On top of everything Mistermix said about that shitlord Steve Scalise turning around and getting vaccinated, the reality of the matter is IT’S TOO FUCKING LATE to get vaccinated in the hot zones. They are already at critical mass. Having political leaders try to convince people to get there vaccine now in those areas of Alabama and Mississippi is the equivalent of researching smoke detectors while the fire inspector is sifting through the ashed of your house trying to determine if it was arson.
I mean maybe, just maybe, if those states went into total lockdown with mask mandates and everything else, including generous subsidies to businesses and workers to get them to stay home, coupled with a rapid deployment of mobile vaccine stations and complete willingness of the entire population to get vaccinated, they could get away with only the already baked in carnage of the currently infected and hospitalized and minimize the bloodbath. But even if everyone got vaccinated today, they would need a second shot in two weeks, then two more weeks to build up resistance, so a month from now they might be in a better place.
BUT NONE OF THAT IS GONNA HAPPEN, and now we just sit and watch the hospitalizations skyrocket as they are:
The death rate will follow, and what we know is that Alabama had sparse medical resources, so the actual cases and death rate will be vastly under-reported and far worse than the actual data.
So yeah, Mr. Motherfucker Steve Scalise, it’s too late to say your sorry.
dmsilev
Yes, but. The but is ‘better now than never’. Certainly, a month or two ago would have been better still, but the more people there are who even start the vaccination process, the slower the exponential growth of the latest wave (even a single dose of the mRNA vaccines gives some limited protection starting a couple of weeks after dosing).
Xboxershorts
How could I know, why should I care….
Somehow, being an unrepentant asshole has morphed into the single most important characteristic and prerequisite for being a republican in America today.
Ksmiami
Yes yes yes. Preach Mr. Cole.
WaterGirl
I’m not sure the people changing their tune actually care about the deaths. I’m thinking fear of lawsuits and possibly polling that shows a coming backlash because the Republicans lied to them. With backlash meaning that it hurts their political chances.
They still do not give a flying fuck about people dying, unless it hurts them politically in some way.
BellyCat
You can’t get elected by dead constituents (except in a few Southern states).
WereBear
All deaths will be blamed on the Biden Administration, anyway. This isn’t about mitigating the damage. It’s about the stock market.
RaflW
And of course there’s the racism in the vax-denier states. KFF data shows, for example, that in Mississippi, Black people are 38% of the population but have been 55% of the cases.
Black Alabamans appear to be getting vaccinated at just below the overall state rate, but of course the state rate is bad. My point being, it’s not just MAGA wingers who aren’t vax’d. Everyone in those shithole states (to paraphrase a memorable jackass – I don’t literally think that) suffers from the garbage GOP political conditions.
RaflW
@WereBear: I think to some extent it is also a recognition that people like Hannity, Scalise etc will face elite shunning if they keep up the anti-vax bullshit while deaths soar.
They still don’t GAF if people die. They just want to be able to go to cocktail parties and/or fundraise from people whose self-image isn’t as depraved as they are.
And yes, I do mean elite shunning! For all these fucks say about “the elite” they are of course firmly in that camp, and when the cameras are off, they’re in the deep end of the fancy-people pool. Just look at preening asshole JD Vance doing a fundraiser in the Hamptons after performatively trashing NYC.
JPL
Marjorie Taylor Greene laughed when she was asked if she bore any responsiblility for deaths now occuring, because of the delta variant. She continues to spread lies about the vaccine. A five year old boy who had no preexisting conditions who lived just outside her district died a few days ago.
Barbara
Of course, if you are already infected it’s too late to avoid infection, but getting vaccinated now and masking and distancing at least for the next two weeks will still protect you and those around you. It’s wrong to shrug and say there’s no point in taking precautions. That isn’t true.
Omnes Omnibus
While it’s too late to prevent a spike, it is still good to get everyone on the ‘get vaxxed’ wagon. “The best time to plant a tree is 50 years ago. The second best time is now.”
eclare
Is that chart for LA?
Four Seasons Total Landscaping mistermix
If we’re going to go down this wholly theoretical path of a fast vaccine rollout, the fastest-to-immunity mRNA vax is Pfizer – three weeks between shots, then two weeks for full immunity. Five weeks. Moderna is 6 weeks. Also, the first shot does very little against Delta, from the research I’ve seen. It’s not like early days.
John was painting an overly rosy picture, unfortunately.
