Sometimes I feel like the entire nation as adult onset ADHD:
Low vaccination rates are dangerous when combined with the spread of variants like Delta, which is believed to be more transmissible and cause more serious illness. Steve Edwards, CEO of CoxHealth, a healthcare system in Springfield, Missouri, told CNN the combination is to blame for a six-fold increase in hospitalizations in his system.
“I think it is the Delta variant and there is a lot of kindling with low vaccination rates, so it’s spreading very rapidly,” Edwards said. “Almost all of our cases are unvaccinated people that, in my opinion, have put themselves in harm’s way during this pandemic.”
Fortunately, Plescia said, there are tactics underway to encourage vaccinations that have seen success. Some states, such as Colorado, are making a final push by calling unvaccinated people directly to provide them with information and help schedule appointments. Incentives — from the big ones like million-dollar lotteries to free tickets to the zoo or food coupons — have also worked, Plescia said.
The pandemic is not over. We’re acting like it is for a variety of dumb reasons. We got bored with it. We want to go back to our beautiful lives. We don’t like masks or washing our hands. We’re a very stupid people who don’t believe scientists and refuse to get vaccinated. We have terrible political leadership. We’re American and can never think past next week. There’s money to be made promoting coronavirus lies. And, of course, corporate America wants to go back to “normal” and pay people pittances to clean grease traps at shitty fast food restaurants. So there are a lot of reasons why we are pretending the pandemic is over, but none of them are any good or have anything to do with the actual pandemic being over. Collectively, we’re the little kid playing hide and seek standing behind a tree with their entire body visible, but they have blocked their vision and can’t see us, so they think they’re hidden.
And because the unvaccinated are in large part in poorer areas with a population that has less access to health care, weaker healthcare infrastructure, and a wider prevalence of pre-existing conditions, we’re probably going to lose a couple hundred thousand more people do to variants. We’re not even close to herd immunity, so even if you have been vaccinated, the smart play is to limit contact with people you do not know, where a mask in public, avoid unnecessary exposure (trips to the ballpark, the bar, etc.), and keep washing your hands you filthy animals.
Or don’t. Honestly not going to shed a whole helluva lot of tears if this cuts through a large swath of Trump dead-enders and vaccine truthers in Alabama and Mississippi.
John Cole
Test
TaMara (HFG)
@John Cole: It doesn’t seem to be FP-ers. I’ve only had to release regular comments.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
With Delta zooming in (and Iota and Kappa not far behind), I considered the notion that most judges are making the headlong rush to reopen court in exactly the same fucked up way that it operated before (unvaccinated crowds crowding into filthy buildings for no good reason other than to schedule hearing dates) and opted to double up.
Yeah, I have had both Moderna and Pfizer in full double doses. Wasn’t like the gomers were going to bother using the vials, and if it gives me a little edge, so much the better.
No real side effects so far, but I’m sad to say that I’m not turning into magneto and my body is neither generating nor receiving 5G signals……
CliosFanBoy
I wish it would hit RFK Jr. and his fellow anti-vaccine con artists
SiubhanDuinne
Happiest of birthdays, John! Thank you, every day and forever, for creating Jackal Haven. I’m one of thousands who would be lost without BJ.
gene108
I’m waiting for the post-4-July spike in cases, as everyone assumes it’s back to normal now, and the real explosive spike in cases in the fall and winter as everyone continues to pretend everything is normal, but all the activities are indoors.
Maybe the federal government can employee people to contact the unvaccinated, like they do with the census for people who have not returned their forms?
We are going to be so screwed.
EDIT: Happy Birthday John G. Cole!!! ??????
frosty
@SiubhanDuinne: I’m with you there! Happy B-day to our host and thanks for this site.
Spanky
Mommy!
I mean, is this thing on now?
Old School
@TaMara (HFG):
Make us all FP-ers! Problem solved.
mrmoshpotato
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
Wha? What’s the story there, you super vaxxer?
dexwood
Amen, John. Now take some time to celebrate being who you are today.
dmsilev
I’m glad I escaped this side-effect. Since I work with magnetic materials professionally, it would be a royal pain to make sure that no vaccinated people were causing disruptions to our measurements by standing too close to the equipment.
SiubhanDuinne
@Old School:
LOL! The stuff that dreams are made on…
MomSense
@gene108:
In our state we literally have had mobile vaccine vans, people who make house calls, and one of the highest vaccination rates in the country. The problem is not access. Is it a coincidence that the places with the highest TFG support have the lowest vaccination rates? Nope. These are the dumbest, meanest, most selfish people. They don’t care that children under 12 can’t get vaccinated and that they are more susceptible to some of these newer strains. They don’t care that people who are immuno compromised or going through cancer treatments can’t get vaccinated and need everyone else to protect them. Their stupidity will harm everyone if the virus mutates past the efficacy of the vaccines.
I loathe them. They don’t care who they harm for their precious freedumb.
OzarkHillbilly
@SiubhanDuinne: Sounds like a nightmare to me.
Raven
I live in a Blue county with a large AA population. We have the highest dropout rate in the state on one of the lowest vaccination rates. Lilly white Oconee County that is highly educated and republican has one of the highest. When you figure it out let me know.
cain
Happy Birthday JG Cole! I understand that is your rapper name?
