Herd Immunity? Fuhgeddaboudit.

Even if the uptake was 100% those in power would refuse the idea of herd immunity, exactly like after 9/11 they want us to be fearful and paranoid all the time, the population is easier to manipulate under those conditions.

I love trash like R1 who think they've got it ALL figured out. Of course, he's wrong. Joe Biden would love for every American to be vaccinated, and for this thing to be behind us.

A large portion of the Trump Party doesn’t seem to care about getting infected and/or wants something else to be a “victim” of when they get sick. It’s been unlikely for a long time that we would ever reach effective herd immunity in the US.

I love trash like R2 who think they've got it figured out, Biden has been after the presidency for decades, you think he doesn't enjoy when a virus makes control a little easier through manipulation? In a similar way that 9/11 made things easier for Bush.

What bothers me about the latest headlines, as an eldergay biomedical scientist, is that the Trump Party will use them to say, “See, Fauci and the others misled us/were wrong about herd immunity.” I believe scientists involved in COVID research need political PR assistance, something most of know nothing about. We’re honest amongst ourselves because we know science evolves constantly, but for the general public, I feel it would have been better to simply continue to encourage vaccinations and masking. Do I want things to be this way? No, but we are in very dangerous political times, and I feel that messages must be as clear and consistent as possible.

[quote] I love trash like [R2] who think they've got it figured out, Biden has been after the presidency for decades, you think he doesn't enjoy when a virus makes control a little easier through manipulation? In a similar way that 9/11 made things easier for Bush.

Not the poster you are responding to.

This isn’t about Biden. Ultimately it boils down to you, R4.

If you don’t want to be vaccinated, your choice.

If others do, their choice. Ideally, limiting the spread of an infectious agent would be preferable in a large population.

But those who choose not to participate are enacting and following their preferences. They are likely more susceptible to the disease and death, but it’s YOUR choice.

Those who participate in vaccination will be more protected. And thus less fearful.

Cease the whole Biden....blah.....blah.....fearful.... projection.

He’s had the shot. Others have received the shot. If you CHOOSE to reject it, so be it. He nor anyone else is “manipulating” you.

So basically the last year of supposedly protecting everyone through mask wearing, social distancing and lockdowns has been pointless. Can't wait to see the lockins spin this one.

Science has given us this amazing gift, but a third of the country refuses it out of ignorance and paranoia. There should be severe consequences for not getting vaccinated. Maybe once they see vaccinated people getting on with their lives on trains, planes, etc., going to concerts, beaches, whatever, they'll drop their murderous irresponsibility.

[quote] So basically the last year of supposedly protecting everyone through mask wearing, social distancing and lockdowns has been pointless. Can't wait to see the lockins spin this one.

This is a nonsensical and illogical post.

Politics and egos have played an overriding role in how this has played out. Cuomo anyone? And don't think scientists don't have egos, too.

This is true on all sides of the issue. It's true in the U.S. as well as overseas. Problem is, there's no perspective while we're in the middle of the pandemic. We're going to have to wait two or three years until books start appearing analyzing what went right and what went wrong and why.

R8 - already becoming a reality out here in Romania. Medical personnel and all employees are asked to get the vax and show proof. The many working in other parts of the EU are being told that their employers would prefer it. Some get it avoid quarantine. Everyone is talking about Israel re-opening for tourism along with Spain for the vaccinated. Slowly, the anti-vaxxers are going to be the ones who watch others travel and have jobs and they will be left behind.

I’m fully vaccinated but will continue to wear a mask until everyone gets a chance to get vaccinated—probably for a couple of more months or so. After that those who continue to refuse the vaccine will be on their own. The Covid-19 will be most dangerous to those who remain unvaccinated—not so much for those who have complied with the vaccination program. The anti-vaxxers can be this year’s Darwin Award winners. They won’t have my sympathy, just my pity for being too stupid to live.

I love that those who are complaining about people not wearing masks are probably the same lot who flipped out when Texas took away their restrictions a couple of months ago, with almost glee you all said Texas would be a hellstate and yet nothing awful happened.

