The US reported the second highest day of Covid-19 deaths Tuesday.
There were 2,597 new deaths reported across the US. The only day to top it was April 15, when six more deaths were recorded. https://t.co/UP95QuOZgp
— CNN (@CNN) December 2, 2020
Don’t know who still needs the warning, but: Unpleasant material below the fold…
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As COVID19 surges across the US, it’s hard to describe the situation inside hospitals for healthcare providers & patients.
We made this video depicting 1 day in the ER to show the painful reality & to remind us why we must remain vigilant. Please watch.pic.twitter.com/JzxcHJKFuP
— Craig Spencer MD MPH (@Craig_A_Spencer) November 29, 2020
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States With Few COVID-19 Restrictions Are Spreading the Virus Beyond Their Borders https://t.co/BB0N64foea pic.twitter.com/Gvk9GzSsvf
— Talking Points Memo (@TPM) December 1, 2020
Finally, something red states are willing to share with their more prudent neighbors…
… As the number of COVID-19 cases skyrockets nationwide, the extent of the public health response varies from one state — and sometimes one town — to the next. The incongruous approaches and the lack of national standards have created confusion, conflict and a muddled public health message, likely hampering efforts to stop the spread of the virus. The country’s top infectious disease expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci, said last month that the country needs “a uniform approach” to fighting the virus instead of a “disjointed” one.
Nowhere are these regulatory disparities more counterproductive and jarring than in the border areas between restrictive and permissive states; for example, between Washington and Idaho, Minnesota and South Dakota, and Illinois and Iowa. In each pairing, one state has imposed tough and sometimes unpopular restrictions on behavior, only to be confounded by a neighbor’s leniency. Like factories whose emissions boost asthma rates for miles around, a state’s lax public health policies can wreak damage beyond its borders.
“In some ways, the whole country is essentially living with the strategy of the least effective states because states interconnect and one state not doing a good job will continue to spread the virus to other states,” said Dr. Ashish Jha, dean of the Brown University School of Public Health. “States can’t wall themselves off.”…
The degree of coronavirus regulation tends to track political lines. President-elect Joe Biden carried blue Washington state with 58% of the vote, while President Donald Trump easily won red Idaho with 64%. Trump has helped to fuel the patchwork response to the pandemic, criticizing the approaches of some states, praising others and at times contradicting the advice of his own coronavirus task force and Fauci.
“What really struck me [is] how hard it is to take the pandemic strategy as laid out by the White House with every state on its own and … implement it because every state is not on its own, they are all interconnected,” Jha said.
Biden has said he wants to implement national standards, such as required mask wearing, to help blunt the spread of COVID-19 while acknowledging the federal government lacks little power to do so. He hopes to work with governors and local officials to establish consistent standards across the country.
A lack of such consistency is affecting eastern Washington, which appears to be absorbing some of the costs — both human and economic — of Idaho’s more laissez-faire approach to the virus. The rate of new cases in and around Spokane, near the Idaho border, is far higher than in Seattle and western Washington, which experienced one of the earliest outbreaks in the country in February. Although slightly more than half of recent COVID-19 cases in Spokane spread among households or personal contacts, Spokane Regional Health District epidemiologist Mark Springer said, “people bringing back COVID-19 from larger events in Idaho” has been a problem. And with Idaho’s rate of new cases now doubling Washington’s, Idahoans who commute to the Spokane area pose an outsized danger. At the same time, Washington’s shuttered businesses have ceded customers to their Idaho competitors….
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From an NBC News reporter:
THREAD: I just spent 3 days with frontline workers at hospitals in a part of Appalachia where hospitalizations have more than doubled in the last month. But hospital staff say many in their hard-hit communities still don’t believe COVID is real. Misinformation is rampant.
— Dasha Burns (@DashaBurns) November 28, 2020
One nurse told me stories of otherwise healthy 30 year-olds coming in short of breath and not understanding why. She tries showing them chest x-rays and explaining evidence of the disease, but often they don’t believe they have COVID until they’re in critical condition.
Another nurse told me some come in severely sick with COVID, but when they test positive they blame the hospital for giving it to them. There’s a popular conspiracy theory that hospitals are benefitting financially from COVID. But in fact, many are struggling to stay afloat.
Ultimately, politicization and misinformation around COVID are having tragic real-world consequences. People are dying because they don’t seek medical care when they begin having symptoms. They don’t believe they’re sick. And by the time they get to the hospital it‘s too late.
This is heartbreaking for families and also for health workers who often treat people they know personally in these small, tight-knit communities. They are watching neighbors die because they were told by leaders they trust that this virus is a hoax.
These frontline workers see multiple deaths during a single shift…then go out into a world where people downplay the virus, say masks infringe on their civil liberties, and tell stories of big gatherings. And they know they will make more calls to the funeral home tomorrow.
Huge thank you to @BalladHealth staff for taking the time to talk to me about your experiences. It’s not easy. But what you do every day is much harder. Your resilience is staggering.
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COVID-19 may continue to circulate in rural areas into 2021 and beyond, even as cities get the virus under control through a combination of vaccination and nonpharmaceutical interventions, @aetiology writes.https://t.co/pTRIdZT6g0
— Foreign Affairs (@ForeignAffairs) November 23, 2020
… In May, I warned in Foreign Affairs that the coronavirus pandemic in rural America would lag behind the pandemic in urban areas and that it would be “slower, steadier, and likely to continue for a longer period of time.” That is what has happened so far. After initial outbreaks in the spring that were mostly clustered around specific industry-related hot spots—including meatpacking plants, nursing homes, and jails—many rural areas are now experiencing widespread community transmission. The virus took longer to reach these areas, but now it is making up for lost time. Although cases are rising across the country, the highest per capita infection rates tend to be in rural areas and small towns. In Ohio, for instance, nine of the 12 counties with the highest per capita incidence of COVID-19 have populations of less than 50,000.
Geography alone does not explain this discrepancy. Rural areas are less likely to have mandated that residents wear masks, and even in those areas that have mask mandates, residents are less likely to comply…
The situation in rural areas is likely to get worse before it gets better. Hospitals in these regions (if there are hospitals at all) are smaller and have fewer resources than metropolitan facilities. As a result, a flood of COVID-19 patients can easily overwhelm them. And with rising infection rates straining the health-care system across the country, rural hospitals may not be able to transfer critically ill patients to larger, more urban ones…
Vaccine distribution also presupposes that people are willing to be vaccinated. But potential COVID-19 vaccines have been highly politicized. Just as President Donald Trump’s promise to roll out a vaccine prior to the election sowed distrust among Democrats, the Biden administration’s likely effort to distribute one early next year could meet with skepticism among Republicans, especially in rural areas where Trump supporters will have heard over and over that Biden and the Democrats “stole” the election. Black Americans in both rural and urban environments may also be suspicious of any new vaccine after years of mistreatment by the medical establishment, even though they are at high risk for severe COVID-19 infections…
Why Are We Doing This? Football Version
dmsilev
A columnist for the LA Times had a piece about that a few days ago:
No good answers unfortunately.
scav
Freedom to Farm led to Freedom to Fail — round two, only with more actual deaths.