Jeffery
The only way the anti vaccination people are going to learn is to get sick. There’s no guarantee that they will accept the diagnosis when they get covid. For a lot of the younger ones it will be a bad cold. Except for the ones who die or get a long haul condition.
Quinerly
Happy birthday, Cole! Enjoy your day!!!
Ohio Mom
Happy Birthday, John!
It’s funny, I often refer to mysel as having adult onset ADD. I just do not have the power of concentration I had when I was younger.
But somehow my newly easily distracted nature did not slow me down in time least when it came to getting a Covid vaccine. And I have been a dedicated frequent hand washer for about ten years now. I am sure it has reduced the number of colds I get.
As for the stubbornly anti-vax and maskers our there, I would have no sympathy for what happens to them except for the poor medical personnel caught in the middle. I had my annual physical last week and my internist thanked me for getting vaccinated. I said I wouldn’t ever have not considered getting it and she sighed and said, You wouldn’t believe how many people do.
Percysowner
Do I care if the antivax people get Delta Covid. Maybe a little, I don’t like having people suffer. What I really worry about is that one of them will give it to my 3 year old grandchild, who can’t be vaccinated.
Citizen Alan
Honestly not going to shed a whole helluva lot of tears if this cuts through a large swath of Trump dead-enders and vaccine truthers in Alabama and Mississippi.
Double vaxed in Mississippi. I almost screamed at my nephew yesterday. 25yo college educated elementary school teacher and a liberal too! But he hasn’t been vaccinated yet. Not for any political reason. “I just don’t like needles.” I informed him rather coldly that I have to inject myself with Insulin four times a day and to get over it. He said he’d think about it.
Mike in NC
The Orange Clown did everything (or failed to do things) to make the pandemic worse. I honestly think he’s totally convinced it was all just a ‘Democrat Hoax’ to make him look bad. In a couple of years the GQP will be preaching that there never was a pandemic in the first place, and 30% of the morons in this country will agree.
Citizen Alan
@Jeffery: There were Darwin cases screaming that Covid was a hoax even asthey were being intubated.
And PS: Happy Birthday, John!
dmsilev
@Raven: Here in LA, the vaccine divide is racial and economic, not political. Poor and black? Low fraction of vaccinations. Poor and Hispanic? Somewhat higher. Not poor? High.
The county public health people have been doing everything they can think of to improve things, but it’s a long hard slog.
Feathers
I’m really hoping corporate America gets fed up with the anti-vaxxers and starts truly penalizing those pushing the lies. But maybe the tax giveaways and corporate loopholes are doing their intended job of keeping CEO’s, etc., from doing what is best for the country.
Danielx
Anti-vaxxers – if that is the correct terminology – never cease to amaze, in that if it wasn’t for childhood vaccines, a significant number of them wouldn’t be upright and breathing instead of taking premature diet naps.
All one has to do is take a walk in any old cemetery and look at children’s tombstones prior to the 1950s. There are a lot more of them, proportionally, than there are in more modern sections of the same cemetery. It’s right there, written in stone. There’s a reason why preschool vaccinations are required. If people are that stupid…
sdhays
@Percysowner: This is the thing. My son is 2. He’s not going to get vaccinated for a while yet. If the adult population would get its shit together, it wouldn’t be a big deal.
But no. We have a political movement which is animated completely around the idea of making this country as shitty as possible. So we can’t have nice things.
mrmoshpotato
@Citizen Alan:
It’s next to painless. I was thinking about it the other day, and Novocaine injections at the dentist hurt more (and that’s a little pinch to your gums.)
matt the somewhat reasonable
I think it will cut through a lot of them in places like rural Oregon and California, Idaho, Arizona, etc. There are a lot of dumb, stubborn right wing bitches out there.
Yeah, it’s really sad.
Raoul Paste
@dexwood: That’s a wonderful Birthday greeting
matt the somewhat reasonable
@Citizen Alan:
Ayn Rand cackles a little bit in her grave.
MattF
About Lin Wood. Much nuttier than you thought. Vaccine apocalypse is coming.
Jeffro
Dislike all this “we” shit. We Dems/progressives/people who live in the 21st century and respect science/etc should not be lumped in with the Very Stupids.
Doug R
I’m thinking the plague a few hundred years ago cleared out the rigid “thinkers” who couldn’t adapt. And kick started the Renaissance. A few hundred years and we got complacent.
mrmoshpotato
@Jeffro: Thank you. Same way “we” didn’t elect the Kremlin’s orange fascist shitstain. (That framing just comes to mind, not directed at anyone here.)
Some of us (including the birthday boy ?) were responsible with our votes and vaccinations.
Soprano2
Steve Edwards is a bona fide hero. He had a lot of influence on our local city council. I credit him for getting them to take Covid seriously from the beginning, and for keeping the public here relatively well-informed. I’m sure he’s distraught at what’s happening here right now; a lot of it is coming from the rural areas of Greene County and other surrounding counties, where their vaccination rates are a lot lower even than Springfield because they’re MAGA’s.
waspuppet
@Jeffro: I call them the “Joe Biden’s not my real dad” crowd.
