Fear and Loathing, a Rat Flu Odyssey

[old goat]

I don't understand why you guys still have anger towards unvaccinated. They all just got vaccinated, by Omicron (I've repeated ad nauseum that over 40% will have contracted Omicron by mid February). Sure, had they gotten Omicron and been vaccinated they would have a little stronger immunity. But you can no longer claim that the unvaccinated are preventing us from ___________.

Ad nauseum is right. Also wrong.

[altasnob]

So you don't think Trevor Bedford is incorrect that over 40% of America will have been infected with Omicron by mid-February? Please provide cite.

[::: :::]

That bad faith post earned an ignore, congrats

[altasnob]

40% isn't "all," for one thing.

75% of US has had one dose. Lets give a pass for those under 12 because they either aren't eligible or there is at least credible, minority viewpoint, that they don't need it. So what do we have left? Now assume 40% of those just got Omicron. Bottom line, by mid-February, there will be a small minority of people in America that have not been vaccinated, and have no immunity to the variant du jour.

Now down the road (if) a new variant emerges, sure, vaccination will again be important. But I don't see how it is such an important issue today, at this very moment.

[The AD]

The unvaccinated got us here. Two years in and we've got a Coronavirus strain that may infect half of us. Things may have been very different if 90% were vaccinated by now. I don't see how you can suggest that we should now let the unvaccinated off the hook because of Omicron. You can argue, "sure, but does it matter now?" Of course it does because those unvaccinated are still a huge burden on the healthcare system in this country. Don't try to say that the numbers are going down because we're still at 2,500 deaths per day, a 28% increase from two weeks ago.

[altasnob]

What is easy and politically expedient is to do what you suggest--keep shutting down schools and pay parents to stay home with their kids.

We aren't doing that. Since New Years my under 5 kids have been to daycare 3 days, with the rest of the days spent isolating at home due to COVID exposure. I pay $2,000 a month for part-time day care. The last IRS payment I received was mid-December. I believe that was the last one.

Sidenote; I successfully convinced the county health department that they were incorrectly interpreting the State's day care isolation rules and got them to change the time from 14 days to 7 days with a negative test after five. It took me being a dick attorney to them, but parents in Pierce County can thank me for this.

[SumJongGuy]

So you don't think Trevor Bedford is incorrect that over 40% of America will have been infected with Omicron by mid-February? Please provide cite.

In case you haven't figured out.. Contracting one strain/variant doesn't prevent you from getting the next one.. But vaccine, and not a previous injection is what greatly reduces the magnitude of the illness delivered by those future infections.. Having Alpha or Delta didn't reduce the odds of severe Omicron illness nearly as mush as being vaccinated does.

[altasnob]

The unvaccinated got us here. Two years in and we've got a Coronavirus strain that may infect half of us. Things may have been very different if 90% were vaccinated by now. I don't see how you can suggest that we should now let the unvaccinated off the hook because of Omicron. You can argue, "sure, but does it matter now?" Of course it does because those unvaccinated are still a huge burden on the healthcare system in this country. Don't try to say that the numbers are going down because we're still at 2,500 deaths per day, a 28% increase from two weeks ago.

Bottom line, I disagree that harboring deep resentment for the unvaccinated in US accomplishes anything going forward. What accomplishes things is harboring deep resentment for the biggest threat we face today going forward; vaccinating immunocompromised individuals in the poor countries of Earth who haven't even had the chance to be vaccinated.

[SumJongGuy]

Resentments and anger motivate people to vote for change... more than anything else does..

[oldnew_guy]

You don't get it. Without near universal vaccination there is no end to this pandemic. Sure, one day we can decide to call it "endemic" but that will still mean unconscionable numbers of people dying, an overwhelmed health care system, and a failing economy. I'm not advocating sitting around and whining--what a condescending thing for you to say. I am advocating that the angry majority act.

1) demand--by way of organized protests and by voting--that states require vaccination to go to school. I believe every state does this already for a multitude of vaccinations. California does it with no religious or personal belief exemptions and goes after doctors who give fake medical exemptions. No court has invalidated these mandates.

2) demand that federal and state governments impose vaccine mandates to use public transportation and to enter businesses and public buildings.

3) organize protests and boycott businesses that don't enforce the rules. Organize boycotts of states that don't impose or enforce the rules. If necessary states can ban travel or require quarantine of travelers from states without vaccine mandates. Boycott businesses that don't require their employees to be vaccinated.