Chyron HR
@dmsilev:
No. “You’re trying to poison me with your so-called rigorously certified vaccine” is not and never will be “valid and correct”.
Baud
@dmsilev:
They’ll allocate based on risk, and whoever doesn’t take it right away will not take it right away. Meanwhile, I’d imagine there’ll be a public education push generally and with black communities.
jl
Thanks for this post with important information. Without effective control, a respiratory virus goes everywhere. Remember way back at the beginning when covid was mostly a problem among wealthy jet set and affluent people coming back from vacation?
In California, too poor agricultural counties, Kings and Imperial, have endured intense local epidemics for months.
Tragedy is that we can do much better. Seventy five percent of Western European countries are getting their resurgence under control, with cases dropping. And the rest seem to be leveling off, or may be starting to drop. Some already have their death rates dropping. Their control policies were good, but from news I read, political pressure and opposition to masks gradually eroded control efforts, as did weakening protection of essential workers. Maybe they will learn their lesson. What has US learned? And then there are Taiwan, Australia, New Zealand.
kindness
Yup. They’ve raised (lowered really) the rating here in California again. I still work out of an office in a hospital and we’ve used face masks since March, but in our own little locked & closed to the public, no windows office the 4 of us who are left working in it (down from the old usual of 20) didn’t have to wear masks at our desks. Yesterday they announced if you get up from your desk you have to wear a mask. That isn’t a problem for me as I don’t mind the masks so much. They fog up my glasses is the only bad thing. Man that vaccine can’t come quick enough. When it does, I will give the anti-vaxers no respect at all.
Emma from FL
So 2021 is shaping up about one half to two thirds as bad as 2020. Well, all I can say, paraphrasing, is that we’ll have 99 problems but the orange jerk ain’t one.
stacib
I just had my desk moved at work. I was in a very small office with one other person. Since early November, he has been to Florida for a new grandbaby, to Arkansas (once to visit family and once to attend a funeral), he is headed back to AK for another funeral this weekend, and a bunch of them are headed to Chicago for yet another funeral here. He has also attended two family events (he is one of 16), and had two house parties in his apartment. I’M SCARED TO DEATH OF THIS DUDE. The “funny” thing – everybody is mad at me for moving and “throwing him under the bus”.
Dorothy A. Winsor
Our rent includes housekeeping once a week, but because of COVID, we have to vacate the unit if we want the housekeepers to come. So this morning, Mr DAW and I were out for a walk and ran into an old guy neighbor who said that for what we pay, we should be able to stay in the unit while it’s cleaned.
Sigh. I was unable to follow the logic of that except that money rules all, even the virus.
Heywood J.
Play stupid games, win stupid prizes. I feel terrible for all the frontline health workers who are risking themselves for the conspiracy-addled halfwits who suddenly and inexplicably find themselves saddled with the #TrumpPlague.
NotMax
FYI, the priority tiers, locally.
Also,
JustRuss
I was just talking to a coworker, he said his very conservative parents had it, before they caught it they were traveling all over. One of their best friends just died from it, he got it when his grand kids came to visit. So infuriating.
Kent
Honestly, I’m not all that worried about a future scenario where large numbers of people refuse to get vaccinated. As long as the rest of us have the option then life can get back to normal. Rural red America does a lot of pervasively unhealthy things from diet to sedentary lifestyle to smoking and other substance abuse. Covid will be just one more problem to add to the mix along with obesity, diabetes, heart disease, and everything else.
I expect education from pre-K through graduate school to require vaccination as a condition of employment and attendance. Same for the entire health care system and much of corporate America, especially the service industries like airlines and Starbucks. Those of us who want to be safe will largely be able to, and get back to normal lives. If some endemic level of Covid remains spreading around red rural America because they refuse to trust modern science, so be it. The problem will be for immuno-compromised people who will just have to stay the hell away from red states and Republicans I guess. I don’t have a better answer.
jl
I hope an effective one shot vaccine arrives soon. That would improve logistics and population buy in.
I’m not as shocked and alarmed by the ‘science by press release’ as some of the news stories. In the US, that has been going on for decades with new patent drugs in development, but taken for granted. Shouldn’t be that way, but nothing new. It just gets far more attention now.
localcomment
@NotMax: Not sure why they decided to restrict to K-12. Highest positives in my area are college kids (K-12 in-person student positives are very low relative to the community in general) which means that remote instruction will continue at colleges for the foreseeable future until faculty/staff get vaccinated. Faculty tend to skew older and thus more at risk.
I’m guessing wealthier folks will soon be jumping the line as will pro-athletes and others regardless of the planned distribution hierarchy.
EmbraceYourInnerCrone
@stacib: Anyone who is mad at you is an idiot. He apparently has been traveling all over and been to multiple big gatherings without concern for his own health or that of anyone he comes in contact with. You are trying to take care of your health, since he and apparently some of your office mates don’t care.
jl
@Kent: There may be unexpected and bad results during the transition to a high immunization rate if the prevalence in the US remains so alarmingly high. Especially if the vaccines don’t also stop transmission, and whether any of them do so is not known yet.
The US did not observe the traditional prime directive of traditional infectious disease control: hit the bug early and hard to reduce prevalence as low as possible as quickly as possible, and it is paying a horrific price.
Belafon
They’re willing to share their guns. Just ask Illinois about Indiana.
Ruckus
@Chyron HR:
No, it won’t be a valid answer, but it will be the answer.
Nearly half of the country is, if not clinically, at the very least, criminally/politically insane. They seemingly would rather die than be even close to reasonable. The republican party has become/has been for decades, a cult, rather than a political party.
Kent
@jl: Oh, I agree 100% that widespread vaccine denial is hugely problematic. But in the grand scheme of things with everything else fucked up in this country I think it is something we may just have to live with. And as long as we reach a point where covid vaccines are as widespread and easy to get as flue vaccines I think we can return to a more normal society.
I honestly don’t understand the “vaccines won’t prevent transmission” argument. I thought that super spreader types are those who’s bodies are manufacturing large quantities of the virus to spread around. Shouldn’t a vaccine prevent one from becoming a covid factory? The whole point of a vaccine is to supercharge your immune system so that your body doesn’t replicate the virus in the first place. These are prophylactic vaccines under development not therapeutic.
dmsilev
@Chyron HR: People are going to give that answer, and given the history it’s not hard to understand why. So, how does a public health agency respond? Serious question.
Emma from FL
@Kent: I had promised myself never to rise again to this sort of bait but I spent yesterday morning talking to a very liberal friend that lives in semi-rural Kentucky and CANNOT move through a series of personal and family circumstances and I really think your condescending dismissal of rural America deserves to be called out.
