Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Trump should be leading, not lying.

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

In after Baud. Damn.

They are not red states to be hated; they are voter suppression states to be fixed.

There are a lot more evil idiots than evil geniuses.

Republican speaker of the house Mike Johnson is the bland and smiling face of evil.

Celebrate the fucking wins.

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

“A king is only a king if we bow down.” – Rev. William Barber

Too often we hand the biggest microphones to the cynics and the critics who delight in declaring failure.

“Everybody’s entitled to be an idiot.”

Giving in to doom is how we fail to fight for ourselves & one another.

I’d like to think you all would remain faithful to me if i ever tried to have some of you killed.

Hey hey, RFK, how many kids did you kill today?

When I decide to be condescending, you won’t have to dream up a fantasy about it.

If you can’t control your emotions, someone else will.

The real work of an opposition party is to oppose.

Republicans do not pay their debts.

People are complicated. Love is not.

That meeting sounds like a shotgun wedding between a shitshow and a clusterfuck.

Make the republican party small enough to drown in a bathtub.

Their shamelessness is their super power.

We know you aren’t a Democrat but since you seem confused let me help you.

if you can’t see it, then you are useless in the fight to stop it.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Boosters Not for Youngsters

Boosters Not for Youngsters

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The FDA’s vaccine advisory committee today voted to recommend Pfizer boosters for the over-65 crowd or high-risk only. Pfizer had requested approval for those over 16 who had finished immunizations 6 months earlier.

In other COVID news, the Post published an op-ed earlier this week from Marty Makary, a professor at Johns Hopkins who believes that natural immunity should be recognized as one way for people to opt-out of vaccination. I’ll outsource most of my commentary on the piece to Josh Marshall, but god damn I’m tired of people feeding into the notion that the vaccine is some kind of onerous burden. From what I’ve read, the type and duration of immunity that results from a COVID infection is hard to judge. Plus, there are lots of people who “had COVID” who may or may not have been tested, but will certainly claim that they did. Some of the Herman Cain Award recipients had claimed “natural immunity due to prior infection,” and they’re currently taking dirt naps.

Of course, the “just asking questions” people on my Twitter (not anti-vaxxers, just people skeptical of every single goddam mitigation strategy) were all over Makary’s piece, saying that we’ve been far too harsh and now that we “know” that immunity works, we can start letting those who have recovered skip shots, based on a couple small studies. What we “know” is that the free, safe vaccine works. Why don’t we just stick with that, instead of being a god damned pretend epidemiologist with degrees from Twitter U and the Graduate School of Instagram? It sure isn’t going to hurt to get at least one shot if you have had COVID, and we’re throwing thousands of doses away every week. Unless we invent some sort of just-in-time redistribution of soon-to-expire vaccine doses, the best places for those shots are in arms.

Reader Interactions

133Comments

  2. 2.

    The Dark Avenger

    I’ve heard of people getting COVID twice so natural immunity might not be enough in this case.

  4. 4.

    rikyrah

    What we “know” is that the free, safe vaccine works. Why don’t we just stick with that, instead of being a god damned pretend epidemiologist with degrees from Twitter U and the Graduate School of Instagram?

     

    TELL IT

  6. 6.

    Elizabelle

    Is Makary the same “expert” who said Covid would be over by now?  Because I recall someone from Johns Hopkins making that assertion a few months back.  It seemed lunacy at the time, and turns out to be deader than dead wrong.

    I saw it on (le sigh) the FB page of two high school friends, who are now physicians themselves.  And Ayn Rand devotees, unless they have decided she is a squish.

    What is in the water at Johns Hopkins??

    Makary is a physician/surgeon with experience in oncology.  His bio from JHopkins.

  10. 10.

    JPL

    Good..   It will just be in time for when I take care of baby imp when dil returns to work.   Baby imp has some immunity because his mom received the moderna vaccine.

  13. 13.

    Timurid

    I’m feeling kind of weird about being in the ‘kinda vulnerable but not quite vulnerable enough’ group (I turn 53 this month).

    Will we be bringing back the jokes from early in the initial vaccine rollout about stores keeping special hours for their vulnerable middle aged customers?

  14. 14.

    Elizabelle

    Incidentally:  my neighbor just returned from a NC beach vacation with her extended family.  Her sister, fully vaccinated, came down with Covid.  As did 7 or 8 others.  Including a middle schooler who now has to quarantine for 14 days due to exposure.  Will find out more later tonight.  (We’re having cava outside.)

    Her sister’s vaccine has got to have been reassuring.  The vaccinated pretty much get sick with a breakthrough infection, but don’t end up with severe illness or hospitalized.

    That does not seem to hold true for the “naturally immunized.”

  15. 15.

    Arclite

    Speaking of the Herman Cain Awards, I discovered this site the other day. As a white guy who wears square glasses and a goatee, I’m thinking of changing my look so I don’t get conflated with these folk.

    sorryantivaxxer.com/

  16. 16.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    This “natural immunity” crap is because of that one study out of Israel that hasn’t even been peer reviewed

  17. 17.

    Another Scott

    @The Dark Avenger:

    Yup. Defense.gov (from April):

    For Navy Petty Officer 2nd Class Rafal Kolodziej, assigned to Navy Cargo Handling Battalion 1, or NCHB-1, the fight is personal. He tested positive for COVID-19 antibodies in March of 2020, when cases first began to emerge among service members. He was recovering from fever, pneumonia and headaches the month prior.

    “I felt a little safer knowing I’d already been through COVID-19,” he said of his experience last year while assigned as an instructor at Great Lakes Naval Base in Illinois.

    Unfortunately, for the Lublin, Poland, native, COVID-19 proved to be a formidable adversary. Despite strict mitigation measures implemented by the Defense Department in 2020, he fell victim to the virus again in November.

    His second go-around with the disease was much different; this time, the infection manifested through a loss of sense of smell and taste. The sailor’s suspicions were confirmed following another test.

    “It was scary,” Kolodjiez said. “So many people have been hospitalized and so many have died already. I think of my father, who fought off cancer, and of all the vulnerable people out there. Not everyone is as lucky as me to survive.”

    Thankfully, the sailor’s family have thus far been spared from COVID-19, and he said he feels mostly recovered.

    I wonder how much heavy lifting “mostly” is doing there…

    Both cases were undoubtedly pre-Delta…

    The virus is still less than 2 years old in humans. Anyone who thinks that they really understand it and can just Leeroy Jenkins through it without vaccination and without sensible public health measures when community spread is high is being a fool.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  18. 18.

