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

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.”

Wtf Pierce County, get your shit together.

forcing restaurants, churches, gyms, museums and theaters to trim their capacity

these places are still open, capacity limits are not shutdowns

the phrase “any governor anywhere” in the italics is prob an exaggeration, there’s a big difference between inslee, the gov of a blue state who just won re-election, and whitmer, the gov of a purple state who’s up in 2022

Yeah, needless to say, my original intent was more or less in line with that.

https://www.mic.com/p/why-this-miami-private-school-doesnt-want-their-teachers-vaccinated-75005019

An interesting article that delves a little more deeply into that Miami school from yesterday, and a little bit into where that whole "menstrual cycle" thing came from - wellness influencers.

The thing is that while this may all sound high-key batshit to science-loving people, Centner’s argument is not actually coming from some fringe element. Centner’s statement was based on widely circulating misinformation that COVID-19 vaccines can shed from one person to another and lead to infertility problems. Where is this “information” coming from? Wellness influencers, for one.

Internet health gurus, unfortunately, don’t limit their sphere of “expertise” to anti-aging serums. Two well-known anti-vaxx influencers who have relatives enrolled at The Centner School publicly praised the school. “Spent some time with Kelly Brogan, MD, one of my soul sisters and a fellow warrior who also made the famous Disinformation Dozen list,” Christiane Northrup posted on Facebook Monday. “We both have children (grandchildren in my case) who go to the Centner Academy, a miraculous school in Miami. We are keeping the vibration of joy and grounding as high as we possibly can!”

the vibration of joy and grounding

keep it high

yeah, the Miami Herald article mentioned crystals. Here's the overlap between New Age liberal anti-vaccers and Trumpist ones.

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.

Listened to this earlier today. I'm glad it took a turn, because the first half was making me so disheartened. The lady who worked for a pharma company and believed in all vaccines, just not when "the government tells me to take one" killed me.

what is it that these people don't like about the government exactly

that it hasn't yet gone full fascist

It has Democrats in it

It just doesn't *feel* right.

Like, I get it. People don't like being told what to do, even if it's in their own best interest. Yesterday I went to donate blood, and for the first time ever failed my hemoglobin test and was denied. I mean, what the fuck, it was barely below the minimum, I'm just trying to help you out, you know? So I walk over to the snack table, dejected (they told me to help myself to snacks), and I started talking to a friend who was waiting there, post-donation. She was shocked I was done already, too, and after I explained that and why I was denied this old lady came up to me and began to lecture me about getting blood work done. She went on and on about the Red Cross hemoglobin test possibly being inaccurate, and the even greater possibility that donating blood on a regular, every-56-days schedule might leave me with a low iron level, but she kept insisting I still get bloodwork done, just to be safe. And I kept saying, no, I don't want any fucking bloodwork done, I've never had an issue with low iron before, why would I go to my doctor voluntarily just to get an optional test that will no doubt get me stuck with a surprisingly big bill that only proves I'm as healthy as I think I am? I mean, fuck that, right? And she looks at me, and gets up close (she's wearing a mask, but still) and says, lowering her voice, "do *I* look unhealthy to you?" She's probably at least 30 years older than me, so my first thought is, well, you look pretty old, so I assume you have at least a few issues. I keep that to myself and just dodge, reiterating that every time I go to the doctor for anything other than my annual physical I get stuck with a bill that makes me feel stupid for even going. I say some version of "I just don't want to waste the time and money based on nothing more than a random finger test at the blood drive." And she shrugs, waves me off, and mutters "what do I care, it's your health," then walks away. And I think, damn straight, the Red Cross *wishes* they had my awesome blood today, and then I leave (with my free snack).

And this morning I went in to my doctor for a blood test, just to be safe, because the old lady was probably right.

That's what I'm hoping ultimately plays out with vaccine skeptics, that after instinctively talking a bunch of contrarian shit they gradually come around and do the right thing.

multiple xp

So . . . it is coming from some fringe element?

The lady who worked for a pharma company and believed in all vaccines, just not when "the government tells me to take one" killed me.

haha, yes. the specific nature of what starts to turn the members is painfully disheartening though.

these places are still open, capacity limits are not shutdowns

many places will be forced to shutdown if they cannot actually operate at 25% capacity tho (many places have not reopened at 50%)

Tbf, the government's record of using certain populations as guinea pigs does not inspire confidence in those populations. To lay the blame squarely on those populations seems a little harsh...

that said, the government's record of testing drugs and diseases on middle and upper-middle class white suburbanites is non-existent, so a large percentage of these anti-vaxxers are merely seeing a threat where there is none. It's just part of the culture.

Like, am I surprised when I see anti-vax stuff from Black people? Not really. I'm dismayed, but not surprised.

But Karen Smith of Windsong Lane in The Dalles wants to pretend like the government is victimizing her.

In many ways, it's a simple case of white folks displacing their fear of the Other onto the government, and creating a conspiracy out of that displacement.

Moderna #2 in the arm as of an hour ago, now to just wait and see if I hit the side effects bingo.

wow, congrats. I feel especially happy for you, jon, considering where you've been the last three months.