in the US, if not generally) have a 100% suppression result against even the Alpha variant they were developed to fight
2) The Delta variant, the most common variety in new COVID cases in the US, has a 60% higher risk of transmission [bmj.com] than the Alpha variant
3) The Pfizer vaccine has between 64% [ttps] and 88% [bmj.com] effectiveness against Delta infection
4) The Pfizer vaccine has 96% effectiveness against ma [bmj.com]
There's a risk to the vaccinated here too (Score:4, Insightful)
Don't underestimate the power of peer pressure [youtu.be]. If most of the people you see in the store aren't wearing a mask, you're less likely to wear a mask even if you're unvaccinated. OTOH if most of the people you see in the store are wearing a mask, you'll be more likely to wear a mask yourself.
Don't think of this problem in terms of extremes - people who will always wear a mask, vs people who absolutely refuse to wear a mask. They're not going to change no matter what you do. Think of it in terms of people who aren't so committed, and don't really care either way about wearing a mask. If they see hordes of people still wearing a mask (who happen to be vaccinated, but there's no obvious way to know that), then they're more likely to wear a mask themselves.
Masks Forever! (Score:2, Insightful)
It is pretty clear. These people think that us humans are a danger to each other and should be kept apart.
If you look at the map, there are very few spots that have "low" spread. I live in one of those "low spread" areas. We are as vaccinated as you can get as a community. I can promise you that my local "leaders" are going to jump all over this and mask everybody up regardless of transmission.
Call me selfish, but I am tired of not being able to see through my glasses. I am tired of not being able t
Re:Masks Forever! (Score:4, Informative)
It would have taken one month -- ONE MONTH -- of heavy screeing, quarantining and closed borders to have stopped the disease. Totally.
Yeah, like you said, you're selfish. (Score:3)
Call me selfish, but I am tired of not being able to see through my glasses.
Here you go https://health.clevelandclinic... [clevelandclinic.org] . One of these solutions will likely work for you.
Also, you're selfish.
I am tired of not being able to understand people when they talk.
Maybe have your ears checked, it's not that hard to hear some one with a mask on. Doctors do it all the time, often during complex surgeries where team communication is crucial.
I am tired of living under someone else's fear based rules.
I'd call them "science based rules" myself. I mean the near complete international medical consensus on the dangers of Covid is really quite impressive.
It is time for some common sense.
Unfortunately for you quite a lot of people consider masking up du
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I really don't get all the griping about having trouble speaking or hearing someone wearing a cloth mask. The people I have a hard time understanding have never seemed to be able to enunciate anyways, mask or no. And when speaking it isn't like it's common to stick your tongue way out or something. I really just don't get it, and whenever someone uses it as an excuse to take their mask off I have to suppress an eye roll.
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These people think that us humans are a danger to each other and should be kept apart.
I absolutely agree. The more distance between me and humans, the better.
Did I mention that 2020 was the best year of my life?
Normalized 1918 Spanish Flu vs 2020 COVID-19? (Score:5, Insightful)
I see people comparing the death rate of the two but I don't see the comparisons normalized. I wish such studies existed. In 1918 they didn't have ventilators, anti-viral drugs, steroid drugs, or even vaccines, yet the only comparisons I see are between no-technology 1918 numbers and current-technology 2020. In 1918 all they had for treatment was basically a bed and damp cloth to put on your forehead to try and reduce the fever. If you were lucky there might have been ASA. And that was everywhere, the whole world.
How bad would COVID-19 be if we had none of our modern methods to treat it with? New York City in the spring of last year was a shadow of how bad it might have been even with in excess of 800 deaths per day at one point, because that was with modern interventions not available in 1918. If our health care system had become overwhelmed, we'd have been fucked. A lot more deaths. I wouldn't be surprised if it would have been much worse than 1918 given the higher density of people we have now.
And yet there are fucking morons who think it is a joke or a conspiracy; and what in 1918 would be considered miracle cures are to be avoided. The USA is particularly stupid this way. It is also the most religious country in the industrialized nations. I think there is a connection: people who let themselves be led by blind faith and follow doctrines and orders without question in opposition to education, science, and education, and whose leaders know that if their followers were to actually think for themselves they would lose their privileged positions.