    Arclite

    @Elizabelle: If delta hadn’t emerged, I wonder if that prediction might have been a bit more reasonable. The original alpha variant is nowhere to be found these days.

  19. 19.

    L85NJGT

    I know a woo truther that’s had it twice now, and both times were rough sledding.

    So I guess it’s better than nothing, but why make that dumb bet?

  21. 21.

    Elizabelle

    Martin Makary is the very same Johns Hopkins expert.  In the Wall Street Journal (natch), from 18 February 2021.
    We’ll Have Herd Immunity by April
    Covid cases have dropped 77% in six weeks. Experts should level with the public about the good news.

    …. There is reason to think the country is racing toward an extremely low level of infection. As more people have been infected, most of whom have mild or no symptoms, there are fewer Americans left to be infected. At the current trajectory, I expect Covid will be mostly gone by April, allowing Americans to resume normal life.

    He never actually says April 2021, but it seems to be his prediction.

    And he is rearing his head again now, why??

    Reading the rest of the article now for more tidbits.

  26. 26.

    trollhattan

    @Another Scott: ​
     Something I read several months ago reported that monitoring folks antibody levels following an active (symptomatic) case showed a correlation between the severity of symptoms and the antibody level. i.e., if you got the sniffles your antibody level would be low and if you got sick as hell, it stayed higher, longer.

    Not having seen that specifically followed with further results. IDK if the observation is still in play. Implication being a milder case had less of a preventive effect against reinfection.

  28. 28.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @The Dark Avenger: ​I’ve heard of people getting COVID twice so natural immunity might not be enough in this case.

    An acquaintance of mine caught a nasty case of COVID early on, recovered, then got it again even worse. Once he recovered from that he pounded down the inoculators’ doors for his shots. And, FWIW, is urging our mutual “vax-shy” acquaintances to do the same toot-sweet.

  29. 29.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Elizabelle:

    I’d just like to ask this guy why he thinks anybody should listen to him since he was so wrong before about something important and related

  30. 30.

    Scout211

    House of Moderna peeps will be behind the Team Pfizer for the booster but since Moderna

    continues to be found to be slightly more effective, it might be fine.  Maybe.

    (CNN)A head-to-head study of all three authorized coronavirus vaccines in the United States finds the Moderna vaccine is slightly more effective than Pfizer’s in real-life use in keeping people out of the hospital, and Johnson & Johnson’s Janssen vaccine comes in third, but still provides 71% protection.
    Pfizer’s vaccine provided 88% protection against hospitalization, and Moderna’s was 93% effective. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention led a nationwide study of vaccination involving more than 3,600 adults hospitalized for Covid-19 between March and August.“Among U.S. adults without immunocompromising conditions, vaccine effectiveness against COVID-19 hospitalization during March 11- August 15, 2021, was higher for the Moderna vaccine (93%) than the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine (88%) and the Janssen vaccine (71%),” the team wrote in the CDC’s weekly report on death and disease, the MMWR.

  31. 31.

    Robert Sneddon

    @The Dark Avenger: ​
     

    I’ve heard of people getting COVID twice so natural immunity might not be enough in this case.

    There’s anecdotal evidence that some people are now going through their third infection. It’s based on self-reporting mostly, people who say they had had COVID-like symptoms early in the pandemic, got it ‘again’ later during an earlier wave and they are now suffering symptoms again months later. There aren’t many such cases but a few months ago people getting infected for the second time were rare too.

  33. 33.

    trollhattan

    Another Trump crime–reversed. Thanks, Joe and Deb!

    The Interior Department will restore the Washington, D.C., headquarters for the Bureau of Land Management, which was moved to Colorado during the Trump administration, while maintaining the Colorado office as its “Western headquarters.”

    The department announced its decision on the controversial move in a statement on Friday.
    The Trump administration shifted its headquarters from Washington to Grand Junction, Colo., in what critics saw as an attempt to drive out career officials. The Trump administration had argued that it was putting officials closer to the land that they managed.
    Data released by the Biden administration earlier this year indicated that more than 87 percent of the agency’s employees based in D.C. left the agency after the Trump administration’s announcement that it would relocate the office.
    Just 41 agreed to move while 287 either retired or left the agency by the end of last year.
    The department said Friday that just three people moved to Grand Junction.
    thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/572796-interior-to-restore-dc-land-management-hq-while-also-ma…

    OTOH “mission accomplished” because they cleared out the department professionals, as was their plan. I wonder how many Bundys Interior hired?

  34. 34.

    Gin & Tonic

    Why are all the anti-vax “expert” MD’s in specialties other than infectious disease/virology/epidemiology? Tells you something, no?

  35. 35.

    Another Scott

    Helen Branswell at STATNews:

    After seven hours of deliberation, members of the Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee voted 16 to 2 against a proposal to administer a third dose of the vaccine developed by Pfizer and BioNTech to individuals 16 years and older. The vote to recommend a booster to people 65 years and older — as well as people who are at risk of severe Covid — was 18 to 0.

    It was not immediately clear who would qualify as high risk; fleshing that out will likely fall to the CDC’s advisory committee, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices.

    The panelists acknowledged that data show that the protection conferred to the vaccinated is waning over time, but argued the overwhelming number of vaccinated people have sufficient protection at this time to cope with any infection without requiring hospitalization or risking death.

    The vaccine “may eventually be indicated for the general population, I just don’t think we’re there yet,” said Ofer Levy, the director of the Precision Vaccines Program at Boston Children’s Hospital.

    […]

    A separate meeting has been scheduled of ACIP for next week. While the FDA issues decisions on whether to approve vaccines, ACIP advises the CDC on whether it should recommend use of vaccines the FDA has approved.

    Most experts believe booster doses may eventually be needed. The question is when.

    “I think having a late boost is going to make this a much better vaccine,” Barney Graham, who designed the structure for the vaccines made by Moderna and a number of other producers while he was deputy director of the Vaccine Research Center at the National Institutes of Health, told STAT in a recent interview.

    AFAIK, given the known behavior of corona viruses, it has been expected from the beginning that boosters are going to be needed at some point. The timing needs to be tied down, but so far it’s behaving about as the experts suspected.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  36. 36.

    citizen dave

    So tired of the mouth breathers.  I’m attending a wedding tomorrow with some of them from my sister-in-laws clan.  The groom is her grandchild who I’m told is marrying a biracial young lady.  Should be an interesting crowd.  In a barn so plenty of room for the Covid to circulate.  Told my wife if anything too political goes down, I’ll be waiting in the car.