I’m fully vaccinated for almost two months now, I’ve already stopped wearing a mask in outdoor public places because the CDC said it’s ok. They don’t need to tell me twice. Besides, I don’t believe filthy cloth masks really provide that much protection anyway.

Would the pro-vaxers like to explain why there has been no increase in cases or hospitalizations in Florida and Texas since they removed mask mandates months ago? Fauci was asked this question on CNN and had no answer.

You may remember that it was a thing to wear these masks in public around Tokyo for some people even before COVID-19 was on the scene. Don’t be surprised to see some people continue to wear masks in public going forward.

R15 They can't. They were frothing at the mouth over the idea that Texas would fail and covid rates would skyrocket, never happened and now they have to find something else to cling onto. The same people tried their hardest to stop others from talking about Cuomo's corruption and the death of thousands of old people because of his mishandling of it all.

[quote] Would the pro-vaxers like to explain why there has been no increase in cases or hospitalizations in Florida and Texas since they removed mask mandates months ago?

There have been increases in Fla but the governor is not honest about his numbers. Someone on another thread said his doctor friends in Florida are forced to give another diagnosis at time of death, instead of Covid. And I bet Abbott in Texas is doing the same.

Also, there's probably a majority of sane people in those states who still practice mask-wearing and social distancing.

Companies are starting to implement policies where, if you choose to not have the vaccination, that's on you. BUT they are going to start requiring Covid tests AT YOUR EXPENSE before entrance to events or travel or even some employers are making their employees pay already.

Let's see how fast these anti vax idiots cave when they realize they are going to get hit hard in their pocketbooks.

BTW I know this is already starting to happen for a fact. Good luck paying for those tests anti vaxer morons.

R19, sounds like good news. And I bet the anti-vaxxers will say their personal freedom is being robbed and try to sue but it will be thrown out of court.

Republicans continue to trade with the devil for power. Trump and powerful GOP politicians could encourage vaccination. But no, they would rather people die if not speaking about vaccine gives them a wedge to defeat Democrats in mid-terms.

I'm guessing all those for these restrictions are okay with the patriot act as well? I mean we haven't had a foreign based terrorist attack on US soil since 9/11 but the erosion of our personal freedoms is okay to some.

R12 is right about the Darwin Awards and R19 and R21 as well. We need to somehow drill the idea of contagion into the heads these potentially dangerous idiots.

I'm fully vaccinated and don't wear a mask outdoors. I still wear one when I go inside, but that is the rule here. I went to Easter dinner with my family and all were vaccinated so we didn't wear masks inside. Within a few months everyone will have a chance to be vaccinated here and those that choose not to are just plain stupid and inconsiderate for others.

AS far as the variants, it is not yet known how effective the vaccines will be against them, though it is likely that they will be either very effective or at least minimize any symptoms and prevent hospitalizations and death.

Scientists state the population needs 70-85% vaccination for herd immunity. At the current rate the US is going may not even reach the lower number on that requirement.

God this country needs a cull, get rid of all the old bitches on here worried that they might catch a flu and are happy with personal rights taken away.

So you get a booster with your flu shot every year.

Whatevs.

Florida last I checked was turning black according to The NY Times,.Texas definitely has some hot spots in the metro areas

Even if a goodly portion of the populace is vaccinated, everyone will be encouraged to continue to wear masks, especially indoors, for the foreseeable future. Because no one wants to confront a situation where people stop wearing masks and infection/hospitalization numbers begin to climb.

I went wandering around DC yesterday because the weather was nice. I live here but I don't go down to the touristy monuments often.

The mall area around the Smithsonians was pretty sparse. The Lincoln Memorial, though, was absolutely packed with people and about half of them were not wearing masks. I was really surprised. It is outdoors but it was so crowded. About half the people on the mall had masks pulled down under their chins but raised them and covered their faces when they passed others. The ones at the memorial were shoulder to shoulder and no one seemed concerned at all.

