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

had to shoot myself up with blood thinners twice a day for a couple weeks this summer after some troubles, pretty thin needle but a lot of fluid and right into my abdomen, and lemme tell you i'll let any person inject me with absolutely anything before going through that again

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-04-25/when-will-u-s-vaccination-be-done-we-re-getting-closer

malaysia opened up astrazeneca jabs to volunteers after thousands of people cancelled their registrations (sigh) - signed up for it yesterday and have an appointment on Wednesday!

was on hormonal birth control all throughout my 20s - blood clots don't scare me

I'm still not sure what the story is on the Astrazeneca surplus in this town. the vaccination centre is way out of town behind security so not sure anybody who has any chance of picking up the surplus shots could do so anyway. I was told that a lot of people were not turning up for their shots appointments so have wondered.
I know other places have had apps for potential shots in practise haven't heard about that here.

Tens of millions of Americans—including 60 percent of young Republicans—say they'll refuse the COVID vaccine.

I spoke to 11 of them. I asked them where their views came from and what might change their minds.

Here's what they told me:https://t.co/RUmlsrRE6q

— Derek Thompson (@DKThomp) May 3, 2021

I know this is still the "mostly political" thread but since the article was shared here, jfc @ this section:

And many others said that perceived liberal overreach had pushed them to the right. “Before March 2020, I was a solid progressive Democrat,” Jenin Younes, a 37-year-old attorney, said. “I am so disturbed by the Democrats’ failure to recognize the importance of civil liberties. I’ll vote for anyone who takes a strong stand for civil liberties and doesn’t permit the erosion of our fundamental rights that we are seeing now.” Baca, the Colorado truck driver, also told me he wasn’t very political before the pandemic, but the perception of liberal overreach has radicalized him. “When COVID hit, I saw rights being taken away. So in 2020, I voted for the first time in my life, and I voted all the way Republican down the ballot.”

correct - some of your rights were temporarily taken away. this was not a secret

tl; dr?

many people in the US are fucking idiots

“Before March 2020, I was a solid progressive Democrat,” Jenin Younes, a 37-year-old attorney

Why do journalists never check or qualify these kinds of statements?

https://www.aier.org/staffs/jenin-younes/?wpv_view_count=42765-TCPID65373&wpv_paged=2

AIER envisions a world in which societies are organized according to the principles of pure freedom—in which the role of government is sharply confined to the provision of public goods and individuals can flourish within a truly free market and a free society.

(...)

The fundamental ideas of personal freedom, free markets, private property, sound money, and private governance, have led to a level of prosperity in the US and around the world that is without precedent in human history. Yet the ideologies of socialism and centralization are alive and well today. Markets are routinely villainized in the media, schools, and politics.

(xpost - written just before rob's great post popped up, but I'm leaving it...)

I very, very highly doubt Jenin was actually a "progressive liberal" at any point, but lol @ the thought of someone sitting in March of 2020, when things were still brand new and masks had hardly even become a settled matter, and becoming so incensed that you throw away your entire worldview.

ha I'm glad that stood out to you too! dude you're talking to a super hardcore libertarian--a fact I confirmed with a few seconds of searching--maybe a few of her views overlap with the Democratic party's but come on

Reminds me a bit of a conversation I was having with my partner yesterday, and he mentioned how he described the white, Spokane-based side of his family as "Fox News Liberals" to his therapist. His therapist didn't realize that was a thing, but it is! There are many people in the US who would call themselves Liberal who are actually extremely conservative— it's just that compared to the yapping swastikas on Fox News and their local news sources, they *are* Liberal.