  37. 37.

    Gin & Tonic

    In other medical news, turns out I have asymptomatic babesiosis. Last time I had it, it was the opposite of asymptomatic.

  39. 39.

    citizen dave

    @trollhattan: This is awesome BLM news!  The Biden Team is improving on TFG’s policy of doing to opposite of Obama by reversing TFG With Extreme Prejudice, or as they like say, Build Back Better.

  40. 40.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    Here’s that Israel study:

    Study: COVID recovery gave Israelis longer-lasting Delta defense than vaccines

    Natural immunity from contracting coronavirus provided Israelis with longer-lasting protection against the Delta variant than two shots of the Pfizer vaccine given early this year, new Israeli research suggests.

    The study by Maccabi Healthcare Service looked at individuals who had either gotten two shots of the vaccine by the end of February or tested positive for COVID-19 by that time.

    It compared 46,035 Maccabi members who caught the coronavirus at some point during the pandemic and the same number of double-vaccinated people.

    People who had two vaccine shots had a six-fold higher chance of getting infected with Delta than patients who hadn’t been vaccinated but previously contracted the coronavirus, according to the research.

    The study, published online but not yet peer reviewed, is the largest of its kind. It doesn’t take booster shots — now widely given in Israel — into account, but given that most of the world is still giving a two-dose regimen, has international relevance.

    But experts are stressing that the results shouldn’t be interpreted as discouragement from vaccinating. Immunologist Prof. Cyrille Cohen of Bar Ilan University, who was not involved in the study, told The Times of Israel: “Certain people who are not inclined to get vaccinated might be mistaken and think that this means you’d better get sick a priori and not get a vaccine. Such a thinking is medically wrong, and the results of the study do not mean that people should expose themselves on purpose and get sick.

    “As with other disease, it is much safer to get the vaccine and prevent COVID-19, a disease that puts one at risk of hospitalization, death and long-running after-effects.”

    It should of course be noted, that the experts say that this study DOES NOT mean natural immunity is superior to vaccination or that those who were already infected should not be vaccinated

  41. 41.

    Another Scott

    @trollhattan: Understood, but there’s too much anecdotal variability.  This sailor had pneumonia the first time – I wouldn’t count that as a mild case.  :-/

    People forget the early stories of a nominally healthy person being apparently fine then being dead a few hours later.

    Reuters (from April 2020):

    Associated Press journalist Anick Jesdanun, who was in good health and had run 83 marathons, died last week from COVID-19, according to a post on Facebook by his cousin, Prinda Mulpramook.

    Jesdanun, who was 51, at first didn’t need hospitalization, according to the post. He had begun to recover and showed clear lungs and strong vital signs during a doctor’s visit in late March. But “a sudden setback” sent him to the emergency room on April 1, and “13 hours later we lost him,” Mulpramook wrote.

    Yes, treatment is better now. But there’s still no cure and deniers are deluding themselves…  :-(

    Get vaccinated!!  Wear a mask!!

    (sigh)

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  42. 42.

    Brachiator

    @Elizabelle:

    Martin Makary is the very same Johns Hopkins expert.  In the Wall Street Journal (natch), from 18 February 2021.
    “We’ll Have Herd Immunity by April
    Covid cases have dropped 77% in six weeks. Experts should level with the public about the good news.”

    What a bunch of nonsense. And reporters are coming back to this dope for more “insights?”

    Aside from his just being wrong, what I hate about this crap is the implication that experts are being dishonest, presumably for nefarious reasons.

  43. 43.

    Scout211

    @Dorothy A. Winsor:

    My BIL who has blood cancer, got the Moderna shot the first week that boosters were available for the immunocompromised.  His first two were Pfizer and the pharmacy didn’t have a problem with mixing them.  So, at least the pharmacies don’t seem to care.  Or his pharmacy didn’t care.

    Added From the CDC:

    Can you mix and match the vaccines?
    For people who received either Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine series, a third dose of the same mRNA vaccine should be used. A person should not receive more than three mRNA vaccine doses. If the mRNA vaccine product given for the first two doses is not available or is unknown, either mRNA COVID-19 vaccine product may be administered.

  45. 45.

    Matt McIrvin

    Based on everything I’ve heard from the experts (especially from people like Chise/sailorrooscout on Twitter, a vaccine scientist at Moderna), the booster recommendation sounds right to me, at least for the near term. I expect they’ll be revisiting this over time.

    It’ll probably mean that a lot of us vaxxed people who aren’t over 65 or high-risk get mild infections eventually. But the only way to eliminate that possibility would be to keep giving everyone shots every few months forever, just to keep antibody levels up, when we’ve already got robust protection against severe disease. This isn’t a good use of resources when so many aren’t vaccinated at all.

    But I expect a lot of people who were expecting boosters will be upset by it, too.

    As for natural immunity, I think the biggest problem here is the huge gap between the well-established, scientifically verified kind of natural immunity that was actually studied in the papers, and the status of everyone who THINKS they have “natural immunity” because they had a flu-like illness at some point after about mid-2019. Why risk it? The vaccine is free, and if you did have COVID it’ll probably give you an extra-big boost of protection.

  46. 46.

    Another Scott

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: The CDC hasn’t approved anything as a booster yet – this was just a step in the process for Pfizer.  Moderna and all the rest have to submit their own data for analysis and approval.

    Several jackals have reported that they got boosters before today.  Talk to your doc or pharmacist – you can probably get one too if you don’t want to wait.

    Good luck!

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  47. 47.

    MomSense

    So sick of these whiny, fucking babies who “can’t” wear masks or get vaccines. They need to grow the fuck up and meet their obligations to the country they profess to love so much.

  48. 48.

    Matt McIrvin

    …also, this seems to be only about people who got the Pfizer shot. I kind of doubt the recommendation for Moderna will be much different. But J&J is likely another story.

  50. 50.

    Roger Moore

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):

    This “natural immunity” crap is because of that one study out of Israel that hasn’t even been peer reviewed

    Not really.  This crap is because people refuse to get vaccinated and are looking for any excuse.  They seized on that one study because it validated their choice, but they would have found some other study or supposed expert to bolster their belief.  Even if they couldn’t, they’d be more than happy to assert their opinion evidence-free.

