Mostly Apolitical Thread for Discussing/Venting our Rational/Irrational COVID-19 Fears and Experiences in 2020

"I ain't putting that shit in my body" *consumes the most processed food imaginable day in day out*

Just got results from my 4th/final COVID test of the quarantine, which ends today. Negative throughout, despite fairly heavy exposure. Score one for Pfizer 1st dose. Now I can leave the house, getting 2nd dose on Tuesday. Kid #1 has been back in school since last Tuesday, Kid #2 gets to go back on Monday. So it essentially all unfolded exactly like the data said it would.

that's positive news in the positive sense of "positive"

New hadn't-wringing WaPo headline: "‘How did that happen?’ Catching covid-19 even after being vaccinated."

Details:

In recent data, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that at least 5,800 people had fallen ill or tested positive for the coronavirus two weeks or more after they completed both doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna vaccine. More than 95.9 million Americans are now fully vaccinated.

My dum-dum math: 5800/95,000,000 = 0.00006105263%

Other useful details:

The Pfizer and Moderna versions have consistently been shown to be above 90 percent effective, most recently for at least six months. Studies have also shown they are nearly 100 percent effective at ensuring that the small fraction of vaccinated patients who do contract the virus will not get severe cases or require hospitalization.

Suggested more useful headline in comments:

“99.99+ % of vaccinated people avoid hospitalization and death."

Hand-wringing, not hadn't-wringing.

Alternate NYT headline:

92 PERCENT OF AMERICANS RECEIVED SECOND COVID SHOT ON TIME, WILDLY EXCEEDING PAST TWO DOSE VACCINE CAMPAIGNS

“Given so much protection comes from the first shot,” one official said, “even the other 8 percent is doing well. It’s an unmitigated success!” https://t.co/12IwVx9CuS pic.twitter.com/fFmcp7xp70

— Dr. Steven W. Thrasher (@thrasherxy) April 26, 2021

Just like anything else hip or fashionable or exclusive, those first shots were of course the best, because no one could get them. Now that it's opened up to everyone, bah, who needs those second shots, they're so last month. Covid vaccine is the new cronut.

My dum-dum math: 5800/95,000,000 = 0.00006105263%

Multiply by 100 to get percent. 0.006105...%

Ran into a new (to me) strain of vaccine skepticism when visiting some former neighbors the other day, who are eccentric old hippie types. They do want the vaccine, but only Johnson & Johnson, which they haven't been able to get yet. Basically they don't trust the mRNA tech and are worried about possible adverse effects years down the road (which, well, given that they've already had one friend come on and off a ventilator multiple times, maybe just get the vaccine that's available?). But at least they're open to the J&J vaccine, I guess.

ugh, my brother-inilaw will only do J&J for some reason, and making any appointment is too stressful for him. If he hasn't gotten something lined up by the next time I see him, I'm going to tell him that I'm just driving him over to the vax site and he's getting whatever they have.

the #6, no lettuce

all the flavorss, and extra mRNA

xxp- people talking up the side effects of Moderna and Pfizer have really gotten into peoples’ heads it seems.

They should give people copies of Madonna's "MDNA" and see what kind of reaction it gets.

xpost one of my friends started asking other friends to quit talking about their side effects because he thinks it was causing people to not want to get it.

kinda of two minds there, like a) jfc just get the vaccine but b) if you make it sound undesirable, people are gonna chicken out

more to A than B tho

People are wimps. Feeling moderately bad for a couple of days is so much better than covid, and if things get really bad the chip they inject will automatically alert the right authorities.

The situation in India looks seriously bleak right now.

I was worried about side effects but I haven’t been truly sick in a long time and can’t really afford to have two days stuck in bed. Going to bet the latter matters to a lot of people.

That was pretty good, Josh.

xxpost yes.

I've heard the "who knows what might happen in the future if you inject some foreign substance into your bloodstream" argument, which of course is backed up by 0 (zero) evidence or hypothesis of any sort whatsoever. But apparently "hunches" have great value coming from people who know shite all about medicine. Oh well, can't say I didn't try.

I was listening to a radio thing today about vaccine hesitancy, and one of the people interviewed actually said that the microchip thing comes up all the time! It's so nuts. People have no problem signing away their rights to privacy again and again, let alone carrying around a personal tracking device in their pockets, and yet when it comes to a vaccine that can literally save millions of lives, theirs included, then suddenly they're worried about secret microchips.

It's a leitmotif in South Florida. Some churches preach i.

itt.

got itt

Now do this at the federal level and multiply the number by at least 10

NEW: WV Gov. Justice announces $100 savings bonds for young people — ages 16 to 35 — who get vaccinated

— Ana Cabrera (@AnaCabrera) April 26, 2021

and make it not a savings bond because no one knows wtf those are except they come from your grandma

Yo where she get that bond from
She get it from her grandma

you can't even get paper ones anymore, a savings bond is just a fuckin number on a website

like NFTs

oh man i haven’t thought about savings bonds in years.

the worst thing that could be enclosed in a card from your grandparents.

idk it was fun taking my wad of bar mitzvah bonds to the bank before I went off to college, but maybe that's a Jew thing

you can't even get paper ones anymore, a savings bond is just a fuckin number on a website

― Canon in Deez (silby), Monday, April 26, 2021 7:27 PM bookmarkflaglink

In many cases shares of stock are the same. You get a "Statement of Share Holdings" and a phone number

I bought some savings bonds a few years ago, on a lark. Yeah, you no longer get anything physical, it's just a website. I forgot about them and the checked them a couple years ago and was surprised how much money was in the account. Suppose I should cash out...