Almost Retired
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: AMEN! Many Los Angeles County Superior Court Judges are requiring the attorneys to appear in person for Mandatory Settlement Conferences, especially in the outlying courthouses, where half the staff is shuffling around wearing their masks as chin guards. The clerk in Santa Monica told me people were ignoring their jury summonses in droves. I can’t imagine what jury trials are going to be like in the future, or how the pandemic will affect juror attitudes. All the more reason I’ve chosen the nym I have. Outta there, soon, so I won’t have to find out.
rikyrah
Who is WE?
Certainly not me. I am double-masked everywhere I go, which isn’t a lot of places, because I am not setting foot in a restaurant, or any other place.
I’m going to sit back and watch how this ‘ full opening’ goes for the rest of the folks.
SiubhanDuinne
@mrmoshpotato:
I’m the poster child for needlephobic, and I hardly felt the Pfizer needle, either time. Your nephew won’t even flinch.
rikyrah
@MomSense:
Come sit by me. We’ll be double-masked.
PeakVT
If I was going to make a country-wide armchair psychiatric diagnosis, it would be adult-onset ODD.
Cameron
@Mike in NC: I dunno. I think it’s also possible that in a couple years the history will be rewritten so we’ll talk about the “Biden flu.”
Lyrebird
@Raven: Yeah I’m worried about especially older AA folk in MS and AL. I mean the victims of the lethally racist Tuskeegee experiments were AL residents, right? can’t imagine huge trust of medical research there.
Not something I feel able to do much about, as a pink shrimp toned Yankee, other than give to Fair Fight or something.
SWMBO
@John Cole:
Happy Birthday, JC!
sherparick
@MomSense:
There is still a problem in accessing poor, minority, communities. Of course, in states with Red State governors, they simply don’t give a fuck so we are going to have to rely on non-profits. An unmentioned problem, which should be mentioned a lot, is that the Catholic Church in America is very cool to the COVID vaccines because of an indirect relationship with stem cell research.
dmsilev
@SiubhanDuinne: The vaccine needles are tiny, which really helps. Also, going to a place that gives out a lot of vaccine doses (hospital, mass center, etc.) and telling them that you’re a needlephobe is also good; it’s a common enough issue that the staff has experience dealing with it and making things less stressful.
jeffreyw
@dmsilev:
Black Hoods?
Heidi Mom
Happy Birthday, John, and may you have many more!
Baud
We should make vaccinations automatically mandatory if the Supreme Court overturns Roe. Call it the “My Body My Choice, Or Not Act.”
Jeffro
Rubin going full-on Marxist here (not really but still, totes awesome): The Rich Should Pay More In Taxes, Just Because
piratedan
guessing the problematic problem is … problematic… after years of systemic racism and watching the Government work for those white folks makes people in low income jobs, be they poor, people of color, not highly educated, consumers of main-stream media, what have you… make you dubious about how much trust there is to give. Coupled with 24/7 bad faith actors in our media, both-siders putting their worst foot forward and trolls that influence amongst us on Facebook.. we gets what we get. Doing the “right” thing about public health and vaccinating everyone cuts across the grain of whatever convenient definition of Freedom that you may care to trot out for those folks.
I ping-pong back and forth between fine, let the MAGA’s crowd take their chances and checking my white privilege because I know that those aren’t going to be the only ones paying the freight on this. I don’t have an answer, all I can feel is the same frustration here as everyone else that you need deeds to engender trust and currently a good many of our deeds are stuck behind the assholish behavior being fronted by our senatorial representation in West By Gawd and the Grand Canyon State.
Subcommandante Yakbreath
One of my mentors had polio in the 1930’s, which resulted in one leg shorter than the other and spinal deformation. Didn’t stop him from producing a major body of work, but daily life was hard for him. I have no sympathy for the willful ignorance of the anti-vax movement .
Also too: happy birthday, John, and thanks for keeping this jackal lair going.
sherparick
If you want to help push the vaccinated needle to the following website and video that was in another post below.
https://johnshopkinssph.libsyn.com/336-how-you-can-support-the-us-vaccine-effort
https://www.mobilize.us/madetosave/event/397509/
OzarkHillbilly
OT but this dog should be playing for the Harlem Globe Trotters.
mrmoshpotato
@OzarkHillbilly: Now that is a dog with a basketball jones.
joel hanes
It’s going to kill a lot of low-income low-trust low-access Black Democratic voters in the Black belt in the former confederate states.
HRA
Happy Birthday John!
Yes I have one of those TFG fans living with me. “I don;t want the vaccine”. Huh? Me “Didn’t you get vaccines when you joined the Marines?” Youngest daughter signed us up at the local university and he had no other choice. Still occasionally whines about it and I always have an answer ready.
Eunicecycle
@Jeffery: my daughter the nurse said there are quite a few people who don’t accept the diagnosis. They think it’s a hoax, etc.
MattF
@Jeffro: Not a conservative, anyhow.
SWMBO
@sherparick: Wanna bet the red state governors are vaccinated? What they do privately and what they tell others is ok are worlds apart. TFG got the vaccine and so did Morticia. I’d bet that Barron did too even if he wasn’t old enough at that time. It’s the deliberate misleading of the GQP that irritates me beyond most things. These folks are deliberately ignorant. My sister is one of them. A cardiac stepdown nurse who had Covid in October/November who doesn’t intend to get vaccinated. Our mother died from it and she says it’s not that bad. She just had a bad cold with it and mom was unlucky and had other comorbidities. I would happily slap the bullshit right out of her but it would probably splatter and hit some innocent bystander.
