It didn’t have to be this way:
West Virginia has one of the fastest rates of new Covid-19 cases in the nation, a surge some state health officials say is at least in part due to the state’s low vaccination rate.
At 46%, West Virginia has the lowest percentage of its eligible population fully vaccinated of any state, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The low percentage is striking. The state was initially considered a vaccine-rollout success story. In February, it had vaccinated a higher percentage of its population than any other state.
Early on, the state excelled at vaccinating people in nursing homes and others who were eager to get the shot, but then it ran into a roadblock of hesitant people, state officials say. It has joined other states with high numbers of hospitalized Covid-19 patients.
We got an early start on getting vaccinated because of our diffused delivery system using small family run pharmacies, targeting elderly and vulnerable, and because the lefties who do exist in WV raced to get the vaccine the moment we could. A small reminder that even in red states, there are a ton of Democrats still who live there, for those of you who just want to write off places like Texas. I know I am as bad as everyone else with the “Fuck Texas” and “Fuck Florida” stuff, but really there are more Democrats living there than the entire population of many Democratic states.
So because of that, we rocketed quickly to the top of the vaccination rates, and then just basically stayed there. The governor and his stupid god damned dog have been giving away money in a lottery, begging people to get it, and people won’t budge. And without a very good healthcare setup in the state, this current surge is going to be a god damned disaster. The governor, of course, won’t do what he needs to:
Some health professionals and state leaders said they want Gov. Jim Justice, a Republican, to reinstate precautionary measures, such as requiring masks among staff and students at K-12 schools, regardless of vaccination status, as recommended by the CDC.
But Dr. Marsh said the governor was unlikely to issue any mandates. “He feels at this point that if he started to mandate vaccines or masks he would split the state right down the middle,” said Dr. Marsh, one of the governor’s advisers on the issue.
A spokesman for Mr. Justice didn’t respond to a request for comment.
It’s not just Justice, though. The WVU faculty Senate convened a special session and voted overwhelmingly to ask for a vaccine mandate on campus, and a majority of students, when asked, also declared they would like a vaccine mandate. The administration is ignoring both of them, claiming it would be “divisive.”
Rule by the minority of stupids is alive and well here in West Virginia. And it is about to get much, much worse. I got an email On Monday that said the peak in the state is expected to be about 1-2 weeks from now, which would not be surprising at all, because there have been two major superspreader events in the last week. Last Saturday, WVU football played some team of high schoolers and beat them 66-0. Today, they hosted VT to a sold out crowd. I checked briefly and didn’t see one god damned mask and turned the tv off in a frothing rage.
West Virginia does not have a professional sports team, so WVU football is basically the state’s pro team. And on game day in Morgantown, it is FUCKING packed. For reference, the largest city in WV is Charleston, clocking in at around 45k residents. Attendance today at the Stadium was approximately 60,000. Basically, on game day, Morgantown’s population is triple or more the size of the largest city in WV every other day of the week. And there are parking lots FILLED with campers from all over the state and region. And they started drinking Friday at noon. So unless a miracle happens, there is going to be a massive surge in the next few weeks as even the vaccinated trickle back to all corners of the state and region and spread the virus. It’ll be a hillbilly Sturgiss on steroids, and the health care system will probably break.
It would not surprise me if the whole state has a DNR order in a few weeks like Idaho does right now. That’s right. If you have a heart attack in Idaho, they will not revive you.
It’s their choice not to get the vaccine. Someone else just has to pay the price.
Another Scott
:-(
There is good news coming, but it will take far longer to arrive than it should.
Repost – Dean Baker at CEPR:
750,000 – 1,000,000 vaccinations a day means that the situations can get a lot better in as little as 3 months if we keep at it. Mandates will help a lot.
Hang in there, John. Stay safe.
Cheers,
Scott.
Odie Hugh Manatee
This winter is going to be a fucking disaster in red areas/states. The sad part is that nobody can stop it because the Republicans are unwilling to even save their own constituents. The most powerful nation in the world and we have a political party that caters to proudly pig ignorant shits. Republican politicians have so conditioned their base to hate Democrats that they can confidently give them advice that will kill some of them, and the families of the dead will send them money/vote them right back into office because they were free to kill themselves. The murders that the Reverend Jim Jones committed are nothing compared to the murders that the Republican party is committing.
