People on Twitter are shitting themselves over the possiblity that we won’t reach herd immuinity. I mean, just look at this map from the latest anxiety-provoking Times article:
In case you can’t read it, the lighter the color, the lower the percentage of people who say they’re going to get the vaccine.
I really wish people would stop using nationwide chloropleth maps to prove things, and I really, really wish they wouldn’t do so with obviously questionable data. For example, you’re telling me that Moorehead, in Clay County, MN, has an 80-91% percent propensity to get vaccinated, but Fargo, ND, in Cass County, which is just across the river from Moorhead, has a 49-60% of the population who want to get vaccinated? Another one: the counties in Arizona and New Mexico containing the Navajo reservation, which has some of the highest vaccination rates in the nation, have some of the lowest percentage of people who want to get vaccinated?
I think what this map is really telling me is that someone at the Times got a shiny new copy of Tableau (data visualization software) and fed it a bunch of data without thinking too hard, and people forget that a lot of the West is big and empty.
The reality, as explained by this epidemiologist on Twitter, is that states hitting 50% of vaccination are showing a big drop in positivity. As of yesterday, New York had 46.5% of our population getting a first dose, and our overall positive rate is around 1.5%, and it’s been dropping steadily. My home county (Monroe, NY) reached 50% first dose today, and according to the Times’ map, 75-80% of my neighbors want the shot, so we’ve still got a ways to go before we hit vaccine resistance.
Finally, tucked away in the last couple of graphs of the story, here’s Fauci:
Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the Biden administration’s top adviser on Covid-19, acknowledged the shift in experts’ thinking.
“People were getting confused and thinking you’re never going to get the infections down until you reach this mystical level of herd immunity, whatever that number is,” he said.
“That’s why we stopped using herd immunity in the classic sense,” he added. “I’m saying: Forget that for a second. You vaccinate enough people, the infections are going to go down.”
Part of the problem here is that our liberal media have been issued a special set of hearing aids that are tuned to amplify the bitching and moaning of white Republicans, while minimizing the voices of everyone else. What I see when I look around my home county is a bunch of hard-working medical professionals working their asses off to get shots in arms, and it’s working.
SiubhanDuinne
O/T right off the bat, but there’s a tornado barrelling toward Atlanta and Decatur at this moment. Hope all jackals in the path are safe. Check in, please, when you can.
germy
Republicans are the media’s assignment editors.
Frankensteinbeck
R drops a tiny bit every time someone gets vaccinated. Once R gets below 1, the virus is in trouble.
Mary G
I occasionally check in on the FYFNYT’s free coronavirus coverage and it continues to tell me the same thing it’s said since our horrendous January spike. Orange County CA has a high level of risk. Wrong. Their coverage of California has always sucked and it still does.
Roger Moore
The important thing to understand is that the 80-90% needed for herd immunity is the level of vaccination necessary to go back to living life exactly as we did pre-COVID and still have the virus go extinct. But we’re extremely unlikely to go back to pre-COVID life. We can get very good results with a combination of some lower level of vaccination and reasonable public health measures. For example, if we continue to require masks in situations where transmission is especially likely and have good track/trace/quarantine in place, we can probably get away with a much lower level of vaccination.
BigJimSlade
The light areas have already reached full herd stupidity.
Baud
@Mary G:
Gotta promote the recall somehow.
Cheryl Rofer
The whole construction of that NYT story was
OMG THE WORLD IS GOING TO END
but not for a billion years
EXPERTS SAY THIS IS TERRIBLE
Fauci says this is what they’ve expected all along
I am so tired of this.
Edited to heighten the contrasts
Another Scott
Um, part? “DC is wired for Republicans” – Josh Marshall (2009)
Madrigal at TheAtlantic in April:
It’s not over until it’s over everywhere. Even places that are doing well now are not safe forever (people being born, vaccines wearing off, new variants, travellers). The Teabaggers are extending the duration and severity of the pandemic with their dangerous nonsense. And the press refusing to do the work to show that nuance is needed is not helping.