Matt McIrvin
Meanwhile, there’s a big COVID cluster in Provincetown that sort of serves as a preview of how this would play in a largely vaccinated world. Almost everyone there is fully vaxxed, but they’re still transmitting it and getting these largely mild cases, because they were basically acting like the pandemic was over. The town reinstated a public mask mandate.
It’s both a sign of success and a sign of the limits we’re facing. Some officials were saying there would be 10 times as many cases if they weren’t so heavily vaccinated. They’re not gonna die, probably won’t end up on ventilators. But they still can’t pretend it’s gone.
I’ve heard some people arguing that in the endemic-COVID world to come, basically everyone is going to get it sooner or later–it’s just a question of whether, when that happens, you get a nasty cold or go to the ICU. But the top-line numbers are going to be interpreted by the antivaxxers as “vaccines are useless”.
Soprano2
Boy, this is the truth. WAY.TOO.LATE. They’re predicting that our hospitals here in Springfield, MO will be completely full by the end of the week. They sent someone to Dallas on Saturday. There are more people in the hospital here with Covid now than at any other time since the pandemic started! I want them to keep getting vaccinated, and I can see that there has been a slight uptick in my county in first shot vaccinations, but if you didn’t get the second shot by the end of June it’s way too late now to prevent getting infected with Delta here. I keep telling these yahoos that it’s not a matter of if, but when they catch it, since the unvaccinated ones keep going to church together, and to restaurants together, and everywhere else totally not wearing face masks. I was so relieved when I found out my BIL, who is the kind who puts off everything, got his J&J shot in May. His wife, who works for a company that does disaster cleanups, just got her first shot a couple of weeks ago!!
ant
WELL I AINT SEEN NO PLANTS GROWIN OTTA NO TOLIET!
Soprano2
Around here I can guarantee you it’s mostly their voters who are getting sick and dying, because all the liberals already got their shots a few months ago! It is heartening to me that the Assemblies of God churches here are all-in with efforts to get people vaccinated, since conservative evangelicals are a significant part of the vaccine refusal problem.
Jeffery
This is the result of the Fourth of July holiday weekend get togethers. I knew it was coming.
Cheryl Rofer
It’s never too late to get vaccinated. Every vaccinated person will help damp down the spread.
It is too late to prevent a lot of sickness and death that we’ll see in the next few weeks or months, though.
JPL
This is a clip of MTG laughing off a question about her responisbility. aviruAcyn on Twitter: “Reporter: There are children, skinny people who have died of the corons… Greene: *laughs* https://t.co/bunG07Hg4e” / Twitter
@Four Seasons Total Landscaping mistermix: Yesterday I read that those who received the J & J vaccine should get a Moderna also, in order to protect themselves against the delta variant.
Soprano2
Well, it’s never going to be “gone”, so we have to figure out how to live with it.
Barbara
@Soprano2: The same way we live with measles, mumps, flu, etc. We get vaxxed.
TheQuietOne
Scalies, where have I heard that name? Oh right, shot in a softball game and nothing much to say about gun violence. Surprised he’s THIS aware!
Matt McIrvin
@Jeffery: I think it’s mostly the result of Delta (and Gamma in some places) dominating over Alpha, which happened in most places about a week or two before the Fourth. But exponential growth takes a little while to really get revved up.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@TheQuietOne: he denies reports that the used to describe himself as “David Duke, without the baggage”; I, for one, do not believe his denials.
ETA: from his wiki page
he had no idea that a group invested in ‘European-American Rights” might be racist. Also, and I don’t remember this from just last year
OldDave
You can tell Cole is really and truly pissed by the number of typos in his post. Doesn’t matter, I agree with every word, even if I wince from time to time.
zhena gogolia
@JPL:
She’s a monster.
Nicole
Yeah. God, it’s just infuriating. I thought for awhile how, had Clinton been declared the winner in 2016, we’d likely have had 30,000 deaths and she’d be a one-term President because she’d have been blamed for 30,000 deaths and the Republican who would be in the White House right now would be reaping the benefits of her doing the unpopular things to save lives, which they would claim didn’t work because 30,000 sounds like a lot when you don’t have 600,000 to compare it to.
But- a lot of other nations DID do the unpopular things to save lives but they’re still having upswings in cases now anyway because enough other places didn’t do enough to reduce transmission when it was a less virulent virus. So maybe we’d still be fucked.