They are knowingly killing their supporters, so call it what it is: murder.
Duke of Clay
We’ve been living much the same story here in Kentucky. We have a Democratic governor who has done everything right, BUT (1) the republican Attorney General has sued him at every turn AND (2) the Republican super majority in the legislature has largely stripped him of the ability to enact public health measures. Meanwhile the rank and file Republicans have massively refused the vaccine, so the Delta variant is now burning through the state.
Mallard Filmore
Early on, mandate violators were welded into their apartments by the Chinese government.
That is what it takes.
Matt McIrvin
Reading YouTube comments these days, in particular, makes me feel like the antivaxxers completely won the argument. Any video that remotely touches on medicine or politics just turns into a forum for antivaxxers congratulating each other about their irrefutable arguments (“if the vaccine works, why are unvaccinated people a danger to you?” is the antivaxxer “if we evolved from apes, why are there still apes?”). Nobody else even wants to start shit with them any more.
HumboldtBlue
I can’t imagine being in a crowd.
It’s gonna be a long winter.
Suzanne
Allegheny County, despite having a pretty high rate of vaccination, is also fucked pretty bad. Thanks, GOP!
El Cruzado
@Matt McIrvin: It’s mostly an organized noise machine. The Internet is not the real world, thankfully.
HumboldtBlue
@Suzanne:
Just watched 110,000 people jump and dance in Beaver Stadium for three hours as Penn State hosted Auburn.
Chetan Murthy
@HumboldtBlue: hide! hide! crrrrikey!
Kayla Rudbek
@HumboldtBlue: I wonder if this season is going to be what brings down college football as an organized sport…
Jess
@Another Scott:
And yet here we are in the red zone in Mass. We’re at the same level we were at during the peak of the first wave. Grrrr. At least the body count is way lower.
frosty
I’m glad you qualified that with “areas”. As WG and MM can attest there are plenty of red areas in Illinois and New York which aren’t much more vaccinated than West Virginia. And we’re all heading inside in a couple of months. I’m not looking forward to December here in South Pennsyltucky.
Winston
West Virginia Sucks.
HumboldtBlue
@Chetan Murthy:
Yeah, I know.
@Kayla Rudbek:
Not this year, but the forces working on changing the sport dramatically as we know it are gaining momentum quickly, and the pandemic is just one of the factors involved.
Brachiator
There is only so much you can do when people are determined to do the wrong thing. This is a state where many have dealt with the terrible ailments related to the coal mining industry.
Where is Joe Manchin on this issue?
Kayla Rudbek
@HumboldtBlue: I saw that LSU is partnering with Caesar’s Palace as if the Louisiana justice system didn’t have enough trouble with bias as it is. The more gambling, the more unhappy judges when LSU messes up…
Kattails
My heart bleeds for all the sane people there and in places like Florida. Living in a relatively rational part of the country feels like being in an outlier country in Europe during WWII, watching the shit building at a distance and wondering when it’s all going to overrun you. Florida’s losing over 1200 people a day, and I can’t get my fully-vaccinated, 92 year old Republican mother to say or hear a word against DeathSantis.
Even here (New England) the hospitals are getting challenged and yet there was a rally against vax mandates- by healthcare workers. Alice in wonderland is looking like a model of perfect sanity or an amazing bit of prescience.
HumboldtBlue
@Kayla Rudbek:
The floodgates are open, schools and conferences seeking realignment is cutthroat and how they keep the national interest and the “campus” connection is going to be interesting to watch.
At this point, the NCAA is a caretaker, big business is going to determine the futures of college football and basketball.
dopey-o
@Matt McIrvin: Talking to the anti-vaxxers is fruitless, and only allows them a chance to indulge their superiority and contempt. And bad faith.