I know it won’t matter to you but I felt I had to say it.
NotMax
@localcomment
A valid point. Dunno the answer nor the reasoning. Maybe a result of trying to balance known extant numbers versus anticipated variability in availability?
Will say, however, how good it is to see prisoners and the homeless not relegated to being an afterthought as is too often the case.
The Moar You Know
@dmsilev: I don’t know many black folks but the few I do know, well, it’s gonna be an uphill climb. They refuse flu shots, any shots, really…and any vaccinations that aren’t directly required for their jobs. I get it, given the history – and ESPECIALLY given the diabolically racist nature of our recent failure of government, which won’t turn around on a dime after Jan 21 – I probably would too. But that’s going to be a problem. These folks need a vaccine more than most. How are you going to sell them on that?
As far as rollout, you roll it out to first responders/all medical personnel, then all educators, then everyone else at the same time.
NotMax
@The Moar You Know
One way is to follow the example of when Elvis got a shot.
jl
@Kent: Florian Krammer is a vaccine expert who has some good explainers, which contain discussion of the issue of transmission.
https://twitter.com/florian_krammer
There is very good evidence that the vaccines prevent the covid virus from going down into the lungs, or getting into blood stream and rampaging through different organ systems. However, they may allow subclinical infections in the nasal cavity, and no one is sure what that means for transmission. Previous vaccines have worked great to prevent serious infections, but have allowed transmission, which has ranged from mild to no decrease over unvaccinated people, of some kind of disease. The effects have ranged from minor, to something to watch out for, to serious population effects. Some kinds of polio, and a recent whooping cough, vaccine are examples.
When a substantial part of the population if vaccinated, and a substantial part not, disease can surge in the unvaccinated. Experts usually spend a lot of time and effort taking that into account and study intensively the best way to introduce the vaccine. But with covid, we have to do it on the fly.
Would be far better in winter and spring for safe intro of vaccine, if the US could reduce prevalence asap.
Dan B
@jl: We have a crisis brewing over a first amendment designed before social media, and the FOX Sinclair business model, overwhelmed our information ecosystem. The loss of the Fairness Doctrine was one of the critical moments presaging the rise of Limbaugh and Hannity. Now we face a crisis where propaganda overwhelms and the vestiges of the Enlightenment hang on by threads while a few fear any modifications to the first amendment. Our old model of vetting the truth relied upon old white men, a paternalistic system we do not want to revive. At the same time we do not trust a community / crowdsourced approach since there are many communities on the far right and some on the far left who will fight this tooth and nail. Historically the old institutions were reformed when war destroyed the old system. The question is do we have the political will and foresight to avoid collapse?
Hoodie
@jl: Makes sense, because vaccines enhance your ability to fight off the virus, but you still may have a significant viral load that is not life-threatening. With the high level of community spread we have now, the availability of a vaccine could also theoretically increase spread if folks quit wearing masks, social distancing, etc., because they personally feel safer. Still preferable, of course, because fewer people getting seriously ill will dramatically decrease the burden on hospitals. I recall Fauci saying that coronavirus could become endemic even with a vaccine because we’ve allowed it to spread so widely, so there would always be a certain number of people getting deathly ill from it because they’re not vaccinated or they’re part of the 5-10% for whom the vaccine didn’t work.
Lacuna Synechdoche
Foreign Affairs via Anne Laurie @ Top:
It’s indicative of the state of affairs in the US, after four years of Trump and ten years of a Republican Senate, that Foreign Affairs is writing about us like we’re a third-world country.
And perhaps we are now. Or a second-world country maybe. But I’m pretty sure the US can no longer accurately describe itself as a first-world country.
jl
@Dan B: And the news media is horribly sloppy and gives out what amounts to disinformation. I heard a news report about the success in Taiwan, but said we can’t do that here because of lack of concern for individual freedom in those exotic Asian countries. But Taiwan threw out some of the more invasive digital contact tracing features that were used in South Korea, and went with very strict enforcement of its quarantine and isolation rules, and social support for the people affected.
And the report ended with a very confused sentence that confused Taiwan with the PRC, and said that control was easy where the government could just force people to do anything. This was a national CBS news piece. What a mess we are in. No wonder people are skeptical and upset, especially with all the pain of control in the US with no widespread successes.
Dan B
@stacib: Glad you pushed back. People quote Enlightenment theory that people are rational. They haven’t kept up on the latest behavioral psychology or communication research.
Hang in there. There are allies who are keeping quiet until they see if you cave or prevail.
germy
@Lacuna Synechdoche:
We watch the BBC World News, and it does seem sometimes that they report on us here in the U.S. they way American journalists used to report on Rwanda.
rikyrah
There are some tried and true anti-vaxxers.
And then, there are people like me.
I will wait and see.
IF we had been a country who had been on top of COVID from the beginning, I’d be first in line.
But, with THIS group? How this entire vaccine process has been tainted, from beginning to end….
I’m supposed to trust that?
Naw, Son. I don’t think so. I’ll wait and see.
NotMax
@NotMax
Not to generalize but imagine a similar broadcast of Barack and Michelle receiving the vaccine could have powerful salutary effects among the African-American community.
Same goes with other role models of every color and profession. Role models as incentives for good.
rikyrah
@stacib:
I don’t blame you one phucking bit.
Not at all.
StringOnAStick
@jl: Interesting about the subclinical nasal infections. When I had my knees replaced I had to do a daily antibiotic ointment in my nose for I think 10 days before surgery; I think it was to help stop any potential MRSA issues.
What makes pulmonary infections so problematic is your lungs are essentially “outside” your body; it’s an immune system war zone in there. It’s why lung tissue by law in the US can’t be used to make processed meats in any amount. Too germy.
Here in Bend I see the vast majority of people being very compliant. The obviously R whack job white guys in their giant pickups can either put in a mask or be refused service at Lowe’s or any other retail establishment since it’s a state wide mandate. I do wonder how the guy with 2A window stickers and Christian stuff explains to kids how Christian his huge “fuck Late Brown” sticker is so godly. We had taken the Subaru to a recommended place for the 120k service but no one wore masks there so we’ve changed mechanics. We’ve met all our next door neighbours now and they’re all strong D’s so we have that going for us.
catclub
The definitions I remembered were:
First World: US and Soviet Union with mega Nuclear weapons aresenals.
2nd world: Modern developed countries.
3rd world: poor barely developed countries
4th world: basket case countries.
Kent
Most of my extended family is in rural America. I grew up there. Yes there are plenty of smart educated people in rural America and everywhere else. And they will have the means to stay safe and healthy once we have a vaccine widely available. And I expect a majority of Americans, even in the deepest red corners of the country will eventually get vaccinated.