I think our best case long-term scenario is the pharmaceutical companies developing a Covid vaccine that’s safe for babies and it becoming another one of the early childhood vaccines. My 11-year-old just had his yearly checkup and, in addition to the Tdap booster, got his first dose of the meningitis and HPV vaccines, neither of which existed when I was kid (although obviously meningitis and HPV did), and the meningitis vaccine is now required by NYS law for kids in public middle school. I think it’ll be on states to require the Covid vaccine as part of childhood vaccines, too
ETA: I see NYC public health workers will now be required to either show proof of vaccination or a weekly negative Covid test, starting in August. I think making it a hassle to remain unvaccinated could also be an effective strategy.
Frankensteinbeck
@WereBear:
Republicans* never change their direction in response to the stock market. They only come up with a reason why Republicans are responsible for the good and Democrats for the bad.
*Trump being a rare exception, but that mean Nazi fuck couldn’t keep his mind on anything for more than five minutes – except being a mean Nazi fuck.
Matt McIrvin
@Nicole:
It turns out that, especially with the recent variants, you just cannot hope to keep a lid on this forever with non-medical measures. You can keep it up long enough to get most people vaccinated. But in most of these places, the early success of pandemic restrictions made people complacent about actually getting vaccinated, or even pushing the vaccination program forward. And now they’re getting hit.
The lockdown/masking/social distancing measures and the vaccination program need to go hand in hand, and almost nobody seems to have really gotten this right.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Frankensteinbeck
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Huh. This is news. Yes, if the actual grass roots are starting to turn around, the news organizations will turn with them. It might not show up in the polls. Lying to pollsters is a time honored American tradition. A whole lot of pols probably won’t turn around. They were elected because they’re assholes, to act like assholes, not to deliver anything else their constituents want.
Nicole
@Matt McIrvin: Yeah, you’re right. The US was so freaking lucky in getting access to the vaccine waaaaay ahead of other nations that worked harder to keep the virus contained, and we threw it away because FOX News said to. God, we are so utterly callous about our incredible privilege. It’s infuriating.
Spanish Moss
@RaflW: I think there is an additional reason that blacks in Alabama (and probably other parts of the South) are reluctant to take the vaccine: they don’t trust the government or medical community because of the Tuskegee experiments. My nephew has a black friend there who is not vaccinating their family because of this distrust, they are not Republican.
Omnes Omnibus
@Omnes Omnibus: @Cheryl Rofer: Just hitting this point again. IT IS NEVER TOO LATE TO GET VACCINATED.* Let’s not say that it is.
*Unless you are actually dead.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Frankensteinbeck:
well, as JMM says, it’s the least implausible solution he can think of, i.e. speculation. I do think it may be that older people are, I think, more likely to be concerned, the parents of twenty-somethings reading stories about twenty-somethings needing lung transplants, and those middle-aged parents vote more, donate more, are more connected to politics in general (my own speculation)
Cheryl Rofer
eclare
@Nicole: There is a small private college, Rhodes, in Memphis that is doing the same. Weekly testing or get vaxxed. And there is a charge for the testing.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Cheryl Rofer: “This time you stay home, not us”
I love it.
mvr
That was worthy of DougJ, especially w the tag-line!
The Thin Black Duke
@Nicole: Here’s an essay I wrote about the alternative universe where Hillary Clinton was President, and what would have happened in 2020.
Matt McIrvin
@Nicole: The immune response of young adults to the vaccines seems to be immensely strong, to the point where arguably we might even want to reduce the dose for them. I wouldn’t be surprised if a teenager vaccinated now has some protection for years.
If that carries over to children, it could mean that school vaccination mandates could really squelch this thing in the populations that are currently most likely to transmit the virus. You might still get some. But it’d do a lot to keep big waves from happening.
trollhattan
@Jeffery:
Precisely. The county graphs for July 2020 and 2021 here mimic one another graphically, with last year having greater amplitude (so far), but not by much.
If the post-Thanksgiving graph does the same, we’re in big trouble.
trollhattan
@eclare:
My kid’s college will be the same this fall, although IDK about charging for testing (we can get free walk-in testing here because the feds pick up the cost).
Wag
@Nicole:
I think largely because the countries like Australia, Japan, and SK did not match their excellent social response with an appropriate vaccine response
senyordave
When Scalise was shot I knew he was a shitbag, but until I read more about him I didn’t know how big a shitbag he was. Too bad he did get the vaccine, the House would be better off without him. And yes, Steve, it is too fucking late.