I don't know why, but the pessimistic calculations of herd immunity always seem to ignore the growing evidence that there is a significant level of pre-existing immunity to Covid-19 in the population. As one recent study states:

"In conclusion, the finding of a high percentage of unexposed healthy subjects with a pre-existing immunity in Quito, Ecuador, raises the expectation that a significant part of our population is likely to have SARS-CoV-2 reactive T-cells because of prior exposure to flu, CMV viruses, or common cold-causing coronaviruses."

R1 is a troll, card carrying. Ignorance is lethal- literally.

I was in Florida a month ago. While most don’t wear masks in public all public indoor spaces require them. So it’s not exactly the Wild West out there. I think it’s been obvious for awhile that Covid is mostly spread indoors.

Schools and hospitals should require vaccination. Ditto for airplanes, stadiums, theatres. Let the unvaccinated pay for Covid tests to attend if that’s their choice. Private employers should be allowed to require vaccination under most circumstances also.

I really am starting to hate Trumpstains, conspiracy theorists, and anti-vax/vaccine hesitant idiots. They’re not just useless, they are a societal malignancy.

Employers are going to tell them they don’t have to get the vaccine, but this (your) job requires it due to office interaction, etc. we don’t have any available jobs that currently don’t require a vaccine. So call us when you get it. It will soon be an accepted requirement. Resistance is futile.

R35 Starting to? I have a feeling that you, like the rest of us, had plenty of scorn for them at least by the second half of 2017 if not before. I mean, Nazis ran over a woman who was protesting against racism and the president threatened nuclear war with North Korea through Twitter, tried to ban Muslim people from the US, refused to acknowledge Jews were killed in the Holocaust, said Mexican refugees are rapists and murderers, his supporters loved him for saying he can get away with assaulting women because he is a celebrity, the idiot daughter and her idiot husband were given top-level appointments despite failing security background checks, he hired actual Nazis like Seb Gorka, he gave us Conway, Barr, Huckabee-Sanders, McEnany...need I go on?

[quote] So basically the last year of supposedly protecting everyone through mask wearing, social distancing and lockdowns has been pointless.

Because Covid-deniers and anti-vaxxers have refused to do the simplest things. Not because the scientists were wrong.

You fucking idiot.

R37 - you just illustrated why the last few years, along with illness in the family and a stressful move abroad for work, have left me mentally drained. The last thing we need in the US (and iditos in other countries follow the lead of the ones back home) are people that, by refusing the vaccine and safety measures, are, not just malignant (as R35 elegantly put it) but a criminal threats to society.

I hate the word "herd" used in this instance. We're humans, not cows.

Sorry, at least some of us aren't cows.

We’ll just have to keep getting vaccinated and hope that the Deplorables die off.

While r1's take is a bit paranoid, I do buy that that commercial interests will use the crisis to lobby for policies that will benefit them.

There have been multiple studies on whether the airport screenings are effective - most of the billions spent on new machines don't really improve airport security.

Also, I'm not part of the barcode, Bill Gates is tracking us with vaccines crowd, but the dramatic uptick toward universal IDs and tracking activity since 9/11 along with the loss of privacy are very concerning. Snowden's leaks showed how much information on people is being gathered, analyzed, and stored - it isn't the "government" but government contracted commercial companies who are making a fortune on it.

None of what you just typed, r42, has anything to do with whether someone should get a vaccine.

R42 - there is no doubt about what you are saying but the pandemic only accelerated the inevitable. More and more, there is no privacy and that is just something we all have to vome to terms with.

Apple and Google have more information on citizens than their governments do.

[quote] Someone on another thread said his doctor friends in Florida are forced to give another diagnosis at time of death, instead of Covid.

This is as loony as the other idiots saying everything is a COVID death and the flu is gone. No one is going to risk their medical license to falsify a death certificate to please a politician.

[quote]I think it’s been obvious for awhile that Covid is mostly spread indoors.

It’s been longer than awhile. It’s been a while.

r1, you're a cunt, yes you are, you're a CUNT

[quote]The anti-vaxxers can be this year’s Darwin Award winners.