  52. 52.

    VeniceRiley

    @Yutsano: Hooray!

    HCA is full of dirtnaps for the “I already had it.” and their AMA today seems to indicate the 2nd go round is worse because the scarring, clots, whatever from the first go make for a worse prognosis on the 2nd.

  53. 53.

    germy

    nytimes.com/live/2021/09/17/world/covid-delta-variant-vaccine

    Dr. Sharon Alroy-Preis, Israel’s head of public health services said the summer’s rise in the number of hospitalized patients who had been fully vaccinated with Pfizer’s vaccine was “scary.” She said 60 percent of severely or critically ill patients and 45 percent of those who died during what she called the fourth surge had received two injections of Pfizer’s vaccine.

    But committee members, including some government officials, appeared deeply skeptical of the Pfizer’s data and Israel’s analyses. Dr. Philip Krause, one of the F.D.A. vaccine experts who authored the medical journal review, criticized Pfizer’s presentation of data that had not been peer-reviewed or evaluated by the F.D.A., arguing that possible problems in the modeling within could understate the vaccine’s efficacy.

    I’m 63.  I guess I’ll have to wait another two years for a booster?  And hope I don’t get hospitalized after being in the same room with the mouthbreathers in the grocery store, pet supply store and pharmacy?

  54. 54.

    topclimber

    @Baud: Weren’t you one of those mocking the light-hearted banter about being first or second or wtf of a few months back? Perhaps it was your lackeys at work, but much scorn by the usual suspects occurred.

    Somehow you seem to be first commenter more than anyone else, as far as I can tell. Do you bribe the front-pagers for inside information? Do you not have a life except BJ and so hit the refresh button every 30 seconds to insure you see a new posting before less monomaniacal souls? Or are you an AI, as some have posited, and so able to predict the next front page comment with 99.99% accuracy?

    At long last, sir, have you no shame? Will you ever have the decency to allow other jackals to be frist instead of your own un-pantsed self?

  55. 55.

    lowtechcyclist

    god damn I’m tired of people feeding into the notion that the vaccine is some kind of onerous burden

    This. When you’re in a pharmacy, or a grocery store with a pharmacy (I got Covid vaxxed at CVS, but got my shingles shots at Safeway), take fifteen minutes to get the freakin’ shot. Then a few weeks later, do it again. It’ll take a freakin’ half hour out of your life. You might have a sore shoulder afterwards, or you might feel slightly under the weather for a day or so.

    That’s it. Sheesh. Whether or not you’ve been diagnosed with Covid, or think you’ve had Covid, just get the goddamn shot. Better to be safe than sorry, right? At least, people used to say that. Now, apparently, not so much.

  56. 56.

    Baud

    @germy:

    She said 60 percent of severely or critically ill patients and 45 percent of those who died during what she called the fourth surge had received two injections of Pfizer’s vaccine.

     

    Isn’t that the base rate fallacy issue?

  57. 57.

    dmsilev

    I’m sort of expecting “booster shot once year” to be the ultimate conclusion for the general population, but I guess we’ll see. My dad got a booster a week or two ago (not quite 80 years old, a few years past a bout with cancer). My mom, same age but without the immune system troubles, hasn’t yet. Both following what their doctors are telling them.

  58. 58.

    Baud

    @topclimber:

    Perhaps it was your lackeys at work, but much scorn by the usual suspects occurred.

    My lackeys and I scorn so often it’s hard to remember.

    Do you bribe the front-pagers for inside information? Do you not have a life except BJ and so hit the refresh button every 30 seconds to insure you see a new posting before less monomaniacal souls? Or are you an AI, as some have posited, and so able to predict the next front page comment with 99.99% accuracy?

    Yes.

    At long last, sir, have you no shame?

    No

    Will you ever have the decency to allow other jackals to be frist instead of your own un-pantsed self?

    I’m not waiting for someone who’s #54 to get their pants on.

  59. 59.

    dmsilev

    @lowtechcyclist:

    That’s it. Sheesh. Whether or not you’ve been diagnosed with Covid, or think you’ve had Covid, just get the goddamn shot. Better to be safe than sorry, right? At least, people used to say that. Now, apparently, not so much.

    You’re ignoring the magnetism, the 5G, and of course the increased chance of ringworm infection because you no longer need the horse dewormer.

  60. 60.

    Another Scott

    @Baud:

    Yup.

    Thread Repost:

    NEW: lots of news recently on waning immunity against infection, but a study has now landed from Public Health England on how vaccines are faring against *severe disease & death*

    This chart summarises key findings, but the paper is a real goldmine, so let’s dig into more detail: pic.twitter.com/9wAiax8poJ

    — John Burn-Murdoch (@jburnmurdoch) September 15, 2021

    And crucially, the study also breaks down protection against hospitalisation by underlying health conditions, which brings us to a key finding:

    • Among those without severe comorbidities, there is actually very little waning against severe disease, if any. Both for Pfizer and AZ pic.twitter.com/ypyyxPJHPe

    — John Burn-Murdoch (@jburnmurdoch) September 15, 2021

    Similarly with the Israeli studies – it’s vital to look at how the data breaks down by age.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  63. 63.

    topclimber

    @Baud: So it is all about post position to you! How sad that such a witty soul is full to the brim with vanity.

    How sad, too, that you do not realize the power in being #54. One day you will learn, and rue your condescension.

  64. 64.

    Timurid

    @germy: 

    The dreaded ‘coffin corner’ for middle aged people is back… old enough for significant risk, too young to get shots. But this time it can’t be fixed by waiting six weeks for the next tier to open.

  65. 65.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Baud: Yeah. Any story that reports “X% of people with outcome Y were vaccinated” is reporting a useless number, because that is dependent on base rates.

  67. 67.

    Brachiator

    @Baud:

    Isn’t that the base rate fallacy issue?

    Not in this case. But popular reaction to the study omits this interesting tidbit.

    What was not mentioned in the Instagram post — which received more than 4,600 likes on the platform — is that the study found even greater immunity against the delta variant for people who got a single shot of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine and had an infection with the novel coronavirus that causes COVID-19.

    Also, people jump to the conclusion that this study relates to Covid in general. But it specifically dealt with the Delta variant. I am not sure how many people, if any, may have been affected by Original Flavor Covid.

    There are many other cautions as well.