For the vaccine record, everyone in my immediate family have had both of the Pfizer shots. I waited to get mine because I have had a bad reaction to vaccines before. Hives from the injection site, trouble breathing, dizzy, the whole “this is bad” reaction. Most of the other vaccines before this were incubated in eggs. This mRNA vaccine is not incubated in eggs. I got the shot with no side effects other than fever and tired for a couple of days. It was a very real concern but I didn’t have a problem with the vaccine.
The Moar You Know
@Jeffro: it’s justified. A lot of folks of the liberal/otherwise smart persuasion aren’t getting the shots either. Only 45% of the country is vaccinated and shot demand has stopped. That ain’t all Trump voters waiting to contract a nice fat dose of death.
Mary G
@OzarkHillbilly: He looks like Betty’s Badger!
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Citizen Alan: My DIL’s mother is very needle-phobic, but she finally got vaccinated. The neighbor who lived across the street from her died of COVID, which may have had something to do with that.
catclub
@Old School:
You have to WORK to get Frist Post.
… oh that.
MomSense
@sherparick:
Those are people I worry about. It was clear to me early on that when Republicans thought the virus would disproportionately affect blue states and POC they decided to just let the virus run rampant. I don’t care if people think I’m out there. The Trump Administration was trying to kill us. There were some Republican governors and legislatures who also were and still are trying to kill us.
Mary G
Happy Birthday, Blogfather!
I keep harping on this, but the amount of vaccine disinformation on Spanish language FaceBook is huge, and even my housemates’ relatives who work in healthcare and have seen so many friends die of the plague believe it. In my most pessimistic moments, I believe it’s a deliberate strategy to kill off poor people who use too many government resources. It doesn’t seem like the Democrats have any clue or opposition strategy.
Ken
Send them home with a bottle of Theraflu.
Ruckus
@MomSense:
It really is the freedom to be dumb, isn’t it?
Nothing has to make any sense or be in any way real or true, it just has to be what they want and therefore are entitled to. In this case it’s the freedom to be entirely ignorant, stupid, and dead. And the reward is that they get to feel superior, not better, not smart, not even alive, just superior, right up until the moment they die from it. I’m somewhat impressed that there are people who’d rather be dead than not hateful, not racist, not fucking ignorant. I wonder if all of the conservative “leaders” of the world have any idea what they are going to do when all their followers die off at the same time? Or are they just actually as stupid as those who follow them? Looking at some of the people that they have elected, I’m saying yes.
JaneE
If someone refuses to get the vaccine and gets sick and winds up dead, they made that choice.
There are still people who what the vaccine, or would get the shot, but they don’t have it convenient enough to be able to actually do it. Some are just unwilling to be inconvenienced at all, but others do still have access issues.
The place I worked is doing vaccines in the on-site health clinic once a month. First, all the employees and their families have an on-site Kaiser-run clinic and I think they waive co-pays for some or all of the services they provide. Second their pay scales and benefits are very good if not great – e.g. the last 6 month profit sharing was over $18 thousand dollars per person. I retired too soon, I guess. The point is these are middle class or better people with better than average access to low cost health care, and they can get the shot for a 16 minute detour on their way to lunch. Someone whose nearest doctor is 30 or 50 miles away or someone who can’t drive or someone who just can’t take time off work during vaccine drive hours can’t do that. We have 4 or 5 vaccination sites in the county. Fine for most of the people, not so fine for the people who live in the tiny communities almost 100 miles from town. Possible yes, convenient – maybe not.
We had the Pareto principle drummed into us when I was working. The last 20 percent of the benefit may take about 80% of the work. That last mile is really hard. But we need to protect the people who want to be protected. The others can go jump.
Brachiator
@Almost Retired:
I recently got a jury summons and went online and requested to be excused. Even though I have been vaccinated, I am in a high risk group and getting the virus and just getting ill could be very bad.
I am lucky right now in that I work from home and can limit the some of the places I have to go to. Even though Los Angeles County is doing okay with vaccinations, I still want to re-enter the world at my own pace.
MattF
Very OT, fascinating stuff. How do Jupiter and Saturn get their hot atmospheres?
StringOnAStick
Oregon still has a mask mandate and the signs at the stores still say so, but my experience over the last week is that some retail locations aren’t bothering anymore. What gets me is very often I see unmasked adults with unmasked kids under age 12. Willing to kill or disable their own kids to own the libs I guess.
randy khan
@The Moar You Know:
So, that 45% figure is technically true, but actually very misleading. 45% of the entire population is fully vaccinated, but under-12s aren’t eligible, and they are a big chunk of the population. When you look at people who are eligible, we currently have somewhere around 65% of them with at least one shot and somewhere around 55% (a bit less) fully vaccinated. Since the conversion rate for people getting their second shots is extremely high, that 55% is likely to turn into 64% even if nobody else gets a second vaccination. (When you look at the entire population, 53% has at least one shot, and again they’re almost all going to get the second shot.)
