CR: COVID-19 --Political Talk

[Horn Under a Bad Sign 20394]

Talking with my friend Mark.  His sister-in-law has been sharing a ton of "oh my god the vaccine is injecting monkey genes into our DNA"  type things on Facebook.  She's a 5'7" 230 .lb woman from Tennessee and her favorite thing to do for vacation is to go on cruises, presumably because she doesn't have to walk to far like she would if she went to Europe and because of all the food.  Anyway, a few days ago, somebody pointed out to her that cruise lines are saying they won't take anybody who hasn't been vaccinated and, per Mark, "that hit her where she lives.  She's been silent on the whole 'I'm not getting the vaccine'  thing ever since."

I had been thinking about that. You tell fat Americans that they won't be able to go on a cruise unless they have been vaccinated and a whole lot of them will change their tune. 

[Brisketexan 105093]

Talking with my friend Mark.  His sister-in-law has been sharing a ton of "oh my god the vaccine is injecting monkey genes into our DNA"  type things on Facebook.  She's a 5'7" 230 .lb woman from Tennessee and her favorite thing to do for vacation is to go on cruises, presumably because she doesn't have to walk to far like she would if she went to Europe and because of all the food.  Anyway, a few days ago, somebody pointed out to her that cruise lines are saying they won't take anybody who hasn't been vaccinated and, per Mark, "that hit her where she lives.  She's been silent on the whole 'I'm not getting the vaccine'  thing ever since."

I had been thinking about that. You tell fat Americans that they won't be able to go on a cruise unless they have been vaccinated and a whole lot of them will change their tune. 

If cruises, Walmart, and Golden Corral require a vaccination, we’ll get up to 97% vaccination of eligible adults.

[Neonmoon 38129]

24 minutes ago, Horn Under a Bad Sign said:

You tell fat Americans that they won't be able to go on a cruise unless they have been vaccinated and a whole lot of them will change their tune. 

Let me simplify this equation 

You tell [selfish narrow minded asshole] that something they enjoy will be impacted by their [selfish narrow minded worldview] and a whole lot of them will change their tune. (But they won’t change their tune until something personal is affected because they are selfish narrow minded assholes). 

I call this The Gritty Paradox 

 

 

 

 

 

[bolverk 29659]

Starts with guns and ends with vaccines. Frum critiques the modern GOP's abandonment of private property rights.

The Strange New Doctrine of the Republican Party
The GOP’s version of freedom puts greater priority on right-wing cultural folkways than on rights of property and ownership.

n 2002, the Weyerhaeuser paper mill in Valliant, Oklahoma, faced a drug problem. Managers at the mill in the small town, just north of the Texas line, brought contraband-sniffing dogs into the parking lot to identify suspect cars. The dogs pointed out a number of vehicles. When the cars were opened, the contraband inside was not drugs. It was guns. A dozen employees lost their job.

The firing triggered an uproar in Oklahoma. Weyerhaeuser had banned guns from its facilities; everybody understood that. The employees had obeyed that rule when they left their guns in their cars. If Weyerhaeuser now insisted that the ban applied to the parking lot, too, what were the employees supposed to do? Leave their guns at home and travel defenseless?

The Oklahoma legislature intervened. By unanimous vote in the state assembly—and a vote of 92–4 in the state senate—Oklahoma revised its firearms law to forbid businesses from policing their parking lots as Weyerhaeuser had done. The next year, the state amended the law again, this time to pound home the point even more emphatically:

Quote

No person, property owner, tenant, employer, or business entity shall maintain, establish, or enforce any policy or rule that has the effect of prohibiting any person, except a convicted felon, from transporting and storing firearms in a locked motor vehicle, or from transporting and storing firearms locked in or locked to a motor vehicle on any property set aside for any motor vehicle.

Every parking lot in the state of Oklahoma must now open itself to firearms, no matter the wishes of the property owner.

Over the next half decade, versions of the Oklahoma law would spread. Today, 12 other states allow virtually anyone to carry their weapon in their vehicle onto other people’s property. The property owner is forbidden to object or forbid. Eleven more states override the property rights of parking-lot owners a little less drastically. In those states, only concealed-carry permit holders may take their guns into parking lots. Altogether, in almost half the states in the country, gun rights now trump property rights to a greater or lesser degree.