It's time for the majority of us who are vaccinated make our voices heard and drown out the antivaxers, who up until now have been the only loud voice on the subject. Now all that would actually be hard.

What is easy and politically expedient is to do what you suggest--keep shutting down schools and pay parents to stay home with their kids. We've done that and the pandemic just got worse. As a taxpayer I don't want to keep paying people for the damage being done by those who refuse to be vaccinated and I don't want to see the poor kids without the resources to do remote school fall farther and farther behind (not that their schools were doing such a great job before.)

ok, let’s do all of that. I don’t disagree. Now let’s talk about how you implement that and enforce it.

we can and must do more than one thing at a time and we shouldn’t preclude the opportunity to make other good changes until we do “X”.

Are you willing to kick down the cash it will take to turn your grocery bagger into a vaccine mandate enforcer? In theory we have an indoor mask mandate where I live. In practice, no one without a mask is refused service because businesses don’t want to deal with enforcement and they know their staff certainly don’t want to deal with it.

While we figure that out, I would propose that their are other incremental steps we can take to reduce the burden on the people least able to absorb the impacts.

I can’t do shit about the federal response or what some dumbass politician in another state does. I can however expect more out of my local and state politicians.

Omicron is a great example. Even in places with high vaccination rates we have seen school closures. Short term, but closures nonetheless. People don’t go to the hospital, but they still need to take time off because they are sick or are quarantined or their kids schools are closed. What’s the impact of a family on the edge loosing their housing because of that? Shouldn’t we make at least a half step to keep the most vulnerable houses and fed?

It just seems so obvious to me. Close a school, particularly a low income and there is an impact. The school closure needs to happen so let’s mitigate the impact.

[Benny Profane]

You don't get it. Without near universal vaccination there is no end to this pandemic. Sure, one day we can decide to call it "endemic" but that will still mean unconscionable numbers of people dying, an overwhelmed health care system, and a failing economy. I'm not advocating sitting around and whining--what a condescending thing for you to say. I am advocating that the angry majority act.

1) demand--by way of organized protests and by voting--that states require vaccination to go to school. I believe every state does this already for a multitude of vaccinations. California does it with no religious or personal belief exemptions and goes after doctors who give fake medical exemptions. No court has invalidated these mandates.

2) demand that federal and state governments impose vaccine mandates to use public transportation and to enter businesses and public buildings.

3) organize protests and boycott businesses that don't enforce the rules. Organize boycotts of states that don't impose or enforce the rules. If necessary states can ban travel or require quarantine of travelers from states without vaccine mandates. Boycott businesses that don't require their employees to be vaccinated.

It's time for the majority of us who are vaccinated make our voices heard and drown out the antivaxers, who up until now have been the only loud voice on the subject. Now all that would actually be hard.

What is easy and politically expedient is to do what you suggest--keep shutting down schools and pay parents to stay home with their kids. We've done that and the pandemic just got worse. As a taxpayer I don't want to keep paying people for the damage being done by those who refuse to be vaccinated and I don't want to see the poor kids without the resources to do remote school fall farther and farther behind (not that their schools were doing such a great job before.)

Oh c'mon, doctor, there are always ends to pandemics. Thousands have happened in recorded history, and lord knows how many before, since man huddled together in large groups. As said above, Omicron is probably ending this pandemic, and now it becomes something like the flu or even common cold. Are we supposed to live in mortal fear of that?

[SumJongGuy]

Oh c'mon, doctor, there are always ends to pandemics. Thousands have happened in recorded history, and lord knows how many before, since man huddled together in large groups. As said above, Omicron is probably ending this pandemic, and now it becomes something like the flu or even common cold. Are we supposed to live in mortal fear of that?

WHEN there are as many or more people in the ICU due to the flu as there are from COVID get back to me. Hell, this shit isn't even seasonal like the flu is..

[Percy Rideout]

This is fun arguing about vaccination rates in the first world, like we are some kind of isolated island or some shit.

[Benny Profane]

Calm down dude. Get back to us in the summer. And if ICU capacity is an issue, well, maybe we need more ICU, right? Imagine if this was a real mother of a killer.

[::: :::]

Imagine if this was a real mother of a killer.

No need to imagine - 883k US deaths as of now
And projected to hit 1M this year

How do you brush that under the rug?