Meanwhile, vaccine demand dropped drastically, but then ticked up and seems to be plateaued somewhat north of 1 million a day. That’s not nearly as good as 3 million, obviously, but it’s not remotely zero, either. I think we should expect a pretty fair bump up in vaccinations when under-12s become eligible (plus some bump for return to school vaccinations for the 12-17 cohort).
SWMBO
@OzarkHillbilly: This one is a cutie too.
https://www.instagram.com/reel/CQMC7siJbVp/?utm_medium=copy_link
https://www.instagram.com/reel/CQOqH1gJ27M/?utm_medium=copy_link
Making predictions for the NHL playoffs.
Soprano2
You’re far from alone. I believe this exact same thing – once Republicans thought they figured out who was getting sick and dying of Covid, they quit caring about stopping it. A lot of people here honestly thought it would never be a problem for us because “we aren’t on the coasts” and “we don’t live on top of each other like they do in big cities”. Never mind that you all go sit in church next to each other for a couple of hours every week and sing and breathe on each other……. My mother still says that a lot of those Covid patients who die are morbidly obese, but “they” don’t want to tell you that because “they” want you to stay afraid of dying from it even if you’re healthy. Thank God she took it seriously since she’s over 80 and in the group where it doesn’t matter how healthy you are, you’re extremely vulnerable to Covid.
kindness
You can’t fix stupid. Normally I prefer to ignore them but in cases like this they are disease vectors to those who can’t be vaccinated. I say we use Trump’s plan and send them all the Guantanamo.
MontyTheClipArtMongoose
@Soprano2: el jefe, jarvanka, & the rest of the erstwhile regime all but admitted they viewed covid as serendipitous ethniccleansing.
Brachiator
@Mary G:
I had no idea. This is really sad. It’s like an act of self-sabotage.
There may be some bigots, maybe even some government officials who believe this, but letting Covid linger just puts more strain on the health care system and hurts the economy.
Raven
@dmsilev: That’s my point, railing abut Trumpers not getting vaxxed is silly shit.
Ruckus
@dmsilev:
If you study black history in this country, not that long ago, still in the lifetimes of people alive today, black people were being used without their knowledge as lab rats for horrible diseases. Almost (or actually) like it was intentional that they were being killed. (I have my doubts when people say that it wasn’t actually intentional.) A what, quarter (or more) of the white population “thinks” we’d be better off if we just killed all the black people. And one of the two major political parties in this country seems to agree with them.
Is it any wonder why black people might be suspicious? And if you doubt that, look who was the last president, legally elected or not. He campaigned on racism. We had an insurrection because he wasn’t crowned god/king for life. Was SFB the backlash for electing an extremely qualified, smart, good black man for president, one who didn’t try to kill off all the white people? Because it sure looks like it to me. The fact that it showed exactly who the extreme racists are, how racist they are, and how blindingly ignorant they are, (which was obvious long, long ago) surly wasn’t worth it.
We have a lot of work and a very long way to go in this country if we actually want to be the country that is supposed to be a free democracy.
la caterina
Happy Birthday Cole! Thanks for all you do to keep this place afloat!
mrmoshpotato
@MattF:
Wait. They’re not just naturally (celestially?) sexy?
catclub
I have a hard time buying this when they have walk up shots at Walmart. Could the person who wants the shot but cannot even get to walmart bother to phone the health department and ask for help?
Apparently not.
Pittsburgh Mike
Is herd immunity for Covid-19 reached way before 70%?
I ask, because here in Allegheny County, about 612K of the 1.2M people (50%) are fully covered, with another 178K people partially covered. Yet, since May 16 or so, the number of cases in the county have been clearly declining exponentially; we’re currently down to a 7 day average of 15 new cases/day.
Some of this decline could be due to people spending more time outside, but we’re nowhere near having 70% fully covered, and the numbers are very good.
OzarkHillbilly
@SWMBO: Nothing but net! Well, sometimes.
MattF
@Pittsburgh Mike: It depends on the variant. The Delta variant, which is spreading fast, is more easily transmitted and pushes herd immunity further off.
eclare
burnspbesq
The stuff will hit the fan in Texas beginning a week after Labor Day, aka Week 3 of high school football.
Betty Cracker
Maybe I’m looking at this the wrong way, but as a fully vaccinated person who follows CDC guidelines, I don’t think I pose a danger to people who can’t get vaccinated when I shop or go to restaurants or pubs or movies, and I feel zero obligation to inconvenience myself for the willingly unvaccinated and unmasked people I encounter in public. I don’t want to be a selfish asshole and I don’t think I am, but it’s possible I’m missing something.
NotMax
@Pittsburgh Mike
15 cases per day is a welcome improvement but far from being out of the woods. 15 cases per year might qualify as “very good” numbers.
Ruckus
@Danielx:
FUCKING IF?
Stupid doesn’t began to describe them.
This is not the only country that has a serious racism problem. It is a humanity problem. It is a major problem most everywhere. We live in a time when many/most deadly health issues are at least minimized, when food is for the most part – available, when jobs are for the most part – available, even if not great, education is for the most part – available, healthcare is for the most part – available.