I tell this story as background to the sudden eruption of conservative outrage about the prospect of “vaccine passports”: the idea that businesses might demand proof of COVID-19 vaccination from potential customers. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has vowed to ban the practice in his state, if he can, and his rejection has been passionately echoed by other right-of-center commentators and politicians.

Whether vaccine passports ever will exist remains highly uncertain. A lot of questions remain about the technology required—and about whether the concept makes any business sense. The United States could well reach herd immunity faster than any reliable vaccination certificate can be created. No business feels the need for certificates against tuberculosis or other once fiercely infectious diseases, because the diseases have ceased to be prevalent enough to justify the trouble.

For now, then, the discussion about vaccine passports remains theoretical—which makes the discussion all the more impassioned and embittered. DeSantis and others are loudly advertising that with COVID-19, as with guns, their version of freedom puts greater priority on right-wing cultural folkways than on rights of property and ownership.

Spoiler

 

So it is with technology platforms too. Just as gun carriers have used state power to redistribute control of parking lots from the property owner to themselves, so do many conservatives seek to use federal power to redistribute control of the big social-media companies to their own benefit. The companies will still own the platforms, sort of—but many conservatives now want the government to write the rules about what is allowed on those platforms.

With both guns and social media, Florida has been unusually noisy about upholding folkways over ownership rights. The Florida version of the parking-lot law—signed by then–Governor Charlie Crist in 2008—forbids employers even to inquire whether an employee has left a gun in a car on a company parking lot. In February, DeSantis sought to assert the state of Florida’s right to determine who would be allowed to use social-media platforms and how they might use them, by threatening fines and other penalties against companies that deplatformed people whom the state did not want to see deplatformed.

Florida’s noise is usually more distracting than it is enforceable. Florida’s “Guns everywhere!” mentality comes with a giant, Disney-size exception: A business can ban guns from its parking lots if it uses fireworks on the premises, as of course Disney World and other theme parks do. Florida also compensates employers for the risk its “Guns everywhere!” policy creates by eliminating their liability for injuries inflicted by firearms driven onto their property.

The tech platforms that DeSantis denounced do not answer to state governments at all, as the governor knows perfectly well. His proposed “Transparency in Technology” bill is legal vaporware—a press release, not a law.

With COVID-19, too, it’s doubtful how hard DeSantis truly intends to fight business interests. The Miami Heat NBA franchise announced that beginning April 1, special sections of American Airlines Arena will be open only to fully vaccinated attendees. Social-distancing rules will be relaxed in these sections. DeSantis is not stopping that. And if DeSantis will not force the Heat to drop its rules, how much less likely is he to battle mighty Disney if it decides that a vaccination policy will speed the recovery of its business?

But the point is not to win the fight, or even really to fight the fight. The point is to announce the fight, and to keep raging about it, even if you do not in fact fight it very hard. DeSantis surely does not agree with those Republicans who dismiss COVID-19 as a hoax, the COVID-19 vaccines as a menace, and vaccine certificates as the mark of the anti-Christ. He has repeatedly said that he will take the vaccine when it’s his turn. But he must reckon with a party in which anti-vaccination has joined pro-gun as an indispensable cultural marker—and as a potential veto bloc for anyone aspiring to a future Republican presidential nomination.

To appease those cultural blocs, Republican politicians must be willing to sacrifice everything, including what used to be the party’s foundational principles. To protect the gun, or to avoid contradicting the delusions of anti-vaccine paranoiacs, property rights must give way, freedom to operate a business must yield. The QAnon-curious Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene expressed the new mentality when she took to Facebook to denounce vaccine passports as “corporate communism.” It sounded crazy. But if you understand that she interprets communism to mean “any interference in the right of people like me to do whatever we want, regardless of the rights of others”—then, yeah, the property rights of corporations will indeed look to her like a force of communism.

A sizable minority of Americans want to use airplanes belonging to others, theme parks belonging to others, sports stadiums belonging to others—without concession to the health of others or the property rights of owners. With guns, with COVID-19, with tech, the new post-Trump message from the post-Trump GOP is: Private property is socialism; state expropriation is freedom. It’s a strange doctrine for a party supposedly committed to liberty and the Constitution, but here we are.