Republicans are going to kill themselves off in an attempt to "own" the Democrats.

Just like last summer, the virus will wane a little and give people a false sense of security. Then it will spike again in Autumn, and the variants will spread like wildfire. Just watch how quickly Republicans change their minds about getting vaccinated when that happens. I think we'll have a chance at herd immunity at that point, if the variants haven't become too lethal to control.

R27, you’re right the country needs a culling. Luckily, the Republicans have volunteered as tribute.

[Quote] I feel it would have been better to simply continue to encourage vaccinations and masking.

No, because then you'd have the Glenn Greenwald types who say that continuing to insist on masking is anti-vaxxer behavior which will further decrease vaccination rates. You will never win with these people. You just have to be honest

Of course there’s no privacy. One you leave the house in an urban area or go someplace on vacation, there’s dozens of cunts with camera phones making shitty YouTube content and you’re an unpaid extra.

I hope they bring in vaccine passports and then watch as certain states abstain from this and it pushes further for the breakup of the United States, which the controlling democrats really don't want and within democratic states politicians will have parties without any testing, hire people who aren't vaccinated but are related to them so who cares, illegal raves start up and speakeasies open up again because that will happen and those vaccine laws will be repealed as the next generation realize how stupid they are. Just like prohibition all over again, idiots desperate to give away everyone's freedoms not realizing the long-term implications.

let vaccinated Joy Reid wear her two masks, stupid bitch.

Switzerland just opened the vaccine down to 16yo old. They will initiate draconian restrictions on students including adult students who do not get vaccinated.

Also I believe there will be restrictions to much of cultural life.

I guess employers will require it as well.

I suppose one can avoid vaccination but life will suck.

[quote]I hope they bring in vaccine passports and then watch as certain states abstain from this and it pushes further for the breakup of the United States, which the controlling democrats really don't want and within democratic states politicians will have parties without any testing, hire people who aren't vaccinated but are related to them so who cares, illegal raves start up and speakeasies open up again because that will happen and those vaccine laws will be repealed as the next generation realize how stupid they are. Just like prohibition all over again, idiots desperate to give away everyone's freedoms not realizing the long-term implications.

Or maybe people will just get vaccinated, the way so many of us have done without any fuss or risk.

[quote] then watch as certain states abstain from this and it pushes further for the breakup of the United States, which the controlling democrats really don't want

Why would democrats not like this? I'm all for stopping to subsidize the pig-fuckers in Alabama and Mississippi and West Virginia and Kentucky. Go ahead. Try to survive without the support of New York and California. You'll will be back to eating dirt like your grandpappies.

R57 They'd hate to be known as the party that broke up the United States, it would destroy them.

We need more businesses to require the vaccine. Right now it is basically only universities that are willing to do it.

[quote] This is as loony as the other idiots saying everything is a COVID death and the flu is gone. No one is going to risk their medical license to falsify a death certificate to please a politician.

Is it as “loony” as saying someone could shoot a person on 5th Avenue and no one would care, R46? No one is going to risk the presidency by such outrageous claims. No?

Or is it as “loony” as confiscating the personal effects of a data scientist in Florida who refused to comply with hiding Covid information in Florida? Nah, no Florida governor is going to risk the publicity of such an information reveal, no?

Get a clue, R46.

You sound like the “LOONY”.

So you’re comparing politicians’ idiocy to a physician falsifying a death certificate?

Yeah, that makes sense.

^^ Not comparing physicians and politicians, R61.

Simply pointing out how things unraveled during the pandemic under the Trump admin. in relation to medicine and the pandemic.

As though it takes Einstein to discern this, ha!

Hell, the once-venerated CDC became an international laughing-stock under Trump.

If you think the CDC physicians were not pressured to cook data, then I have desert property in Florida to sell to you.

Even Deb Birx and other physicians were muzzled and coerced to present “alternative” data during the pandemic under intense pressure from the Trump government. This is well documented by their own admissions.

So it’s “loony” to think that on-the-ground physicians aren’t under intense pressure to fudge data relating to Covid to suit statistical outcomes.

