CR: COVID-19 --Political Talk

[Brisketexan 104465]

Just an observation about assholish COVID related behavior.  Wife and I spent a few days in Cozumel (wedding, she officiated).  Mexico has a rule: masks on in the airport, and on flights terminating in Mexico.

We generally don't wear our masks anymore, but when required, we're not dicks, we follow the rules.  Yesterday, waiting in the Cozumel airport to board our flight, most everyone had a mask on, as required.  Except one group of 8.  Every one of them was yammering, doing their thing, not a mask in sight.  Not a single one of them -- it was a collective 100% consistency to not wear a mask, in spite of clear airport policy.

What kind of gear were half of them wearing?

Perfectly on-brand.

Again, regardless of whether wearing a mask actually helps or not, it is the official policy of a country that you are visiting.  If their policy is that you remove all hats while inside the airport, fucking remove your hat.  If the policy is that you have to wear any hat you have, wear the hat.   IDGAF.  You are a guest in another country.  Respect their rules, especially when it costs you f'n NOTHING to follow it.

But nope, our aggy brethren had to freedom MAGA plandemic it up, and functionally stand alone.  I was waiting for one of the airport personnel to say something, but surely they long ago reached the "they don't pay me enough to keep dealing with these assholes" point.

[Immaculate Vibes 114]

 

[HenryJames 65868]

 

[Walser 1103]

4 hours ago, Immaculate Vibes said:

 

Hey Imma Vib that reprint is not peer reviewed.

[aggie08 21380]

31 minutes ago, HenryJames said:

 

I mean, yeah, that was inevitable. Let's distrust ALL vaccinations because we're big smart!

[Sawbonz 27375]

11 hours ago, aggie08 said:

I mean, yeah, that was inevitable. Let's distrust ALL vaccinations because we're big smart!

You ever meet anyone who died of smallpox? It’s a scam 

[kevwun 15595]

So is polio.  FDR was just lazy and didn't like walking.

[Neonmoon 38127]

IV back to shit posting anti-vax and anti-mask nonsense. Surprised he hasn’t suggest Crypto will solve this 

[Immaculate Vibes 114]

1 hour ago, Neonmoon said:

IV back to shit posting anti-vax and anti-mask nonsense. Surprised he hasn’t suggest Crypto will solve this 

Nonsense huh? Nonsense because you don’t like the findings I guess. Also, nothing vax related here  

 

Methods: Our study replicates a highly cited CDC study showing a negative association between school mask mandates and pediatric SARS-CoV-2 cases. We then extend the study using a larger sample of districts and a longer time interval, employing almost six times as much data as the original study.

 

Findings: Replicating the CDC study shows similar results; however, incorporating a larger sample and longer period showed no significant relationship between mask mandates and case rates. These results persisted when using regression methods to control for differences across districts. 
 

Edited May 29, 2022 by Immaculate Vibes

[Sawbonz 27375]

36 minutes ago, Immaculate Vibes said:

Nonsense huh? Nonsense because you don’t like the findings I guess. Also, nothing vax related here  

 

Methods: Our study replicates a highly cited CDC study showing a negative association between school mask mandates and pediatric SARS-CoV-2 cases. We then extend the study using a larger sample of districts and a longer time interval, employing almost six times as much data as the original study.

 

Findings: Replicating the CDC study shows similar results; however, incorporating a larger sample and longer period showed no significant relationship between mask mandates and case rates. These results persisted when using regression methods to control for differences across districts. 
 

Did they measure compliance?

[Sawbonz 27375]

23 hours ago, Sawbonz said:

Did they measure compliance?

I guess not

[jimmyjazz 45513]

On 5/29/2022 at 7:27 AM, Sawbonz said:

You ever meet anyone who died of smallpox? It’s a scam 

Hey, correlation isn't causation or something like that.

[Fudge Nuggets 19118]

Quote

My thought: Backlash to federal vax mandate also made rejection of other vaccines more acceptable

Our man Scott got his money’s worth from medical school. 

[Francisco 2.0 32290]

https://www.thedailybeast.com/covid-truthers-new-martyr-is-a-gorilla-mom-named-martha?ref=home

 

Quote

After spending over a year attempting to implicate overwhelmingly safe and effective COVID-19 vaccines in as many deaths and injuries as possible, you’d think pandemic truthers would be running low on novel fear-mongering narratives to peddle. But earlier this month, influencers in this space identified a totally new and unexpected alleged vaccine victim: a gorilla.