I
jnfr
I just read this story out of Alabama. I really feel for the healthcare workers who are caught up in tending all these dying, unvaxxed people.
I’m sorry, but it’s too late’: Alabama doctor on treating unvaccinated, dying COVID patients
JPL
@Cheryl Rofer: Sounds good, but Josh Marshall says it is fake.
Woodrow/asim
Ramming it home. I really don’t care, right now, why these modern-day George Wallaces are singing the “let’s get vaxxed” hymn; saving people’s lives, and getting this pandemic turned around, must be paramount.
This is why it sucks to be the good, and ethical, folx in a fight, y’all.
Fair Economist
@Matt McIrvin: The endemic COVID world is already here. It’s in every country; people who have had it are getting it again; there are no prospects for eradication.
The only sense that it’s not endemic is that we’re still in the pandemic phase where many with no immunity are getting it.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
Is it wrong that I want Tom Barrack to catch the Delta variant and suffer the glories of jailhouse medical care before dying miserably, surrounded by shouting inmates? And would I want that to all be caught on video for my amusement?
different-church-lady
Oh well, politics is messy. I guess it’s a good thing for them the virus only kills people in the blue states.
Nicole
@Matt McIrvin: The research being done on younger kids is using smaller doses because yes, their immune systems, with their naive T cells, are better at recognizing new infections faster than adults’. I want to say the current vaccine is 30 micrograms and the one being tested on 2-11 year olds is 10, but I may have the numbers misremembered.
I think requiring the vaccine for school would be a huge help. While they’re at it, they should also require the regular flu vaccine.
JPL
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: If he spilled the beans on the giant grift that the trump inauguration was, then okay.
dww44
@WereBear: Yep, this is what I concluded yesterday evening. Their monied corporate funders told them to cease with the anti-vax stuff forthwith because it was impacting their bottom lines, and we all know that money is the be all and end all in the GOP, in spite of the evangelicals and the crazies. After all, together all of them elected a “business man” as President.
different-church-lady
Speaking of messy, the visual-editor edition of the comment box has found a fresh new way to misbehave — type your comment, hit post and coughs up an error like you’ve tried to post without typing anything. Text-editor tab is working fine.
Nicole
@Wag:
Yeah. What I’m unclear on is if they didn’t have the vaccine in abundance because they didn’t want to spend the $ or if they couldn’t get their hands on enough doses.
RaflW
@Matt McIrvin: As someone who never took a flu shot*, it will be interesting to see how this plays out. Because Covid will of course be endemic. And as was touted (for stupid reasons), the flu can be deadly as well — more or less so based on what strain(s) are prevalent in a given season.
But a lot of people get the annual flu shot because it does reduce the risk, while of course not being anywhere near the effectiveness of Pfizer or Moderna Covid vaxes. One didn’t hear ‘oh, flu shots are a hoax’, though sadly we may from some quarters going forward.
* I recently turned 55, and had for a few years now been planning on adding a flu shot to my annual care at this milestone as the data suggests the flu shot gets more important as one ages. So, I wasn’t a denier, just a delayer.
Brantl
@ant: You haven’t been to Appalachia, have you?
Mike in NC
Trump is both an illiterate moron and an economic illiterate: he based the state of the nation’s economy on the strength of the stock market, which is absurd. But the GQP is devoted to him, and if he said the coronavirus is a hoax — made up by the Chinese and Democrats simply to make him look bad — that has to be true. So no masking, no social distancing, and no vaccinations are GQP doctrine.
scav
I figure the rising tide of “Covid is now a Red State phenomenon” headlines caught some of their handlers attention too.
Jeffro
Might I suggest we take a break from Covid and the GQP to point and mock the Monsignor – one of several who wanted to deny Joe Biden communion for being a bad Catholic – who just resigned ’cause his Grindr usage and gay bar visits were about to go public?
LOL
Always, always the projection with these people.
Matt McIrvin
@RaflW: I heard a LOT of bullshit about flu vaccines every year–not so much conspiracy theories, but so many people would swear up and down on the Bible that the flu shot gives you the flu and they know because it happened to them.
And it was always hard to say whether they were mistaking a day or so of vaccine reaction symptoms for “getting the flu”, or if they just happened to get the flu after getting the shot (because the things are far from 100% effective and it takes weeks to build up full immunity anyway). But, inevitably, they WILL NOT be convinced that the vaccine doesn’t give you the flu.
germy
It’s a horrible situation.