People can have productive lives, can live, and the last major stumbling block is racism. We haven’t actually addressed it as an issue, and we really, really have to do that. Because it sure isn’t going away, it isn’t going to be made better by having a black president or even a black female vice president. It is that issue that has never been properly and openly discussed, and taken out of the back of the closet. It is our worst nightmare and it isn’t going to be fixed by no method at all.
I don’t have an answer but I know that it isn’t going away and it isn’t actually getting better and we have to find a way. We just have to.
Ohio Mom
One thing I’ve learned as I’ve gotten older and been a more frequent user of medical services is shots in arms really don’t hurt much.
It’s shots in your gums at the dentist (as noted by another commentator above) and blood draws/IVs that can be painful. The tourniquet is uncomfortable, and especially when the phlebotomist isn’t particularly skilled. And when it takes several tries…and leaves you with s big ugly bruise…
If you don’t go to the doctor much, I can see how all these types of needles get confused in your memory. Not that that’s an excuse for avoiding taking care of yourself.
Kay
I took my youngest to get his wisdom teeth extracted this AM and he went back to the dentist and I was waiting for him and an older woman came in and started in about “vaccine passports”. I am so fucking bored with these people. The anti-vaccer looked back at me for validation and I just stared at her. I don’t care.
I will never forget how there was a national problem that really could have brought out the best in people and Right wingers took it as an excuse to whine louder and longer than they usually do. Utterly failed in “working with others”. They all get an F.
Soprano2
I feel the same about people around here. I’m sure there are places in the U.S. where pharmacies are few and far between, and they have access issues, but here every pharmacy is offering walk-in shots, and it’s free, so there are no more excuses for anyone.
schrodingers_cat
@Kay: I have a similar reaction to Modi’s acolytes. I am no longer appalled I am bored with them. My internal monolog
schrodingers_cat
@Soprano2: Both CVS and Walmart.
MattF
@Betty Cracker: It’s true that unvaccinated people endanger unvaccinated people and vaccinated people do not endanger vaccinated people. The cross-group risks are less obvious because variants alter infectiveness and, possibly, seriousness of infection. And the risks, whatever they are, aren’t going to zero, ever.
Soprano2
@Raven: Yep, I’m not worried about them anymore, if they want to get sick and die that’s on them. I am concerned for those who still have problems with access to the vaccines and those that want to get it but still have questions. Those are the people we should be concentrating on.
Soprano2
@schrodingers_cat: Walgreens here too, and HyVee, and Target, and pretty much every other private pharmacy has it as a walk-in, and have signs out. The doors at WalMart tell people it’s available inside free as a walk-in!!!!
Poe Larity
Some people are just not going to be satisfied until the death toll reaches 7 figures.
Ruckus
@catclub:
In LA county we had a lot of drive up vaccination locations. One within 5 miles of me, and 5 miles is nothing here, at least one in the SF valley, one at Magic Mountain in the northwest end. Not to mention all the pharmacies and other areas. The drive in places could handle thousands of people per day. They have all been closed but there are still lots of smaller places around. We have cities with over 80% fully vaccinated and yet we have areas that are still less than 50%.
Lots of people don’t trust the government, or the medical community. And that’s not going to change easily, not with the “news” programs and racism and political system that we have. Our political system is broken, way, way too large a segment of our population is actively racist and fucking ignorant and kept that way by design. One of our political parties appeals to the lazy, stupid, racist demographic and works hard at that, because it’s who they are. Do you know any non racist conservatives these days? I don’t.
emmyelle
It’s so unfair that those of us who got ourselves vaccinated earlier are being punished for our success by not getting free zoo tickets.
Also not getting COVID. But, still.
Ruckus
@catclub:
I’ve lived in a county in CA that did not have a Walmart, I think they wouldn’t give them a business permit. Had a Costco and at least one Target. To go to a Walmart I would have had to drive about 40 to 50 miles. Plenty of other places to have shots at though. Anyway, I can see why no one would have wanted or thought, “I’ll get the shot at Walmart.”
Zelma
Happy Birthday, John. And thanks for this place. It keeps me semi-sane.
I live in a resort community in a state with a high vaccine rate. (NJ). The governor has lifted all restrictions and mandates. Almost nobody wears a mask any more. I am fully vaccinated as are all my friends and family. Local numbers are good. But I do worry about the tourists. My town’s population has gone up five- or six-fold. I’m wondering if I should just hunker down for the summer but resuming some kind of “normal” life is so attractive.
Ruckus
@Kay:
It did bring out their best.
Their best just sucks ass.
trnc
Happy Birthday, Cole.
Betty Cracker
I’ve calculated the personal risk from the variants and so forth, and I am willing to take those risks to resume normal activities within CDC guidelines. I’ll be watching for updates and am willing to change my behavior if need be to protect myself and others who are at risk through no fault of their own.
What I’m not willing to do is live my life on emergency footing indefinitely because some people are big fucking babies who refuse to get vaccinations or wear masks to protect themselves. I felt a civic obligation for more than a year, but no more. I did my part. Now they can do theirs or suffer the consequences.
trollhattan
@Ohio Mom:
Last time I had bloodwork the poking was performed, after a fashion, by a “trainee” under the watch of a frealz phlebotomist. Their conversation included this bit of advice: “You’re beneath the vein. If you tilt it upward you can probably get in from below.”
