Less than a month ago, we were at either zero new cases a day or less than five. Today we're at 27, and 17 yesterday. Sigh...
Well, just for a random Texas teacher's perspective, I don't think there's enough political willpower to do this. No one would even support a 2 week pause or anything like that. I've been at trainings for the past week. I have seen one person in administration wearing a mask. And there are maybe 5/125 staff on my campus who are wearing masks. When our principal reminded everyone that masks are optional, several of the staff hooted and hollered and clapped. And parents here are at the point where it is fully a "Well, I'm sorry little Johnny is on a ventilator, but that's life." They don't give a shit about the 1% of kids who will get fucked up by this (or whatever the percentages are for severe affects). This country is prepared to let a helluva lot of kids die before anything changes.
Bexar county public schools were just granted a temporary restraining order against abbott, so they are able to reinstate mask mandates effective immediately. Our kiddos go to school in a neighboring county, and I can only suspect that everyone else is currently lining up to follow Nirenberg's example.
Yeah, I've seen some places trying to stick it to the man on the mask mandate. That ain't gonna be my district. Or the vast majority of them. And masks mandates are a long way from school closures. Who knows maybe I'm being a Debbie downer because my community in particular is about as well-reasoned as the design of a platypus.
please don't tell me you're in llano county with the Kingsville crackheads? Because that's some central florida-style shit up there
@Dcc001 I just want to explain why I think our discussion has run its course. Sorry for the delay on the response, I am deep in studying for a certification. Some of the things you've brought up: 1. Masks are not effective enough at preventing disease transmission, so we shouldn't mandate them. This is not supported by the science. I have linked a number of studies that indicate masks are effective. Your response was to link to a study... which indicates masks are very effective. If you'd like to have a discussion about what the science says, reading the synopsis of papers is not sufficient. You are not interpreting the data correctly, but are still standing by your claim. It's hard to have a discussion like that, because it appears you will not be swayed by, or even acknowledge, facts. 2. Masks are not used correctly (poor materials, not worn correctly), so we shouldn't mandate them. To you, this is an argument against mandates. To me, it says people, who are left to their own devices, will make stupid and irresponsible choices, which is an argument for mandates, just more specific mandates. There's not much to discuss when we simply disagree about what this fact represents. 3. Vaccinations and masks are a personal choice because vaccines work. This is objectively false. Vaccines are not 100% effective, some populations are not approved for vaccination (e.g. children, who the Delta variant seems to be affecting more), and some populations cannot be vaccinated. Any way you spin it, disease vectors are problematic. You cannot know the status of everyone you come into contact with, immunocompromised people exist, and transmission is possible even through vaccinated individuals. Vaccination is a public issue, not just a private one. That's reality. Which leads to the next point... 4. Some people will die, which could be prevented, but that's the price we pay for freedom. This isn't a discussion we can have. I think it's a morally awful stance when it comes to a public health issue like this. Apparently my saying preventable deaths are unacceptable is "pearl clutching," but saying that a comedian shouldn't have an opinion on the topic of immunology "scares" you, so I'm not sure where we're drawing lines on pearl clutching. But one way or another, we're not coming to a middle ground there. 5. The vaccine could have long-term side effects, and we don't know what those risks are This is basically the one thing that I can agree on. We don't know. What we do know, is that vaccines in general do not hang around in your body - your immune system gets primed, and the vaccine is dispersed. The agents used in them are long-studied and well-understood. The historical evidence of vaccines is that their side-effects are relatively immediate and acute, which tracks with their design and testing. If you'd like to read more about historical vaccine side-effects, you can read a paper published by the WHO, or a page maintained by the CDC with some historical vaccine incidents. We understand enough to know this is a relatively low-risk decision, and we know that wandering around without a vaccine is not a low-risk decision. At the end of the day, I believe that it's an acceptable stance to say, "if you wish to participate in society, you must get vaccinated." You can argue about what that freedom is worth to you, but the science agrees that these measures are safe, effective, and necessary.
Looks like the Moderna vaccine is more resistant to the Delta variant than the Phizer vaccine. I thought it might be because of the larger dose you get with Moderna.