  69. 69.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @VeniceRiley:

    Was reading through that AMA. Read some pretty disturbing comments about superstitious New Age Woo being in nursing textbooks, specifically NANDA Nursing Diagnoses. Stuff like “aligning auras” stuff

    Also, this comment was absolutely fucked:

    I was a nursing student. I recently dropped and changed my major because I found out over half the nursing students at my school were unvaccinated. The director told them it was personal choice and they would be accommodated and sent to clinical facilities that would accept them. I confronted the director and told her I was disgusted, that it isn’t personal choice to go into a non-covid unit and infect people’s vulnerable family members. She basically told me not to let the door hit me on the ass on the way out. Previous comments are correct. Some programs do not include enough science and even if they do a lot of the students find a way to get through it without really learning it. Nursing school is also a lot like high school, very cliquey. (In my experience) A lot of people are going into it for the wrong reasons, mostly for the status and to say they are a nurse. This was just my experience. There are many, many WONDERFUL nurses out there. Don’t get me wrong, but as a person who loves and values science, there isn’t enough science being taught in some programs. I changed my major to medical laboratory science. Sorry this is so long.

  70. 70.

    Fair Economist

    As somebody not yet elderly or high-risk, I’m looking forward to getting a booster eventually, but I’d rather wait until the booster is made specifically to counter Delta, or perhaps whatever strain is dominant when I get it. As I understand it, the mRNA vaccines haven’t yet been modified to focus on Delta, which seems a shame given how easily they can be re-targeted.

  74. 74.

    germy

    @Another Scott:

    From your thread:

    By Jul/Aug, waning against infection meant case rates among over-60s were almost as high among double-jabbed as un-jabbed

    • But rates now plummeting among boosted cohort • 2-dose protection was still solid against severe outcomes, but boosters have strengthened it regardless

  75. 75.

    trollhattan

    Maybe some justice in South Dakota. Maybe.

    By STEPHEN GROVES, Associated Press

    SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP) — South Dakota legislative leaders on Friday distributed a petition to lawmakers asking them to support a special session to consider impeaching Attorney General Jason Ravnsborg for a car crash last year that killed a pedestrian.

    House Speaker Spencer Gosch released the text of the petition. Two-thirds of both the Republican-controlled House and Senate must sign on to convene the special session. Lawmakers would meet in November, the day after they are scheduled to hold a special session to consider new legislative districts.

    The petition says the special session would be called for “investigating and evaluating whether the conduct of Jason Ravnsborg … surrounding the death of Joe Boever, involved impeachable offenses.”

    Gosch has said that if the special session is approved, he will appoint a committee to investigate the conduct of the attorney general, a Republican whose term runs through 2022. The South Dakota Legislature has never tried to impeach an official as powerful as an attorney general. It would require a simple majority of the House to approve articles of impeachment, while two-thirds of senators must vote to convict and remove him from office.

    “Jason Ravnsborg is still my kind of guy.” I’m guessing the governor is saying.

  76. 76.

    zhena gogolia

    @Another Scott: Here in CT I was told both by my doctor and by stop & Shop that you can’t get a booster unless you’re severely immunocompromised — on chemo or radiation, organ transplant, etc. I assume that will change now. I had Pfizer but my husband had J&J, so I’m hoping they’ll let him have a booster of Pfizer. This is all so confusing

    ETA: But I know someone in NYC who already got an appointment for a booster — he didn’t have to call, they called him.

  78. 78.

    Another Scott

    In other news, …

    Full recapture of wasted green cards since 1992 – a provision that I successfully fought for in the House Judiciary Committee’s portion of the Build Back Better Act – would result in an added $1 trillion to GDP over the next 10 years. 1 TRILLION DOLLARS!t.co/CvXzEkmWaH

    — Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi (@CongressmanRaja) September 17, 2021

    NiskanenCenter.org:

    Recapturing Unused Green Cards is a Trillion Dollar Reconciliation Opportunity

    BY JEREMY L. NEUFELD
    SEPTEMBER 10, 2021

    Congress has the opportunity to recapture more than a million unused green cards through the reconciliation process, which would likely contribute approximately $1.080 trillion to US GDP over ten years and increase net revenue to federal, state, and local governments by approximately $463 billion.

    Green card waste is a long-standing issue. Since 1992, hundreds of thousands of green cards authorized by Congress have been left unissued due to administrative complications. COVID-19 has exacerbated the problem significantly, with more green cards likely to go unused this year than in any previous year.

    In the State Department’s recent public Q&A with Charlie Oppenheim, Chief of the Immigrant Visa Control and Reporting Division of the U.S. Department of State, Oppenheim shared his estimates of the number of visas likely to go unused in FY 2021: 150,000 family preference visas and 100,000 employment-based visas.

    In our recent report “Stop the Incinerator: The high cost of green card slots going unused and the benefits of recapturing them,” my coauthors at the Federation of American Scientists and I estimated the economic and fiscal impact of recapturing green cards that went unused between 1992 and 2020. But because so many green cards are poised to be wasted this year, our estimates substantially underestimated the total possible benefit of recapture.

    Using Oppenheim’s estimates of FY2021’s green card waste with the methodology described in our report, we can estimate the magnitude of the economic and fiscal effects if Congress recaptured green cards that went unused through 2021. The economic and fiscal effects are outlined in the table below. Details on the methodology can be found on pages 14-25 of the report here.

    […]

    This is yet another example of why diversity, and respect for the processes of government, are so important. Not a politician is not something we want in national politics – politics is how we solve communal problems.

    (via nycsouthpaw)

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  80. 80.

    germy

    @zhena gogolia:

    I agree, it is confusing.

    In one day I can learn that

    • If you’ve been vaccinated you don’t have to worry about being hospitalized… at most you’ll get a mild case!
    • Even if you’ve been vaccinated, after a six months the effectiveness of your shot is diminished, from 90% to 40%.  Many vaccinated people have been hospitalized.
    • Children don’t get seriously ill from covid.
    • ICUs are filling up with children!

    etc.

  82. 82.

    germy

    @zhena gogolia:

    I got my two pfizers as soon as I was able.  I still wear a mask when I’m out (often the only masked customer in a store).

    I still use sanitizer after touching things like shopping carts.

    I’m getting my flu vaccine later in October.  I’m not really sure what else I can do.

    I’m glad my immediate family is vaccinated (although some of my inlaws still refuse)

  83. 83.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Another Scott:

    Not a politician is not something we want in national politics – politics is how we solve communal problems.