Grr…
Cheers,
Scott.
Kay
I don’t think I’ve been a covid alarmist by any stretch but there is going to be a huge difference and it will be localized. We had an in-person high school band concert yesterday. They’ve been clamoring to “return to normal” in this Trumpy county and I knew damn well that would be interpreted as “throw away all precautions” and indeed it has. They’re not getting vaccinated. It’s still going to spread among them. They “won” I guess- my entire family is now vaccinated so I don’t plan on getting in their way on their mission to contract this virus. It’s out of my hands.
randy khan
@Frankensteinbeck:
Bingo. We’re likely headed to a long term situation that’s similar to (but actually not as bad as) the flu, and maybe more like Legionaire’s Disease with less mortality – there will be outbreaks, but they will fade quickly and won’t cause widespread lockdowns like what we’re seeing now.
And a lot of these articles simply neglect two important points: (1) No kids under 16 are being vaccinated yet; when they do, we’ll get a spike in vaccinations; and (2) all the people who’ve had COVID have some level of immunity, and many of them won’t be vaccinated (although it would be better if they were). Both of those things will help push R down even more.
Barbara
Lack of population weighting and failure to account for current percentage of already vaccinated people were clearly problematic in that table. California alone has more people than all mountain states combined.
VOR
This does seem extreme, but there may be some self-selection here. It is a single metro area but you may have chosen the North Dakota side as a way to live with like-minded individuals. Minnesota has a Democrat as Governor while North Dakota has a Republican. Clay County (Moorhead) went for Biden 50.7% vs 46.7% Trump while Cass County (Fargo) went for Trump 49.5% vs Biden 46.8%, plus 2.9% for the Libertarian candidate. I’m willing to bet Minnesota’s government is investing more effort into vaccination than North Dakota – more sites, more messaging, etc…
way2blue
Thanks! I just read an ‘all is lost’ post on DailyKos, saying we’ll never get through this… Filled with incorrect & misleading assertions. Grrr. FWIW, my county as of today has 59.9% of residents at least partially vaccinated. And last week ‘confirmed’ cases were down to 15 per day from a high earlier this year of ~400 per day. San Mateo County, CA has ~770K residents.
< http://www.latimes.com/projects/california-coronavirus-cases-tracking-outbreak/san-mateo-county >
dmsilev
@Mary G: They’ve got a very weird definition of “high risk”. LA County is in the same bucket as Orange in terms of cases and positivity and so forth, and we’re also “high” as far as the Times is concerned. I looked a while back at their definitions, and if memory serves, you need a case rate of something like 2 per 100k per day to be declared “medium risk”. I guess we’re getting there.
To the point of the article, LA County is inching towards 50% of the population having had a first dose (we’re in the high forties now), but the local health officials are concerned that the rate of people getting first doses has dropped by a lot (down by nearly half as of last week). This is very correlated with economics; the people who are able to take time off from work and have the resources to schedule and reach vaccination sites have gotten their doses, but lots of people who don’t have those luxuries haven’t. So, the County is pivoting away from mass vaccination sites and instead is steadily expanding its network of neighborhood and mobile clinics, both on their own and in partnership with various neighborhood associations and other nonprofits. Less efficient in a way (more manpower needed per dose administered), but it’s what needs to be done to have a chance of reaching everyone.
Kay
lol – they all just noticed a quarter of a billion dollars disappeared.
What’s remarkable about conservatives is how they absolutely rob their small donors. They just FLEECE them. There’s never any accounting or oversight- no one even asks!
Can you imagine THE DAY the sleazy Trump Family and the low quality hires realized they could tap a billion dollars in cash and do anything they want with it? It’s like winning the lottery.
J R in WV
About the Native Nations in AZ and NM — no one there wants to get vaccinated — but that is probably because they are all already vaccinated.
Simple, but easy to distort, isn’t it?
Obviously there are a lot of places on that map that are nearly white because no one there is or will be or wants to be vaccinated, which is passing strange, but others are already vaccinated well enough to make a huge difference.