This is not what you think it is (Score:3, Informative)
First, it's only for K-12 teachers staff and students, with zero exceptions.
Second, most universities and colleges and tech workplaces REQUIRE full vaccination if you want to work in person at your workplace.
No mask, no shot, no fun stuff. Sports, bars, public spaces - just man up and get your shots - cause nobody cares about your "excuse".
Is the glass 93% full or 7% empty? (Score:3)
92 people, all fully vaccinated, gathered in one place. Six tested positive.
https://www.webmd.com/vaccines... [webmd.com]
It's a good bet that the vaccines prevented a lot more infections if you compare that to the Skagit choir incident. Masks might have prevented the rest. A data point on their effectiveness is at https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volum... [cdc.gov], a case study where two sick hair stylists served 140 customers but were masked and did not transmit to anyone.
The other possible lesson is not to create such large groups that one case turns into six.
Time to pop the champaign (Score:5, Funny)
I was worried. No, really. I was worried. When the news hit that the vaccine is ready and that there's plenty of it to go around and everyone would get it, I was preparing to wave good-bye to the comfy of my home office. I really started to like it. No traffic, not having to play dress up, not having to meet people (and if there's a meeting, at least you can do something sensible while the idiot from marketing is droning on about how awesome our company is). I was pretty sure as soon as infection numbers go down, they'll start to force us back into office.
But it seems that my luck isn't running out any time soon. As long as there's idiots that refuse to get vaccinated and keep the infection rates high, there's hope this can continue.
I salute you, noble simpletons. If I felt anything but contempt for you, it would be thankfulness that you risk, and often even lose, your life, just for my comfort.
Re:This is not how you encourage vaccination (Score:5, Insightful)
About half the US is fully vaccinated, half is not. Out of people being hospitalized for COVID-19 now, 97% are unvaccinated. Is staying out of the hospital a good enough personal incentive?
Re: This is not how you encourage vaccination (Score:3)
Re:This is not how you encourage vaccination (Score:5, Insightful)
We might once car crashes become contagious, thanks for the tip.
Re:This is not how you encourage vaccination (Score:4, Insightful)
"Facist". Jesus H Chirst on a cracker, you people are beyond hope.
Re:This is not how you encourage vaccination (Score:4, Insightful)
Currently 5000/day, and geometrically increasing.
We don't reduce the speed limit to 25 mph because we understand cost/benefit analyses. The cost/benefit trade for getting vaccinated should be a no-brainer. I'm getting over a cold that was worse than my combined response to both Covid vaccine shots. The only other cost for me getting vaccinated was getting an appointment; now it is even easier -- pharmacies in grocery stores here have walk-in availability.
Re:This is not how you encourage vaccination (Score:4, Informative)
The CDC: https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-da... [cdc.gov] .
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A mask that is not perfect is still better than no mask at all. Do not let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
The importance is to block or slow down most of the exhaled vapor. That is, it protects those around you, not you yourself. That's why despite being fully vaccinated I *still* wear a mask when I go into the store or am around other people. It would be stupid and self-centered for me to not wear a mask. I want this pandemic to die down and life to get back to normal, and it won't get that way
Re: This is not how you encourage vaccination (Score:3)
How many lives would be saved by banning cigarettes/tobacco? Why does the government put tax revenue ahead of the health snd safety of the citizenry?
Re:This is not how you encourage vaccination (Score:5, Insightful)
I have a close relative who has put off elective surgery for 18 months now. But "elective" does not mean "optional", and it's not plastic surgery or anything like that. "Elective" just means it does not need to be performed immediately. However after 18 months the problem has become much more severe, and the longer it is delayed the longer it may be that surgery just can't be done. And the reason the suergy hasn't been done is precisely because hospitals are too crowded and there is an active epidemic and they're putting a hold on most elective surgeries.
