Vaccines, Infrastructure, and Kids In Cages: US Politics April 2021

caek has argued against instituting track & trace this far in but we're still importing new (and stronger) variants. just from a research pov it has to be useful to see how fast they spread, even if the passive aim is still to let them spread.

The Biden administration announced Friday it will allocate $1.7 billion toward tracking the highly infectious coronavirus variants that now pose a major threat to the United States’ fight against the pandemic.

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/04/16/covid-variants-biden-admin-spending-1point7-billion-tracking-new-strains.html

"The number of crowds of drunk/stoned unmasked partiers staggering out of bars and hooting in each others faces, or ramming shoulder-to-shoulder on bar patios, that I've seen around midnight the last two weekends since posting this, suggests that it could be a useful revenue raiser for cities to build tiny house villages for homeless ppl."

where do you live?

The number of crowds of drunk/stoned unmasked partiers staggering out of bars and hooting in each others faces, or ramming shoulder-to-shoulder on bar patios, that I've seen around midnight

you're up after midnight?

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/04/16/covid-variants-biden-admin-spending-1point7-billion-tracking-new-strains.html

👍 I'm ready for my highly-paid public health advisor role, Mr President

akm - Seattle.

Track and trace is separate to sequencing for variants. I don’t think track and trace would be money well spent until it’s like Korea or Australia or New Zealand here. Sequencing should have happened way way more than it did, and more money for it is good news.

I don’t think closing the borders is politically tenable. I don’t know if it would help much.

Yes they should have spent way more money on getting people to stay home. I think if they offered to do that now though they wouldn’t get many takers.

Probably the best thing they can do is throw money at vaccination efforts (including imo stimulus payments contingent on vaccination or certified reason you can’t get it) and provide federal support for businesses/state/local governments that want to require vaccines. Vaccination rates are still climbing but I’m starting to worry we’re going to top out at like 50%, leaving kids vulnerable and making the US a great breeding ground for new variants.

https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/04/at-38-5-vaccinated-us-may-be-running-low-on-people-eager-for-a-shot/

I’m starting to worry we’re going to top out at like 50%

You aren't alone. This is probably the number one worry among public health authorities about where the US could be in August.

I don’t think closing the borders is politically tenable. I don’t know if it would help much.

At a statistically significant level, every current US infection and daily death is from one of three international variants that have been tracked in the last four months. One has to assume that not actively, knowingly importing and spreading them would lead (and have led) to fewer infections and deaths, no?

Probably the best thing they can do is throw money at vaccination efforts (including imo stimulus payments contingent on vaccination

Fuck yeah.

https://pics.me.me/l-reason-to-eat-quaker-oatmeal-l-its-the-right-16409588.png

xp

The US has made almost no effort to sequence samples relative to similar countries. There’s no evidence AFAIK that those “overseas” strains started in the place they were first sequenced and given most of them cropped up when the US was the global hotspot it’s very possible some or all of them are US exports.

USA! USA!

The US has made almost no effort to sequence samples relative to similar countries. There’s no evidence AFAIK that those “overseas” strains started in the place they were first sequenced and given most of them cropped up when the US was the global hotspot it’s very possible some or all of them are US exports.

useful point, ta. but

a) it's not hard to believe that out-of-control raging hotspot Brazil could mutate its own variant, nor that the UK could have grown one specifically while the government was paying people to deliberately spread and breed the virus

b) it's not actually better if Biden's policy is to export 6,000 covid deaths a day vs importing 600 covid deaths a day

(^^ SA seems to have peaked at 750 a day, and the UK at 1450, in January when those variants were really getting their running shoes on; Brazil is currently topping 4,000 a day; I'm not checking how many other countries the three variants are in, but dare say the numbers more than balance out. I promise any nitpickers that I also think exporting, say, 3 deaths a day in any one country would be bad.)

While I admit the idea of vaccine passports makes me queasy and apprehensive, I also think that the solution to the 50% issue is pretty simple: you have to be vaccinated to go back to work or school. Legal challenges would abound, of course, but from what I'm hearing from friends, many many universities are requiring students to be vaccinated if they want to return in the fall. Good.

Good morning!

Once kids under 16 get the vaccine OK I imagine it will quickly become a requirement. My mom likes to travel and she noticed that many of her preferred travel companies are already starting to require proof of vaccination. I can think of a few countries that have opened up to those with proof of vaccination, allowing them to skip quarantine. It's just a matter of time. Let's see how long the vaccine reluctant (or as I like to cal them, slow-pokes) remain so when they can't do anything without them.

Heck, have they even determined issues of liability yet, if someone gets sick due to someone else's carelessness or indifference, or refusal to protect their staff or customers? I can imagine that eventually driving it, too.