Is there an answer to this problem? Google “Kobayashi Maru”
Tissue Thin Pseudonym
I’ll be heading to the hockey arena as soon as the Gophers’ season starts in two weeks. I have to. I suffer from loneliness and depression at the best of times. I don’t think I can survive another six months without any real social interaction. I’m vaccinated. I’ll wear a mask. But it’s been 19 months during which I’ve had real conversations with exactly one person. I can’t take it any longer.
If I didn’t have a job that I had to go to this whole time, even though there’s no one else in the building 90+% of the time I’m there, I wouldn’t have made it this long.
Ksmiami
At this point, all you can say is “faster pussycat…” and hope Delta burns through quickly. The Republicans are leading their people over the cliff, we tried cajoling them not to follow, but now we need to get out of the way and let the death cult come to its own conclusion. Hmm and they call us sheep…
CaseyL
@Kattails: I think all Red/GOP areas are the same, whether they dominate a state or are just a part of a blue state: “You can’t tell me what to do.”
The fact that the surviving families, friends, etc, remain obdurately in that mind-set (and still support the politicians who are killing them) has to do with sunk costs.
Or maybe, in the very back of their minds, they really feel that the deaths of the people they know and (ostensibly) care about, is a worthy sacrifice to their deity and they, the survivors, will be favored because of it.
Chetan Murthy
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym: I purchased a couple of N95 gatapack (www.gatapack.com) masks. they have strong earloops, which can be tightened to the point that blowing forcefully doesn’t cause air to go around the edge of the mask. So I think it’ll be pretty tight, and I can go into public transit with …. a little more confidence of not getting infected.
Winston
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym: I get it. It is going to be two years isolation for me except for a couple of months early this summer.
OldNPLer
As someone who has lived in a red state their entire life surrounded by these morons, I say the following:
Fuck them. If they die, they die.
I’m tired of trying to care about them when they don’t give a shit about any of their neighbors. I tried for decades, but I’m done.
Let them suffer. They’ve earned it.
VOR
The one saving grace for college football games is the majority of the stadiums are outdoor, unlike the NFL with a lot of covered stadiums. Maybe it will help a little.
Ksmiami
@OldNPLer: pandemics through history, well, they reorder the world…
Mallard Filmore
@VOR:
Lots of opportunity for indoor environments, what with rest rooms and concession stands.
David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch
Meanwhile there were riots in Australia with Whites beating Blue over covid restrictions (video)
Basically any country with Murdoch is fucked. Murdoch has killed more people than bin Laden could ever dream of
Winston
@VOR: I saw a video of the gators vs Alabama crowd and thought here is the next covid swap meet.
Matt McIrvin
@Jess: Massachusetts is not at the same level as the peak of the first wave. There was barely testing back then. Look at the death rates in spring 2020 and you can see cases must have been undercounted by a factor of several.
NotMax
@Winston
Harmers market?
Ruckus
@OldNPLer:
The issue isn’t that they likely will die. It’s what and who the take with them. Mostly that’s healthcare availability, hospital beds and other people, not all of whom are pro Covid like they are.
OldNPLer
@Ruckus: I know. The fact they’re hurting their neighbors with their stupidity is part of what’s so maddening.
It’s a big part of why I no longer care if they die. My wells of empathy are completely spent.
I have reached the point where I think there’s a silver lining if they kill themselves off with their stupidity. At least the decent people won’t have to deal with them anymore.
I honestly used to care about them, and was empathetic. I was even naïve enough to think they were just good, misguided people.
I was a sucker. I’m through caring about trash people.
MomSense
The county where I live has the second or third highest vaccination rate of all counties in the country and yet our hospitals are full of Covid patients because our state also has counties with some of the lowest vaccination rates in the country.
James E Powell
@Kayla Rudbek:
How so?
James E Powell
@Brachiator:
And vote for people who fight every safety regulation.
OldNPLer
@James E Powell: If they don’t care about themselves, why should any of us care what happens to them?
gbear
The governor isn’t worried about Covid mandates splitting the state. He’s worried about it splitting his party. All the Democrats would support anti-Covid measures.