RaflW
@Nicole: Based on how Canada has done, a Clinton presidency might have had the unfortunate tally of 300,000 deaths. A huge difference from Trump, but likely to have led to a punishing loss none the less.
I’ve often thought about, despite my massive complaints about how Dubya dealt with 9/11 (and didn’t deal with the intelligence before it), that had Gore been president, and Bin Laden’s determination borne bitter fruit on that date or some other, the nation would have been torn completely apart.
Not that we aren’t still working thru the aftermath — I believe that Trumpism and the nihilism of the entire GOP are descended from that attack. But had Gore been president, given the ‘soft on terrorism’ frame that is necklaced around Dems (falsely!), the political aftermath would have been off-the-charts bitter and nation-rending.
Frankensteinbeck
@dww44:
When the choice is plutocracy or hate, the GOP almost always chooses hate. It’s pretty rare for there to be a conflict, but you can see it in examples like the Covid stimulus packages, which the business community loved and wanted more of, but McConnell’s Senate refused to touch.
Ruckus
@WaterGirl:
There won’t be much of a backlash if the voters are dead.
Which of course is pretty much a forgone conclusion because we know that people are not going to change fast enough, who is going to put shots in arms, where are they going to go when every hospital bed is taken, when the medical staff – quite possibly not vaccinated either is dead as well. This is directly on the conservative “news” segment, the conservative politicians in those red states, and those citizens themselves. We have over 60% fully vaccinated in the city I live in, meaning 35+% are not. A number of cities in the area are over 80%, but people will die here as well. Masking is pretty good, in stores, some are real sticklers for masking and we are 3 days back to masking indoors.
This is not over and the conservative areas of all states are under vaccinated because of conservative politicians, faux news and general stupidity. Vaccinated people will die as well, especially as many states will not shut back down.
The conservative politicians and conservative “news” TV and newspapers would be guilty of fratricide, except that is the accidental killing of one’s own forces in war and there is nothing accidental about this. It was an asinine, murderous attempt to gain political points, by people who all decided to vaccinate so as not to be killed, to “inform” their followers that a worldwide pandemic was a hoax.
As Belly Cat stated, “You can’t get elected by dead constituents (except in a few Southern states).” How are they going to justify a full electoral turnout with half their citizens dead?
Nicole
@RaflW:
I avoided the flu shot for ages, telling myself I was young, healthy, it was good for the immune system to have a fight, blah blah blah. Then, in my mid-30s I caught flu for the first time in almost 15 years and remembered that oh yeah, when you have flu, you wish you were dead. I recovered pretty quickly; five days after symptoms started I felt back to normal, but I have gotten the flu vaccine every year since then because life is short and I don’t want to spend any more days lying in bed being sick than I absolutely have to. I mean, sure, you’re less likely to die from flu when younger, but why risk wasting any of those healthy days?
germy
@Cheryl Rofer:
GrannyMC
They took on BigPharma. I will not be surprised to learn that the sudden change of tone at Fox followed receipt of a letter from Pfizer’s lawyers.
germy
trollhattan
@Nicole:
Last time I had the flu I was sick as hell with “just kill me” thoughts crossing my addled mind, frequently. Ever since I’ve had the jab annually. The main risk seems to be they guess wrong about which flu(s) will circulate, since they’re making the decision nearly a year ahead. There’s also the possibility of allergic reaction from the eggs used in production.
Frankensteinbeck
Removed. It sounded wrong and was unnecessary anyway.
Ruckus
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
It is, as many have pointed out, hard to get elected by dead people. Not impossible mind you, just difficult.
jnfr
@Nicole:
I last had the flu decades ago and I thought I might die. Flat on my back for two solid weeks and even after I went back to work it was six weeks before I felt normal.
It was a terrifying thing, and I’ve had a flu shot every years since (except one, when there were shortages).
Nicole
@RaflW: Yeah, it’s hard to say. I cannot help but think had Gore been in the WH, 9/11 wouldn’t have happened, since a Gore administration wouldn’t have thrown out everything the Clinton one had done on bin Laden, but that’s just speculation.
That said, had it happened under Gore’s watch, I do feel certain it would not have been used as an excuse to demonize the opposing party.
brendancalling
The people I know and love in Alabama are already vaccinated. Those Alabamans who aren’t vaccinated are unprotected by choice. They are almost certainly MAGAts, and their idiocy has made the pandemic worse since day one. I agree it’s too late for Alabama, and Scalise’s turnabout won’t work.