No worries on the delay; I'll also reply one more time: I've grouped these two together because they're related. Proper masks worn correctly are effective - to a degree. This is a great example, though, of a theory that bears out well on paper but does not translate well in the public. Non-medicinal masks, and masks that are in some way homemade, are the norm (at least around here). They're re-used without washing, they don't provide a seal to the face and they have no technology in them that suggests its capable of trapping particles as small as the aspirated covid droplets are. So, in practice, they are overall far less effective. Furthermore, when you mandate something the way that the government has with rules that also make no real sense, it erodes the public's belief that anything you say is worth a damn. I'll say it one last time: if a mask is properly made and worn correctly, it is effective. And anyone who wants to wear a mask should do so. But mandating it the way that they've done is ineffective and - I personally think - hurts their credibility in the eyes of some. This article from yesterday's New York Times shows the current breakdown by state of fully vaccinated people who are hospitalized or who have died: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/08/10/us/covid-breakthrough-infections-vaccines.html Without plunking it all into excel and running the numbers, I'm ballparking that it's 0.5-2% of hospitalizations and death with the extreme outliers being in the 4's. Numbers like that say that the vaccine is overwhelmingly effective, and that only a tiny percentage of people still fall victim in a serious way after being vaccinated. It's why I keep saying that the people who are at risk from the unvaccinated are, in fact, the other unvaccinated. It's what the numbers show. Yes, in a nutshell. And you personally also accept that. Tell me what you've done in the last five years - in terms of publicly advocating for more government oversight, or even pushing on this board for change - to stop the deaths from opioids? Or obesity? Or the seasonal flu? I'm going to gamble that the answer is, "very little," because when you talk big populations you have to decide where the resources go, and you acknowledge that some deaths, while tragic, do occur. This is no different, in that regard. Two things: 1. No, your stance that you are upset about unacceptable deaths isn't pearl clutching; the notion that you are hyper-focused on COVID preventable deaths, while ignoring the myriad of other preventable deaths we tolerate in a society, is. 2. Again, it's not the attitude towards Rogan per se that scares me. It's the shocking level of groupthink and the unwillingness to tolerate opposing view that does. Not just you, but several other people on the board have openly said that, "X person isn't an expert and they should STFU and not use their platform to do this!" And when I push back, you say, "I'm not talking censorship." So I don't know what that means. If someone shout shut up and not speak publicly, how is that not censorship? Who are you willing to listen to that opposes your views? To what extent should an individual be able to speak publicly? That's the heart of my concern. The vehement dismissal of anyone who disagrees. If all the platforms tomorrow suddenly pulled Rogan, for an example, I think people on this board would view it as a victory. And THAT is terrifying. If we agree on this, I'll only say the following: It's an individual's choice to use an experimental drug. Period. And the individual doesn't get to choose to live in society; if I suddenly set up a commune five miles outside of my town and declared my own laws apply, and a bunch of people moved there and started following them (including not following building codes, allowing child marriage, stockpiling weapons, whatever nutty things you can think of) there's every chance the government would not allow it. So you MUST have access to society - particularly if you're paying taxes, and the state is using your tax dollars to operate. And while I personally looked at the data and decided that the vaccine was worth the risk, it's reasonable that someone else looks at the same data set and chooses to wait or ignore it. Again, all the numbers I'm seeing say that those who are currently very ill or dead made their choice. We have a fundamental disagreement of the role that government should play, and the level of care an individual owes the group. I tend to agree with you that yes, we won't come to terms on this. But it's been an interesting talk, and it's a small snapshot of how difficult it is to come to consensus on any particular complicated issue.
I want to respond to this since I'm one of the people that thinks that Joe Rogan should STFU about COVID. My perspective is that I think someone with as large a platform as Rogan has a moral responsibility in the topics they discuss and how they discuss them. I don't think the government should shut Rogan down, but how he's discussed COVID and other topics has lead me to no longer listen to his show. I understand being a contrarian, but Rogan has gone into crackpot territory and is spreading misinformation about the vaccines and COVID in general and takes no accountability for that. Saying your a dumb meathead doesn't absolve you for spreading information that is determinantal to our society as a whole. He should be called out for that, and I wish that being called out would cause some introspection on Rogan's part. If Spotify, Twitter, etc agrees with me and decides to remove him from their platforms I don't think that is censorship. Censorship is not allowing someone to speak at all about a subject. Getting banned from these platforms is just taking the megaphone away from them. You have a right to free speech, but that doesn't mean that a private company has to give you a platform for your speech. Rogan could always set up his own website and run his podcast off it, but that wouldn't bring in millions of dollars...
Spoiler That's...exactly what censorship is. It's not censorship by the state, but it would be censorship by an official at each of the major companies. Society has moved to an online world and those major players - Youtube, Spotify, Facebook, etc - represent what could previously be equated to a public square. If being deplatformed isn't censorship, then you agree when they did it to Donald Trump it didn't have the effect of censoring him? EDIT: I also meant to add...in addition to removing a deplatformed individual, they are also typically shadow-banned. So searching for the person isn't going to work anymore. Sure, if Rogan was deplatformed he could start his own site. Google would block access to it, but it's a free country, right?