Chetan Murthy
@OldNPLer:
I feel your anger, too. There are times when I really do want them all to die, and to do so quickly. Or for the rapture they prattle on about to come, so we can build a decent world without their Christofascist ilk constantly holding us back. I read HermanCainAwards with some glee, b/c my anger can be so boundless, so unquenchable.
But then, y’know, I read about the statewide DNR order in Idaho, and …. well, the only phrase that does it justice is “Jesus wept” [and I’m a confirmed and vocal atheist, just to be clear]. It’s horrific. And in every one of those states, are decent people, just stuck there, and having to live surrounded by these moral imbeciles [the term means osmeone who is incapable of acting in a morally correct manner — *incapable* — and I think it applies] and of course there are the children.
Ugh. It’s all horrific. I feel you.
Ksmiami
The only solution is anti vaxxers get Covid tents in parking lots. Others get hospital beds. Sorry not sorry.
rikyrah
You and yours need to protect yourself from the lying unvaccinated ?
Ruckus
@OldNPLer:
Because we are not sociopaths?
And because not all of the people they are killing are themselves
And because most of the politicians and “news” people who are supporting them have been vaccinated and are willing to kill off a bunch of their supporters if it will also kill off their non supporters
Mike J
A week ago tonight, my 79 year old mother took a fall. Displaced her shoulder. Will probably never be able to raise that arm over her head again.
We took her to the ER, where there were a dozen people lined up on chairs outside. Covid cases. Mom’s doctor already doesn’t want to do surgery because she’s a 79 yo with serious health conditions. That idea that these selfish assholes exposed her to a deadly disease in one place she absolutely could not avoid them makes me livid.
And yeah, I’m in King County WA. 85.3% of people 12+ have at least one shot, 79.2% have two. And yet I’m still surrounded by assholes.
opiejeanne
@Ruckus: Somehow, a bunch of right wing radio hosts missed the memo about getting vaccinated just like Tucker Carlson, and there are at least 6 of them gone now plus several preachers.
Cathie from Canada
Here in Saskatchewan, we are close to what our health care system calls Critical Care Stage 2 which is the point where so-called ethical triage begins – the doctor has to tell the family of someone over the age of 80, with co-morbidities, that they do not get an ICU bed or a ventilator. I think they’re allowed to stay in the hospital, but basically they’re on the ice floe at that point.
I am calling this Critical Care Stage Fuck!
opiejeanne
@Mike J: I’m so sorry about your mother, and I hope she doesn’t get sick.
Yes, the assholes are among us. I’m not sure who is vaccinated among my neighbors with the exception of the ones I know are Democrats.
opiejeanne
@Cathie from Canada: Idaho reported today that everyone in the hospitals there who have Covid has a “do not resuscitate” order. Every single patient with Covid.
Some of the Idaho Covid patients are coming over the border from Coeur d’Alene to Spokane, WA because their hospitals are full. Unfortunately, Spokane is in a very red area full of anti-vaxxers and their hospital is full. A year ago, before there was a vaccine, they sent their overflow to Seattle and Portland, and I expect that to begin if it hasn’t already, and those two cities’ hospitals already have their hands full.
eclare
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym: I hope you get to enjoy the Gophers hockey season. Mask and vaxxed sounds like a plan!
eclare
@Chetan Murthy: I bought 3M N95’s, wow, they are snug!
Chetan Murthy
@eclare: Yes, we all need to spread the word so that everybody gets snug N95 masks that they can carefully fit to ensure they filter all intake air. Gonna need those for a long time.
Ruckus
@opiejeanne:
I didn’t intend to say that all of the politicians/”news” assholes were vaccinated, just a substantial volume of them. Some of them are as dumb, stupid and ignorant as their followers.
