There are a couple of different approaches to the unvaccinated. The first one, from a wonderful and kind Alabama practice, is to hear the idiotic, moronic, uninformed, plainly stupid objections of their patients and to try to gently nudge them towards vaccination. On the day that the Post reporter visited, a PA at this practice convinced only one of the 11 unvaxxed to get a shot. Another approach, also from Alabama, is for the physician to stop seeing patients who aren’t vaccinated. Three patients got it as soon as they heard that news.
For the rest of us who, thankfully, didn’t take an oath to treat these folks, whatever they say isn’t worth hearing, unless it’s a legitimate concern about access (like, “I can’t risk a day out sick in my low paid job.”) Kind listening is a waste of time — more mandates are the way to go. Good on Jay Inslee for leading the way by mandating vaccinations for all school employees. And this will probably help, at least a bit:
In a somewhat related vein, I can’t bring myself to give two shits about what caused a mentally ill Trumpet to drive his pickup from North Carolina to DC while broadcasting on Facebook. I will give his ramblings attention in proportion to the amount of thought that went into them: precious little. The goal of these noisemakers is to elicit a response. The ones who aren’t crazy are just cynical, and none of them have an ounce of good faith.
Democrats, especially elected ones, need to re-wire themselves to stop listening to these bad faith idiots, and stop calibrating their responses to perhaps not enrage them too much. Every Democratic governor who has Democratic state legislature needs to institute vaccine passports for every non-essential social activity, as well as mandating vaccines for schools, just as Jay Inslee did. Then let these maroons yell and scream. As our vaccination rate creeps up, it’s clear what the majority want, and we need to listen.
Another Scott
Belt and suspenders, Mix. Belt and suspenders.
It doesn’t cost more to nudge people while also rolling out mandates. They don’t have to be exclusive.
Biden’s still nudging and he knows how to do this politics stuff.
Cheers,
Scott.
Ken
If cost-sharing isn’t waived, the COVID treatment will count against my yearly deductible, so maybe I should try to get COVID and that knee replacement in this calendar year….
TeezySkeezy
Re: the point about not calibrating responses to the nutcases: it would help if these people would regularly get arrested for their disruptions. Proud Boys assaulting protesters; anti-vaxxers and anti-maskers disrupting meetings, testing centers, assaulting people in line….All these people would be great to cast out of the light, but when trying to ignore their voices only makes them worse and we seem powerless to even let them spend one night in jail, hard for a politician to ignore them.
One thing the last several years of right wingers assaulting people in the street and disrupting meetings has taught me–a lot of behavior I was once sure would get you arrested quickly actually won’t get you arrested at all, as long as you are a right winger with politics aligned with that of the “blue.” If that doesn’t change, we haven’t got a chance.
Chetan Murthy
i can’t risk arriving late to my job; that’s why i sped in that school zone and ran over those kids.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
I think that’s a good a summary of Trumpism as it gets “anything to get attention” . I’ve heard arguments that even if Trump urged his followers to get vaccinated, they wouldn’t, for the same reason.
craigie
Probably not what they mean when they bleat on about “personal responsibility”.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@TeezySkeezy: I’ve been told that during the anti war protests in the 60s the police would back away when the birchers would show up and attack the protestors. This is more of long term problem like sexual harassment that needs to named and shamed to force society to deal with.
sab
@craigie: I hope there is some exception for those who cannot get vaccinated ( children under twelve and those with legitimate medical exceptions.)
stinger
@craigie: Not sure how insurers will be able to get away with it, since that level of bottomless stupidity and willful ignorance is a pre-existing condition.
emmyelle
I was struck by the growing preponderance of “mandates” that say “get vaccinated or submit to weekly testing”. I find this problematic, in language and in substance. “submit to” seems like exactly the kind of wording that will trigger these “keep your government out of my life” types. It’s really an unfortunate choice.
But it also casts “weekly testing” as a punitive measure, instead of a goddam fucking privilege.
I work at a medical campus of a large university. We have a) a vaccine mandate, b) a mask mandate, and c) required weekly testing.
You can say that’s overkill, and praise be to Jesus maybe someday soon we will decide it is. But right now, we are working closely with each and with patients and in classrooms and lecture halls and we would like to have some freaking celebratory events and receptions once in a while.
Since we are (or will soon be) all vaccinated, some significant number of us could be harboring delta in our noses without having any symptoms. What that means is that it can spread like a California wild fire, and people could bring it home to their kids, or the immune-challenged or co-morbid among us could get quite ill.
I swear to god every time I get my negative test results, I say a little prayer.
WE’re not afraid here, we are just careful. I go to restaurants, I will travel when I have to, I visit my mom in the old folks community, I let my vaccinated kid host and go to sleepovers with other vaccinated kids.