Until last month, Martha, a 32-year-old western lowland gorilla, lived at the Gladys Porter Zoo in Brownsville, Texas. According to a slew of COVID truther articles, newsletters, and social-media posts, she was a happy, healthy mother—until zoo staff senselessly injected her with a COVID-19 vaccine. Then she died suddenly and unexpectedly of multiple organ failure, stemming from an undetected fibrosing heart disease. Which, to anti-vax eyes, was clearly caused by the jab. (It wasn’t).

 

Quote

This is a compelling narrative for many in the truther crowd. It seems to signal a new level or type of so-called COVID tyranny, and involves a uniquely tragic victim—a sweet, endangered animal. Yet for all its novel elements, this tale still appears to be grounded in long-standing truther tropes about the risks that vaccines supposedly—but in fact do not—pose to heart health and current or expectant mothers in particular. Accordingly, it’s triggered a fresh round of digital outrage as it’s spread across fringe corners of social media.

“TOTALLY UNNECESSARY TO GIVE THE ANIMALS THE VACCINE FOR COVID. FAUCI’S NA?I [Nazi] SCIENCE KILL HER,” one account on Twitter blared in a tweet posted on May 7. The tweet ultimately linked back to a conspiratorial Substack newsletter post about Martha’s death that has circulated widely in vaccine skeptic circles.

 

Quote

“Zoo killed their Gorilla with the COVID Jab. Same death coming to jabbed humanity near you,” another account tweeted on May 5, linking out to a far-right news site’s coverage of her death. “Not surprising as the autopsy revealed the same result from mRNA test animals: ‘multiple organ abnormalities’ ‘fibrosing heart disease’ ‘renal failure.’”

“So NOW will they care since it was a protected species animal vs. the many humans who have died from vaxes?” another account tweeted on the same day, linking out to the same Substack post. (It’s unclear what vague, conspiratorial “they” the poster meant.)

 

Spoiler

There’s just one problem with this tale: It’s total bullshit. In fact, Martha was not even vaccinated.

Martha the gorilla died on April 19. In the days before her death, she was receiving treatment for a urinary tract infection, but seemed fine otherwise, according to zookeepers who monitor the Gladys Porter Zoo’s animals several times every day. On April 27, the zoo released an official statement from their senior veterinarian, Thomas de Maar, explaining that, upon examination of Martha’s body, he and his colleagues had found “multiple organ abnormalities, which, in turn, created a life-ending cascade. The cascade began with fibrosing heart disease, which led to renal failure.”

But just because Martha’s death was sudden and unexpected doesn’t mean that it was totally inexplicable, or even unusual. Notably, some truthers have focused on Martha’s age, likely because they are obsessed with the idea that COVID-19 vaccines are causing an unprecedented epidemic of heart disease among young, healthy humans, and 32 sounds quite young. But Martha Robbins, a leading gorilla researcher and conservationist, told The Daily Beast that, for a gorilla, Martha wasn’t young at all. In the wild, most gorillas die between the ages of 30 and 40. Some make it over 50 in zoos, but only with a level of medical monitoring and intervention that they wouldn’t get in nature.

Several experts on great-ape health also told The Daily Beast that the heart conditions, including the one Martha had, are actually incredibly common among gorillas in zoos. Veterinarians have been aware of this phenomenon for decades; many actually banded together to form the Great Ape Heart Project, an organization dedicated to studying the issue, back in 2010.

However, heart disease can be hard to identify even when you’re monitoring an ape every day, as de Maar, the senior vet at the zoo, told The Daily Beast.

“Wild animals will do everything they can to hide symptoms of disease until the end, because in the wild, if you start looking in poor health, you are potentially going to be somebody’s lunch, or your own group will start picking on you because that’s their social dynamic,” he explained. “So not only can my patients not talk to me, they are doing their utmost to hide disease symptoms.”

A heart condition will often show up during a full health exam, he added. But those procedures are so involved that they usually have to anesthetize the animals under examination—a process that involves its own safety risks. So they only do those check-ups every few years. Martha’s last big work-up occurred about three years ago, de Maar recalled. There was no sign of heart disease at the time. But a few years is plenty of time for an aging gorilla to develop a common condition.