I’ve decided not to lose much sleep over people that stupid. Especially for the many youngsters in the US who have not yet reproduced, this is a Darwinian event, where their stupid gene lines will be eliminated from the gene pool… this is probably a good thing, objectively.
I’m not talking about India or Brazil where their health systems have collapsed. Here in America, right now, anyone who wants a vaccination can walk in tomorrow and get one, and those who don’t deserve their consequences.
dmsilev
@Kay: I’m guessing that Kerik’s main beef is that he didn’t get a piece of the action.
Brachiator
People need to calm the fuck down. And that probably includes some of us as well, who try to over-anticipate, adumbrate and speculate about what the CDC and other health experts have to say about the issue.
germy
Joe Falco
So did the news media organizations decide it was too expensive to go to every diner in red America to ask MAGAts what they think and ordered college interns to whip up some controversy-driving graphic instead?
BruceFromOhio
This happens so fucking often I’ve come to skip past the pretty shiny and look for the methodology, and survey statistics (“Phone survey of 1,067 respondents in 53 geographically diverse zip codes May 1-3. 85% Confidence”) If the presenter can’t produce these or the background is not available to explain HOW THE FUCK DID YOU GET THESE NUMBERS?? then I do not pay any attention to it.
If I had a nickel for every time …
Cheryl Rofer
Another way to look at this is that we have acquired another endemic and somewhat dangerous disease, like, say, measles.
We have exterminated smallpox and are close to doing that for polio.
So we’re ahead.
Old School
@Joe Falco: Would you want to spend time indoors with non-mask wearing vaccine-deniers?
natem
A certain subset of Twitter is very committed to doom and gloom. There was one account that I started following early on in the pandemic for insight on what the virus was doing globally and what nations could do about it. But it’s a just a breathless torrent of takes couched in heatmaps and trendlines about how, despite progress, disaster in the form of new strains and worldwide lag in vaccinations, is just around the corner. Finally had to unfollow, which is a shame because the poster was an epidemiologist who knew their stuff.
Four Seasons Total Landscaping mistermix
@Kay: I agree that it’s real in rural counties – my family lives in red states with a lot of vaccine resistance, and they (all vaccinated) tell me things like “COVID doesn’t exist here,” meaning everyone just started pretending that things were back to normal.
One phenomenon that interests me is stealth vaxxing – I wonder how many of the loud “won’t get vaccinated” types are just going to quietly get the shot. A friend from suburban Buffalo (he calls it “Florida North”) told me the story of some jerk on Facebook that he knows making noise about never getting vaccinated, and a few days later his wife’s feed had a picture of the two of them posing for a selfie outside a vaccination site, having gotten their first shot.
Kay
@dmsilev:
Where DID it go, though? I don’t care what they paid those shitty lawyers- that didn’t cost a quarter of a billion dollars. A quarter of a BILLION.
I maintain that the only way any of these people will ever be held accountable is thru campaign finance. That’s the key.
Four Seasons Total Landscaping mistermix
@BruceFromOhio:
Yeah, this viz says that the source is “Department of Health and Human Services”. So you’re telling me that someone called folks in Harding County, SD, population 1,255, covering 2,678 square miles (twice the size of Rhode Island) and asked a statistically significant number of residents whether they’re going to get vaccinated? Probably not, but they get a huge square on that map.
Kay
@Four Seasons Total Landscaping mistermix:
I supported them getting financial supports and free vaccines and I hoped the roll out of the vaccines would be competent, and it has been.
They’re on their own. My kid played in the band, but he’s vaccinated. Some of them are going to get it and die and as far as I’m concerned they’re volunteers. We tried.
Brachiator
@dmsilev:
This keeps getting offered as an explanation, and there may be some of this, but I don’t know whether it is the entire story. For example, I don’t know how easy it is for people to make reservations, especially for some who may be non-English speakers.
I don’t know whether there are issues, or perceived issues, if family members include undocumented people. And even deep into the pandemic I always wonder whether public communication has been effective for all communities.