 

 

[Bama Chick 28596]

Talking with my friend Mark.  His sister-in-law has been sharing a ton of "oh my god the vaccine is injecting monkey genes into our DNA"  type things on Facebook.  She's a 5'7" 230 .lb woman from Tennessee and her favorite thing to do for vacation is to go on cruises, presumably because she doesn't have to walk to far like she would if she went to Europe and because of all the food.  Anyway, a few days ago, somebody pointed out to her that cruise lines are saying they won't take anybody who hasn't been vaccinated and, per Mark, "that hit her where she lives.  She's been silent on the whole 'I'm not getting the vaccine'  thing ever since."

I had been thinking about that. You tell fat Americans that they won't be able to go on a cruise unless they have been vaccinated and a whole lot of them will change their tune. 

Yep. Cruises or concerts or sporting events or state fairs or rodeos or Civil War re-enactments. They bare that bicep right quick.

It really sucks that “help to do my part for the safety of my fellow citizens” doesn’t crack the top 100 for these assholes.

But at this point, whatever motivation works.

[Biff Tannen 45673]

3 hours ago, Bama Chick said:

But at this point, whatever motivation works.

Sadly, this.

[Bevo14 8304]

13 hours ago, Bama Chick said:

Yep. Cruises or concerts or sporting events or state fairs or rodeos or Civil War re-enactments. They bare that bicep right quick.

It really sucks that “help to do my part for the safety of my fellow citizens” doesn’t crack the top 100 for these assholes.

But at this point, whatever motivation works.

NASCAR events, to get within 500 miles of Trump, etc. Shit they could solve this antivax thing real quick with the right pressure points

[Mrs Whiggins 13050]

This reminded me of @Bama Chick's post because of the second reply by Metzl. Really glad that the vaccine is more available to young people now.

 

[Bama Chick 28596]

Our whole fan base is absolutely gutted over the death of Fluff.

He was tweeting not even 3-4 days ago.

Then he went into ICU and died within 36 hours.

I feel very confident saying he either caught it at March Madness or traveling there.

Every picture I’ve seen of him this season, he was wearing a mask and social distancing in the stands.

He went to 42 Bama BBall games in a row - every away game and post-season game.

Word on the street is the Bama Student Section in Coleman Coliseum will be named in his honor.

[bolverk 29659]

Condolences to the Bama fan base.

Just got back from a quick trip out to West Texas to help my mom with some stuff. She and I ended up running some errands and went to three different stores. All employees were masked up, but I only saw one (exactly one) customer wear a mask. On the Friday evening newscast, they reported the vaccination rates for the various counties around the Permian Basin. In the one where my hometown is located in, only 18 percent had received at least one dose (11 percent both). I think statewide, it's in the upper 20s for the first and, nationally, about a third. The local hospital has been offering drive-thru vaccinations, but very few locals are apparently willing takers. It's fucking insane. 

[Bama Chick 28596]

Thanks [mention]bolverk [/mention] .

Luke was an absolute character.

Not many students become a part of a big time program like he did.

Athletic Director, Greg Byrne (wearing a trademark Luke sports coat no less?) -

Dude is legendary for wearing full FBI gear to taunt the LSU
players during the FBI investigation into the CBB scandal.

[Francisco 2.0 32389]

60 Minutes was brutal to Florida's vaccination efforts:

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/covid-vaccine-distribution-florida-de-santis-60-minutes-2021-04-04/

 

 

[GRHorn 105]

30 minutes ago, Francisco 2.0 said:

60 Minutes was brutal to Florida's vaccination efforts:

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/covid-vaccine-distribution-florida-de-santis-60-minutes-2021-04-04/

 

 

 

[Bama Chick 28596]

Democrat, Republican, Libertarian - I don’t give a red hot fuck which party they belong to if they intentionally fucked with Covid response/data.

They should all be punished.

It’s NO SECRET I despise Governor Kay “MeeMaw” Ivey but she is quite literally the only deep south red state Governor who handled this pandemic decently, compared to Georgia, Florida, Tennessee, South Carolina, Missouri, Mississippi. And I mean “decently” in the most “Bless you heart” something complements I can offer.

And the only state in these parts with a mask mandate. It ends April 9th and I don’t expect her to keep it going. She hasn’t pushed the conspiracy nonsense and is following the science.