But there are also so many endemic issues in that part of the country, from evangelical/fundamentalism to racism and white supremacy, to climate denial, all wrapped up in a toxic political package. The county in PA where my mother’s family is from, where I spent every summer growing up, voted for Trump 78% to 21%, and is now one of the top two or three counties in the state in terms of Covid infections (Mifflin County). Young and educated people have been fleeing for decades. Obesity, diabetes, heart disease, substance abuse, and willful ignorance are all endemic. Covid will be far from their biggest problem in 2021. I don’t have the answers, but at some point the rest of the country has to move on. I’m tired of being held hostage by these folks, in politics, medicine, science, education, and everything else.
germy
Hey!
EDIT: I see “pork lungs” listed in the ingredients of my cat’s food. They must have different standards for pet food.
Kent
That’s not how I remember it. As I was taught during the cold war.
First world was Western Democracies and NATO Countries.
Second world was the communist block (everything behind the iron curtain) especially in Europe
Third world was everything else (mainly Latin America, Africa, and Asia)
The term 4th world came later to describe the real basket case countries.
Adam L Silverman
@NotMax: OT: Did you get the email I sent you yesterday to the email address you had previously used to email me?
Adam L Silverman
@catclub: @Kent: The fourth world is the part of DC Comics continuity created by Jack Kirby where the New Gods live. Specifically New Genesis and Apocalypse.
As a term of art or concept or doctrine in US nat-sec, defense, and/or foreign policy fourth world is not used. At least I’ve never seen it used.
gene108
For the idiots refusing to wear masks, because they doubt masks do anything, I wonder if they were ever taught to cover their mouth when they cough or sneeze?
Dan B
@Kent: Good points. My experience with AIDS was that some people refused to follow the science or the experts in disease response. The difference was a 99.99% fatality rate reduced skeptics to zero.
The other aspect is the high visibility of the horrors of AIDS in the relatively insular LGBTQ community. People lingered in awful diseases and wasting away for months at times and died with shocking suddenness at times.
Covid-19 has been kept out of sight. HIPPA and the desire to not be the bearer of bad news have prevented this. I watched a Frontline (I believe.) doc on Italy. The sequence where they intubated a very athletic 18 YO guy whose indications were terrible was heartbreaking. He asked the unanswerable question, “Am I going to die?” The emotional impact was potent. Until we have this level of emotionally powerful communication we will likely remain stuck.
AIDS was a time of repeated, and often endless, visceral shocks. Covid-19 is not except for healthcare workers. It will be important to document their stories before our system goes over the cliff.
The Moar You Know
@Kent: These are the only three I was ever taught. I’d never heard “fourth world” until this thread.
Heywood J.
This. So tired of seeing/reading stories about folks who thought it was all a big libturd hoax until it smacked them or someone they cared about upside the head. Maybe we need just one (1) story about someone who paid attention and took precautions, and still ended up infected and dying too soon, because some Fox-addled mow-ron couldn’t be troubled to get outside their epistemic bubble.
I live in a deep red county as well, and I have plenty of neighbors, friends, relatives, and coworkers who voted for four more years of this nonsense. Oddly, most of them actually appear to be taking the #TrumpPlague seriously for the most part, masks, distancing, etc.
But some of them still think it’s all a big hoax or a joke, and I have zero sympathy for them when the hammer falls. This country has suffered enough from their willful, toxic ignorance. They can either pull their shit together, or die younger than they should.
The Moar You Know
@germy: if you really want to feel like you’re living in a third world shithole, read AFP or any of the German news services. Or any of the Scandinavian news services. It’s rough reading sometimes, mainly because you can’t really argue with it.
I saw a VERY rare BBC photo piece on generational poverty in the UK in the last week. Poverty in the UK is just as ugly as ours. They hide it better and I suspect it’s not quite as widespread as here, but it’s pretty bad.
Taken4Granite
@Kent: You should be worried about this. Large numbers of unvaccinated people mean no herd immunity. There are two categories of people for whom this is important:
Until and unless enough people are vaccinated to confer herd immunity, outbreaks will happen. And as you note elsewhere, “urban elites” are not segregated from rural people; your relatives (and mine–I have cousins in South Dakota) might come to visit you some day.
Dan B
@jl: The other prime directives are:
1. Experts do all the communication, not politicians.
2. Don’t sugar coat. Explain the dangers clearly but as dispassionately as possible. But dispassionately does not mean without appropriate emotion
3. Highlight the possibility that our best efforts at control may not seem successful at first and there will be downsides.
The Moar You Know
@Taken4Granite: Wish someone would frontpage just these two things. We MUST have universal vaccination. Letting the dipshit states, or the psycho nonbelievers, go their own way won’t work because of these two points you just cited.
JustRuss
@gene108: Just had coffee with a co-worker, both her brother-in-laws are surgeons, and both are anti-mask. One of them now has covid, so I guess he’s come around. I don’t understand how educated people can be so stupid. Propaganda is a hell of a drug, I guess.
jackmac
Illinois set an unwanted record with 238 deaths reported today, the most since numbers started being tracked. It’s quite possibly the leading edge of Thanksgiving infections and more horrific numbers. And Illinois is — by and large — a state that has tried to have a handle on COVID-19 with a variety of restrictions.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Emma from FL: And what are the rest of us supposed to do with a part of the population hell bent on self destruction? We can’t force people to take the vaccine at gun point. These people have made it clear that they see the doctors as the enemy.
FlyingToaster
@NotMax:
Ours in the
People’s RepublicCommonwealth of Massachusetts seem to be similar. Though they push anyone living in a communal setting (i.e., assisted living, nursing homes, dormitories) into the second tier. And all other students (preschool to grad school) into the third tier. Granted, we have an overwhelming number of college students, and our economy is suffering while they can’t spend money in the local shops.Ideally, instead of racial lines, it would make more sense to do it by occupation. Anyone who’s facing customers ought to get a shot in second tier, not merely “essential retail”, but all fucking retail, restaurant, and personal service industries.
And we need a 5th tier for religious whack-jobs, covid deniers, and utter damn fools. Take your jab, or go live in the FEMA camp for assholes.
We’re already assuming that WarriorTeen will get her vax in late May/early June (right at the end of the school year), so that Summer Camp will survive (please, no more Zoom camp, eh?).
HerrDoktor and I, though in a so-called “risk” category, won’t see it until late July/early August, and probably get jabbed at Target’s CVS.
germy
What if we call it the Trump Vaccine?
But then, the rest of us wouldn’t take it.
artem1s
@jl:
I think relief funds for businesses should be tied to testing, tracing and vaccinating front line workers. Also, the Federal Government should set the standard for what is considered an essential business and not leave it up to the states. Otherwise we will have jetsetters, Mar-a-Lago staff, and hotel workers getting vaccines before healthcare workers in states like Florida that are dependent on tourism. Meatpackers and other food handlers should get vaccinated before the CEO of Whole Foods, for instance. Grade school teachers should get vaccinated before athletic coaches. No religious preferences. Televangelists, clergy and pro athletes are not essential workers.period.