Re: This is not how you encourage vaccination (Score:3)
Re:This is not how you encourage vaccination (Score:5, Informative)
This is not merely theatre, it's a public policy failure that is without parallel in our nation, and that it was replicated worldwide neither denies nor diminishes that. Covid-19 did not threaten the lives of children, demonstrably true given the available statistics,
Bzzt. Not true at all. The kill rate is lower, but nonzero. And the "long COVID" numbers are bad for kids, too. Some 42.6% of children age 6–16 were still impaired by at least one symptom more than 120 days after infection. Citation: Children with long COVID [nih.gov].
yet now we've found a new variant that, indeed is claimed to impact children 'more than' the original variant.
Which was already pretty bad, even in children.
And we do not yet see hospitals deluged with those sick from this 'Delta' variant, so now the benchmark is merely 'cases'.
The number of cases is small at the moment, or at least it was small as of two weeks ago. Hospitals get deluged during surges, with hospitalization lagging about two weeks behind the case count, and deaths lagging up to two weeks behind hospitalization. In a week or two, things are going to be grim for the unvaccinated, particularly in the southern U.S.
Based on the current case rate and the current growth rate, in two weeks, we should expect about 150k new cases and 830 deaths per day in the U.S., almost all of which will be in the southern U.S. Two weeks after that, you can expect about 3,000 deaths per day, mostly in just a handful of southern states. To put that in context, that's approaching the per-capita daily death rate of the Civil War.
Don't be an idiot. Wear your mask. Get the shot. Save lives.
I don't believe them any more. The lies have caught up with them.
It's your funeral.
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And we do not yet see hospitals deluged with those sick from this 'Delta' variant, so now the benchmark is merely 'cases'.
Uh...Missouri [go.com]?
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Actually, that may be true for those who are vaccinated. I've seen reports that the delta variant cases among those who are fully vaccinated are considerably milder than were the cases among the alpha variant. Of course, the numbers were pretty flaky, but it's certainly a reasonable stance.
N.B.: This wasn't true among those who had had only one shot. I forget my exact source, but the stats came out of Britain, and it was part of the argument about how they were going to set the vaccination policy. (So
Re:This is not how you encourage vaccination (Score:5, Insightful)
One of the benefits of getting vaccinated was that you got to take off your mask.
Yeah. Which would work just fine if, you know, people got fucking vaccinated: https://twitter.com/ddiamond/s... [twitter.com]
Give people a personal incentive to get the vaccine, like "you don't have to wear that stupid mask anymore".
Other than not dying from a (now) completely preventable airborne disease? Are you assuming everyone is 5 years old?
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Vaccinations help, but the Delta variant is a lot more transmissible, and it is what is driving this recommendation. Israel says [cnbc.com] vaccines are only 39% effective at preventing spread of the Delta variant, although they are still impressively effective against hospitalization and severe disease for vaccinated people.
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To a first approximation, the herd immunity threshold is (R0-1)/(R0*Veff), where Veff is the vaccine efficiency at preventing spread. The Delta variant is estimated [aarp.org] to have R0 between 5 and 8.
For vaccines that are 90% effective, R0=5 means herd immunity at 89% vaccinated, compared to about 49% of the US currently (and 58% of those eligible). For vaccines that are 39% effective, R0=5 means herd immunity needs 200% of people vaccinated. (Yes, we are pretty hosed at this point. Fortunately, there are promi
Re:This is not how you encourage vaccination (Score:5, Insightful)
To be fair, about half the country is acting like they're 5 years old.
Re:This is not how you encourage vaccination (Score:4, Funny)
The science is quickly coming in.
What, no YouTube video as proof? You're sliding, dude.
Have you considered (Score:3)
You've brought up two different topics. On one topic, I might pretty agree with you. On the other topic, I wonder if you've considered the difference between "some" and "all".
You've talked about "force it on people", mandates.
You and I might pretty much agree on that point.
Kinda like the government shouldn't force you to eat broccoli each week and exercise. Which is an entirely different question of whether broccoli are exercise are good for you. Along the same lines, Texas governor Abbott has recently rele
Re:This is not how you encourage vaccination (Score:5, Insightful)
Delta variant of covid readily infects people who ARE VACCINATED.
All variants of Covid infect vaccinated people. That's true of all viruses. Vaccines don't stop you getting a virus, never have, never will.
So getting the damn jab isnt protecting anyone but yourself. Its not stopping the spread of jack or shit.