I also don’t care what happens to their unvaccinated, who did this to themselves.
Belafon
I can’t embed at work, but Republicans are in such a panic mode that nearly all of them are pushing the vaccine:
“This is heartbreaking. Getting the COVID vaccine only takes a few minutes. It’s effective, safe, and doesn’t cost you a dime.
I got mine, and I encourage you to talk to your doctor about getting yours.”
– Tuberville
https://twitter.com/SenTuberville/status/1417845824529252353
Nicole
@trollhattan:
@jnfr:
The flu is just awful. I had Covid at the very end of last year, and it was actually milder for me than the flu was- I had 3 days of 103 fever and two weeks of fatigue, but I was never bed-ridden like I was with flu- BUT- that was because Covid has a wide range of symptoms and severity in how it attacks people and I happened to be one of the luckier ones. Flu, not so much. When you have it, you KNOW it. And you wish you were dead.
I get allergies and immune system issues for some people complicating vaccine decisions, but for most of us- man, there’s a shot to reduce the chance I might get severely ill? Why wouldn’t I take it? I just still feel stupid that it took me living the GOP creed of it’s-not-a-thing-until-it-happens-to-me where the flu vaccine was concerned. Never again.
Belafon
@JPL: Where did you read that?
Mary G
“The virus is a Democrat hoax” is just another voter suppression technique that the right has created, but for the wrong voters.
Another Scott
@Cheryl Rofer: That’s the sensible, science-based path forward. I assume it will be the eventual path for the USA as well, as soon as the CDC gives full approval (though implementation will drag out in many areas).
We’re used to required vaccinations, and they were not controversial until TFG and his minions weaponized it on a national scale. E.g. Fairfax County Public Schools:
I remember transferring to another school district as a kid and not having my vaccination records and having to get all the shots again before being admitted. Even for diseases I had as a kid. It was annoying, but not a big deal.
The quicker sanity returns to our national politics the quicker we can make progress on the pandemic and many other national and international problems.
Cheers,
Scott.
Nicole
@Another Scott: I’m so glad the HPV vaccine is starting to be required. Scotland had a great success story with it:
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-47803975
Nora Lenderbee
@Belafon: Is it too much for one of them, just one, to say, “We were wrong, and President Biden is right”?
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
Everyone in this thread that is saying “let the unvax’d suffer and die” needs to STFU.
Children under 12 don’t have a choice to get vaccinated yet.
There are others who legit can’t get it, or it’s not enough due to other conditions.
In your moral universe, do these folks deserve to suffer and die?
ETA example from the thread: “I also don’t care what happens to their unvaccinated, who did this to themselves.”
Wyatt Salamanca
h/t https://www.al.com/news/2021/07/im-sorry-but-its-too-late-alabama-doctor-on-treating-unvaccinated-dying-covid-patients.html
artem1s
@RaflW:
August 8th memo, the Clinton administration imploring W’s transition team to pay attention to Bin Laden, and the Clinton administrations attempts to keep tab on bin Laden’s funding sources suggest that the intelligence community was clearly on top of the threat. There is no reason to believe Gore or his National Security Advisor would have dropped the ball. It’s far more likely Gore would have ordered some preemptive action to try to take out bin Laden just as Clinton did. And he would have received all kinds of attacks from the media and GOP leadership for doing so. I think there is a pretty good chance the average American would never have known who the hell bin Laden was if Karl Rove hadn’t rigged the FL election and/or Sandra O’Connor had dissented on the SCOTUS decision on the recount.
smith
I remember back in the day when (probably) Karl Rove mocked Democrats for their attachment to reality when Republicans just invented whatever faux reality suited their purpose. The idea was that they’d be sailing forward while we scrambled to keep up.
And to a certain extent it worked, at least until the times when reality got so real it bit them in the ass. This has happened repeatedly, starting with the clusterfuck that was the Iraq war. But they keep running the play, and often squeak by ahead of any consequences. Guess they have just woken up to the fact that viruses don’t care about your epistemology, only your cells.
Another Scott
@Four Seasons Total Landscaping mistermix: Of course, the fastest way to crush the virus is via the standard, boring, old-fashioned public health measures – masking, distancing, staying out of large gatherings (especially indoors), and contact tracing and quarantine/isolation.
Vaccines will help keep people from dying, masking and all the rest will quickly crush transmission if people will simply do it.
TDB interview with Larry Brilliant (from June):
We know how to beat this. Vaccination is just a part. We need to do the work.