While I admit the idea of vaccine passports makes me queasy and apprehensive

You know it's been mandatory to get certain shots to enter certain countries since the mid 20th century, right?

Vaccine passports are the new death panels. Just two words strung together to manufacture conservative outrage.

I had to get vaccinated before starting college (against hepatitis iirc) and before travelling to various places, so yes it's a bit silly to try to make a vaccination requirement for processes like that seem like a new diabolical method of social control.

But it's not accurate to say they're like the entirely fictitious "death panels" IMO (for example: https://forward.ny.gov/excelsior-pass-business). Non-idiots who worry about vaccine passports (we should probably say "passes" instead) are concerned about private businesses tiering services based on vaccination status, which may have discriminatory effects beyond sorting people who wanted to get vaxxed and people who didn't—e.g., will a stadium still let you in if you are legitimately unable to get vaccinated? There's also the fact that they're almost certain to be digital, which automatically raises data privacy concerns.

There's also the question of what counts as a valid reason to opt out—are longstanding religious objections to vaccines considered legit? etc.

sic, I agree shutting the borders would have an effect. It should have happened a long time ago and they should still be shut. I’m just not convinced the benefits of doing it now it would be big enough for the social and economic harm (and confusion tbh, given lockdown restrictions are lifting in all other parts of life) that it would cause. It’s certainly not the thing they should prioritise. Seems like a very expensive move politically.

Rob is more what I'm talking about. I know we disagree on political issues unperson, but there's legitimately no reason to automatically assume the worst of me at all junctures.

"longstanding religious objections to vaccines considered legit"

granted I was raised catholic and not some speaking-in-tongues protestant sect, but religious objections to vaccines make absolutely zero fucking sense to me, so IMO, no.

I know we disagree on political issues unperson, but there's legitimately no reason to automatically assume the worst of me at all junctures.

I don't, but you were literally rolling out the most boneheaded right-wing language of the moment, the kind of thing only someone who's never left their home state actually believes. Re what rob said:

will a stadium still let you in if you are legitimately unable to get vaccinated?

They shouldn't. Nobody has an inalienable right to attend an NFL game or a Springsteen concert.

are longstanding religious objections to vaccines considered legit?

They shouldn't be. The public's health takes precedence over the opinions of your imaginary friend and/or their representatives.

just not convinced the benefits of doing it now it would be big enough for the social and economic harm

Yeah, I get it. I just think that: society is people. The economy is people. Killing tens of thousands fewer of them each month is harm reduction. There are thousands of empty hotel rooms near airports, so putting people in them to quarantine is economic stimulus, not harm.

The sort of people who object to "vaccine passports" have probably never traveled internationally, let alone are doing so regularly throughout the pandemic. Certainly not in numbers large enough to make an electoral difference. Anyone who is flying regularly in and out can probably adapt to doing their work in a business hotel on the way in. Announcing along the lines of "we've come so far, the end is in sight, cases are rising so we just need to do this for three months, you can travel if you've vaccinated etc" is positive messaging and will actually impact a vanishingly small percentage of the population, few of whom are likely to vote for Biden again anyway.

Saving millions of lives should be considered as a public good anyway, rather than politically volatile. But I'd like to think the insanely massive return vote for Labor in Western Australia last month suggests that voters respond well to having their lives, and ability to go outside, saved.

(Admittedly, the state does not have a Murdoch paper. On the other hand, this didn't work either.)

They shouldn't. Nobody has an inalienable right to attend an NFL game or a Springsteen concert.

― but also fuck you (unperson), Sunday, April 18, 2021 12:27 PM (three hours ago)

"The ADA is a civil rights law that prohibits discrimination against individuals with disabilities in all areas of public life, including jobs, schools, transportation, and all public and private places that are open to the general public."

that's about accessibility and inclusion, not a general right of the populace

the small amt of people medically unable to get vaccines can get their own card

Most people's disabilities carry a low risk of killing the person next to them.

c'mon that's such a disingenuous reading of the ADA

but I'm sure the Republicans will be exploiting that angle soon enough, you should send it on to them

I'm sure the Republicans will be exploiting that angle soon enough, you should send it on to them

They've been pushing it for a while already. Note the "ADA" language on this bullshit "face mask exemption card":

https://api.time.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/face-mask-exempt-cards-fake-coronavirus.png

Who cares what scamming asshole republicans are doing? The ADA has been mentioned in every article I've read about this--there's no consensus on whether these passes constitute a violation yet, but y'all are simply wrong if you think this is super obvious and I'm merely echoing the right-wing liar parade here.

that's about accessibility and inclusion, not a general right of the populace

the small amt of people medically unable to get vaccines can get their own card

― "Gaspar? No way." (sleeve), Sunday, April 18, 2021 3:52 PM (twenty-eight minutes ago)

Not sure how being barred from entry to a potentially massive range of public businesses due to a genuine medical condition doesn't count as an "accessibility and inclusion" problem, but ftr "their own card" was basically all I had in mind when I asked the question in the first place. I brought up the religious objections because the avalanche of "religious liberty" lawsuits that will follow is an absolute guaranteed inevitability, and judging by the state of the SC, it will probably work.