Soprano2
When I read threads like this it feels like there is no vaccine and everyone is still at significant risk of dying from Covid. If your goal is to never catch Covid you’d better get used to living in your house and never interacting with the outside world again, because that’s what it will take; any hope for zero Covid died in April 2020. I truly don’t understand the terror I see here from people who are fully vaccinated (with the caveat that I’m not talking about anyone with children who can’t be vaxxed yet or medically vulnerable family members). I and my husband are vaxxed. We went to the symphony tonight, which is back to normal seating. Face masks were required for attendance. I felt completely safe. I got vaxxed so I could quit being afraid of dying or being hospitalized, so I could live my life normally again, and that’s what I’m doing.
I’m sure some of the people in those stadiums are vaccinated, and they’re outside for most of the time, so I’m not worried about them. I say if the wilfully unvaccinated want to sicken and kill each other, let them. It’s tragic, and I feel terrible for the orphans and the sane vaxxed family members who lose loved ones, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to let them keep me from enjoying my life. I wish more liberals would have this attitude, and quit letting these crazy people control how you live your life. At this point there is nothing you can do about them – the willful ones can’t be reached, because they think being unvaxxed is “owning the libs” (we all know the joke’s on them, though). Concentrate on the people who have doubts but aren’t willful, or who need access. I hate that there are so many willfully unvaxxed too, but I won’t let them control how I live my life.
Chetan Murthy
@Soprano2:
Until we know what risks we’re running regarding long covid from breakthrough infections, I won’t feel comfortable as long as there’s rampant community spread. And yeah, if that means spending another year in my house, I guess that’s the price I’ll have to pay. I already know a friend who got brain impacts from his covid infection (early 2020) and seeing him struggle to do things that he used to do with ease, I know I don’t want that
Eventually we’ll have nasal vaccines and antiviral treatments, so that even with endemic covid, we won’t have to risk suffering thru a full course of the bug. If I have to, I’ll wait until that arrives.
Soprano2
@Mike J: I hope your mom is OK. ER’s were problematic even before Covid because there are always sick people there. I hope they are separating the possible Covid patients from everyone else. Unfortunately, there will always be some unvaxxed people who can have Covid. Even without the willful RWNJ’s there were already anti-vaxx people.
CaseyL
@Mike J: Oh, jeez, I am so sorry to hear about your Mom.
85% and 79% are still not 100% in KC, which means there are going to be terminal Covid cases all over King County. I work for UW Medicine, and the Covid census is horrifying – though, note, quite a few are spillovers from Eastern Washington and we may have some Ida-assholes as well.
Your Mom’s doctor, since he already doesn’t want to subject her to surgery, may also be hampered by the fact that anything other than emergency, life-or-death surgery is being pushed back and postponed again, thanks to Covidiots, who cannot die fast enough, IMO. Does he suggest any interim treatment?
Mike J
@CaseyL: She’ll be starting PT in 4-6 weeks, immobilized the arm until then.
Soprano2
@Chetan Murthy: I know long Covid is a concern for some people. That would be true even if we had a 90% vaxxed rate, though. I think because I had Covid in December I’m not that worried about it. I figure I’ve done everything I’m willing to do to protect myself. I guess what I’m saying is that even if we had high vaccination rates you’d still be doing the same things if you were worried about long Covid.
Jay
My birthday present this year from the love of my life, were 10 new face masks. washable.
Double layer, 20% larger, bigger nose bridge, new chin bridge, intermediate side pocket, ( no more wrestling with the intermediate filter), M116 covid filters,
worn over a 3 layer disposable surgical mask. Changed 4-8 times a day.
no fogging, no blow by, back of the neck and head so no ear trauma,
powder blue to make my eyes pop,
I think she loves me,………?
Chetan Murthy
@Soprano2: At sufficiently high vaxx rates, covid daily case rates would drop. When they drop to around “a bad flu year”, I’d be willing to take the risk, even without knowledge of long covid chances. Why do I think cases would drop? It’s what the various studies show, so far — that the effective reproduction number (of Delta) in the vaxxed population is a little less than 1.0. So that plus masks/distancing, should squash the outbreak …… if only all of us would get vaxxed. More evidence for this, is that basically none of the kids in SF schools are transmitting covid: the mitigations are working, even though kids <12yo aren’t vaxxed.