I’ll give her massive credit no matter if she’s an elephant or a donkey.

I would never vote for her and her other stances ( abortion in particular and endorsing Roy Moore, etc.) give me plenty of reasons to dismiss her out of hand as a Dotrad disciple but she’s done well by Alabama during this pandemic.

And a TON of credit goes to Dr. Scott Harris, Alabama Chief Medical Officer.

He’s kind and brilliant and a model for his profession.

(Full disclosure, I know him from my pharma rep days and his father is an ID physician on my hospital staff.)

He’s a good dude.

So see, even highly partisan citizens (and I am proud to be one) with a lick of sense and discernment will praise “the other side” if they just do the bare minimum right things.

Look at poor surrounded Alabama.

(Data as of March 2, 2021)

[GRHorn 105]

13 minutes ago, Bama Chick said:

Democrat, Republican, Libertarian - I don’t give a red hot fuck which party they belong to if they intentionally fucked with Covid response/data.

They should all be punished.

It’s NO SECRET I despise Governor Kay “MeeMaw” Ivey but she is quite literally the only deep south red state Governor who handled this pandemic decently, compared to Georgia, Florida, Tennessee, South Carolina, Missouri, Mississippi. And I mean “decently” in the most “Bless you heart” something complements I can offer.

And the only state in these parts with a mask mandate. It ends April 9th and I don’t expect her to keep it going. She hasn’t pushed the conspiracy nonsense and is following the science.

I’ll give her massive credit no matter if she’s an elephant or a donkey.

I would never vote for her and her other stances ( abortion in particular and endorsing Roy Moore, etc.) give me plenty of reasons to dismiss her out of hand as a Dotrad disciple but she’s done well by Alabama during this pandemic.

And a TON of credit goes to Dr. Scott Harris, Alabama Chief Medical Officer.

He’s kind and brilliant and a model for his profession.

(Full disclosure, I know him from my pharma rep days and his father is an ID physician on my hospital staff.)

He’s a good dude.

So see, even highly partisan citizens (and I am proud to be one) with a lick of sense and discernment will praise “the other side” if they just do the bare minimum right things.

Look at poor surrounded Alabama.

(Data as of March 2, 2021)

You’re exactly right. This stuff shouldn’t be partisan. But that is why 60 minutes is airing nonsense like the Publix vaccine story. Partisan reasons. It’s really tired at this point. 

[JimmyJames 12271]

6 minutes ago, GRHorn said:

You’re exactly right. This stuff shouldn’t be partisan. But that is why 60 minutes is airing nonsense like the Publix vaccine story. Partisan reasons. It’s really tired at this point. 

Does Bobs steak and chophouse know that you are claiming your avatar is a picture of their meal? 

[Bama Chick 28596]

You’re exactly right. This stuff shouldn’t be partisan. But that is why 60 minutes is airing nonsense like the Publix vaccine story. Partisan reasons. It’s really tired at this point. 

Again, the party affiliation means jack and shit.

If any Governor is giving special treatment and misallocating vaccines to high dollar donors and undercounting deaths, draw and quarter them.

Cuomo, DeSantis, whoever.

And Publix has abhorrent things in their past and current business practices so fuck them too.

Signed, Florida native who worked for Publix for four years in high school and considered them my favorite grocery store.

[Horn Under a Bad Sign 20394]

Dude's 15,000 dollar Florida vacation just got a little more expensive:
 

 

[Radical Larry 28573]

[Telegraph_it 3357]

10 hours ago, GRHorn said:

 

Wait, you are telling me Winn-Dixie pharmacy wasn’t ready!?

I’ll go with nefarious actions... thanks. 

[Post Oak 20209]

 

[Dahobbs 17531]

2 minutes ago, Post Oak said:

 

I'm actually surprised by that. That jump in deaths from diabetes and alzheimer's is sad though and I assume related to difficulties getting medical treatment. 

[Post Oak 20209]

 

 

[DDD Dad 14332]

 

It’s because the hospitals were being paid more to call them COVID deaths. Do the research!

[Anastasis 23466]

36 minutes ago, Dahobbs said:

I'm actually surprised by that. That jump in deaths from diabetes and alzheimer's is sad though and I assume related to difficulties getting medical treatment. 