This isn’t really very hard once we have a functioning FEMA, CDC and Homeland Security head in place – and no Trump family members doing everything they can to skim off the top and direct vaccines first to those who can pay the most.
Dan B
@Ruckus: The rule is people rationalize actions that are based upon emotions. It is not possible to sway emotions with facts and reasoning.
People can be swayed by emotional stories, especially stories that convey existential choices. The other method, but with the court jester gamble, is humor.
Education used to include rhetoric. We are worse off without this skill set.
Jeffro
Have any of you all seen the Biden/Harris press release, telling Major’s side of the story (re: Biden’s broken foot)? HiLARious!!
NotMax
@germy
Wouldn’t demean medical waste by assigning that name to it, much less anything medically beneficent.
:)
germy
@Jeffro:
Link? I haven’t seen it.
Emma from FL
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: Maybe we could begin by vaccinating those who are willing in every part of the country? I don’t mean immediately, but begin with doctors, nurses, elder care personnel, teachers, childcare workers. Maybe create a series of incentives directed at medium and small companies to co-opt them into the vaccination programs? Maybe bodyslam companies like the chicken processing plants with a few legal threats regarding fines and taxes? A lot of this stuff can be done without Congressional input.
Dan B
@Kent: Preliminary reports are that the virus can replicate in the nasal membranes even as the immune system is knocking it out in the rest of the body. Spread from nasal passages is highly infectious.
You could be healthy and nearly virus free while you are sneezing up large quantities of virus at the outskirts of the immune system. We will know more in the future.
Dan B
@The Moar You Know: It’s important to choose trusted spokespeople. As, per the example of Elvis in the following comment. Richard Gere did an intro to a doc on AIDS. He said it’s sex and needles. He repeated this with a couple variations. Gere was a hunky heartthrob for gay men. There are black people and people for every significant community. Put the money there and the simplest message will reach its target audience.
J R in WV
We’re waiting for our family doctor, who provides flu shots and pneumonia vaccines, to tell us, “Go here and get your shots!” He’s pretty conservative, hope he didn’t vote for Trump, won’t ask. Because he’s a great doctor.
I agree with Kent. My immediate neighbors are all liberal Dems, and will get a vaccination ASAP. But we live in a really red rural county, and I fear with lots of people you will have to push hard to get a shot.
On the other hand, when swine flu (or whichever was the last pandemic we fought like that) shots were being administered, I waited in a very long line at the local High School to get my shot from the county health people. About 20,000 people in the county. Poor place, health dept is in an old house out behind the court house.
All the buildings around the courthouse are now part of the county govt. Even the big former church across the street, now the upstairs (former sanctuary) is a probation reporting center and the downstairs (former Sunday school classes) is the early voting center.
Frankensteinbeck
A) Competence is the centerpiece of the Biden administration. The vaccine will be produced faster and rolled out in a more orderly and thought out fashion than anyone is dreaming possible.
2) There won’t be much conservative resistance to the vaccine. They’re completely batshit insane about the virus right now because they’ve convinced themselves the election isn’t over, and the Supreme Court will save them. Virus denial is still a way of saying “Fuck you, we’re in charge and we want you to hurt” to liberals. That vastly dwindles in importance once their hope runs out. They’ll still be assholes who won’t be willing to inconvenience themselves even slightly for public safety, but a vaccine to protect themselves will be fine.
germy
Some good info here:
Link
Steve in the ATL
@StringOnAStick:
WHY DO YOU HATE HAGGIS???
Cacti
When the post-Thanksgiving death spike comes, we’ll top 3,000 per day.
Yep, we’ll have reached the point where we’re having about one 9/11 per day for a week or more.
bluefoot
@The Moar You Know: It’s not just Tuskegee. Minorities (esp black folks) are constantly ignored/not taken seriously in clinical settings, and routinely get less care. So there’s a lot of distrust of the healthcare system. There was a thread a month or so ago about all the things minorities tell doctors/healthcare workers about their family members to show are human being with value in order to make sure their family members get proper care.
Plus the pandemic really demonstrated that for a lot of people, Black lives really don’t matter.
I don’t know how to overcome the justified skepticism of the healthcare system and government in minority communities. But it’s important that there be effective outreach and communication. I don’t know if that mean having minority doctors, nurses, etc doing PSAs, or getting religious leadership involved or what.
Kent
Oh, I agree its a problem. I also don’t know what percentage of herd immunity is going to be required to see the virus diminish and fade away in a given community. That percentage will likely be different in every community because behavior is different in every community. A community of hermits that stay away from each other is different from one in which the entire community attends the same church or market, for example.
Just making up some numbers here. But if the percentage of herd immunity in a given community that is required to press the R value of the virus down to say 0.5 (so that each generation of the virus infects 50% less people than the last) is 75% then that can be achieved by vaccinating 75% of the population or vaccinating 50% of the population and letting 25% of them catch covid. Or some other combination of the two.
Some communities will get there quickly with near universal vaccination. Some will get there really slowly. And some will have the disease linger on much longer than it should because they will only get the R value down to say 0.9 instead of 0.5 and it will take some extra months for the disease to die out.
And if some plague infested family from the country comes into the city might they spread covid to someone? Yes. But if the city in question has a high level of herd immunity due to mass vaccination then it isn’t likely to spread anywhere or cause a mass outbreak.
Once we have a widespread vaccine I do expect this disease to burn itself out. It’s just going to take longer in some parts of the country than others. Due to both behavior and vaccination rates.
jeffreyw
Market the vaccinations as using two different formulations: A Trump labeled vaccine, and the “expert’s choice” regular vaccine. The Trump Private Label Vaccine should have a gold foil watermark so them damn libs can’t pull the old switcheroo. Tell no one they are the same in all other respects.
Mallard Filmore
@germy:
The Trump Vaccine for the Trump Plague.
NotMax
@jeffreyw
Had I spare scratch would consider investing in the companies which manufacture the bottles for vaccines.
Ksmiami
@germy: if you travel to any rural red state town, third world is a generous description. The Republican Party is a Disease.
Mary G
O/T
tweet issue, breaking the margins please try again.
RIP
Dan B
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: I hope the Biden / Harris administration ramps up media campaigns to flood all media. People may be suspicious of doctors but nurses should be telling their stories of people who watched their loved ones through windows, and nurses in rural areas who called funeral homes to take away their neighbors’ bodies and then tried to provide a minimum of comfort to the families. I’d be happy to see local hospital administrators explain that they are spending vast sums on ICU units and transporting the sickest to distant hospitals.
Millions are spent on spreading lies about doctors and hospitals getting rich from expensive procedures that are “not necessary”. MSM and social media do nearly nothing to push back. They don’t budget for journalism or for journalists to investigate the real stories that are taking place every hour of every day in hospitals all across the country. Reporting data of infection rates is NOT a story. We need journalists and documentarians to track down nurses and hospital administrators who are not afraid of death threats. This is hard work but hiring and paying a couple hundred journalists and influencers to dig up impactful stories would take a few million dollars.