Bullshit -- absolute and utter bullshit! While Covid vaccines do not provide sterilizing immunity (i.e. stop a vaccinated person passing the virus on), they do reduce onward transmission from vaccinated people. The reason for this is well understood. Vaccinated people have a faster immune response.
On top of that the more unvaccinated people there are the greater the likely hood of a mutation of Covid that defeats all our current vaccines.
In short getting vaccinated protects both yourself and others.
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Delta variant of covid readily infects people who ARE VACCINATED. It spreads in the body results in significant levels of viral load faster than your immune response will kick in initially. Leaving you felling quite ill and being quite contagious!
You should provide a citation for that, because Here is a study that seems to contradict your point [nejm.org]:
"Only modest differences in vaccine effectiveness were noted with the delta variant as compared with the alpha variant after the receipt of two vaccine doses. Absolute differences in vaccine effectiveness were more marked after the receipt of the first dose."
So get fully vaccinated and you're fine.
Re: This is not how you encourage vaccination (Score:5, Informative)
Vaccination is a numbers game, you fucking idiot. Even if you're extremely unlucky and you get sick after your shot, every other person that gets it improves your own odds of surviving this pandemic.
It is incredible that this stills need to be explained, but here we are.
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Give people a personal incentive to get the vaccine, ...
Don't worry, more and more businesses and federal/state agencies are doing that: Get vaccinated, get tested every week or get fired. Sounds like pretty good incentive...
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Re:This is not how you encourage vaccination (Score:5, Insightful)
That's because they're still going to go through the full approval process. If they announced it fully approved tomorrow, would you go get vaccinated, or would you just say "ohh they RUSHED IT DUE TO PRESSURE FROM ${whomever} and it's still unsafe because FREEDOM" or some other nonsense?
Don't pretend the hesitancy is about science anymore. 150+ million people have been vaccinated in this country alone, with a sparing handful of side effects worth mentioning. This is about politics whether you want to admit it or not. Tribe A thinks the vaccine is fine, and has been encouraging it's use for 6 months. Tribe B is against anything that Tribe A is for, so therefore they must whip up disinformation and political bullshit about the vaccine. And the people that subscribe to tribe B's fuckery continue lapping up the bullshit.
Re:This is not how you encourage vaccination (Score:5, Insightful)
One of the benefits of getting vaccinated was that you got to take off your mask. So much for that eh?
Really? I though staying alive was the benefit? Silly me.
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No no, you need to give people a lollipop as well.
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Here are some incentives I'd like to see. Want to eat in a restaurant? Show proof of vaccination. Want to go to a bar or a concert? Show proof of vaccination. Want to go to school or university? Show proof of vaccination. Want to get on public transit? Show proof of vaccination.
(Or a legitimate, medical reason why you can't get the vaccine, in those rare cases where people really have such a reason.)
Papers Please! (Score:3)
Re:This is not how you encourage vaccination (Score:5, Insightful)
Your civil right of getting restaurant service? The fuck?
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Basically you are saying that you want to have no consequences for your decision not to get vaccinated.
Given that a good chunk of the unvaccinated are right wingers, who are supposed to believe in personal responsibility (i.e. taking personal decisions and accepting the consequences), why are these same people trying to avoid the consequences of their decisions?
If a private business decides to ban the unvaccinated, that is their right to do so, and one of the consequences of your decision not get vacci
Re:This is not how you encourage vaccination (Score:5, Interesting)
People who didn't get vaccinated aren't wearing masks anyway.
I'm fully vaccinated, but I always carry a mask and if I have to interact with someone who is masked I put it on, on the assumption that that person is vulnerable or is protecting someone at home who is vulnerable. It's common decency. Afterward, I pull down my mask and leave it hanging around my neck, and every time I do, without fail, it will attract a lecture from some anti-masker moron.
Anti-maskers think they're anti-establishment free-thinkers, but what they are, are conformists. It doesn't matter that reason and common decency tells you to wear a mask in certain situations, they won't do it, nor will the stand for other people doing it. It's not enough for them to risk infection by not getting vaccinated, they think *other* people should be forced to be exposed to them.
Re: This is not how you encourage vaccination (Score:3)
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