    I’ve always wondered where that whole “all politicians are just the same” attitude came from. It’s seemingly been around for decades. I guess Watergate?

  84. 84.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @germy:

    I had a guy tell me he didn’t believe pediatric hospitals were filling up with children when mask mandates for schools came up. It pissed me off so bad I had to walk away

  85. 85.

    Roger Moore

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):

    I’m always very nervous about this kind of retrospective observational study.  Basically, they take a bunch of vaccinated people and a bunch of unvaccinated people who previously had COVID.  They try to match each person in group A to a similar person in group B by whatever criteria they’ve chosen to look at (e.g. age, sex, socioeconomic status, home city, etc.) and then look at the differences between the groups.

    That can work very nicely if you think of every important variable. But if there’s some factor you didn’t think of, it can skew the results.  Even worse, if there’s some important factor baked into the groups, you may never be able to control for it.  For example, suppose you were doing a similar study for the USA looking at people back in December through February.  At that time, vaccines were very limited here, so we were vaccinating people who were high risk first, including vaccinating people who were considered to be in high risk professions.  If you control for age, gender, socioeconomic status, and city but didn’t control for occupation, you would still be comparing very different groups.  The vaccinated people would be systematically higher risk, but your study wouldn’t properly control for it.  That would completely screw up your numbers in a way that it might be easy to miss.  I’m not saying that’s what happened here, but it’s the kind of thing that can happen and makes this kind of study potentially error-prone.

  87. 87.

    Chetan Murthy

    @germy: I’m not going to try to convince you that it’s OK that the cutoff is 65.  I’m 56, and I’m not happy about it, either.  Was hoping for a booster in Oct (6mos after last shot).  But:

    1. if community spread in your area is low (my calculation is based on “a bad flu year”[1]) then the danger isn’t really high, and combined with masking should be acceptable.
    2. if community spread is NOT low in your area, then I’d think you’d have a good case for getting a scrip from your doctor.  Or, heck, just lie (I’m still considering doing that)

    [1] A “bad flu year” is supposed to be 100 deaths/day (34k (ish) per year).  If CFR is 1%, that means 10k cases/day across the country.  which comes out to (if I did the math right) 3/100k daily cases (more or less).  For SF, that’s 21 daily cases.  We’re a long ways away from that (105 today), but it’s a concrete way of knowing that, really, we can stop living in fear, and just practice standard precautions.

  91. 91.

    Chetan Murthy

    San Francisco Represent!  My state Senator, Scott Weiner, got his bill (SB 10) to allow upzoning for single-family homes (to 4 homes on a single property) signed by the governor today!  Huzzah!  I gotta say, I was not expecting this: too many “but muh house’s resale value!”

  92. 92.

    LongHairedWeirdo

    god damn I’m tired of people feeding into the notion that the vaccine is some kind of onerous burden. From what I’ve read, the type and duration of immunity that results from a COVID infection is hard to judge. Plus, there are lots of people who “had COVID” who may or may not have been tested, but will certainly claim that they did. Some of the Herman Cain Award recipients had claimed “natural immunity due to prior infection,” and they’re currently taking dirt naps.

    Nod. Keep in mind, we can’t have any evidence that Covid-19 infection provides protection (not “immunity”) for even two years. Covid-19 hasn’t been *around* for two years. Now, we can make guesses, but we’re doing *exactly* what we’re doing with vaccines. There is no reason to suspect natural protection via infection will be even *as good as* the vaccines.

    What’s even more aggravating, though, is the entire chain of thought.
    They think it’s okay to let people die, because bad faith actors are whipping up teh cranky. Certainly no point in being partisan, and pointing out that Republicans are doing the killing.

    They think it’s okay to revoke public health protections, as if there couldn’t possibly be a pandemic more deadly than Covid-19.

    They think Covid-19 can’t become more deadly to people, or more dangerous to children.

    They think it’s okay to let people cast out ideas like “it’s got like a 99.99% survival rate” when it’s already killed 0.2% of the entire US population. Oh, and for the non-brainless, didja know that if you don’t need to be in a hospital, your case isn’t considered “severe”? You can be *really* horribly sick without needing hospitalization.

    And what’s perhaps most aggravating is, they don’t even really have to *think* any of those things – they’re at liberty to ignore them, because there are enough mutually supportive morons that their complete, mendacious idiocy automagically becomes a Distinguished, Intellectual, Common sense Kinship, one where it would be rude and shrill to point out these things that they “think” and what it says about their words and actions, because when enough DICKs hang out together, they somehow form a political interest group that bullies, but needs coddling.

  94. 94.

    StringOnAStick

    @germy: I’m your age and doing the exact same things; we already have our appointments for flu shots in early October.  I’m not sure what more w can do.

  96. 96.

    WaterGirl

    OT, but Maggie Haberman is a piece of shit.  I knew that already, of course, but the stenographer lap do lecturing Jennifer Rubin on journalism?

    I hope everyone stops talking to Politico.

  98. 98.

    trollhattan

    Devin Nunes’ flock of flying monkey lawyers remain busy.

    A federal appeals court is allowing Rep. Devin Nunes to sue a journalist over a tweet linking to a magazine story he wrote about the congressman, reversing part of a lower court ruling that had dismissed the case entirely.

    The 8th Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday upheld a lower court’s finding that the article, published in 2018 by Esquire, did not defame Nunes.

    But the appeals court is allowing Nunes to sue the story’s author, Ryan Lizza, over a social media post that linked to the piece after Nunes initially filed the lawsuit.

    Lizza posted a link to the story, which suggested that Nunes’ family’s farm in Iowa employed undocumented immigrants, in November 2019. By then, the judges found, Lizza should have known that Nunes was contesting the story and should not have continued to promote it.

    A three-judge panel ruled that, in doing so, Lizza essentially republished the story as a means to reach a new audience. Nunes sued over the story in September 2019, claiming it defamed him.

    The appeals court agreed that the story was not outright defamatory, but that tweeting the story once more could be interpreted as republication with actual malice, even though the story itself was unchanged.

    “The pleaded facts are suggestive enough to render it plausible that Lizza, at that point, engaged in ‘the purposeful avoidance of the truth,’” wrote Judge Steven Colloton in the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals’ opinion. Colloton was joined by Judges Lavenski Smith and Ralph Erickson.