And I guess that pharmacies are not accepting walk-ins, but doses appear to be easily available.
This is a good thing and should have been done earlier. I also wonder whether urgent care centers are offering the vaccine. A number of these places are clustered where people, especially lower income people, work. And their hours are sometimes more in line with people’s work schedules.
ETA: And I am starting to hear more “reasons that the vaccine is not good or not necessary” from some people, and seeing it on local-focused Twitter feeds. We may be hitting more vaccine reluctant people, who are not the same as dedicated anti-vaxxers.
BruceFromOhio
@J R in WV:
This, thank you.
raven
Two 20 something friends flew from Atlanta to LA for the VAX Live gig last night.
Ruviana
@SiubhanDuinne: Are you safe? You and Steve in the ETC. were the first people I thought of.
Four Seasons Total Landscaping mistermix
@Brachiator: Here in Rochester, at the Public Market (which a hugely popular destination in a poor neighborhood), they had vaccine outreach people manning a booth dispensing information, and bilingual signs advertising a walk-in clinic a few blocks away. We’ve also had vaccine sites targeted at certain (poor neighborhood) zip codes. I’m sure it differs from state to state, but New York is certainly making an effort.
Kay
@Four Seasons Total Landscaping mistermix:
I am glad the US has shots available here LITERALLY on every corner, because my son who lives in Denmark and his wife are coming to visit in June and we can get them one. They can’t get one in Denmark.
We should also stop saying we had a “lockdown”. I watched a Frontline doc on covid around the world. Some places had “lockdowns”. The US never did. US conservatives just whine constantly- they are the world leaders in whining.
Ken
@Brachiator:
“I’m not a doctor or infectious disease specialist, but I have a twitter account….”
comrade scotts agenda of rage
Our in-reality Corporate Media is all about ratings, clicks and subscriptions. The FTFNYT coverage is basically a variation of the old local, electrical teevee device news philosophy “If it bleeds, it leads”.
germy
@Four Seasons Total Landscaping mistermix:
The former guy and his bridebot got their vaccines very quietly, no fanfare.
Ken
“Psst! Pass it down the line. If you see that guy when you leave the clinic, walk like a zombie in a cheap horror movie.”
JaneE
Herd immunity means the virus really can’t start circulating again. That is isolated cases only. We probably won’t get there. We don’t have herd immunity for the flu, but vaccinations have all but put an end to the flu epidemics I saw when I was working 30 or 40 years ago. If less than a quarter of the office were out, it wasn’t that bad. If production was cut back, it was bad. I am actually surprised that some of the people I know still skip the shot and get the flu, but the numbers are two or three total, and not every year. And we still have thousands who die from the flu every year (except the last).
In a year or so, Covid-19 will probably be like the flu. Maybe seasonal, maybe not, and with any luck most of the cases will be mild like they are now if the virus doesn’t mutate in a more lethal way. Treatments will be better, and diagnosis could be faster, and maybe there will be booster vaccines that you need every so often. The unvaccinated populations will probably be where the deaths occur. Whether that sinks in enough to make the vaccine hesitant get the shot – doubtful. Think flu. Banners in drug stores and shots available at every pharmacy and health facility and flu shot drives haven’t kept thousand or millions from skipping it. Oh, well.
Brachiator
@Cheryl Rofer:
A commenter previously noted a story about a potentially successful malaria vaccine.
Any other time, this might be the science story of the year.
germy
Sure Lurkalot
I think the map may be taken from the HHS site…
ASPE | Office of The Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation (hhs.gov)
Search “Vaccine Hesitancy” and the map that comes up looks like the inverse of the NYT map (HHS map shows hesitancy darker and NYT shows hesitancy lighter).
The HHS site has data sets and table formats to explore.
DOES NOT MEAN THAT THE NYT IS NOT GARBAGE. Apparently, Ken Vogel has an article about a billionaire Swiss immigrant that has bought the Democrat(ic) party. Sorry not sorry I can’t link because I canceled my subscription a couple of years ago. Decades late at that.