[altasnob]

I think Old Goat and others are overestimating how many Americans are passionately for COVID vaccination and want the government to use strong arm tactics to force vaccination. Sure, there is a large component that are. But to a lot of people who got vaccinated are more indifferent about their choice. And it's not strictly based on party or geographic lines as I know lots of those in the later and I have almost never associated with anyone who you can label a conservative or Republican. And I don't understand how you can mandate a vaccine to those under 12 when there is at least one, modern, intelligent, country, who is not even recommending it. Recommend it and encourage it, sure, but mandate it? And I also don't understand how anyone thinks closing schools is still the proper course. Numerous countries on earth have fared far better than the US and have never closed their schools. It would be way cheaper to pay the teachers who don't want to teach in person to sit at home and do, essentially, nothing, than it is to pay parents when schools are closed.

[funkendrenchman]

I know the pandemic isn't over, but for god's sake, can we start moving our little ones toward more normalcy? I've been super cautious with them this whole time, but with two years of data and with vaccinations available to everyone in the US (5+) that wants one, I feel ready to change my tune a bit.

The kids just had RSV and it SUCKED! Yet, we've spent two years testing them, masking and keeping them out of school every time a sniffle comes up, trying to protect them from Covid. Yet, almost every kid under 6 I know who's had Covid has had somewhere between nothing and a regular cold and they aren't even vaccinated yet. Obviously, there are some exceptions, but there will always be. Remember that the flu is also super dangerous for the under 2 set and we've never taken any real measure to protect them in schools.

Under 5 hospitalization rate:
RSV - .5 to 2 %
Omicron - .015% (and that's 4x higher than for kids 5-17)

[LongShortLong]

Oh c'mon, doctor, there are always ends to pandemics. Thousands have happened in recorded history, and lord knows how many before, since man huddled together in large groups. As said above, Omicron is probably ending this pandemic, and now it becomes something like the flu or even common cold. Are we supposed to live in mortal fear of that?

Hmm... when have we heard this before? Spring 2020, Summer 2020, Fall 2020, Spring 2021, Summer 2021. At none of these times, nor now, has the dying and injury rates looked something like a flu or even a common cold. (you could argue dying rates were low in Spring 2020, and some did, but there was also rapid spread). Try again when it's like the flu, not that we want covid in addition to flu.

[CarlMega]

And I don't understand how you can mandate a vaccine to those under 12 when there is at least one, modern, intelligent, country, who is not even recommending it. Recommend it and encourage it, sure, but mandate it?d.

Curious about your definition of mandate. All citizens regardless of circumstances? Citizens who interact with public as condition of their employment? Requirement for public school attendance? Requirement for certain types of travel? Prerequisite for medical procedures - a la transplants? Requirement for mass gatherings?

People use the word and I feel its usage is spanning so much it lost meaning.

To me there's no real toothy mandates. Rather, various conditional requirements - most of which existed in some form for other vaccines.

Eg:

If you are vax'd, you can do XYZ. Otherwise, you are prohibited or subject to other screening.

[The Tortoise]

Numerous countries on earth have fared far better than the US and have never closed their schools..

Genuinely curious, which countries didn't close schools while having a daily case rate similar to the US?

[altasnob]

Curious about your definition of mandate.

If you require COVID vaccination to attend public schools, public transit, and public buildings, as Old Goat suggests, you have essentially universally mandated COVID vaccine. Who can get through life without utilizing those three entities?

[funkendrenchman]

Genuinely curious, which countries didn't close schools while having a daily case rate similar to the US?

Definitely not India. I was shocked when I read that schools in Delhi have been closed for most of the past 2 years.

[altasnob]

Genuinely curious, which countries didn't close schools while having a daily case rate similar to the US?

Japan. I'll have to do more research to be sure, but I was under the impression lots of Asian countries who have fared far better than the US never closed schools. I also was under the impression while some European nations may have briefly closed schools, many reversed course on that and strived to remain open

[CarlMega]

If you require COVID vaccination to attend public schools, public transit, and public buildings, as Old Goat suggests, you have essentially universally mandated COVID vaccine. Who can get through life without utilizing those three entities?

Am I wrong that the US only has 1 of those? Public schools which has a long history of vaccine requirements.

[The Tortoise]

Japan. I'll have to do more research to be sure, but I was under the impression lots of Asian countries who have fared far better than the US never closed schools. I also was under the impression while some European nations may have briefly closed schools, many reversed course on that and strived to remain open

No no, I asked about countries with similar case rates to the US. Clearly if you were doing better at managing the pandemic you'd be more likely to keep schools open.