News of Martha’s death didn’t appear to attract much attention outside of the local community and a few conservation circles—until May 1, when a COVID vaccine skeptic tweeted a mainstream article about it to her over 23,000 followers. The tweet highlighted mention of a heart condition leading to organ failure, but offered none of this vital context about heart disease in great apes in general. No reputable coverage of Martha’s death said anything about COVID or vaccines. But right after posting that story, this individual tweeted a link to an article in the same outlet, published in July 2021, about the zoo’s intention to start vaccinating its animals. The zoo did act on that intention—but it only started vaccinating its gorillas against COVID-19 weeks after Martha’s death. This tweet did not offer that context.

In fact, the poster didn’t make any commentary in that second tweet. But the pointed intent of the just asking questions juxtaposition was glaringly clear.

The vaccine skeptic in question did not reply to a request for comment for this story, so it’s hard to tell how she or her circle heard about Martha and decided to imply a possible connection between her death and the zoo's vaccination plans. But pandemic truthers have a well-established habit of hunting for deaths they can attribute to the COVID-19 vaccines. “Lately, we have noticed comments of, ‘Were they vaxxed?’ whenever any death attracts attention on social media,” René Najera, an epidemiologist who monitors anti-vax communities, told The Daily Beast.

David Gorski, a doctor who’s followed and reported on anti-vax communities for decades, added that these folks are often especially quick to jump on deaths described as unexpected or sudden, and bend over backwards to insist that vaccines must be to blame. “If you think vaccines are so horrifically harmful, it’s very easy to let that cognitive bias lead to you blaming deaths, and other harms, on vaccines, even when the link is as tenuous as it can be,” he told The Daily Beast.

“For anti-vaxxers, it’s always all about the vaccines,” added Dorit Reiss, a public-health law expert and active anti-vax watcher. “They’re always looking for bad outcomes they can blame on them.”

Usually, anti-vaxxers focus on alleged human victims. But there’s always been a thread of the anti-vax world that’s stoked fears about the effects of vaccines on animals. Typically, Gorski explained, anti-vaxxers take outlier reports about adverse reactions among dogs, cats, and other companion animals to veterinary vaccines, and spin them into tales of extreme, pervasive injuries and illnesses. “Often, these claims are linked to conspiracy theories about vets making up a need for vaccines to keep patients coming to their practices,” he added. “Kennels and dog daycares are [supposedly] in on the conspiracy, by requiring pets be up to date on their vaccinations.”

Over the last year especially, COVID truthers specifically have honed in on animal horror stories to stoke mistrust and anger towards doctors, researchers, and government officials.

Notably, last spring, a story made the rounds of the truther web, claiming all of the animals injected with COVID-19 vaccines during trials died months later from cardiac failure, immune disorders, sepsis, or other dire conditions. (This has been definitively debunked.) Over the last few months, truther accounts on social media have hyped up legitimately dreadful stories about China’s decision to kill the pets of COVID-quarantined people—and cull hamsters following an outbreak among them—as supposed proof of the monstrosity of pandemic control measures overall. And consistently over the last year, COVID truthers have insisted that “they” are gearing up to max-vaccinate every animal as part of a wider effort to destabilize the world via the pandemic.

“They are going to come after your animals next to destroy connections humans desperately need,” a prominent anti-vaxxer with almost 153,000 followers on Telegram wrote last spring.

“They’re coming after our pets soon with their poison jabs,” a conspiracy Telegram channel with over 28,000 followers wrote earlier this year. “More vax sales, more money for the pharma… more deaths.”

Zoos specifically came onto truthers’ radar in March 2021, when the San Diego Zoo announced that it’d used an experimental veterinary COVID-19 vaccine on nine apes. Over the next few months, dozens of other zoos expressed their interest in securing doses of that vaccine for their animals, too. As soon as they heard about these plans, many truthers insisted animal deaths were imminent.

“Man what the fuck they’re killing poor zoo animals with these toxic COVID ‘vaccines,’” a conspiratorial Telegram account with over 15,000 followers lamented, linking to a story about a regional zoo’s intention to obtain the vaccine and start administering it to their animals.