BruceFromOhio
@Four Seasons Total Landscaping mistermix:
One of the YAFromOhio hits up that market with her BF quite frequently. I believe that was how they got lined up for shots at The Dome. Because of that journey we will all be able to spend time together on Mother’s Day. Pretty awesome!
Villago Delenda Est
Hence, my nym.
Wipe them out. All of them.
Spanky
@Kay:
Welcome to my world.
Villago Delenda Est
@Ken: “Bill Gates is telling me, right now, to flip the bird at you.”
Brachiator
@Four Seasons Total Landscaping mistermix:
Good to see the creativity and flexibility on display here.
In California, there is a website, myturn.ca dot gov that helps in getting appointments for the vaccine. You can even select from a number of different languages. It even offers a phone number for people who do not have email or a smartphone.
However the main page, the first page you see, is in English.
SFBayAreaGal
Hi from a San Mateoan
@way2blue:
Cheryl Rofer
@Brachiator: Yes, the malaria vaccine is very good news indeed. It hasn’t completed its trials yet, but it looks hopeful.
I’ve been trying to figure out if it’s an mRNA vaccine, but all the journal papers I’ve read say a bunch of stuff I don’t understand. I think it may not be, but I’m not sure.
dmsilev
@Brachiator: If you look at the dashboard at the state Public Health Department (scroll down to the Status by Group graph and set it to LA County rather than statewide), you can see the very clear correlation between the community health index (which is largely derived from economic factors) and the vaccination rate. As you point out, there may also be underlying factors such as language issues that need to be accounted for.
Matt McIrvin
What I saw in Massachusetts until a lot of vaccination started happening is that the floor on the case rate was determined by the level of infection at which people (including the governor) got un-scared enough to relax precautions, and that floor kept rising.
Now… maybe we’re breaking through it, but it’s still hard to tell. What has happened is that the death rate has gone way down because they vaccinated most of the old people. MA used to have one of the highest case fatality rates in the country, I think because we had a terrible problem with COVID in nursing homes–now it’s dropped to one of the lowest.
Brachiator
@Cheryl Rofer:
I came across this explanation at one site and can proudly say that I have practically no idea what any of it means.
But I can understand cautiously hopeful progress.
Roger Moore
@Four Seasons Total Landscaping mistermix:
I think in general it’s important to come up with a good way for people who have talked a lot about not getting vaccinated to back down. This is a reason it’s really important to get the vaccines to the point employers can mandate their employees get vaccinated. It gives people a way of saying they were forced to get their shot.
Fair Economist
@Cheryl Rofer: The hot new malaria vax is a recombinant protein vaccine, so not an mRNA vaccine, according to this secondary source.
Villago Delenda Est
Look at Wyoming. There are more tumbleweeds looking for a ‘Rona shot than humans.
Matt McIrvin
@Roger Moore: Many states are in the process of making it illegal for anyone to require the COVID shot.
Brachiator
@Cheryl Rofer:
An attempt at a response got stuck in moderation limbo.
This site has an interesting explanation about the malaria vaccine, even though I barely understand any of it.
Brachiator
@dmsilev:
Yep. Also, we are trying to get all adult household members vaccinated, not just employees who may need to fit the dose in between work shifts. People may need to see to spouses, parents, etc.
Ruckus
@Roger Moore:
I agree with this, but how many areas are not too stupid to believe they don’t have to do anything at all since some people are being vaccinated? Depending on where you live, the stupid may be quite a large majority. And of course the virus doesn’t give two shits about politics, or intelligence or anything but finding a home and replicating.
How many of us know someone who doesn’t/won’t get vaccinated? Or at least have said they have no intention of getting vaccinated. I know of at least one, in a rather small circle, but she found out she won’t be able to fly without being vaccinated so she actually did. Her, in this case, better half, had no luck talking her into it, until the no flying thing came up. Until it inconvenienced her, she was a no.