But this is no joke and I am extremely grateful that my employer has decided that we also test weekly. No one “submits to” any fucking thing.
Nicole
Man, I’m so tired of the “tread gently with Covid deniers” thing. I feel like the unvaccinated are the abuser and we are the abused spouse being told not to do anything to make them mad. I’m perfectly happy for the government and/or private employers to make their unvaxxed status inconvenient for them, and the more inconvenient the better.
And props to the Florida school districts who said, “Bring it” to the governors’ threats about mask mandates. Fine reminder that those in charge can only govern with the consent of the masses.
emmyelle
@sab: Better to say “medical exemptions” rather than exceptions. Most places have a process for medical exemptions. The bar is, or should be, high. But it’s possible.
We can tolerate a certain level of unvaxed individuals in the population, including kids, medically exempt, or people with conditions that prevented mounting a good immune response to the vaccine. But we need to have everyone else vaccinated.
Percysowner
@Chetan Murthy: Are you living paycheck to paycheck, trying to feed your family, make rent and utilities and missing 1-3 days of work will make doing all of those impossible?
I want people to get vaccinated too. I also realize that people who say the can’t afford to take time off of work really can’t afford to LIVE on the paycheck that they will get if they miss work. We’re not just talking the short period of time for the shot, we are also talking the 2 days you can possibly miss if you happen to suffer side effects.
Basically, I have sympathy for those who say then can’t afford to take off work. It’s one of the reasons I totally support giving people $200-$400 to get the shot. It will offset the loss of pay. With the labor shortage, there is less of a chance people will get fired for missing work after vaccination, but if not being fired could be mandated, that would be better.
I do, however have ZERO sympathy for Vax deniers or those who are using “FREEDUM” as their excuse. They can suffer all the penalties we can visit upon them.
Mike in NC
Pure coincidence that the people I know who refuse to get vaccinated are the same assholes who believed Obama was a Muslim born in Kenya. Shocking!
NotMax
Speak softly and carry a big needle.
Just Chuck
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
They are incapable of shame. How about prison?
catclub
But why do they think they can afford the 7 to 14 days off that isolation with covid takes up?
The calculation: I might feel bad for a day if I get the vaccine. But that is far worse than getting long covid, or dying from it.
sab
@emmyelle: Thank you for the correction.
Fair Economist
@emmyelle:
That might well be intentional. The idea with those requirements is to require vaccination indirectly, by making the alternative onerous. Phrasing it to act as a trigger will make it even harder on refusenik assholes.
If I worked with somebody like that, I’d probably say “what were the results of you submitting?” every week, just to rub it in.
It is indeed a privilege to be able to be tested when necessary. But in this case we may benefit from not pointing that out.
WaterGirl
@Ken: Don’t even joke about that.
Dorothy A. Winsor
Can someone explain to me what would constitute a “religious” exemption to a vaccination mandate? Someone yesterday told me those were things and I asked how this was religious, to which she said she didn’t know.
Geo Wilcox
@catclub: My daughter was sick for a full week after her second Moderna shot. Luckily she was working from home and had the ability to drag herself to her computer to complete her work. Not everyone is so well placed.
oldster
“Then let these maroons yell and scream. As our vaccination rate creeps up, it’s clear what the majority want, and we need to listen.”
Hear, hear! No more cringing, no more cowering. What we’re doing is not only right, it’s popular, too.
And the same thought applies to Biden’s pulling the plug on Afghanistan: it’s right, it’s popular, and it’s going to turn out to be a political winner once the shriekers stop shrieking.
It’s a good time to be an unapologetic Dem. We have nothing to apologize for.
dr. bloor
@catclub:
They’re not going to isolate unless they’re sick. I’m with @percysowner on this one–there is a group of folks who do not have the options (or cannot see how to create the options for themselves) that most of us take for granted.
ETtheLibrarian
Yesterday was a trial for those of us in the area.
I think I saw the he thought he was at the Capitol (he thought there were two). Instead he was at Jefferson Building – which in fairness does have a dome but IN NO WAY LOOKS LIKE THE CAPITOL DOME WHICH IS ALL OVER TV AND MOVIES AND PICTURES……..
Percysowner
@catclub: They can’t, but they hope they won’t get it, or that it will be asymptomatic. Basically they are living on a prayer and relying on chance. I think it’s a bad plan, but I’m comfortable and I worked in jobs that had good insurance and paid time off. I never had to choose between taking care of my health and feeding my kids. I was very, very lucky.
Peale
@Dorothy A. Winsor: You basically say “Jesus” and then you’re good to go. Seriously. We don’t have an established church or authorities to give doctrinal backing. If you say you’re a follower of Jesus, you’re objection is as good as one written by the Patri-arch-lama of the Moon.