So in short, I’m waiting for case rates to return to where they were in June. Or maybe twice that. Right now, they’re too high for me to be willing to go to the gym and lift weights. As an infectious disease scientist was quoted as saying (about going to the gym): “the thought of all those aerosols make me feel faint.”
Tissue Thin Pseudonym
@opiejeanne: It isn’t true that all covid patients in Idaho are under a DNR. This is a misunderstanding. Idaho hospitals are now operating under crisis standards, and it is true that one of the things that can be instituted under those standards is a universal DNR policy (which would include everyone, not just covid patients). But such a DNR policy has not, in fact, been put in place. And it’s highly unlikely that they will.
If a hospital runs out of ventilators, then they will put certain patients under a DNR order. They’ll triage them. But the major hospitals, at least, aren’t there yet.
Ruckus
@Soprano2:
Normal life in a pandemic depends on your age and any comorbidities, old enough being one of those.
I’m 72, old enough, have had cancer, and a heart attack. The HA was minor as those things go but it affects how much more damage the OEM heart can stand. Along with that I have other issues that can make life interesting and cut down on one’s health reserve. That’s my way of saying how much negative you can take health wise before it becomes serious. I’ve added 2 new things in the last 3 years, or subtracted 2 more points from my health reserve. One can only lose so many points before critical mass is reached. So no, I don’t plan to attend any mass events, or even any minimal mass events.
Jay
@Soprano2:
got Long Covid,
infected, survived intubation,
double vaxxed,
Stillsucks.
You don’t ever want to go there,
Chetan Murthy
@Jay: Jay, I hope it’s OK if I ask this question: you got covid, recovered, and *then* got vaxxed? That’s what I seem to remember, but I could be mistaken.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@Ruckus:
It doesn’t matter even if we were sociopaths, they are going to keep doing what they are doing because nobody can stop them. Some of them are going to die and they are going to take out innocents with themselves, no matter what I think or say. I have realized that while I abhor the deaths of innocents, nothing I say will change anything. Innocent people are going to die along with these selfish, ignorant assholes. I too hate these assholes and all I can hope is that they kill more of themselves than they do innocents.
I will not feel bad for wishing the worst on these horrible people, they’ve earned it.
CaseyL
@Mike J: Best of luck to her. And to you.
Ruckus
@Odie Hugh Manatee:
What amazes me is that they are spending far more energy, time and life being stupid, belligerent, ignorant assholes than if they just got the vaccine. It’s not like there isn’t proof that it doesn’t do all the asinine stuff they say it does, there’s plenty. It’s not like they aren’t effective vaccines, they are highly effective. It’s not like they cost anything more than a bit of time, far, far less than a hospital stay.
Now OTOH, it seems this might be a nice scientific study to see how many people would rather believe those with absolutely zero scientific training and listen to a bunch of ignorant fucks being paid to see if they can get them to follow any concept, no matter how ignorant, pig headed, dangerous it is to their own health and to their families/friends. The only negative thing I can see about a study like this is that the people conducting it are as screwed up as their test subjects. If not more.
The science of stupid.
One Covid step at a time.
Jay
@Chetan Murthy:
yeah, played it safe, “essential”, disposable worker,
started masking with M95’s in Feb, 2020
in my “spare time”, worked as a “street medic”, providing basic medical services to the unhoused.
Short story, entered a Covid RV, provided mouth to mouth, CPR, warned everybody it was Covid, saved some lives,
Self quarantined, got Covid, intubated, survived.
still sucks, but I get better every quarter.
I can do 5 flights of stairs now with out passing out, and the “brain fog” is less. Still light up like a Christmas tree on an MRI with all the microclots.
Chetan Murthy
@Jay: I remember your writing up the story when it happened. I didn’t know about the epilogue. I’m so sorry, Jay. I hope you’ll get better over time. And I’ve read that there’s a lot of research being done on long covid.
eclare
@Chetan Murthy: 150k daily cases is way too high. According to Dr. Fauci, once we get to around 10k per day, the pandemic will be over. We almost got there in June, then Delta crashed the party.
I am only associating with people who I know are vaxxed til then.