WhatsMyNym
@Matt McIrvin:
As another commenter pointed: in a “right to fire for any reason” state, you just fire them for another reason. Or are they planning to change that? I can see the court cases now.
Fair Economist
@Ruckus:
How Republican of her.
Roger Moore
@dmsilev:
It’s also rather shocking to see just how widely the community health index varies from county to county. People who were wondering why the Bay Area did so much better than Southern California should take a look at those numbers. There are hardly any places in the Bay Area that are in the bottom quartile by health equity. In contrast, LA, Riverside, and San Bernardino Counties all have their largest slice in the bottom quartile, and Riverside literally has no areas in the top quartile. And the Central Valley is even uglier than So Cal. When you see that stuff, it’s really obvious why there was such a disparity in outcomes.
Martin
I don’t think we’ll reach herd immunity, but for different reasons. It’s not that I think people are afraid of the vaccine, I think they’re just lazy. And either you create a consequence for their laziness (they can’t participate in things) or you remove the excuse by walking up to them with a needle and telling them ‘I’m going to give you the vaccine now, tell me if you don’t want it’.
Every social structure suffers from pareto problems. When you’re drawing up plans to get the public to do something, you need to set up several teams in parallel. You always start with the voluntary plans – they’re the cheapest and easiest. They rely on the public doing most of the work for you, and most of us are willing to do that work. Then you need the ‘nudge’ team and their plans. They target the people that aren’t opposed to what you are doing, but can’t be bothered to expend the energy to do it. Then you need the hit team and their plans. They’re the ones that climb up your ass and make your life miserable until you comply.
Mind you, you don’t always need all of these. If you can solve your problem with statistical sampling, you can usually limit yourself to the first team.
So I see the first team, and it’s doing great. But somewhere between 50% and 75% compliance they usually run out of gas. The 2nd team is starting to step up, but very unevenly. We now have 100+ universities requiring vaccines of staff and students. That helps, but it needs to be much broader, and it needs to be more top down than bottom up. I don’t see the last team. Well, the military. They’re going to stab you with whatever cocktail of vaccines they feel like, and good luck saying no to that.
So, draw parallels to paying taxes. Most of us do it voluntarily. Our tax paperwork shows up, and we do them. Another large group need the nudge – file after April 15 and there’s a penalty. Again, people not refusing, but they’d rather procrastinate and do it later. The last group are the cheats like the Mercers. ‘No, we’re not going to pay, and you can’t make us’.
Look at who the republicans keep working to protect. And the problem when you work to protect them, is that the folks who volunteer eventually say ‘fuck it, why am I doing this when someone has my neighbors back when he cheats’.
Ruckus
@Another Scott:
Current day republicans seem to believe that they are the chosen ones and will survive anything. Many of them are armed, believing that will protect them. Many of them refuse to be vaccinated, BECAUSE. Many of them refuse to be masked, BECAUSE. Now I’m sure there are some dems who are not any smarter but it seems like a lot smaller percentage. Current day republicans have been fed a line of shit for decades now, to convince them that the world doesn’t work the way it does, and that line of shit is going to kill them. People like Murdoch have been playing a very dangerous game, which has made them rich but which is very likely to blow up on them at some point. If they were only taking their own along it would be bad but the reality of it is that their stupidity is enabling the crap that will take out a hell of a lot of innocent people. That stupidity is known as conservatism, especially in it’s current day form.
J R in WV
@Sure Lurkalot:
Funny, I don’t recall those negotiations at all, and I have no sudden wealth showing up on my books at all~!!~
Who told Vogel about this?
Does he quote a source who isn’t a Republican operative?
How slimy is Vogel now after missing the biggest political story of his career, because the real story didn’t slant the right way for his candidate?
Why does he still work at the FTNYT? They usually fire staffers caught lying so profusely, like Judith Miller…
Mousebumples
@Cheryl Rofer: belated response, but I don’t think it is. I think there is an mrna trial ongoing but too soon to have results.