Not being vaccinated does not constitute "a genuine medical condition" by any definition of "medical condition" I am aware of. Being unable to safely take a vaccine due to a genuine medical condition is another matter from what we have been discussing. Merely refusing to get one when it is available is making a conscious choice, not a condition you cannot alter.

Being unable to safely take a vaccine due to a genuine medical condition is another matter from what we have been discussing

That's quite literally what I've been discussing, but if that wasn't clear it would certainly explain why my concerns about discrimination are being perceived as GOP talking points.

Tbh I just think the possibility that people will be going around sharing their medical information before entering any sort of public arena is a little concerning. And it should be to everyone.

The possibilities for fraud, bias, and government intrusion are already wild given the way so much of our society works. Your vaccine record might very well be connected to the rest of your medical records. Imagine TSA but for vaccines. You think that's going to work? Please elaborate if so.

If there's a way that such passes or records can be verified that wouldn't also intrude on other medical privacy and accommodation issues, then I'm all for it. For the record.

Like showing your vaccination card?

Medical privacy is not so sacrosanct that society should be rendered vulnerable to a pandemic infectious disease that has already killed 560,000 members of that society. To be absolutist on this strikes me as having similarities to the sort of absolutism that seeks to shelter hate speech under the protection of first amendment rights.

When I went to my dentist I was asked a short list of questions regarding my medical state, pertinent to whether I had symptoms associated with the covid19 virus. They also took my temperature before I was admitted. This was an "invasion" of my medical privacy, too.

Plagues times are not good conditions for respecting every kind of individual right.

Imagine TSA but for vaccines.

Imaginings are not very pertinent. Imagine dying from suffocation, hooked to a respirator. It's more real.

Tell me again how cards that couldn't be falsified would work.

If it wasnt a card but a medical database, tell me again what could prevent someone checking vaccinations at the door of a venue also checking to see whether I'm gay, or have seen a therapist recently, or am currently on anti-psychotics. These scenarios aren't far-fetched, and pretending like they are is willfully obtuse.

And as for your comparison to first amendment absolutism, Aimless, spare me.

Y'all are acting like this is some simple solution that will just be pulled together and will totally work and won't be abused. Sorry, not buying it.

No solution is perfect, so you go for the best possible one. Because the goal is to prevent the largest possible number of deaths.

Some people are welfare cheats; other people argue that since some people cheat, welfare should be abolished.

Because the goal is to prevent the largest possible number of deaths.

(evidently not, but)

My problem with this entire conversation is that it’s predicated on whatever strawman policy that comes into one’s head when hearing or saying the words “vaccine passports”. Does anybody know how this would work at this point? Has there been an official proposal with such details? Right now all a “vaccine passport” is is a bogeyman that serves to get people’s hackles up and make them opposed to whatever actions the current administration might want to take to fight the pandemic. Thus my comparisons to “death panels”, which two words were seized upon by conservatives in order to foster echo-chamber type opposition to Obama’s health care agenda. Now if you’ll forgive me, I don’t even want to string those words together anymore. Can we call it something else that better represents (what we think) it will be? Or is it worth even worrying about it until it’s something more than complete speculation?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2021/04/18/scams-coronavirus-vaccination-cards/

The ubiquitous cards that everyone loves to post on social media are ripe for forging, who would have predicted this

xpost

I agree that we all seem to be talking about entirely different objects here, but I did post a link to a real vaccine pass program immediately after your previous post about death panels: https://forward.ny.gov/excelsior-pass-business

I think it's fairly safe to say there won't be a national version of that program though.

You need a whole gang of vaccines to emigrate to the US btw fyi rmndr

I had to get an extra medical because I had too many! (Immunity to the is presumed to be evidence that you’ve had tb!)

I think there's no need at the moment to get heavy handed with vaccine requirements. Once daily vaccine rates slow down or stop, if infection rates are still high, we need to start getting stricter.

The cards aren't perfect, they can be faked, but they are a start. Maybe you look for something better if things just continuing being bad for many more months.

Don’t worry, the county of Los Angeles has paid someone to make iPhone wallet card

You have to opt-in to get digital vax record. No app to download, just click on link. You'll be asked for name & DOB. If you have an iPhone, you can add it to Apple Wallet. Options in the works for people who got a shot outside of LA County. 2/ @KNX1070 pic.twitter.com/meL9ynmOvv

— Claudia Peschiutta (@ReporterClaudia) April 17, 2021

“Healthvana”

Get the Simon Belmont shot