Truthers have cast the decision to vaccinate zoo animals against COVID-19 as inane, and likely sinister. Granted, none of them can seem to agree what the evil motive might be, but speculation has been wide-ranging. “They are giving the jab to all the big game animals even at the zoos so when they starve us we can’t raid the zoos,” one conspiratorial Telegram channel argued last summer. “I am being serious!”

But the San Diego Zoo’s decision to vaccinate its animals was the direct result of an outbreak of COVID-19 in January 2021 among the gorillas in its Safari Park. COVID spread among the gorilla communities in two other zoos last year as well. According to federal records, to date, 21 gorillas in American zoos have tested positive for COVID-19. These outbreaks didn’t come as a surprise, as we’ve known since early 2020 that some animals can catch COVID-19, and we’d already seen outbreaks among other zoo animal populations as early as April of that year.

Although most cases of COVID-19 among zoo animals have been mild to date, the pandemic has reportedly killed a few big cats in the United States. And gorillas especially are notoriously susceptible to human respiratory conditions. Although zoos have taken pains to limit exposure and provide solid care when their apes do get infected, there are well-documented and supported reasons to fear that an outbreak could lead to deaths, according to several experts on primate health The Daily Beast spoke to—or long COVID, which vets don’t yet know how to handle in animals, and fear could have unexpected effects.

Animal-health companies have developed safe and effective vaccines for several other strains of coronavirus that had huge impacts on livestock and pets in the past. So when researchers first heard about COVID-19 spreading to animals in early 2020, they spun up production on new vaccines using by now tried-and-true approaches. One of these companies, Zoetis, ultimately produced a vaccine that doesn’t use a weakened live virus, or mRNA; instead, it uses a synthetic version of the COVID-19 protein spike, and an adjunct to stimulate an immune system response.

Most zoos have active vaccination programs. De Maar, the senior vet at the Gladys Porter Zoo where Martha lived, noted that all of their mammals get rabies vaccinations because they’re in bat country—and thus at high risk of rabies infections. All of their primates get regular tetanus vaccinations. And all of their gorillas are vaccinated for a host of human diseases, including measles, mumps, rubella, diphtheria, pertussis, and polio.

All the vets The Daily Beast spoke to for this story said they’d rarely seen an adverse reaction to a vaccine among animals—and those they did see were usually the standard, mild symptoms you’d observe in humans, like soreness around the site of the shot for a day or so. And while the Zoetis vaccine was (and is) still considered experimental, initial tests showed no notable adverse effects. Weighing precedent, evidence, and the risks of COVID-19 to key species, zoos overwhelmingly determined that it made sense to try to get their hands on the Zoetis vaccine and start administering it to their at-risk animals.

“In fact, not doing so could be viewed as highly negligent,” given zoos’ responsibility for the protection of their animal charges, noted Jürgen Richt, an expert on infectious disease in animals and the development and use of vaccines to control them at Kansas State University.

According to Christina Lood of Zoetis, the USDA—which oversees animal health in zoos—as well as local veterinary authorities approved the experiential administration of their vaccine. The agency also made the company responsible for regularly reporting safety data, and sending reports of any notable adverse effects within three days. A USDA representative told The Daily Beast that this approval is granted “on a case-by-case basis for certain zoo animals, based on consultations with the vaccine companies and the USDA’s Center for Veterinary Biologics.” To date, Zoetis claims that none of the zoos using their vaccine have reported any major adverse reactions. This claim aligns with, and reinforces, animal health experts’ initial judgments that the vaccine is overwhelmingly safe. Current findings also suggest that it is highly effective at stimulating immune protection.

But while demand for the Zoetis vaccine skyrocketed after the San Diego Zoo got ahold of it, and though the vaccine manufacturer promised last summer that they would donate doses to zoos and sanctuaries across the nation, rollout has apparently been relatively slow.

De Maar explained that, while he applied for access to the vaccine last summer, as local papers reported, the zoo did not get their first batch until April. Thanks to logistical hurdles, they were only able to start vaccinating their gorillas in the first week of May—several weeks after Martha died. So far, they’ve jabbed two.

None of this information shows up in truther coverage of Martha’s death. Instead, after the initial tweet juxtaposing news of her passing with a report about the zoo’s interest in vaccinating its animals against COVID-19, truther figures elaborated on that poster’s subtle-yet-clear insinuations with wild conjecture.