Cheers,
Scott.
Nora Lenderbee
@Formerly disgruntled in Oregon: One can distinguish between venting one’s feelings and actually wishing death on people.
Ruckus
@Matt McIrvin:
I’ve been hospitalized for over a week after vaccinations before, with a fever of 105 deg so at least one person you know of has been. I was still at the head of the line at the VA to get vaccinated for covid, I had an appointment within an hour after they allowed my age group. I still take other vaccines for deadly things, I may start taking the flu vaccine, which I normally don’t do just because I’m more susceptible now because of my age and medical history. I’ve never declined a vaccine for political reasons, only because of my personal medical history.
My point is that some may have legitimate health reasons for not being vaccinated. Politics is absolutely not one of the acceptable reasons. Also the mRNA vaccines do not give one a weakened version of the disease. And while a lot of people, including myself had a reaction to the mRNA vaccines, it is because of what the vaccine does for the body, not because of what it does to it. (The J&J is also different than old timey vaccines that use a weakened bit of the illness it fights, in that it is not an mRNA vaccine but it does the same sort of thing with a different type of coding.) The reaction that I had was 2 days of not being able to do basically anything. No fever, which told me that this was my body adapting to something new, not being made sick.
Martin
Here’s my theory about the vaccine memo that got this sudden 180.
We’re deep in the thick of redistricting, which means there’s a whole bunch of nerds like me out there running data models to figure out how to draw district lines. In order to gerrymander successfully, you build some districts that are as close to 100% democratic as possible and you build more districts that are 55% republican so you can squeak by with a lot of narrow victories, while taking a small number of massive defeats.
I’m guessing there’s a whole bunch of these guys working for Republican legislatures running these maps with a big fucking footnote at the bottom: *Assumes that you stupid motherfuckers don’t kill off the 5% buffer from Covid.
The more aggressively you try to draw those maps, the more you need to shove democrats into dark red districts so you can minimize the number of Dem strongholds you’re choosing to give up. But those are the places where between now and next Nov, enough GOPs could die from Covid to cause the map to backfire. I think the nerds have gotten word out to the party leadership that keeping their voters alive might be in their electoral best interest (radical, I know). And because these maps need to be locked down in the next few months, it leaves a fairly large window of time that they can’t control for the outcome using the maps – but they can using the vaccine. And that’s why everyone from Fox News to Newsmax to Scalise are jumping on board all at the same time.
Omnes Omnibus
@Nora Lenderbee: It doesn’t hurt to make the point that was made. Callousness can be an unflattering look.
rikyrah
They have killed – en masse.
I think about it.
I think about how 99 out of 100 COVID DEATHS TODAY WERE COMPLETELY PREVENTABLE.
It’s mind-boggling.
And, for what?
All these people dying to what?
Own the libs?
Really?
Seriously?
And, we haven’t even gotten to the ones who will suffer from long-term COVID and those disabilities.
rikyrah
@Martin:
Hmmm….
You might be right,.
rikyrah
@Wyatt Salamanca:
I read this article and it broke my heart. I thought that I had hardened my heart enough, but, no, the complete waste of life still gets to me :(
VFX Lurker
Or the grief of the surviving family members. ?❤
JPL
@Belafon: It’s several places now, although I don’t remember the original source…
Dr. Vin Gupta encourages J&J vaccine recipients to get a Pfizer or Moderna booster (msn.com)
ET
Louisiana was a hotpot in March 2020 and is part of the country that is low mask wearing, low vaccine uptake, and never really managed to get as low as a state that had so much early death should have. With the delta variant Louisiana is just 2 states away from the big hotspot on Missouri and had it own hot spots.
Scalise “represents” the 1st district in southern Louisiana and I think his district has many of the state’s positive people – at least as of this from July 9 NPR piece – it is likely this map looks worse – and many of those may be or are likely, the delta variant.
Ruckus
@Nicole:
I have in the past been the opposite as far as the flu is concerned, I’ve never been as sick with the flu as flu vaccines have made me. So I understand being vaccine hesitant. But life changes and hopefully goes on. We age and become less resilient, less able to resist the thrill of suffering diseases because the vaccine is/has been worse for some of us. The disease can kill us, the vaccine just often makes us sick. It’s russian roulette but with virus instead of a projectile weapon.
Dan B
@Nicole: I had the Hong Kong flu as a child. I was a healthy young kid until that flu. I was delirious for 24 hours and had nightmares and horrible pain for days.