    Lizza, who now works for Politico, declined to comment. An attorney for him did not respond to a request for comment. Nunes’ team and two of his lawyers did not respond to a request for comment.
    sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article254294483.html#storylink=cpy

  100. 100.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @StringOnAStick:

    The comment mentioned it was a 2 year community college nursing program, so public. The redditor even called up ACEN, the accreditation body, to complain. ACEN said there was nothing they could do

  101. 101.

    Roger Moore

    @Chetan Murthy:

    I gotta say, I was not expecting this: too many “but muh house’s resale value!”

    I hate the “resale value” BS.  There are two problems with this argument:

    1. Home resale value is actually a terrible way to build wealth, because wealth that’s tied up in an asset you need as part of your everyday life (house, car, etc.) isn’t available to improve your life. In the long run, a house can’t be an everyday necessity and an appreciating asset.  It just doesn’t work.
    2. Expanding the number of properties allowed on a lot is likely to raise the value of the property, not lower it. Yes, your home may be slightly less attractive as a single family home if it’s surrounded by places with four homes on a lot, but it will be more valuable as an investment opportunity. In areas with really high home prices, the most valuable part of the house isn’t the building or the land but the right to build a house there. Increasing that to four houses will increase the value of the lot.

    I’m actually more sympathetic to the people who complain about this changing the character of their neighborhood.  I think it will do that, albeit much more slowly than they expect*, and I can understand them not liking those changes.  I still think it’s selfish to place your desire to keep the neighborhood stable over other people’s need for a roof over their head, but at least it’s an accurate complaint.

    *I lived for about 7-8 years in a neighborhood that had been rezoned to allow multiple homes on what had previously been single family lots. That was happening gradually while I lived there, but it was a process that was going to take most of a lifetime, not a few years.

  102. 102.

    Citizen Scientist

    My $0.02:  In no way should “ natural immunity” be a substitute for the vaccine; it will only lead to a lot of people lying about their fitness in the face of a pandemic.  I have a moron that I supervise at work that got COVID in February and was also out for several months on medical leave. When he got back in early august he told me he was “immune”, yet he’s out again due to Covid-like symptoms until his test result comes back.  My employer has yet to require the vax for all employees even though it could (keeps spending money on free clinics just encouraging people to get it). On the bright side, this is probably more ammo for letting the guy go, which I think is probably the right move for my sanity, unfortunately, though we’re short staffed.

  103. 103.

    piratedan

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): well to be honest, we need med techs too…

    all that lab equipment isn’t going to run itself… you need training to know how to read micro slides, urinalysis samples, issue blood units.  You have to be aware of the med device hardware, its network connectivity to middleware or the lab application software itself, where decisions are made regarding results acceptance, QC on the instrumentation, specimen dilutions and having enough sense to know when the floor staff need to be aware of a specific result.

    Often unsung, but always needed… they may not be front line clinical staff, but without them and the work that they do, a whole lotta medicine gets a damn sight less exact.

  105. 105.

    WaterGirl

    @zhena gogolia: Jennifer Rubin sent Politico an email response to Politico about Politico, titled OFF THE RECORD.

    Politico published it anyway because they said Politico hadn’t agreed that it would be off the record, saying that Jennifer Rubin writing OFF THE RECORD didn’t make it so.

    Then the stenographer chimed in on twitter, chastising Jennifer Rubin for not understanding how “off the record” works.   A back-and-forth between the stenographer and the journalist ensued.

    Please allow me to repeat myself:

    Maggie Haberman, Republican stenographer, sycophant,  and T**** apologist, is a piece of shit.

  108. 108.

    trollhattan

    @Roger Moore: It’s very hard to pencil out in established neighborhoods with houses uniformly of high value–a positive ROI is a challenge and a lot of money up front is required–but mixed use neighborhoods and those containing stressed housing stock seem ideal for this sort of infill.

    We probably won’t see much impact around my neighborhood, but we have duplexes and apartments already.

    There is one house that was remodeled completely by new owners then several years later, the next-door neighbor died. They bought the home from the estate, knocked it down and put in a garden. Instant double lot!

  110. 110.

    Obvious Russian Troll

    @Arclite: There’s not as much bad facial hair in there as I thought there would be. Definitely some (like the one guy from Dayton towards the top), but I thought there would be much more.

    (Disclaimer: I wear a full beard.)

  111. 111.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): I’d just like to ask this guy why he thinks anybody should listen to him since he was so wrong before about something important and related

    I’d just like to ask this nimrod why, with no training to speak of in virology or epidemiology, he thinks he has the right to shoot his mouth off.

    The answer, of course, is

    Typical MD, who considers himself doG’s gift to whatever he thinks about for more than 30 seconds even though most of his supposed expertise lies in rote memorization and skill with a scalpel.

    Multiply that by about 1000 for the Johns Fucking Hopkins “cachet,” such as it is.

  113. 113.

    WaterGirl

    @zhena gogolia: I was just thinking about that.  I watched a GREAT Harlan Coben series called The Five on Netflix and then tried two different Harlan Coben series on Netflix and didn’t make it through more than one episode of each.

    About 10 minutes ago I was thinking again about whether to sign up for Britbox through Amazon Prime or whether I should try something else on Netflix.

    I miss Bosch. :-(

  114. 114.

    OGLiberal

    @lowtechcyclist: I’ve had longer waits at the pharmacy trying to get a prescription filled.  And, for the love of pete, it’s free.  My kids got the shot near our hometown in a very, very populated area of the Jersey Shore my wife and I got ours at our second home, which is in pretty rural area of Northeast PA.  In each case it was a breeze.  I understand some folks have “can’t get time off work” issues but my guess is that number is pretty small and most of them are lying anyway.  Most of the people refusing to get the shot are just dicks.

  117. 117.

    Bluemeadow

    Natural immunity to a brand new virus worked so well for the Native Americans when they came into contact with smallpox.  What an idiot.

  118. 118.

    zhena gogolia

    @WaterGirl: I don’t have Netflix, but I was wondering about The Stranger (Coben, Armitage). Is that one of the ones you bailed on?

    ETA: Also I believe the great Siobhan Finneran (Mrs. O’Brien on Downton).

  120. 120.

    Roger Moore

    @trollhattan:

    As I said, I lived in a neighborhood that had been rezoned to allow multiple units on a lot, and my experience tracks with yours.  It was a good location for adding multi-unit dwellings- just off Colorado Blvd in Pasadena-  but the development was happening very slowly.  My landlord had decided to replace their back yard with three apartments, and that was one kind of development.  In other cases, when someone died or moved away, their property was frequently bought by a developer who would put in multiple units. The key was that the value proposition wasn’t big enough for developers to pay a premium to buy out people who weren’t already planning on moving.  That meant development couldn’t move faster than the natural turnover in the neighborhood.  It definitely wasn’t what people fear, which is that their nice neighborhood of single family homes is going to be turned into condos overnight.