This is getting way off topic, but Donald Trump was not censored. He set up his own website that he could release statements on, and those statements were still shown on the news and the internet. They weren't as prevalent because he was no longer president not because he was being censored. Making a piece of media slightly less convenient to access isn't censorship. If Rogan was removed from Spotify and Youtube, but he created his own website to release his podcast would you think he was being censored? People have conflated censorship with a right to be heard. You do not have a right to be listened too, or for other people to broadcast what you say. Before the internet, would someone getting their talk show canceled from a cable news channel have been censorship? There is certainly a discussion to be had about the consolidation of power on the internet, but we haven't reached the point where the large internet companies can truly censor someone. Anyone can create a website and put up any batshit crazy thing they want. People choosing not to go to that site isn't censorship.
I think social media companies shutting down mention of the lab leak theory a year ago, which may end up actually being true, illustrates a huge issue with the power they wield over public discourse.
Funny to see the dynamic flip flop on topics. Mega corporations censor opposing view points and virtue signal about trannies and it becomes heartwarming progressivism (at least Elizabeth Warren has stuck to her guns). Has been very fun to see dyed in the wool Milton Friedman acolytes melt down when their employers started mandating vaxxs as conditions of employment. Guess free market capitalism wasn’t the be all end all of protecting individual liberty? (If you ignore the fact that businesses are trying to protect their bottom line from draconian government shutdowns).
We profoundly disagree; I'm going to leave it at that. Exactly this. For a time, every single platform and pundant (who was allowed to be heard), yelled that suggesting this was a lab leak was scientifically impossible and racist, to boot. Turns out there's every chance that the coronavirus laboratory in Wuhan was, in fact, responsible for the coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan. So one ought to learn from that and look at everywhere there's consensus married with censorship now and at the very least question things. Is this an off-shoot of capitalism, though? Because I think it's the virtual monopoly that the big corporations all have that's making it worse. Corp A issues an edict that all customers must show proof of vaccines in order to enter. In a free market, Corp B would say, "Anyone can enter! No paperwork required!" and we would see who was more successful. That's not what's happening; everyone is tending toward the same list of restrictions. The two things that mitigate such open-air competition. One is government mandate; the other is liability. Way back when, Nett pointed out that there's a liability issue at stake with business. This is very true. If I own Corp A and I know that I would be liable for the injuries or death of anyone who could prove that they contracted COVID from my site, then I'll issue whatever edicts I please to make sure that that cannot happen. Make no mistake...corporations don't care about your health; this is about having a paper trail to prove that the corp isn't at fault. Which completes the virtuous circle of stupid rules we have now. It's not about actually protecting you - it's about proving that you did everything you could to avoid a lawsuit. But this is an aside to the overall vaccine question.
I think it's even more nuanced than that. Rogan is a commedian who doesn't "deserve" to spew his opinion about stuff. He's not entitled to have a platform. And I firmly believe that if he's spewing shit to people that is harmful, then I think he should be muzzled. But who gets to decide? And what are the criteria? A private enterprise worried about pissing off advertisers? A public health team who's mandate is to spread scientific knowledge? Bill Burr says it best: 2 problems... we have no real news any more, and people are becoming more and more stupid and self-proclaimed experts. It's not a good combination.
The whole wet market thing seemed like bullshit to me. Back on the first page of this 300+ page thread I posted the idea that it was a new bio lab in Wuhan that had a leak... a year and a half ago... no wet market, no racist shit. https://www.theidiotboard.com/threads/coronavirus-miles-away-from-ordinary.254885/#post-628269
Having been to wet markets in Shanghai (China’s most modern city) I can tell you it wouldn’t surprise me at all if it jumped species at one of them. Hard to feed that many people in that volume and not cut sanitary corners. Of course having a lab that studies bat Corona viruses in the same city, you got to leave that possibility out there…
This is part of the reason I'm all for mandatory vaccination foe Covid. The people who aren't vaccinated put everyone else at risk in ways they aren't thinking about. https://www.reddit.com/r/TikTokCrin..._you_dont_trust_the_medical_field_dont_go_to/
The best thing to do is put all unvaccinated assholes on a watch list. That way they can’t be “forced” to get a vaccine, but still can be ridiculed, publicly shamed and denied access to things as they deserve. Don’t want to be on a watch list? Stop being an ignorant pussy. It’s that simple. Hey… it’s your choice.
It could be a new federal jobs program. Hire thousands of people, give them the list of unvaccinated/suspected unvaccinated citizens, and then you have the manpower to ridicule them, shame them, and deny them access to all sorts of things.