Chetan Murthy
@Ruckus:
Or maybe the science of atrocity? B/c these people who believe this stuff, they can be convinced of anything. They can be convinced that we are to blame. They can be convinced to murder us all.
Chetan Murthy
@eclare: 10k cases/day with a 1% CFR corresponds to 100 deaths/day. Which is about a “bad flu year”. Doing the math, that comes to about 3 cases/day/100k. So SF, with 700k people, should see 20 cases/day. We’re at 5x that right now, sigh.
Ruckus
@Chetan Murthy:
I think the science of atrocity might be giving the vast majority of them too much credit, but certainly it is an atrocity they are committing. The one very dim light is that they are killing themselves doing it. Of course they get no credit for that as they are taking innocent people with them.
Kent
And of course, send all the unvaccinated staff out to the parking lot to take care of the unvaccinated patients. Lock all of them out. Win, win.
Chetan Murthy
@Ruckus: A large number of people are being taught to believe absurdities. Only a tiny percentage of those people are dying (b/c 1% CFR). All the rest survive, and have become just that much more amenable to committing atrocities. That’s what I meant.
Jay
@Chetan Murthy:
as it’s Canada, I got to jump the Vaxx queue, because my wife, the love of my life is Indigenous,
First chance we got, we got the first shot, then the second shot.
She get’s to work from home, ( story there),
I am a disposable worker.
Her “bubble” is me.
My “bubble” is 197 other coworkers plus 2500-4000 customers, and all the people they hang with.
Barney
twitter.com/KevinMKruse/status/1439399499923968000
Kevin M. Kruse: “Seriously thought this was @DougJBalloon’s New York Times Pitchbot at first.
Robert Sneddon
@Barney: One American in 500 has died from COVID-19, yes but the dying hasn’t finished yet. The excess deaths figure for the US since January 2020 indicates the ratio is more like one American in 350 but there were a lot of deaths early on which weren’t ‘caught’ by the system as being directly caused by COVID-19.
Get back to us in five years time, Mr. Douthat.
sab
My youmgest grand-child just started school last week. Now she has a slight fever and is grumpy. Since we are in Covid times, everyone around her is getting tested and in quarantine. Her school system is fully masked.
Her oldest sister just started college. She now has to miss classes until her test results come back.
Interesting times. Time to reread the Decameron.
Cermet
@Jay: I am so very sorry for what you had and still are enduring; you did a wonderful thing helping those people that few every really care about.
Baud
@Barney:
If Covid had killed everyone on the planet, no one would have to suffer anymore.
sab
@Jay: My grandchildren’s bubble is huge. Dad has six kids with five different women. Most of those women later had other partners and other children. Most of those women are anti-vax. Everyone interacts all the time, since they are all family. It’s a mess.
sab
@Jay: Will she share her mask patterns? I have ben making masks for two years. Following medical guidance. Turns out suboptimal, I want to be making better masks.
Chris Johnson
@OldNPLer:
Because that’s the real goal of all this: driving wedges and making it so American hates American and we’re at civil war, disintegrating from within.
We should be at a state where we’re able to care, and it’s taken a lot of work to break that. The MAGAs and Freepers before them got taught over the course of years that liberals were vermin.
Now we’re falling for the same trick, because we’re only human and there’s only so much one can do to resist, but the goal’s the same: we’re supposed to think the plague-rats are vermin, we’re supposed to actively want them all to die.
This ain’t civilization. It’s also not normal, though there’s always a tendency when things get too big to find an out-group. That’s what’s going on, and it is why certain entities have been working as hard as they have, for so long, to set up the MAGAs to be exactly this.
They’re supposed to believe we’re vermin and want to genocide us… but they don’t understand that they’re being played, and set up so that to us, they’re the vermin. But it’s the same. Break a country by getting it to war on itself.
NorthLeft12
Not sure how many of you know, but up here in Canada we are having a federal election Monday. I am a supervisor of a polling station about twenty minutes south of my home. In the training for my job last week the biggest concern is how to deal with anti-mask/pro-COVID-19 dumbasses.