  122. 122.

    Roger Moore

    @Anoniminous:

    What does a surgeon know about viral epidemiology?

    Absolutely bloody fuck-all

    To be fair, he probably had a class that covered some of this stuff back in med school.  So he may may well know more about it than Joe Sixpack, but he isn’t in the same league as someone who has made epidemiology their life’s work.

  123. 123.

    JaneE

    @Chetan Murthy:  I had thought this was already the case, at least for two residences per lot.  We are single family zoned and some time ago the real estate websites started saying two dwellings allowed.  I assume this will negate all the CC&R’s that specify otherwise.  Technically, some neighborhoods around town can’t even let the kids camp out in the back yard or have relatives stay in their RV for an overnight.

  124. 124.

    zhena gogolia

    @WaterGirl: Also, in case you come back, I started watching with season 7 because RA. Commenters on imdb think it was better at the beginning, but I’m thoroughly enjoying it, preposterous as it is. I love that the big bad russkie is the doctor from Hot Fuzz. “You’re a doctor. Deal with it.” “Yeah, m-fer.”

  125. 125.

    Roger Moore

    @JaneE: 
    There are a couple of provisions. One allows two units on a lot. Another allows lots to be subdivided, so it will effectively allow 4 units on land that had previously allowed only 1. It seems like there would have to be some restriction on the subdividing, so the next owner can’t just subdivide it again. There are some exclusions; historic districts are exempt, for instance.

  126. 126.

    Kayla Rudbek

    @zhena gogolia:  I received a notice from my health care providers that I am eligible for a booster due to the breast cancer. I’ll go ahead and take it, although I sort of feel that I’m not really that badly off physically…

  127. 127.

    matt the somewhat reasonable

    I mean, yes, getting sick and maybe dying is the alternative to vaccination. Are we supposed to say those people aren’t plague rats who are deliberately exposing people to a deadly disease? Why are we constantly asked to lie to cover for evil right wingers?

  128. 128.

    J R in WV

    I used to have a ton of respect for both the FDA and the CDC, once upon a time.

    But it appears that over the past few years they have developed a huge set of Standard Operating Procedures for drug and vaccine approval processes for the 14th new psoriasis medication, which is a long and drawn out process. This makes sense in a environment where Big pharma is trying to make bank on gradual small improvement in a large pool of drugs for non-fatal diseases.

    Now, however, we are faced with a brand new plague that appears to be likely to continue to mutate and evolve to become both more severe and more contagious. Yet these agencies continue to have multi-level approval and advice policies regarding vaccines that have now been administered to literally billions of people. A little urgency seems appropriate at this point in the course of this plague!

    Here locally a county Health Dept had ample supplies of doses of all currently approved Covid-19 vaccines that, because of a sudden and steep decline in their voluntary vaccination rates were nearing their expiration dates. So they passed the word that they were administering third booster shots of vaccines for people who felt immuno-compromised for whatever reason, age, medical history, etc.

    A friend who works there tipped us about this availability, and we were there early afternoon a couple of weeks ago. There were staff in the parking lot, masks required and provided if you didn’t bring one with, chairs to wait in, short line at the check in desk, where Wife and I were found in the State of WV Vaccination database, CDC shot cards were prepared, and we sat down for a V short wait before being asked to move to the shot administration area in a hallway, where EMTs were actually vaccinating folks. Looked like 4 chairs for patients, a table set up in a crossing hall where syringes were filled by trained staff.

    EMTs asked Wife and I which vaccine we needed, we both went for a third dose of Moderna, but this would have been an opportunity to layer a Pfizer on top of our completed Moderna vaccinations. After taking the shots, we went to a separate waiting area where they could verify that no one was having a severe reaction to their new vaccination. We both had a sore muscle in our left arms for a few days — as opposed to my miserable reaction to my second Moderna dose which provided me with continuous cramps and charley horses in places where I didn’t even know there were enough muscles to cramp up.

    We continue to wear masks while out of the house. We do visit some with fully vaccinated neighbors, mostly out doors since the weather is pretty good lately. I feel super fortunate to have local health agencies making common sense decisions about vaccines nearing their end-of-life expiration dates.

    I wish the Federal agencies [ CDC and FDA , etc ] would figure out that their communications policies and inability to clearly describe new data leading to changing policies are a large part of the cause of public confusion about prevention measures, masking, quarantines, and vaccine policies. Plus at least pretend to have some urgency about implementing changes and preventing hospitals from overflowing.

    Finally — unvaccinated people who come down with Coronavirus-19 should be the first people moved into National Guard tents out in the parking lot for their care if other people (stroke, cancer patients, cardiac issues, accident victims, etc) arrive at a hospital and need specialized care to recover.

    Everyone has had a chance to be fully vaccinated at this point in this plague. People not willing to take elementary steps to protect themselves have no right to monopolize respiratory therapy, ventilation equipment, staff availability, etc. They all had their chance to be vaccinated, and decided to go with the sheep-dip prophecies. I’m OK [ well, as long as they don’t get to force me and mine to go with that idiotic viewpoint! ] with that decision, but now they need to live with the results of that decision if it interferes with patient care for people needing care for unforeseen health emergencies.

    Now I’m going to try to get back to sleep.

  129. 129.

    WaterGirl

    @zhena gogolia: That wasn’t one that I bailed on, no.  I love al his books, so I have read that one.  I will give that a try.

    Two or three of the Harlan Coben series on Netflix have apparently been dubbed, and it makes me nuts to watch when the mouth doesn’t match the sound.

    thanks

  130. 130.

    WaterGirl

    @zhena gogolia:

    Also, in case you come back, I started watching with season 7 because RA. Commenters on imdb think it was better at the beginning, but I’m thoroughly enjoying it, preposterous as it is. I love that the big bad russkie is the doctor from Hot Fuzz. “You’re a doctor. Deal with it.” “Yeah, m-fer.”

    Are you talking about MI-5?  Or some other show?

  132. 132.

    Michelle from Chicago

    One of my nephews has had Covid twice — and he’s only 23. Not impressed with the degree of immunity that first bout gave him.

Comments are closed.