On May 2, a just-asking-questions vaccine skeptic asserted in another Substack post that Martha was in fact tragically young, as some zoo gorillas live until 50—and her father, Lamydoc, died at age 60 in February. This skeptic further speculated that maybe the vaccine killed Lamydoc too. (De Maar explained that he was euthanized, to address the pain and deteriorating quality of life he was suffering as a result of dementia, among other health conditions.) Also that day, a far-right blog with a history of spreading misinformation labeled Martha a “fully vaccinated gorilla.” Its story on Martha’s death also included a graphic of a gorilla overlaid with text reading “Vaccine Harambe,” which is now circulating online.

Another western lowland gorilla, Harambe spent most of his life at the Gladys Porter Zoo before being transferred to the Cincinnati Zoo, where staff shot and killed him in 2016 after he grabbed a toddler who fell into his enclosure. He quickly became a touchstone of digital culture—and the subject of a series of performatively overwrought mourning memes.

Neither the individual behind that Substack nor the owner of the blog in question replied to requests for comment on their claims and sourcing.

These individuals’ rush to pin Martha’s death on a vaccine she didn’t receive is particularly rich in light of the fact that, back in November, a handful of anti-vaxxers made the same insinuations about three giraffes at the Dallas Zoo who’d all died within a month of each other. Then their story rapidly fell apart when it became clear none of the animals were vaccinated. But instead of interrogating posts and articles about Martha’s death in the wake of that misfire, COVID truthers have appeared to embrace them as definite truth, repeating and further expanding on their claims in blog, social-media, and newsletter posts.

This, experts on anti-vax rhetoric told The Daily Beast, is par for the course in a world that cares more about how it can shoehorn evocative stories into its own narratives of danger and doom than it does about verifiable facts. In fact, Gorski predicted that anti-vaxxers will reject all of the information in this article as part of a cover-up, hiding the clear truth of Martha’s sudden death.

Truther influencers certainly have been priming their audiences for this sort of reaction. Notably, last year, many pandemic skeptic Telegram channels rejected news about COVID-19 outbreaks among animals as blatant propaganda, spread so that people would unquestioningly accept the clearly senseless vaccination of animals. Earlier this year, after one zoo announced its intent to vaccinate its animals, a conspiratorial Telegram channel with over 27,000 subscribers stressed that “we all know the moment an animal unfortunately dies they will blame everything but the jab.”

And one of the Substack posts repeating spurious claims about Martha’s death ran the following line as part of its coverage: “The zoo, of course, is not confessing. But everything is painfully obvious.”

Granted, anti-vax experts doubt truthers will put much more effort into spreading Martha's story, or trying to find others like it. Deaths in zoos are just too rare to generate the same scope and scale of outrage human vaccine-victim stories do. And while animals make for good blameless victims of supposed biopharma conspiracies and cruelty, they can’t engage in anti-vax advocacy like humans can.

But the move to rope Martha, a non-human, into the scrum of so-called vaccine victim news and outrage, truth and detail be damned, speaks to an overarching trend. That is, an effort by anti-vaxxers to widen their nets, in order to keep the bogus sense of an escalating threat they thrive on alive.

“People are looking for anything to justify their beliefs,” Jonathan Berman, a medical researcher who monitors anti-vax communities, told The Daily Beast. “It doesn’t matter what it is.”

 

[Anastasis 23375]

On 5/29/2022 at 10:01 AM, Sawbonz said:

Did they measure compliance?

School cases have always been most closely related to community transmission rates. 

[Anastasis 23375]

On 5/28/2022 at 7:29 PM, Walser said:

Hey Imma Vib that reprint is not peer reviewed.

 

LOL. It is a replication. 

[Anastasis 23375]

On 5/28/2022 at 7:20 PM, HenryJames said:

 

Spill over effect from COVID vaccine mandate rhetoric, imo. 

[NameAlreadyInUse 5104]

On 5/22/2022 at 8:12 PM, fattyflattie said:

What industry?  This is opposite of both the “unlimited” places I’ve worked. I typically take off a few days after long travel only, on “earned” days.  That’s awesome y’all encourage quarterly time off. I used to have a boss complain about how everyone burned out, but wouldn’t let you take off for shit except Christmas.  He’d say we give you fuckers 4 weeks, and NO ONE takes it.  Bitch, you send us away from home for 250 days a year. Fuck you expect? 
 