Starfish
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Some school districts are leaving gaping holes in requirements by allowing religious and philosophical exemptions. Some of this was around for anti-vaxxers who existed in the before times too.
Immanentize
@Dorothy A. Winsor: I can explain. It is bullshit. I checked, even the Christian Scientists are pro-vacvine as part of a person’s duty to their community. Thank you Mary Baker Eddy.
The Moar You Know
@emmyelle: We actually cannot tolerate having kids unvaccinated. They’re the prime vector at this time. Vaccinating the children needs to start now, and making vaccination a non-optional requirement to attend school also needs to start now, or they’re going to end up missing most of another school year. And killing at least another million Americans.
Immanentize
@Peale: I have a firmly held religious belief against wearing pants. Ever see Jesus in pants? We are called Baudians, of which Cole is a fervent adherent.
Is my university going to allow me to go pantless?
Old School
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Here’s one:
Starfish
Mr. Mix, you are being a jerk about this. Not all the concerns are the loudest bozos at the school board meeting. I am allergic to life in general so I was concerned when those first people had allergic reactions. The general consensus on that is “we know how to treat anaphylaxis. Treating COVID is harder.” A friend was diagnosed with seizure disorder during COVID. Some people had seizures post COVID so she was concerned about that. She needed to be 90 days without seizures to be cleared to drive to work. She did eventually get vaccinated. My sister was diagnosed with cancer during the pandemic before she was old enough to get the vaccine. She had to wait a week after her first chemo. Still not clear how much immunity she has.
The Moar You Know
@Dorothy A. Winsor: There is no legitimate one, which is why here in the great state of CA we don’t allow that bullshit anymore.
Dorothy A. Winsor
Cripes. So “religious” exemption means anything you want.
Immanentize
@Starfish: My University has a religious exemption to our vax mandate. I want to know just how many people took advantage of that bullshit.
wenchacha
@ETtheLibrarian: I thought of my sister. She is now retired from the LOC, but was there on 9/11. She had to get home to Green belt that day. I imagine she was praying for her friends at the library, yesterday. Glad it didn’t become anything larger.
A Ghost to Most
Nice hasn’t worked for 40 years. Selfish people feed off it. Same as it ever was.
Immanentize
@Old School: That little narrative is from a law firm trying to get in on the sweet anti-vax cash and really overstates the religious protections, especially as to private businesses and universities.
You don’t like our vax mandate? Go to another damn college.
Immanentize
@Dorothy A. Winsor: That is the MAGA position. But this is gonna lead to sectarian wars right here at home.
Starfish
@The Moar You Know: They are testing on children longer before authorization because any side effects will be used to drive the anti-vax agenda.
There is also the ethics discussion of is it ethical for us to be vaccinating kids and taking third doses before we have vaccinated the world’s front line medical workers. I have several cousins who are medical workers in another country who have COVID
trollhattan
@Immanentize: We’ve got a suburban megachurch where the minister/cult leader is detailing for the flock how to work with him to get a religious exemption.
As an aside, mom hated Christian Science due to a friend who spurned getting an appendectomy and died, rather than seek medical help and violate their teachings. Hopefully they’re less strident these days.
emmyelle
@The Moar You Know: I was not arguing against vaccinating kids. I was making the case that a highly vaccinated population is safer for those who must be unvaccinated. Having a kid myself, I know that babies are not given every single vaccine the second the amniotic fluid is wiped off of them That means at any given time, there is a small percentage of unvaccinated people for most common vaccines. They are safe if we keep them safe. That is what I mean. Jesus
Also, you know it really is OK until we, you know, have the data to back up the safety and efficacy for the vaccine in kinds. You may be able to peer into your all-knowing crystal ball and say “it’s safe”, and I, an actual scientist, believe it is. But, you know, you cant get EUA, let alone full approval, without, like, data.
Calm down.
LongHairedWeirdo
One meme that I really wish was going out.
“Don’t these Republican governors think that they are responsible for protecting people from threats? If so, how do they justify their actions? What experts did they listen to, what analysis did they perform, and how did they determine that ‘other factors’ were more important than preventable deaths?”
One thing that historians will puzzle over about this era is, “why didn’t anyone ask the most common sense of question?” “Access” will be one answer, and when they ask “but what good is access to someone who is helping to kill people, if you won’t ever call them to account?” the answer will involve a lot of people finding their shoes and something on the wall *awfully* fascinating, but might be stated as “since all the outright evil came from one political party, it didn’t seem, uh, ‘fair and balanced’ to report on the outright evil.”
Any reporter who reads this? Think of saying that to your children/grandchildren, or any children – “it didn’t seem quite fair to point out outright evil that only existed on one side of the political spectrum, because we couldn’t blame the innocent side of the spectrum alongside them.”