Yay
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
@catclub: I don’t know. I drove through a fairly large chunk of Cleveland not that long ago and didn’t see a single pharmacy until I hit the outskirts of the city where it transitions to the tony suburb of Shaker Heights. Some of the folks that live in the neighborhoods I drove through would, I’m guessing, have to go miles to get to a full service pharmacy and may not have access to a car. Plus the neighborhoods they’d have to walk through aren’t entirely safe.
And even those folks have ready access compared to someone living in a small black town in the rural South. Many of those towns don’t have pharmacies – they’re lucky to have even a small convenience store, and without access to a car the residents (who are poor and may very well NOT have access to a car) are SOL if someone doesn’t bring the vaccine to them. They’d have to go miles, and the rural highways aren’t really safe to walk even if you wanted to walk them (no shoulder).
trnc
Generally speaking, you would think that company mgmt would realize that employees who literally believe whatever they want and have zero responsibility to anyone else are going to become more and more difficult to manage.
artem1s
@Kay:
apparently if you ask a GOPer to do anything other than spend more money at the mall (like put on a sweater or not drive like a madman) you are the devil’s spawn and unpatriotic. Thankfully these weren’t the people who our troops and Europe had to rely on during WWII.
James E Powell
@Kay:
Similar to the right-wing response to 9/11. Two or three days of “we are all Americans” followed by “Democrats are pro-terrorist surrender monkeys!”
LongHairedWeirdo
That is, in point of fact, a succinct statement of Republican strategy. Anyone remembering how, just over a year ago, the Republicans put party devotion over the rule of law, in a shameful partisan refusal to do so much as hold an actual trying of the facts? And earlier *this* year, they did so once again, this time with the dreaded “duh, uther eople sed fight, too, checkmate libturds!” defense…
Cameron
Got a jury notification in the mail – the county courthouse is across the street from the main county admin building, a place that just happened to have a COVID surge big enough to make the papers. Place is officially cleaned up now and it’s not the building I’d be going to, but I’ve declined to serve. I don’t know what I’d run into and don’t intend to find out.
VeniceRiley
@What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?: Uber and Lyft are doing free rides.
?BillinGlendaleCA
Happy b-day Cole.
rikyrah
@MomSense:
How are you ‘ out there’
WHEN IT WAS PHUCKING OBVIOUS.
Don’t let them gaslight you.
They fully intended to kill us.
I remember it all.
COVID was serious…
UNTIL….
the stats came back that it was hitting Black and Brown people disproportionately..
Then, it was OPEN UP THE ECONOMY..
NO, I will never ever ever
forget that shyt.
Never ever.
That is the DELIBERATE MALICE of all of this.
The OPEN THE ECONOMY..
OPEN UP THE SCHOOLS
And, don’t give local authorities the right to protect their own citizens…
Comes from the same racist muthaphuckas…
Don’t let them back you down.
You told THE TRUTH with your whole chest.
rikyrah
@sherparick:
Yet, Pope Frankie made it clear from the beginning, that the vaccine was ok to take.
rikyrah
Happy Birthday, Cole :) :) :)
JoyceH
@Cameron: Manatee County?
schrodingers_cat
@MomSense: He definitely was trying to kill as many Americans as he possibly could. The anti-mask rhetoric and the rush to reopen was a part of it.
Cameron
@JoyceH: Indeed.
Soprano2
This, 1,000 times this. I will not allow myself to be held hostage forever by people who are too dumb to protect themselves from a fatal disease. I’ve done the most I can by getting vaccinated to make sure I am an extremely low-risk person for them to be around.
Ksmiami
@Mike in NC: or hopefully they’ll just be Darwined
KSinMA
@Jeffro: Co-sign.
Happy birthday, John!
JoyceH
@Cameron:
Wow – I saw a news story about Manatee yesterday and this is not 2020’s COVID!
For those of you who missed the story, there are six people in an office. Five get COVID. (Plot twist – the one who didn’t is…. vaccinated!) Of the five, one dies at home, the other four are hospitalized, and one of those four has also died.
Weren’t they telling us last year that most of the people who get COVID don’t even know it, the symptoms are so mild? I’m presuming this latest blast in Manatee is Delta? They say that Delta is more transmissible and once contracted more dangerous than the original virus, but if this one instance is typical, it’s WAY more transmissible and more dangerous!
The Golux
Happy birthday, Cole!
You share the day with my mother. She would have been 96 today, and I am so grateful that she didn’t live long enough to have to endure the Toonces Administration.
bluefoot
@MomSense:
There have been studies on this published recently that confirm this. I will try to dig up the articles. Te data definitely shows that once some people realized that POC were disproportionately affected by COVID, they pushed to open things up, stop public health measures etc. They didn’t care if it was going to kill people, as long as it was people who they see as “lesser.”
I suppose I should stop being surprised by people’s psychopathy, but I still am.
Ben Cisco
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
So you put an engine in your car without taking the old one out?