*note- place I’m at now has unlimited, because president was at first place I/we had it.  Company was going down and lots of people had racked up hundreds of days of earned off time due to extended travel. When they were leaving, they were getting it mostly paid out. Too much cost, so they cut it for everyone.  I still remember the PM that left that caused the policy. Everyone was pissed at him for breaking the camels back.  Then my current prez took that idea to my current place.   Hope you can keep it up, great for your employees. 

B2B Software.  Just got back from 11 days off and my work was mostly covered for me while I was out.  It exists and it is real, but you have to make sure the company is doing it because they want happier and therefore more loyal employees, and not because it looks better on a balance sheet.

[Skipper 6088]

On 5/30/2022 at 9:30 PM, Anastasis said:

Spill over effect from COVID vaccine mandate rhetoric, imo. 

Exactly.  And this is what a lot of us (certainly me) have been concerned about with fed vax policies/recommendations.  Particularly with respect to pediatric vaccine recs.  I mean the CDC/FDA are currently recommending freaking 5 year olds get boosters for an old ass strain when there is absolutely zero known benefit.  It's insanity.  Sure, most of us on this board are smart enough to understand the benefit of all of the existing vaccines and roll our eyes at current COVID pediatric vaccine recs, but it's predictably making a lot of people question everything.   Particularly when millions of parents have seen their unvaccinated kids have a tougher time with a cold compared to Omicron.   The unintended consequences of ultra-conservative vaccine policy with respect to kids was obvious and raised by numerous physicians last fall and earlier this year and they were generally shouted down as "anti-vax".  So frustrating. 

[4th&Five 41457]

[Immaculate Vibes 114]

We need money for the next century’s pandemic?

 

And how much money is really still needed for children’s Covid vaccinations? The percentage of under 5 year olds getting the new approved vaccines will be quite small  

 

[NameAlreadyInUse 5104]

Wait, you don't want to make sure we are prepared for the next pandemic that will inevitably happen?  

WTF is wrong with you?

[elfenix 34168]

2 minutes ago, NameAlreadyInUse said:

Wait, you don't want to make sure we are prepared for the next pandemic that will inevitably happen?  

WTF is wrong with you?

GRHorn wants the world to crash and burn so that his imaginary currency can be worth something again. 

[jimmyjazz 45513]

4 minutes ago, elfenix said:

GRHorn wants the world to crash and burn so that his imaginary currency can be worth something again. 

Well, if it triples, he'll almost be whole.

[Immaculate Vibes 114]

1 hour ago, NameAlreadyInUse said:

Wait, you don't want to make sure we are prepared for the next pandemic that will inevitably happen?  

WTF is wrong with you?

What pandemic readiness? We just had one. Do you think our government would do anything different? It’s a money grab. Simple. 
 

1 hour ago, elfenix said:

GRHorn wants the world to crash and burn so that his imaginary currency can be worth something again. 

Why are you here? You’re supposed to be downplaying energy security somewhere. 

 

 

1 hour ago, jimmyjazz said:

Well, if it triples, he'll almost be whole.

 

[jimmyjazz 45513]

I don't care if you bought bitcoin at $0.06 or $6K or $69K, if you held, you're currently down 70% from the peak, which makes you a fucking idiot.

[CowboyFred 1151]

13 minutes ago, Immaculate Vibes said:

What pandemic readiness? We just had one. Do you think our government would do anything different? It’s a money grab. Simple. 
 

 

Yes? They’d probably do a lot more than the trump admin and maybe not downplay it. “It’ll be gone by Easter.”  
 

why are you so bad at this?  At least put your carrot profile pic back so you have something else for us to point and laugh at.
 

[NameAlreadyInUse 5104]

Yeah we have any president at all besides Trump and we never would’ve stopped funding pandemic response, and I expect we would’ve been a lot more prepared. Why do you insist on pantsing yourself over and over again? 

[elfenix 34168]

2 hours ago, Immaculate Vibes said:

energy security

you don't even know what this means let alone how to achieve it.

[Biff Tannen 45477]

Sigh, so is this shit ramping back up?  See a few people in the DT thread saying they tested positive. Wife is coming back from a conference in Aspen right now and saying she doesn’t feel good. 