My father had the Spanish Flu and suffered disfiguring sinus infection (open and draining) for nearly 40 years.
I had very unpleasant side effects from the vaccines. The only delays in getting the flu shots was when I was working 60+ hours a week. The delay might be until December.
The mRNA vaccines may have the side benefit of revving up your immune system so you don’t become sick from other diseases. Friends with MS and those on immunosupressants need us to stay healthy.
sdhays
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: Yes.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@Ruckus: Delta isn’t going to kill half of those people. At most, it will kill 2 or 3%. That is a LOT of people, but it isn’t as many as you think.
As an FYI to BJ posters in general, I can’t be on board with rooting for death, even for those who may have it coming. I can (probably pointlessly) root for an awakening, for wisdom, for lessons learned… but not death or destruction of communities. I think part of what’s driving Trumpist rage is the destruction of small town communities. Its not that these folks are suffering economically, its that it deeply wounds their pride. That makes them so desparate to believe any old con man who tells them they are the best and what they see around them isn’t their fault. And yes, misogyny and racism are part of why they think they should be doing so much better than the rest of us.
Another Scott
@Martin: I’m sure that’s part of the consideration.
The Census numbers aren’t going to be released until August 16 though.
https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2021/07/upcoming-release-of-2020-census-redistricting-data-paint-clearer-portrait-of-america.html
Cheers,
Scott.
UncleEbeneezer
@JPL: That NYU study is far from conclusive: https://www.10news.com/news/in-depth/no-a-new-study-doesnt-show-the-j-j-vaccine-is-ineffective-against-delta
rikyrah
@Mike in NC:
All the while, the Orange Muthaphucka has been FULLY VACCINATED SINCE DECEMBER
sdhays
@Martin: Just to build on your point – COVID doesn’t have to kill that 5%. Some will die, but others will have long COVID and others will know people who died or have long COVID. Some of those people may just give up on worrying about voting. And some of those people may be angry at the local response to COVID and have their John Cole moment.
In marginal districts, that can all add up fast.
Robert Sneddon
@UncleEbeneezer:
The Science! (tm Agatha Heterodyne) on booster shots isn’t done yet. There are trials happening now, giving booster shots to volunteers who were vaccinated more than six months ago to see if their antibody titers improve. It’s double-blinded with proper protocols, not anecdotal or barely sourced “studies” of a dozen or so selected cases.
The first trials should be releasing some data and interim results next month at which point the Schmott Guys (tm Dimo) can tell us what’s the best option and sort out some kind of schedule for booster shots if needed.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@Cheryl Rofer: Bon!
rikyrah
@The Thin Black Duke:
I will believe forever, that if Hillary had been President, 90% of our COVID Dead would still be alive. I just can’t get past that belief. And, all those hearts that wouldn’t be broken right now.
rikyrah
@jnfr:
I cry everytime I see the article linked.
Richard
@Omnes Omnibus: yes.
Jay
https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/564114-im-sorry-but-its-too-late-doctor-says-hospitalized-covid-19-patients-asking?amp
Richard
@Omnes Omnibus: yes.
@dmsilev: it will be too late for many, but every person who gets vaccinated is a step closer to containing this disease.
Kcenya
Zombies. How apropos
randy khan
To be clear, vaccine response starts very quickly, so getting vaccinated starts to protect pretty soon. Studies on Pfizer or Moderna (maybe both) have found close to J&J levels of immunity by the time you get the second shot. So if you get a shot today and don’t have COVID-19, your chance of getting it literally drops every day until you reach full immunity.
PenAndKey
@Formerly disgruntled in Oregon:
I have an 11 year old son and a daughter that’s not even 2. I also live in a semi-rural part of WI with horrible vaccination rates. Every single able bodied person that is qualified for the vaccine but who doesn’t get it is a direct threat to my children.
Would I prefer that the unvaxxed people in my community get vaccinated and survive? Yes. Do I feel any sympathy for them when they don’t, contract the disease, and die a horrible death? Absolutely not. They brought it on themselves, and as far as I’m concerned every one of them they does is one less threat to my children. And because I’m mildly obese and have hypertension myself, they were a real and credible threat to me until I received my vaccination.
After a year and a half of being surrounded by people who put their bar habits ahead of the life and death of their community, I’m all out of fucks to give. They threatened my life. They’re currently threatening my kids. As far as I’m concerned they can all face the consequences and my only response will continue to be “good riddance”.