It’s why we are seeing stats come out of Florida (and likely) Texas, et al.....that make no sense logically when looking at decades of data relating to pandemics and well-regarded pandemic models.

It’s also why Tony Fauci could not come out publicly and say that stats in FL and other places are lies.

What r55 said. I really think we’re all gonna be fine and this is just another doomsday prediction. No one believed Biden when he said 100 mil in 100 days and we exceeded that. We’re certainly on track and most of the stragglers will get it too when they realize they need to do so in order to have a life - and maybe even a job in some cases.

And Im really over worrying about every possible doomsday scenario, to be honest. We’ll be fine.

[R42] - there is no doubt about what you are saying but the pandemic only accelerated the inevitable. More and more, there is no privacy and that is just something we all have to vome to terms with.

I don't disagree that it accelerated the inevitable on certain issues. Where the real concern is that the majority of those policy issues were driven by commercial interests - companies making a LOT of money to "improve" security, develop technologies, store and analyze the data, etc.

But, as with all things, it will inevitably become other non-commercial interests that will use crises to drive policy.

As cliche as it is, The Handmaid's Tale has more currency now than it did when it was originally published in 1985 because the idea of that type of dystopia seemed so farfetched back then. Today, it's only a few fundie nutbag rethug lackeys' votes away from reality. 35 years ago, we couldn't imagine stripping away rights like that - today, we already on the road.

As for the simpleton at r43 "None of what you just typed, [R42], has anything to do with whether someone should get a vaccine" - um, it's directly responsive to r1 and the unhinged reason stated for not getting a vaccine.

It is very much like 9-11 in the sense that once bureaucracies establish protocals in response to a risk, those protocals are rarely re-evaluated as the risk decreases. It all just gets tighter over time. .

[quote] They'd hate to be known as the party that broke up the United States, it would destroy them.

You are from Crazytown. If the Uniformed States of America want to break away, that is on them, not Democrats. It wouldn't destroy Democrats. Democrats would lead the actual producing states into joining the modern world of modern healthcare and social safety net and leave behind you pig-fuckers to prosecute women who have miscarriages and the glories of no government regulation (see Texas power grid).

I'm fully vaccinated... I'm now a carrier, Trumptards. Mask up or I'll cough and sneeze all over you.

[quote]Hell, the once-venerated CDC became an international laughing-stock under Trump.

Michael Lewis, author of Moneyball and The Big Short, has written a new book, The Premonition, that is "a sweeping indictment" of the CDC and its handling of the pandemic.

The way CDC first tried to monopolise test development then screwed up production of its own tests is a forgotten scandal that delayed the U.S. response by at least a month.

De Santis is not stupid but I don't get how his rules about vaccinations will work. Cruise lines are advertising 95% of passengers are vaccinated so does that mean those ships can't leave from Florida. That's probably one of their top industries. Old people in Florida aren't getting back on ships if they're allowing non vaccinated people on them. Won't happen.

R53 you have such a romanticized delusional view of the past. Speakeasies! Raves! Put the HBO down, sweetie. Maybe look up the ‘sacrifices’ the country made during WWI and WWII without throwing a goddamn toddler tantrum every 30 seconds, and next time try to stay away from the video game/WB/graphic novel versions of history, eh?

This is tragic. This is the face of Covid that Americans who refuse to get vaccinated pretend not to see. And the people in India getting vaccinated are the lucky ones now. I doubt you will see Indians refusing to get vaccinated like the idiots who live in this country.

[quote] once bureaucracies establish protocals in response to a risk, those protocals

Oh, dear!

It's a tough road.

It sure is. Especially putting the link in the right place.

I was blinded by covid.

Bump. Interesting story.

Meanwhile, in Alberta:

[quote]The Blackfeet Nation in Montana gifted their surplus COVID-19 vaccines (750 doses) to nearby residents in Alberta, Canada.

[quote]People drove for hours and lined up for miles on the highway to be vaccinated at a mobile clinic set up at the border crossing. CeeJay Yellow Hawk