Soprano2
That’s what I’m seeing here now – many smaller towns that had mask mandates ended theirs on a specific date regardless of what’s happening with Covid. Branson had an election; two days afterward, they voted to end their mask mandate on April 16th. The only place around here that still has one is Springfield, and their conditions for ending the restrictions are situation-dependent. They set a 50% vaccination rate as one of those goals. I realized when I went to an event with some other fully-vaccinated friends a week ago Sunday that I rarely leave Springfield, so other than screwing up our hospitalization numbers because they all come to the hospital here when they get sick, it hardly matters to my life at all. I’m like you – I and my husband and mother are fully vaccinated, so I’m not going to get in the way of them wanting to get sick. I saw in today’s weekly city e-mail that 40% of city employees are fully vaccinated, even with all the incentives – a $20 gift card for the 1st shot, a day with pay for the 2nd shot, and 80 hours of emergency leave you can use to get the shot, if you have side effects from the shot, or if you have to quarantine or get sick with Covid. I don’t know what else my employer can do to motivate people to get it at this point.
Another Scott
@WhatsMyNym: It doesn’t even have to be that blatant. E.g., say some corporation doesn’t require COVID-19 vaccinations (yet), but it does require people who need to travel to certain areas to obey local health and safety rules. So, if you need to go somewhere where vaccination (or proof of being SARS-CoV-2 free) is required and you’re not, well, you can’t do your job. Tim Apple and Larry E. and even Uncle Sam aren’t going to pay for someone to sit in a hotel 2 weeks before they’re freed to work. Might not look too good on their next performance review…
“Regretfully, we have to let you go…”
Cheers,
Scott.
J R in WV
@Matt McIrvin:
Anyone telling us how they’re going to square that with the “At Will” employment policy of RWNJ states? If you can be let go for any reason, really hard to make requiring a VAX illegal.
How about “We’re letting you go because you scare the customers”?
“We/I don’t like your hair!”
“You don’t wash your hands enough…”
Or that old standby: “We had to cut back, and picked you for that layoff.”
rikyrah
@Kay:
Black Jesus,
Please approve one of the vaccines for 12-15 year olds.
Once that happens and the minute Peanut is vaccinated and free and clear with antibodies..
I am washing my hands of those that won’t vaccinate.
Another Scott
@Brachiator: The malaria vaccine news is indeed great news, but it’s important to note what hasn’t been said yet in the press release/preprint.
Repost ScienceMag:
(Emphasis added.)
Cheers,
Scott.
rikyrah
@Kay:
that’s all they do.
Gravenstone
@Kay: Bernie’s just whining about not getting his cut.
Ruckus
@Fair Economist:
I have no idea if she is a republican or not. I’ve met her and know her partner but not more than that. And her partner was having no issues getting vaccinated, he worked at it until the needle was in his arm. And his parents were rather hard core republicans, if that makes any difference.
I’d bet there are lots of democrats who are vaccine hesitant. We have large segments of our media (which is basically like the loudspeakers in 1984) repeating nothingness on a minute by minute basis. We have media which actually seemed to be thinking, towards the end of shitforbrains reign of stupidity and ignorance, but are now seemingly mostly back to just making fucking noise that someone seems hopeful will guide us in some direction which seems far away from self governing, more like group think, and as long as some gain from that, and the rest of us go along with that gain they are fine with it.
Martin makes a great point at #64 that most people are effectively one foot in front of the other people, just keeping on keeping on, no real thought on where we are heading, why or how. For herd immunity we need those people to be vaccinated, but they have to be guided, pushed, helped, cajoled, reminded, hounded. Much of our MSM is telling them not to do anything, and they listen. Why is that, that the media basically follows the company line?
Gravenstone
@J R in WV: Guess Soros cut the dude a deal. Or maybe he’s just sub-letting the party to get some extra cash?
Ruckus
@Four Seasons Total Landscaping mistermix:
How many of the professional right have quietly gotten vaccinated?
Even their lord and loudmouth TFG got vaccinated.