I was listening to a radio thing today about vaccine hesitancy, and one of the people interviewed actually said that the microchip thing comes up all the time! It's so nuts. People have no problem signing away their rights to privacy again and again, let alone carrying around a personal tracking device in their pockets, and yet when it comes to a vaccine that can literally save millions of lives, theirs included, then suddenly they're worried about secret microchips.

"It changes your DNA". "They used blood from aborted foetuses". Two more big hits.

Brother-in-law went in for minor surgery a few days after his second vax shot and tested positive for the virus. He felt and feels 100% fine and had no idea.

One of my oldest friends tested positive for the virus three weeks after receiving the J&J vax.

I'm getting my second shot this afternoon.

pretty sure the pope weighed in on the blood from aborted fetuses thing saying, essentially, "just get the shot, it's OK" but I get that the current pope is not very popular to begin with among the people concerned about that

Had a long, depressing conversation with my mom last night that as a good reminder of how odious Facebook is. She lives in a small town with a ton of pro-Trump and, let's say, vaccine hesitant people (last time I drove out there, a house down the road had an American flag flying in which the red stripes and stars were replaced with AR-15s).

She said FB is just littered with bullshit about the vaccine, i.e. "my son got the Moderna shot and two weeks later had terrible symptoms" then goes on to describe what sounds exactly like seasonal allergies, or a mom who insisted that her daughter got "violently ill" from her shot, even though said daughter piped up in the comments with, "mom, I told you it was food poisoning". If it isn't out and out vaccine denial in any form, it's people ascribing any possible negative health experience to the vaccine. Which, annoying, but even more sad to see how many people are jumping in the comments to confirm that this is exactly why they won't get vaccinated.

WTF?? This is insane:

The Centner Academy, a fee-paying school, is located in Miami's Design District. Annual tuition begins at $15,160 (£10,898) for pre-school students and goes up to nearly $30,000 for middle school students, who are around 13-15 years old.

Co-founder Leila Centner informed parents on Monday that, when possible, the academy's policy is to not employ anyone who has received a Covid-19 vaccine at this time, CBS Miami reported...

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-56905752

private schools should be illegal

good morning!

What does "when possible" mean?

It means if you're already vaccinated they won't slice your arm open and try to suck out the poison

fucking batshit:

"We cannot allow recently vaccinated people to be near our students until more information is known," Mrs Centner wrote.

Mrs Centner also repeated a false claim of vaccinated individuals affecting unvaccinated people, saying three women in the school's community had their menstrual cycles "impacted after having spent time with a vaccinated person."

Jfc, this "affects menstrual cycles "bullshit really has legs, doesn't it?

And the legs go all the way down, vavavoom

""We cannot allow recently vaccinated people to be near our students until more information is known," Mrs Centner wrote."

You can, though.

Just let the kids teach themselves, like Evergreen College

You want to look for an institute of higher learning whose administrators are clearly afflicted with late-stage Creutzfeldt-Jakob, that's how you know your degree will be worth the paper it's printed on (low-grade printer bond with something else already printed on the back, presumably).

Interesting long piece in the second half of this week's This American Life, where a long-time Republican focus-group / policy-marketing dude attempts to apply his trade to persuading a focus group of vaccine-hesitant Trump voters.

-- There's no way any Governor anywhere is going to implement new shutdowns, let alone right before summer. It's just not going to happen, for a myriad of reasons.

Pierce County (containing the city of Tacoma, 40 minutes south of Seattle) went back into Phase 2 restrictions yesterday. (Here in King County, hospitalisations are up 50% in two weeks, and positive cases up 80% in two months, but they outpaced us.)

King County likely to move back to COVID reopening phase 2, public health director says

King County should plan on being moved back to the second phase of Washington’s three-phase COVID-19 reopening plan, forcing restaurants, churches, gyms, museums and theaters to trim their capacity, the county’s director of public health said Tuesday.

The possible backslide comes as case numbers and hospitalizations continue to rise in King County and statewide, amid what Gov. Jay Inslee last week called the state’s fourth wave of the pandemic.

Business owners and health officials in Tacoma and Pierce County are facing a potential, harsh reality: a rollback into Phase 1, which includes a ban on indoor dining.

“It could go back to a level that we saw at the turn of the year, in which case, absolutely we’d be going back to Phase 1,” said Nigel Turner, Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department director of communicable disease.

A rollback to Phase 1 hinges on the county’s 14-day case rate per 100,000 people. “The 14-day case rate offers the most reliable look at COVID-19 disease burden on Pierce County,” the county health department states on its website.

As of Wednesday, Pierce County’s case rate was 211.6. The phase a county is in depends on the rate: Phase 3 includes counties with a case rate of less than 200, Phase 2 includes counties with case rates between 200 and 350, and Phase 1 includes counties with case rates higher than 350.

Turner said the reason why Pierce County is seeing higher case rates than neighboring counties is due to younger people not following guidelines, like wearing masks or social distancing.

“There’s nothing specifically new here,” Turner said, emphasizing that younger populations have been driving up case rates in the county for months. “It’s just too soon to let down our guard.”