We can do this. If the right wing can manufacture lies and dig up crackpots and liars we can do it with truth tellers and people with empathy and moving stories.
Steve in the ATL
@Ksmiami: my wife went to a Walmart in Eatonton, Georgia, last month. She is still recovering. And she was the only customer masked, along with one single employee.
NotMax
@Dan B
Cannot speak to all of MSNBC but both Maddow and O’Donnell have been on top of airing such segments. Not as one-offs, but regularly.
Dan B
@germy: A branding problem. You know how many brands Procter and Gamble promotes? We could have the Ivanka Vaccine, the Limbaugh Vaccine, etc. It would require a few million $ bribe to inveterate grifters.
catclub
@Mallard Filmore: trump will ask for a cut for use of his name.
NotMax
@Dan B
MAGAcillin.
//
germy
@Ksmiami: Some rural parts of blue states as well.
patrick II
@JustRuss:
Last March my doctor told me to not worry about it — COVID was just like the flu. It shocked me — he seemed like a pretty bright guy, but I prefer my doctors to get their pandemic information from the CDC, not from Trump and FOX. I fired him.
I have come to learn though that facts mostly fit in stories, and if they don’t “plug in” they are discarded. The stories the right wing believes are anathema to science, knowledge and democracy.
Spanky
@Kent: There originally was no first or second world.
Old World : Yurp, of course, and primarily the superpowers
New World: America, quickly narrowing to British North America
Third World: Everything else,
zzyzx
@Jeffro: where is this? I need to read this!
Lacuna Synechdoche
@catclub:
I don’t recall ever being taught those defintions, but I always thought of it this way:
1st world: Modern developed countries with a well-off populace. Germany, France, the countries of Scandinavia, Japan, Etc.
2nd world: Developed countries with more poverty, and extensive problems like autocratic governments, corruption, etc. Brazil, Russia, India, China, Pakistan, et. al.
3rd World: Poorly developed, poverty-stricken countries, usually with poor education and/or transportation infrastructure, like much of Africa, Haiti, and others.
4th World: I didn’t know that the term 4th World was in common use, or being used at all. I don’t remember coming across it before.
Anyway, the US used to be the primary example, the sine qua non, of the 1st World. But we’re looking a lot more like a 2nd World country these days.
Dan B
@bluefoot: I can think of a few good spokespeople for the black community. Spots stars, actors, musicians, broadcast TV stars, religious leaders, pols like Jim Clyburn and Michelle plus her mother and kids. They should all get shots on camera. And we could add black nurses.
View it as a mass marketing campaign. Who is the target audience? Who do they trust and respect? What is the essence of the message? What’s the simplest message that is effective? Is the emotional impact the best to be effective? Repeat with subtle variations as needed. Keep repeating in every medium available that is not a waste of money.
Spanky
@NotMax:
That would be Schott, and you’re way too late to catch that stock. They’ve been cranking out bottles for months in anticipation of the need.
Ksmiami
@germy: definitely true but somewhat more by choice
stinger
@Emma from FL: Thank you. Apparently urban dwellers and blue staters don’t smoke, overeat, abuse drugs, adhere to extreme religions, get heart disease or diabetes, vote Republican, or refuse vaccines. And people who live in red states and rural dwellers deserve only scorn.
Dan B
@NotMax: That’s great but these two “Libs” have limited reach. I have confidence that Biden / Harris teams will know how to expand the pool of spokespeople. I hope they contact and recruit some of the reasonable conservative evangelical leaders I’ve encountered over the years, and provide them support for the inevitable pushback.
gene108
@Dan B:
Newspapers at the time of this nation’s founding spewed out crap at a rate that’d make any modern right-winger jealous of what they got away with.
Impartial news reporting only came about in the twentieth century, when radio bandwidth was considered a public good to be controlled, and allocated by the government. Radio stations had to comply with some minimum government standards because they were using a public resource (radio frequencies) to run their business.
J R in WV
@Mary G:
Here’s a better link to the Philly Tribune’s obit of Rafer Johnson, which seems very complete and professional. What a great athlete and person. Sad to lose him, even at 86.
Thanks for letting us know of his passing. I did not know he was with Bobby Kennedy at his assassination in the Hotel kitchen.
Ksmiami
@Steve in the ATL: it will require Marshall Plan/TVA level spending to get red America into the 21st century…
Dan B
@NotMax: MAGAmycin? And I like the Gold branding.
And who’s the right-wing blowhard who sells all sorts of crap?
Steeplejack
@Mary G:
You need to be in comment “text” mode when you embed a tweet.
cain
@Lacuna Synechdoche:
This is exactly what the Republicans want. A second rate country with nuclear weapons – an uneducated populace that they can grift from. Basically a new order where the mores have more, and the less crave for mores and can be manipulated.
gene108
@JustRuss:
As the saying goes, a little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing.
Too many people, who are experts in one field think they know more than they do outside their field.
cain
@rikyrah:
Yeah, I plan on waiting too – I see it as public trials at a very large level. I’ll take the vaccine in about a few months after. I probably won’t have a choice because work will want me to start traveling again.
oh wow! rikrah was comment #33, and I’m #99 – special!!
Matt
I hope the state of Washington sues the ever-loving bejeezus out of Idaho for medical costs. Freedumb ain’t free, it’s just dumb.
Kent
That’s not the point at all.
Every one of those things are largely behavioral. At some point if people choose to live unhealthy lives there isn’t a lot you can do. We live in a blue state and my wife is a family physician and spends most of her days trying to “fix” people who refuse to take personal responsibility for their own health by diet and exercise. And she is utterly exhausted and burned out from it.
Right now with no vaccine, Covid is a risk that we largely can’t mitigate for ourselves while living in a normal social society. We have to socially isolate and avoid all the social things that we used to do. With a reliable and effective vaccine, covid becomes much more like any of these other chronic diseases like diabetes that have an enormous death toll in this country. Diabetes accounts for about 12% of deaths in this country today. Higher than Covid: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/01/170125145848.htm yet we don’t shut down or restructure our economy to prevent diabetes. We largely just promote good diet and exercise and shrug when people don’t go along.
Once we have universal access to an effective Covid vaccine to where it is like getting a flu shot then I think Covid is going to be largely the same. Life in the US will get back to normal. People are going to make bad choices and there isn’t all that much we can do about it but make good choices four ourselves and our families. And if there are going to be outbreaks of Covid in rural anti-vax communities it will be more like the measles outbreaks that we still get in insular anti-vax communities today. They pop up in the Hasidic Jewish community from time to time, and in some fringe evangelical groups here in the Pacific Northwest. But we don’t shut down the country to deal with isolated measles outbreaks. I expect Covid will eventually be much the same.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@J R in WV: Sad to see the passing of a fellow Bruin.