JoyceH
@bluefoot:
I remember that, but it was less about POC and more that the initial outbreak was mainly hitting blue states. They didn’t care that it was killing Democrats, because it would make a handy cudgel to bash Democratic governors.
https://www.businessinsider.com/kushner-covid-19-plan-maybe-axed-for-political-reasons-report-2020-7
Kayla Rudbek
@rikyrah: these people are the ones who think they’re more Catholic than the pope, and that he’s a dangerous liberal heretic. Too damned many of these idiots in the Catholic Church. And I went to school with a lot of them…
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
@VeniceRiley: Well that would be an option for people in Cleveland, provided Uber or Lyft were willing to pick up people in their neighborhood and they were internet savvy enough to use the apps. In rural Mississippi (yes, lots of people of color live in very small towns there) or anywhere else significantly rural, I don’t think either is an option.
I don’t know why people on this blog want to deny the fact that some people of color are having difficulty accessing the vaccines for various reasons. It’s a problem that needs a solution whether you want to believe it or not.
Cameron
@JoyceH: I think I read that Delta is going to be the dominant strain in FL soon if it isn’t already. Probably see spikes down here after both the 4th and Labor Day.
JoyceH
@Cameron:
And businesses and offices aren’t even ALLOWED to make masks or vaccines mandatory! Sheesh. I simply cannot comprehend the thought processes of some of these Republican governors. I would have thought that keeping their constituents alive would be a value to them.
charon
@JoyceH:
Presidential ambition, thinking ahead to GOP primaries.
And, re others’ comments, the GOP showed its nature in the Reagan administration when AIDS was killing off “undesirables.”
Cameron
@charon: That’s my impression, too. DeSantis only cares about the national Republican audience; he doesn’t give a shit about the people of Florida. But, then, the Florida legislature doesn’t, either.
Spinoza Is My Co-Pilot
@Betty Cracker:
100% with you on this, Betty.
My wife is an infectious disease specialist for a large downtown teaching hospital, her medical colleagues are infectious disease specialists and epidemiologists at this facility and a number of others, including our county health department which spearheaded our mass vaccine sites and are doing community outreach for people who have issues getting vaccinated (access, “hesitancy”, whatever). Pretty much all of these people (including my wife) have worked with the CDC at some time or other (their overall opinion of Redfield’s tenure as CDC Director is, let’s say, ungood). A small subset of these folks have had semi-regular discussions with my wife (and even myself) about the pandemic going back to February 2020, I’ve gleaned as much knowledge from them about the disease as a layman such as myself can, and I’ve followed their lead on dealing with COVID (staying quite isolated from others for about a year, masking indoors — but not outdoors except last summer’s BLM protests — realizing fairly early on that surface disinfecting routines were likely not effective prevention protocols, etc.) .
The general (not entirely unanimous) outlook with this group of infectious disease experts is that the latest CDC guidelines both follow the best evidence and are appropriate for public guidance.
For myself, as a fully-vaxxed (2 Pfizers) individual living in a multigenerational household where the other 3 adults are also fully-vaxxed, I am happy to follow those CDC guidelines (as are the others). I am (we are) highly, highly unlikely to contract the disease (again — I got pretty damn sick with it last year) and on the very remote chance I somehow do, I am similarly highly, highly unlikely to either get very sick with it or die from it. In much the same way, I am highly, highly unlikely to transmit the disease to anyone else, either.
Which means I am no longer masking in public unless the place still requires it (as some do) and I’ve returned to a number of activities from the Before Time. This includes some weekly dance club events that DJ friends have recently brought back — one that still requires masking even on the dancefloor, one that asks for vaxx ID at the door (if you got, then a wristband and you can proceed inside unmasked for the duration, if not, you’re welcome in, but no wristband for you, gotta mask), and another (a techno night) that’s on the honor system (yeah, I know) much like the local Safeway for vaxx/unmasked and unvaxxed/masked.
There’s not much I can do about the unvaxxed (other than cajole a few I know personally to get the damn shot, which actually seems to have helped some) but my behavior in public following the CDC guidelines is no threat to them. I am not the danger.
J R in WV
Both Moderna shots for both of us here in rural WV woods. Would go for Pfizer if I thought there was any of it being administered around here.
You know those portable highway signs that flash and warn BRIDGE CLOSED 8 PM TIL 6 AM or some such information? The county has all their signs flashing FREE COVID VAX CALL 304-NNN-NNNN HEALTH DEPT on highways all over the county. Kroger’s has signs about their free vaccinations 9-10 am every morning!
And this is a poor rural county in the hills of southern West Virginia. Yet my highly educated high tech web master next door neighbor last time I talked with him — they aren’t vaccinated. Highly “Christian” folks, yet willing to endanger their kids, their fellow church attendees. Very helpful neighbors over the years, too, nice people. Yet have heard nonsense about virology and vaccination and health science, and believe it uncritically.
And of course it was obvious that the day the former administration gathered that the plague was (at the time) mostly in Democratic Blue states, they quit giving a damn about any coping mechanism whatsoever, and in fact wanted to prevent people from protecting themselves everywhere. In the nation of Turkey the government sent everyone 7 masks every week, yet our fabulously wealthy nation could be arsed to do shit along those lines.
Grrrr!!!
joel hanes
Ima just leave this here:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-06-21/covid-rebounds-in-u-s-south-where-many-have-shunned-vaccines