Heart disease related deaths increased by about 5% (largest increase since 2012), and unintentional injury deaths by 11% (which includes drug overdose). As far as suicide those are very positive provisional data. I'd like to see the breakdown by age, race, and sex when the data are final. And do the same with drug overdose as well. 

Edited April 5, 2021 by Anastasis

[Anastasis 23466]

And to the point @TheAngryEpi is making, seems a breakdown by geographic region would be enlightening. 

[Willfully Horn 8003]

47 minutes ago, Dahobbs said:

I'm actually surprised by that. That jump in deaths from diabetes and alzheimer's is sad though and I assume related to difficulties getting medical treatment. 

Is there a way to prevent Alzheimer’s?

[Brisketexan 105093]

13 minutes ago, Willfully Horn said:

Is there a way to prevent Alzheimer’s?

There is, but I forget what it is.

[PenelopeWitherspoon 19100]

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/05/us/covid-vaccine-evangelicals.html?smid=fb-nytimes&smtyp=cur&fbclid=IwAR293lB79cbnBY8Lng59QpPrY4uKLbhbS_dHwb_NYuxLcDnzb5apqOOq3-c

This makes me ragey.

[DigglerontheHoof 21184]

9 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

There is, but I forget what it is.

[YChang 3443]

Some evangelicals... unironically being a plague on society.

Edited April 5, 2021 by YChang

[Dahobbs 17531]

27 minutes ago, Willfully Horn said:

Is there a way to prevent Alzheimer’s?

I assume preventing/delaying Alzheimer's related deaths is easier, which is what I was referring to. 

[Mole 4330]

The evangelical arguments are all rooted in self-preservation (will God or the vaccine protect ME?) yet Jesus said to lay down our lives and Paul taught that Christians have died with Christ. Such a disconnect and such a selfish vision of the faith.

[Anastasis 23466]

2 minutes ago, Dahobbs said:

I assume preventing/delaying Alzheimer's related deaths is easier, which is what I was referring to. 

I think that a lot of the AD deaths being identified there are miscoded COVID deaths. The excess AD deaths are high over the entire year, but the biggest spike is in late July timeframe when we were getting hit hardest. Likely people dying in nursing home ravaged by COVID and getting coded with their chronic condition on the death certificate. CVD, IHD, and DM on the other hand would be high on the radar for excess deaths related to deferred care, but they are also significant risk factors for COVID death, so it's all tangled together.  

 

[Anastasis 23466]

[sidis 9825]

22 minutes ago, Anastasis said:

that data would seem to verify your hypothesis at first blush...at least for texas.  there is no way that is a coincidence...particularly heart disease.  that would be difficult to untangle given the vectoring of the virus.

[HenryJames 66041]

 

[Longhorn_Fan68 33868]

fuck him

[Mole 4330]

2 hours ago, sidis said:

that data would seem to verify your hypothesis at first blush...at least for texas.  there is no way that is a coincidence...particularly heart disease.  that would be difficult to untangle given the vectoring of the virus.

A friend of mine died this past weekend of a heart attack. He was in his late 50s and a bit overweight, but didn’t have any previous known heart problems. He did have an extended bout of COVID this past fall. I’m not saying that COVID caused his heart attack, but it probably played a role.

[Aqua Buddha 14585]

5 hours ago, Post Oak said:

 

Interesting data.  I wonder what drove the increase in diabetes?  Everything else looks flat except that and Alzheimer's.

[JimmyJames 12271]

1 minute ago, Aqua Buddha said:

Interesting data.  I wonder what drove the increase in diabetes?  Everything else looks flat except that and Alzheimer's.

Covid and diabetes don’t mix well. It is very likely that deaths attributed to diabetes were caused by Covid. 

[cactusflinthead 27598]

 

[Biff Tannen 45673]

Rangers ballpark at full capacity today.  Masks "encouraged".  What could go wrong?

I'm tired of my state being the guinea pig for fuck around and find out.

[Aqua Buddha 14585]

4 hours ago, PenelopeWitherspoon said:

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/05/us/covid-vaccine-evangelicals.html?smid=fb-nytimes&smtyp=cur&fbclid=IwAR293lB79cbnBY8Lng59QpPrY4uKLbhbS_dHwb_NYuxLcDnzb5apqOOq3-c

This makes me ragey.