Dan B
@patrick II: Very concise way to describe “frames”. Years ago when I was promoting my landscape design business I told my story (stories) about how I learned to save water and reduce ecological damage and frame it in the story of the horrible destruction of northern Ohio. I told stories about disasters on the path to success. I told stories about shocking clients that I wasn’t doing landscaping I was doing social engineering because no one was out in their garden. And the story became they had to remodel their kitchen because everyone who visited and everyone at their parties ended up outside even in drizzly weather.
One year I got so much media that my fellow professionals were angry and people would point at me in public and whisper, “That’s Dan B!”
I decided u didn’t want to be famous, not that famous.
Stories grab the imagination. Facts are fascinating but stories stick in the memory and lodge in the subconscious.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Kent:
You can’t get diabetes from someone who has diabetes sneezing on you.
Central Planning
Remember the “Choose Life” signs/shirts etc. that were supposed to persuade women to not get abortions?
I think I need to setup an Etsy account and create a “Choose Life” line that has a picture of the Corona Virus and a mask. It could go on shirts, masks themselves, bumper stickers, mugs, toothbrushes, and anything else I could get printed. I think I could make a *cough* killing.
Nelle
@catclub: Get someone else named Trump to license it. Mary Trump, for example.
Dan B
@gene108: Fairness Doctrine. There’s push to label many internet applications as media.
Here’s hoping we get some motion in this or something similar.
stinger
@jeffreyw:
Great idea!
cain
how does that work? I mean they wear a mask during surgery right? It’s so that you dont spew something into the body cavity. It’s the same damn thing..???
germy
zzyzx
OK I found it!
stinger
@Kent: Your point is much clearer here in comment #101 because you didn’t bog yourself down in dismissive stereotyping.
Ruckus
@Lacuna Synechdoche:
I would say you are right. What the republicans have been trying to do before shitforbrains, was to have a semi controlled country where the very wealthy got all the money and advantages and everyone else got the crumbs, with non whites not getting that much. shitforbrains, being the idiot that he is, couldn’t figure out how to do that without showing his total incompetence. Plus they have gone way overboard and made life basically crap for most people. And at some point that always fails, shitforbrains just accelerated that by a few years/decades.
rikyrah
@jackmac:
I want the Governor to SHUT US DOWN.
PERIOD.
jackmac
@rikyrah: I’m with you.
Geminid
@Steve in the ATL: Wow! Sounds like Georgia needs a state mask mandate. Not that you need me to tell you that. I went to the Waynesboro Va. Walmart Monday and noticed just three people out of a hundred or so without masks. All employees wore them. Waynesboro is in the Shenandoah Valley, and is probably culturally and socially similar to Eatonton. But there is a state mask mandate, and the stores can tell complainers, the Governor makes us require masks. Outfits like Walmart generally support social distancing measures, if only because they know dead customers don’t buy much. But it helps to have good leadership at the state level. I see good compliance in medium and large stores, and I’ve noticed little pushback. But at small stores in my rural county, only about half the customers wear masks.
Immanentize
@J R in WV:
“Get the gun! GET THE GUN! Stay away from the gun. His hand is frozen, take ahold of his thumb and break it if you have to…. That’s it, Rafer, get it, get the gun.”
What the World Needs Now/Abraham, Martin and John
listen @ 3:30.
patrick II
@Dan B:
Money drives what is the truth now. FOX and Murdoch continue to exist and succeed because it is profitable to lie. If you have profit driven communication then you have propaganda. Government needs to be proactive, but somehow not attack the first amendment. We aren’t up just against big lies, but big money.
Limbaugh’s greatest strength is as a story teller, his lies fit so nicely into the story of fascism is your friend. And he has gotten richer than hell because of it.
Ruckus
@cain:
Politics rears it’s ugly head – again. But let’s face it, no one really likes a mask. We wear them because we aren’t fucking idiots. And an education does not guarantee a lack of idiotic thought, you know, how one thinks, what one thinks about, only that one should be able to see the idiocy.
Elizabelle
Has someone already posted this? WaPost today. Blood red Campbell County in SW Virginia — they want to be a First Amendment Sanctuary County. As in: unencumbered public gatherings. They are defying that tyrant, Governor Dr. Ralph Northam.
WaPost: Rural Virginia county officials pass resolution rejecting ‘tyranny’ of governor’s coronavirus restrictions
The smart Charlie Watts, the Rolling Stones’ drummer, wants his good name back!
Two really brave people were were the only dissenters at a meeting that drew 1,000 residents (who arrived in masks, and then took them off throughout.)
I am sick of these fuckers, who call themselves “God-fearing patriots” but are actually superspreading ignoramuses. I would love to see a massive class action suit, brought by hospitals and healthcare providers and even Covid victims and the deceaseds’ survivors, against Fox News and Rush Limbaugh, et al, for “entertaining” these morons during a public health emergency.
Rightwing media has a body count, and their stupidity is costing us billions of dollars. Make those fuckers pay. (Of course, they are hiding behind the First Amendment as well.)
TheOtherHank
@JustRuss: Speaking as the son of a surgeon, think of surgeons as being like mechanics for the human body. They had to have a lot of training to be good at it, but the idea that going to med school means they’re scientists is laughable. I’ve had serious conversations with my dad where he tried to convince me that Intelligent Design (ie, creationism) can explain the universe.
I’m not sure if this is true, but among the various medical specialties, I would bet that Republicans are over-represented in the ranks for surgeons.
Hoodie
@Geminid: Seeing that there appear to be several vineyards and craft brewers nearby, I’d say Waynesboro is quite a bit more cosmopolitan than Eatonton. Eatonton does have the Uncle Remus Museum and Uncle Remus Golf Course, however.
Hoodie
@TheOtherHank: Yeah, my mom (former OR nurse) always said the internists were far smarter than the surgeons, a lot of whom are ex-jocks.
Dan B
@patrick II: Money has a large influence and in many cases even a small change in the perception of truth in a small percentage of the populace makes all the difference. I often wonder if a crowdsourcing effort could provide a counter to the small number of billionaires who finance the right wing think tanks and media. TV will have reduced impact in the future while social media ascends. It would have the disadvantage of “herding cats” but a diversity of approaches has its own advantages.
cckids
CNN has a story up now from a nurse; it is heartbreaking. I hadn’t thought of this:
“You hold that back in. You want to stay tough for the family, and stoic,” Boerner said. “And there’s been a lot of tears shed in ER rooms during Covid.”
“Because we are treating that person dying like our loved one dying, because they don’t have anyone else, and they need that grace, and they need that human touch, and they need someone to be there when they’re taking their last breath,” she said.
The experiences will always be with her, Boerner said.
“Death is something that no one wants to have to deal with, but we all have to deal with it. It’s something that’s inevitable. And to not let family be with a loved one that’s dying is something that you will never forget,” she said.