[GreenspointTexas 9556]

6 hours ago, Biff Tannen said:

Sigh, so is this shit ramping back up?  See a few people in the DT thread saying they tested positive. Wife is coming back from a conference in Aspen right now and saying she doesn’t feel good. 

1) We are in the biggest covid wave of the entire pandemic right now

2) This wave is almost over. In fact, if it follows the progression of the other waves, itll be over by 4th of July

3) Thank god the current variant(s) are weak AF and most are vaccinated

 

 

Friends at Texas childrens are saying their numbers are the worst they have seen the entire pandemic. They actually opening a new auxillary care wing/floor to put sick kids in. 

[berlinerbaer 670]

11 hours ago, Biff Tannen said:

Sigh, so is this shit ramping back up?  See a few people in the DT thread saying they tested positive. Wife is coming back from a conference in Aspen right now and saying she doesn’t feel good. 

It's raging through the young population. It ran through my whole family a week ago after my kids brought it home from daycare. Nothing major, but holy shit this thing is contagious.

Good news is that like 80% of America has now been inoculated one way or the other. That's why hospitalizations are fairly low and deaths are way down compared to prior waves. 

[Biff Tannen 45477]

27 minutes ago, berlinerbaer said:

It's raging through the young population. It ran through my whole family a week ago after my kids brought it home from daycare. Nothing major, but holy shit this thing is contagious.

Good news is that like 80% of America has now been inoculated one way or the other. That's why hospitalizations are fairly low and deaths are way down compared to prior waves. 

Yeah wife is hurting bad right now. She hasn’t had Covid yet and symptoms sound very much like it. I’ve had it plus four shots. Hoping I can dodge this round. 

[lemonlime 5503]

20 hours ago, Biff Tannen said:

Sigh, so is this shit ramping back up?  See a few people in the DT thread saying they tested positive. Wife is coming back from a conference in Aspen right now and saying she doesn’t feel good. 

After avoiding it for 2 1/2 years, I tested positive at the beginning of June.  It seems like everyone I know who hadn't gotten Omicron in the last wave has gotten whatever the latest variant is.

Pretty sure I got it on the 6 hour flight that was delayed 2 hours in the plane also, in which I was about the only one in a mask.  I get that it's milder now, but so stupid that we're sitting in basically the same place for hours on end, where essentially there's no way to avoid giving it to your neighbor if you're positive, and no one can be bothered to put a fucking mask on.  Like that's a bridge too far.  But apparently having to isolate once you're at your destination is a-okay.

Edited June 27, 2022 by lemonlime

[WBT 20397]

I also have fallen from the unsullied.  Tested positive for the first time yesterday.  I don't know for sure how I got it but it's been going around at work.

[Mdhorn 5908]

On 6/21/2022 at 6:12 PM, Immaculate Vibes said:

We need money for the next century’s pandemic?

 

And how much money is really still needed for children’s Covid vaccinations? The percentage of under 5 year olds getting the new approved vaccines will be quite small  

 

Wild how inefficient and reaching Republicans feel about government in regards to COVID, yet are totally fine with government legislating women's bodies.  

[Pig Bellmont 8679]

5 minutes ago, Mdhorn said:

Wild how inefficient and reaching Republicans feel about government in regards to COVID, yet are totally fine with government legislating women's bodies.  

Don’t worry- they will outsource enforcement to your neighbors who will be seeking bounties for suing

[wildcat09 29187]

I hope GR Horn dies of Ebola.

[Mdhorn 5908]

48 minutes ago, lemonlime said:

After avoiding it for 2 1/2 years, I tested positive at the beginning of June.  It seems like everyone I know who hadn't gotten Omicron in the last wave has gotten whatever the latest variant is.

Pretty sure I got it on the 6 hour flight that was delayed 2 hours in the plane also, in which I was about the only one in a mask.  I get that it's milder now, but so stupid that we're sitting in basically the same place for hours on end, where essentially there's no way to avoid giving it to your neighbor if you're positive, and no one can be bothered to put a fucking mask on.  Like that's a bridge too far.  But apparently having to isolate once you're at your destination is a-okay.

That blows--feel the same way.  If I catch COVID from going to the vet, I'ma be real pissed.  Hopefully, though, you cruise right on through and nobody is the worse for it.   