If they feel God will protect them, why do they need guns?

But really, if they die, they die as a great man once said.  We can't wrap our governmental policy around these people.  Vax up everyone who wants it and let these people deal with the consequences.  After people in their immediate family start to die, they'll come around.

[Bama Chick 28596]

I assume preventing/delaying Alzheimer's related deaths is easier, which is what I was referring to. 

My woefully uneducated guess about the Alzheimer’s stats is that a lot of those folks depend on caregivers to help with their ADLs - including taking all their meds at the right time.

I wonder if some of those are attributed to missing crucial meds or overdosing on meds because the Alzheimer’s patients couldn’t manage their meds schedules.

Or ones that had an accident at home at weren’t being checked up on physically - I bet telehealth is not a good option for dementia patients.

Or they wandered off and had accidents.

Or some actually died of Covid but were never classified as such because they could have been home deaths that weren’t discovered for all while.

It’s all awful but it’s not surprising that the patients that needed extra medical in person intervention fell through the cracks.

Whether they’re classified as their primary cause of death being due to Covid, no doubt the whole atmosphere and restrictions of the Covid pandemic played an indirect role.

[PenelopeWitherspoon 19100]

9 minutes ago, Aqua Buddha said:

If they feel God will protect them, why do they need guns?

But really, if they die, they die as a great man once said.  We can't wrap our governmental policy around these people.  Vax up everyone who wants it and let these people deal with the consequences.  After people in their immediate family start to die, they'll come around.

Yeah, I am with you.  My concern is these mouthbreathers can potentially spread it to people who haven't had a chance to get vaccinated yet.  Basically, I would like to see them face REAL consequences from being dumbasses, like not having a career anymore, kids not getting to go to school, etc...

To summarize, I am fully supportive of companies saying that to be employed here, you have to get the vaccine unless you have a legitimate documented Health exception (I am not even willing to give a religious exception at this point).  I am also fully supportive of schools at all levels (pre-schools for when the kids can get vaccinated) to colleges saying the same thing.

I would even like all borders to require it (you want to go to another country, come to the US, or return to the US, you better be vaccinated) for all travel, and all airlines to require it.  

Fuck it.  You don't want to get the vaccine, then you are not welcome in society.

[GRHorn 105]

14 hours ago, Bama Chick said:

Again, the party affiliation means jack and shit.

If any Governor is giving special treatment and misallocating vaccines to high dollar donors and undercounting deaths, draw and quarter them.

Cuomo, DeSantis, whoever.

And Publix has abhorrent things in their past and current business practices so fuck them too.

Signed, Florida native who worked for Publix for four years in high school and considered them my favorite grocery store.

But he wasn’t 

60 minutes with the intentionally false reporting. Sounds like some fake news 

[956 Worldwide 34705]

Here’s a long form article on how the Czech Republic collapsed into one of the worst performing nations in the world for COVID.  Pretty good— although the author of the article makes a glaring article in calling the Prime Minster a former member of the secret police (he is rumored to have been an informant).  That’s a pretty egregious error to work into a report in a national publication. 
 

https://www.thedailybeast.com/worlds-worst-covid-death-rate-sends-czechs-back-into-cold-war-misery

 

Quote

“My parents told me that the outside world looks like evenings during the communist dictatorship,” the 31-year-old doctor says.

Back in the communist era, businesses would close early, there were no neon signs blinking into the night and people would rather keep to themselves at home than wander around. Boredom, anxiety and feelings of abandonment suffocated towns back then. This past year, the string of restrictions, bans, curfews and lockdowns has brought back these unhappy memories for many Czechs.

“Many of my older patients have fallen into a depression, saying the surroundings now remind them of the times of the ‘Communist normalization.’ They feel like they’re being swallowed by grayness,” says psychotherapist Tomáš Rektor.

 

[4th&Five 41525]

 

[Chuckie Finster 22694]

48 minutes ago, GRHorn said:

But he wasn’t 

60 minutes with the intentionally false reporting. Sounds like some fake news 

Anybody citing Mollie fucking Hemingway cannot complain about fake news. Sorry, it's in the Constitution.