Imagine truly being there for a dying person, day after day, treating them as though they were your own loved one, taking on that emotion and pain. These people will have PTSD for the rest of their lives. Many of them will have to leave the profession, and we’ll all be poorer for it.
Elizabelle
@Elizabelle: Typo alert! Campbell County meeting drew 100 “patriots”, not the 1,000 I’d typed.
Sm*t Cl*de
You can thank Trump for promoting the idea that hospitals kill patients (with other conditions) so they can claim the COVID-19 bounty. I am pleasantly surprised that angry relatives aren’t killing doctors and nurses yet.
Kent
I have family in rural PA, MI, IN, VA, and OR. Every one of them in counties that went more than 70% for Trump and mostly closer to 80%. My family FB feed has been full of MAGA and triumphal evangelical bullshit for 4 years. For example, most recently I had an aunt in rural PA post this as she is reconciling herself to a Biden victory:
At some point it is no longer dismissive stereotyping. It is simply describing reality.
Geminid
@Hoodie: Yeah, that part of the Valley has an overlay of culture, and a fair amount of residents who commute to Charlottesville for work. But I think the Walmart shoppers in both Eatonton and Waynesboro may be fairly similar. One experiment I’d like to do sometime is to get a height scanning device and compare the height of people in the Charlottesville Wegmans to the shoppers at the Stuart’s Draft Food Lion. I could swear the Food Lion customers are smaller, especially the older ones, most of whom grew up poor.
Uncle Cosmo
This drives me nuts. It’s been obvious for months (so my PCP who is also an MPH tells me) that
All those cretins out there who leave their noses uncovered are doing no one any good – not themselves, not the people around them. It’s nothing but grudging compliance, virtue signaling, or both.
Another thing that drives me nuts: If the virus builds its nest in the nasal cavity, why aren’t we working on nasal sprays that will kill enough of it to hammer the transmission rate? I’ve read that an 0.07% solution of cetylpyridinium chloride has been shown to kill the Rona in vitro; the stuff is evidently safe enough for oral care products (I am holding a bottle of Fixodent CPC Antigingivitis/Antiplaque Oral Rinse in which this is the active ingredient); it seems to be in at least one nasal spray (Taffix, mde in Israel, might be available in the UK but not here). Why in hell aren’t we testing this stuff in vivo to see if 2-3 sprays a day might not reduce the viral burden in asymptomatic spreaders’ noses significantly? Put that together with ramped-up rapid-turnaround testing & we might have something useful. (E.g., “Your nose swab tests positive. Go home, quarantine, use this nasal spray 3x a day for the next 4 days & if you don’t show symptoms we’ll test you again & if the nose swab is clear you’re out of detention.”)
Geminid
@Elizabelle: Cambell County is next to Lynchburg, and is home to loathsome Congressman-elect Bob Good. He used to be a Campbell County supervisor.
Dan B
@cckids: There are hundreds of thousands of stories like this. It’s the best antidote to “Mah freedums!” People absorb these stories on a visceral level even though they may try to resist. Death gets to the base of our brains and everything above that will follow along. Resistance is simply too exhausting.
Journalists can find these stories as can social media influencers.
RSA
I’m thinking about the possibility of requirements everywhere. Want your kids to go to public school? They and parents need to be vaccinated. Want to continue receiving government assistance (SS, Medicare, Medicaid, SNAP, etc.)? Get vaccinated. Want to be treated in a hospital? Vaccination records have to be in order.
This is the stick; I’ll assume there are carrots as well.
Kent
You get to the business world by refusing to go along with Mitch’s blanket waiver of liability. You run a meat packing plant and want to keep your liability insurance? You better make damn sure that all your employees are vaccinated. You run an airline and want to keep your liability insurance and avoid lawsuits? Make damn sure all your flight crews and ground crews are vaccinated. You are the owner of Starbucks or Wal-Mart and don’t want to get sued for transmitting covid? Make sure all your employees are vaccinated. etc. etc.
Fair Economist
@Dan B:
This is pretty standard for respiratory viruses. The body simply can’t protect exposed cells on the outside of the body as well as it can protect those inside, because most antibodies and immune cells can’t get there.
Infectiousness is probably lower because there is still a lot the body can do – including secreted IgA and killer T cell action on infected cells. I’m not aware of any studies quantifying the effects.
Geminid
@Geminid: Greene County , where I live, is a “2nd Amendment Sanctuary.” So far that has had only a symbolic effect. The actions of the Campbell County supervisors will be more consequential in practical terms. The state government’s social distancing rules rely mainly on voluntary compliance, so this 1st amendment sanctuary bullshit will put store owners in a tough position regarding non-compliant customers. Few businesses can afford to lose much trade. And if some customer makes a show of defying a store owner’s rules the owner ultimately has to rely on the cops to remove a customer for trespassing. The Cambell County deputies may not oblige if the Sheriff goes along with the Supervisors, which he does not have to but probably will. The state ABC can shut a bar down, though, and hard headed Governor Northam may well send State Police to help ABC personnel pull liquor licenses from bars and restaurants, or even stores. I don’t think Cambell County deputies would stand in their way. Campbell County is home to a lot of people affiliated with Liberty University. It would be ironic to see a bunch of Baptists take a stand for the 1st Amendment right of businesses to sell alcohol.
Quaker in a Basement
Every day is 9/11. Only we’re killing ourselves this time.
There are those who call me...tim... (Still posh)
@JustRuss: dear friends of ours, and their daughter, who is 9, are FLYING TO TEXAS FOR CHRISTMAS TO VISIT FATHER’S PARENTS. We’ve known that kid since infancy. Had we the financial standing, we would gladly campaign for godparent-hood. Now we gotta tell them it’s gonna be a long time before they can visit us again. Hearts are breaking out here. Fuck.
chrisanthemama
@NotMax: Interesting article about the process of manufacturing the vaccine-vials: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/12/07/the-race-to-make-vials-for-coronavirus-vaccines
chrisanthemama
@There are those who call me…tim… (Still posh): I have 90- and 95-year-old parents in TX, one in poor health, whom I have not been able to visit for over a year. I wonder if I will ever see them again in this world. But I won’t get on a plane until there’s a vaccine and the pandemic has died down.
chrisanthemama
@Uncle Cosmo: Here’s a NYT article from November on that topic: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/05/health/coronavirus-ferrets-vaccine-spray.html
The Fat White Duchess
@Emma from FL: Thank you for saying it.
planetjanet
@StringOnAStick: So that’s why I can’t get real haggis here!
There are those who call me...tim... (Still posh)
@chrisanthemama: @There are those who call me…tim… (Still posh):
We’re blowing off mother-and- sister-in law this year; my wife’s only fam left. Holidays are bad for her anyway after losing grandparents. Now this. Also missing some damn good ham. Hard choices.