[lemonlime 5503]

5 minutes ago, Mdhorn said:

That blows--feel the same way.  If I catch COVID from going to the vet, I'ma be real pissed.  Hopefully, though, you cruise right on through and nobody is the worse for it.   

It was just a ruined vacation.   But people are just so stupid.  We're having a surge of cases, and everyone's like well less people are dying from it.  So let's spread it all over the fucking place.  And who gives a fuck about the economic impact of people out from work.  The same people who wanted to kill Grandma so they could eat at Applebees, are fine with Applebees not being able to find enough workers because everyone's out sick, or having to cancel their vacations.  It's bizarro world.

[jimmyjazz 45513]

I went to see my daughter's band Saturday night at Mohawk.  I masked up 90% of the time but took it off to talk to someone for a few minutes.  I have a feeling I'm going to regret that.

[Brisketexan 104465]

29 minutes ago, jimmyjazz said:

I went to see my daughter's band Saturday night at Mohawk.  I masked up 90% of the time but took it off to talk to someone for a few minutes.  I have a feeling I'm going to regret that.

Think of how the person who had to listen to whatever bullshit you were spewing feels.

[jimmyjazz 45513]

3 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

Think of how the person who had to listen to whatever bullshit you were spewing feels.

He wasn't masked in the first place.  Probably could have used a BS-95, for sure.

[Longhorn_Fan68 33825]

my boss, who was one of the moderna trial recipients, finally got it after being at a convention last week. somewhat hoping this means a return to wfh for a bit. we'll see

[Brisketexan 104465]

9 minutes ago, jimmyjazz said:

He wasn't masked in the first place.  Probably could have used a BS-95, for sure.

Oh dear lord, if they come out with a BS-95 mask, I'll end up mute.

[tchookem 3900]

Son just got out of isolation after testing positive. We had just returned from 18 hours in the car together. Wife and I tested negative, but have both felt pretty shitty, so we're pretty certain we had it at dinne point.

I'm not angry because we got COVID. We let our guard down on this trip. I walked into a packed South Carolina Buc-ee's without my mask half-joking in my head, "yeah, this will be where I catch COVID". For 2.5 years we did everything we were supposed to do to avoid getting and spreading COVID, and the second we slacked off, we got it. Luckily we're not feeling too sick and if do the hospitals aren't overwhelmed anymore. But what this all tells me, is just how easy it is to catch and spread this thing. It also tells me, that it's completely possible to avoid catching and spreading this thing. So for 2.5 years my family did everything we were supposed to do to avoid catching and spreading COVID. I wore a mask, my son wore a mask, my wife stayed home. We did our part. Meanwhile so many other Americans did NOTHING to avoid COVID... and 1 Million people died. That makes me angry.

[Biff Tannen 45477]

Yep, wife is positive.  Aaaaaaand her mom immediately suggests ivermectin.  For fuck's sake.

[jimmyjazz 45513]

1 minute ago, Biff Tannen said:

Yep, wife is positive.  Aaaaaaand her mom immediately suggests ivermectin.  For fuck's sake.

Pics of wife?  Or her mom?

[GhostOfTomJoad 9302]

6 hours ago, Longhorn_Fan68 said:

my boss, who was one of the moderna trial recipients, finally got it after being at a convention last week. somewhat hoping this means a return to wfh for a bit. we'll see

I'd avoid conventions/conferences at all cost. Infocomm (AV trade show) the first week in June in Vegas was damn near a super spreader. I passed on it, and I know ten people who attended and six of them got it. My wife is reporting the similar numbers from a DSHS conference last week (that she wisely skipped). There was an onsite training event at my company last week for 50 people. Attendees were from sales offices across the US, and there were receptions at the Domain 3 of the 4 nights. By Thursday--when most were leaving the event to travel home--6 of the 50 had tested positive. As of today it's 10. I got tested by our occupational nurse this morning and was negative, but I'm damn sure masking up in large gatherings again and keeping as far away from people as possible when I'm in the office.

Buckle up. Again.

[Anastasis 23375]

Was gambling at an Indian casino last week and I feel like their refusal to let me take cocktails to the table games put me at risk by disrupting my to date effective post-vax COVID mitigation strategy.