You can skip the “outright evil” part of the quote, because, face it, it’s already clear you don’t like to think or talk about, you know, people causing pointless harm to others, and, of course, you shouldn’t blame yourself for being a gutless, spineless, dupe, because that’s really hard to do for a gutless, spineless, dupe.
Central Planning
@Ken: Or, and stick with me on this, just get the knee replacement :)
Immanentize
@trollhattan: not less strident about surgery, let me tell ya!
Earl
Looks like Find Out Summer is going great :)
https://www.firstcoastnews.com/article/news/verify/sick-covid-patients-on-the-ground-waiting-for-monoclonal-therapy/77-165d31f7-fc0d-4654-9add-e8db9d0c0d4b
ETtheLibraria
@wenchacha: I have lived on the Hill since 1994 but not at the Library until after 9/11 and confusion was the biggest thing people around here seem to have experienced that day. Yesterday wasn’t much different but without the death thankfully.
Fake Irishman
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
pretty broad, but states have different laws to document it. Making people fill out a five-page form annually and read about the effects of communicable disease tends to weed out quite a few who aren’t serious.
Barbara
@ETtheLibrarian: It’s kind of hard to get close to the Capitol in a vehicle.
dr. bloor
@Earl:
Great. Now everyone in Floridumb is going to think COVID is no different from a typical Spring Break hangover.
JoyceH
@TeezySkeezy:
I agree with you that the laws against assault ought to be applied even-handedly regardless of political leanings, but I have to say that until that day comes, I’m enjoying the second-best option that the modern world has come up with – the crowd-sourced Name And Shame. Person A takes video of jackass misbehaving, posts to internet, Person B (and maybe C, D, and E) identify the jackass as Joe Doakes of the Bubbleworks Factory, and before the day is out, a spokesperson of the Bubbleworks Factory is tweeting that Joe Doakes is no longer associated with their organization. Actions, meet consequences.
topclimber
@oldster: Just a heads up to you and Doug that maroons were escaped slaves and native folks in the Caribbean. They were often freedom fighters. In Jamaica, they fought the British to a standstill and won a fair amount of freedom.
Bugs Bunny didn’t know this when he used the word as a substitute for moron. We know better and hence use the word moran, since moron is considered a put-down of very low IQ people. There is also MEron, which the perspicacious TopClimber has been promoting as a special label for Republicans. Can you guess what two GQP traits it combines?
Bodacious
Hear me out!!!
Yes, I’m all for this, but you know who is getting the initial gut punch from Inslee’s move? My D and SIL, both doc’s out here in beautiful Olympic Trumpian Peninsula. The slew of (unvaccinated) ER nurses, and other nurses hitting the road (and taking fat juicy bonus’ to go to Texas) is killing them. Yes, I want them out, but can’t deny the price will be steep for a while in rural areas. Our care is temporarily taking a big scary dive in emergency access. Wait times are rising two fold – one for COVID patient increase, and additionally for lack of people to cover shifts. To be fair, NY certainly saw darker days at the start, but can’t help feeling concern for our near future as well.
Sort of like a super mini Afghanistan-ish scene out here. It needs to happen, but it’s painful to watch those left to deal with it. We are all paying the price for these idiots.
Bill Arnold
Human wave distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack against the US medical system.
Orchestrated by psychopathic Republican propagandists.
Bill Arnold
@emmyelle:
Nope. Delta is too contagious. Kids must be vaccinated as soon as there is at least one approval; they are too high a percentage of the population (herd immunity threshold is roughly 100*(1-1/R0) percent) and schools are (usually) a indoor spaces with a lot of sharing of exhalations.
emmyelle
@Bill Arnold: really being misunderstood here.
I am not fucking talking about having kids unvaxed forever. We ALWAYS have some level of unvaccinated individuals in the population, and it’s fine. And they don’t fucking vaccinate babies against everything the minute they pop out.
Oh my god my point is that we need to vaccinate everyone who can be to protect those who can’t be. Among those who can’t be are, currently, kids under 12. I suspect that in the next several weeks to a few months, we will have enough data for EUA for kids who are 6-12. And then maybe later we will have enough data to for EUA for kids under six. But we will probably not have data any time soon about EUA for infants or kids under a certain age.
Why is this hard.
I am not making an argument not to vaccinate kids. There is nothing that I said that can be interpreted that way.
We CAN in fact tolerate a low level of unvaccinated people in the population. I’m in complete favor of mandates and of being absolutely hard ass with medical exemptions (which are rare, but real) and religious exemptions (which are almost entirely bogus). I am also in favor of waiting for the goddam data for EUA for kids.
Why is this hard?
JoyceH
@Bodacious: maybe Washington and Texas could do a swap, and the vaccinated Texas nurses sick of working with unvaccinated colleagues could head up there.