Kim Walker
I don’t know anything about health insurance or how it works, but would being vaccinated make it less likely to have an expensive health event. Could an increase in insurance premiums be a nudge to get vaccinated to avoid this?
hrprogressive
Dr. Jha has a new thread up today quoting the NYT piece and giving more context
https://twitter.com/ashishkjha/status/1389263058892201995
I do love the work all of our newly-famous Epi’s and Docs are doing, but sometimes I do wish they’d massage their message a little more for the poorly-informed masses.
Matt McIrvin
@rikyrah:
Second that one.
I am hearing poorly-sourced buzz about this possibly happening within days, after previously hearing “July or August”. Don’t know what to think at the moment.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
I also wish Moderna and Pfizer would stop dithering and get the paperwork in to get full FDA approval. A number of employers and schools are waiting for that to happen before they require it.
JAFD
New Jersey is starting a ‘shot-and-a-beer’ program, for those getting vaccinated in May
https://www.nj.com/coronavirus/2021/05/12-nj-breweries-offer-free-beer-to-those-who-get-covid-vaccine-shots-this-month.html
Meanwhile, yours truly looks at the churk of that map where he lives and PassaicBergenHudsonEssexUnion counties come together and get a pixel each and you can’t tell what’s the map color and which the light lines between, and sez ‘fuggettaboutit’
Have great week, regardless !
SWMBO
@Matt McIrvin:
@rikyrah:
I have 2 great nephews with asthma. I want them vaccinated before covid tears through their schools or other recreation. Then I still don’t wish it on the kids but if their parents don’t want to get the vaccine, there’s not much to do but watch in horror.
Chris Johnson
Thing is you have to suppress COVID to the point where it isn’t coming up with mutations that will get people who have been vaccinated.
I don’t give much of a fuck about the QAnon people, but they are a tactic of war, against us (and others), and there’s a practical reason why they’re being made to further COVID at all costs. It’s not for their own good, at all. It’s because they’re the petri dish being cultivated in hopes something will come out of it to hurt US.
This shit is being done TO them, with their willing acquiescence. If it was just about them, I’d point and laugh, because all this has had a bad effect on my moral condition. It’s just that it’s bad to have them trying to incubate new COVIDs to infect and kill us with.
Matt McIrvin
(Is it wrong for me to want my low-risk teenage daughter to get vaccinated when 65+ adults in India can’t get the vaccine? I’m seeing ethicists raising questions about this.)
Ruckus
@Matt McIrvin:
I’d say no it’s not. I’d like everyone in the world to be at least able to be vaccinated but the reality is that ranges from physically impossible to even their own country leadership doesn’t care so we all have to be a bit selfish and take the vaccine as soon as possible. We should also insist that our country helps the hardest hit countries in any way possible so that they can get inoculated ASAP. And our president is on that. I also think that helping Mexico, Central America and Canada should be rather high on our list.
SteverinoCT
@Matt McIrvin: You put on your own oxygen mask before you help your child put on hers.
Ella in New Mexico
If herd immunity means 70-80% vaccinated, then, no, in the current political conspiracy-laden environment, it likely wouldn’t be reached.
Just don’t forget we can add the % vaccinated to all the people who survive(d) COVID infections. Right now that’s approximately 1/3 of the country and may be going up given all the Idiot Refusers.
50% + 35% =85% and that’s enough to keep COVID from going ape-shit crazy and mutating like wildfire.
My biggest concern is for those who DO want to be vaccinated (but aren’t eligible for some reason) and DO believe in the existence of the virus and DON’T want to die who will be caught in the transition. Kids, and for example. If we can protect them until we reach total herd immunity that’s our job from here until vaccines are approved for the little ones.
Arclite
See those dark purple islands? That’s my state, Hawaii. So lucky I happened to live here during this shitstorm. Everyone wears masks and social distances. Everyone is getting the vaccine. Lowest infection rate of all the states. And there’s no AAIP violence. Seriously, America: be like Hawaii.
Chris T.
Very late side note: “choropleth map”, not “chloropleth map”. Choro, from Greek khorio => color in general, vs chloro from Greek khloro => green specifically.