We have a mask mandate in Ontario which requires people to wear masks in indoor areas, although there are people with medical exemptions.
Fortunately, the dumbasses are not that numerous or obnoxiously vocal so I might dodge that bullet.
COVID-19 has certainly made this election much more challenging.
Ken
My mind is absurdly focused on how Cole managed to get the “Post and Comments” button inside a doubly-nested blockquote.
Steeplejack (phone)
@Barney:
Funny comment thread on this.
Sample: “Douthat the king of cranking out 6,000 words when ‘no shit’ or ‘god no’ would do.”
Soprano2
@Jay: No, I don’t, but I’m not willing to stay in my house forever, either. I could be killed in a car wreck today, too.
Soprano2
@Ruckus: Well, I’m not talking about people in situations like yours, just like I’m not talking about people with children under 12.
Soprano2
@Barney: If 1 in 50 were the death toll, almost everyone would have had a person close to them die. What an idiot.
trnc
i.gifer.com/6tW.gif
Sloegin
Some Rs are criminally stupid. Others are just criminal and have deliberately fomented an army of covidiot suicide-bombers ready at their beck and call to drag down the country and cause endless chaos. Those people *have* to see Justice at some point in their sleazy, loathsome lives. Call it Covid Nuremberg, whatever it takes.
A dead uncle in TX, a dead brother-in-law who died because the thing that killed him wasn’t an emergency case and couldn’t get admitted (both last year, pre-vaccine) I’m angry all the damn time now.
trnc
I read half the post thinking, “Who is he quoting? This sounds exactly like what Cole would say.”
Chief Oshkosh
@OldNPLer: As humans? We don’t need to care about them at all, though that’s obviously an individual choice. They have set themselves outside of my tender mercies. However, as incubators, we very much do need to care about their actions. The next variant that pops up in one of these assholes could easily be more communicable than delta and more deadly and immune to vaccines.
Kcenya1950
I feel you, John I’m a Democrat in Idaho. At first our gov was pretty good but now the lege has him cowed. House refused to adjourn so they can come back and strip him of powers whenever they want to. And the Republicans now have put a crazy conspiracy anti Vaxxer on the board of health for the most populous counties including Democratic Boise. The only hope is that enough of the stupid ones die off.
Chief Oshkosh
@Chetan Murthy: Like a Republican strategist said some time ago about his intended audience: They are just reprogrammable meat bags.
Chief Oshkosh
@Robert Sneddon:
I’m counting on him having a reaction to a booster that causes his balls to explode…while vacationing in Idaho, and so dying by slow bleed-out on a gurney under the parking lot tent set up for Vocid DNR patients.
WaterGirl
@Mike J: ?
WaterGirl
@Ken: Interesting!
WaterGirl
@Ken: I just added a “return” after the block quote, and Post + Comments jumped right out of the double-quote. :-)
Lord Fartdaddy (Formerly, Mumphrey, Smedley Darlington Mingobat, et al.)
“Rule by minority of stupids”. That’s it. That’s the short, pithy description we need. Spread this around. Make it part of the veracular.
Ruckus
@Chetan Murthy:
I understand. I was sort of referring to science being something that is intellectually studied. There really isn’t much in the way of intellect going on in the conservative side.
Tim C.
@Soprano2: The problem isn’t that the spreadnecks might give us COVID. I’m pretty much with you on the relative risk to the vaccinated. Like you mention, I have kids, but they are being safe and the kids would *probably* shake it off, no big deal like most kids.
The big issue is what happens if middle-aged me or my elderly parents have a heart attack or other medical emergency and the hospitals are filled with the willingly stupid. It’s the problem of emergency health care now isn’t available to the vaccinated because of these diptards.
steve g
From Randall Monroe at kcxd:
There are
more Trump voters in California than in Texas,
more Biden voters in Texas than in New York,
more Trump voters in New York than in Ohio,
more Biden voters in Ohio than in Massachusetts,
more Trump voters in Massachusetts than in Mississippi,
more Biden voters in Mississippi than in Vermont.
xkcd.com/2399/