Which again, comes back to my point above: many people in the US are dumber than a bag of rocks. I should say that I don't necessarily think this state of affairs is entirely their fault— propaganda machines, horrible public education systems, and religious zealotry can go a long way in turning intelligent, empathetic people into hateful morons.

xpost
anyway, tbc: doing "ethnography" (lmao) by briefly interviewing 11 self-selecting informants is a joke, but I'm not against figuring out what non-vaxxer people are thinking and EST-ing them persuading them somehow, though let's not try to "DoorDash" anything else in life please

See now an actual ethnography on Fox News Liberals would be pretty interesting as I have a hard time imagining what that means, not knowing any myself

lol no way hell Vladimir Jenin was ever a progressive Democrat

Not trawling through the thread to find out if it's been linked already, but I found this article when searching for something to try and change the mind of a vaccine-hesitant friend who's worried about (undefined) "long-term effects" of vaccination. Of course, once someone's mind is made up it seems to be more important to them to not back down than actually listen to sense, so I'm not expecting they'll even read it.

https://www.chop.edu/news/long-term-side-effects-covid-19-vaccine

mRNA is made and used in protein production in all cells of our bodies. As such, cells have mechanisms in place to ensure that no protein is made in quantities greater than needed. One way this happens is that mRNA has a “poly(A) tail.” In the cytoplasm, this tail ensures mRNA decay. As the mRNA is used to make proteins in the cell, the length of the poly(A) tail decreases, until it is too short for the mRNA to continue being used as a protein blueprint. Once this happens, the mRNA breaks down and is removed as cellular debris. This process limits how long mRNA remains in the cytoplasm — and, therefore, how much protein is produced.

As such, poly(A) tails ensure that the cell breaks down the vaccine mRNA in a timely manner. Likewise, this understanding allows scientists to design vaccine-delivered mRNA in a way that ensures it does not stay in the cell longer than needed to generate immunity.

I thought John Oliver did a decent, surprisingly empathetic (at least I thought he was being more charitable to some of the idiots than some of them deserved) look at the hesitant last night.

Re: that article, I've found pretty much any time in the past few years that someone says "I've always been a progressive Democrat" or "I've always been very independent" or "I've voted for both parries my whole life" and follows it with "but this time I voted straight Republican/Trump/fascist," I smell a rat.

"I'm as left as they come, but is slavery really *always* bad?"

I mean, seriously. Your entire worldview doesn't flip on a dime unless a) you've undergone some kind of catastrophic trauma or b) you don't actually have any kind of coherent worldview to begin with.

Which I suppose is possible! Most people I imagine don't give politics much thought, which is why we get people voting for all sorts of stupid reasons that have next to nothing to do with policy.

no kidding, it's just textbook abusive behavior, "I was a caring person until YOU MADE ME THIS WAY"

ultimately it's a damn tragedy that the one time we actually needed people to come together and trust the science, it came after 4 years of the most powerful, visible, and overexposed man on the planet telling all his voters to not trust anything they don't understand and to believe in vast government conspiracies. and thanks to the way Facebook works these people are getting nothing but reinforcement on their idiotic beliefs, getting told on a daily basis not only that ~they're~ the smart ones but that they should be overly aggressive towards the people trying to keep them safe

I get people being politically disengaged. I don't get people who are politically disengaged making a to-do about the specifics of their political leanings. I'm an anarcho-syndicalist because I like the way it rolls off my tongue!

the shitty thing about that is often the one issue these people often actually care about is their right to own insane guns capable of wasting 30 people in five seconds despite the fact that they'll never ever have to actually shoot somebody

Most people don't have a coherent (political) worldview.

I know I don’t

Yeah I highly doubt that many people do, just calling out the ridiculous "you Dems were so strict with keeping us safe that I had absolutely no choice but to completely trash my progressive spirit in the name of Republican voting Libertarianism" bullshit.

how did the apolitical covid thread become another thread about American politics?

also, 10k posts, time for a new thread?

We need two threads, then wait two weeks, then we're immune

how did the apolitical covid thread become another thread about American politics?

Fair point, but, especially right now, it's really hard to not mix the two, given how much the vaccine hesitancy and general COVID denial overlaps very specifically with American politics.

FYI I engaged in my own brand of COVID denial by getting vax #2 jammed into my arm this morning. DENIED!

First roomie has her shots booked for June/Oct - her folks are in a hotpot postal code. So I'm guessing I'm looking at July/October. Other roomie (essential worker) has a cough and we're a titch spooked.

*hotspot, lol. most likely not a lot of hotpot out in the burbs.

My wife said some of her conservative relatives have really been sharing the hell out of that n0jabf0rme (dot) info site in recent days. It's a whole load of misinformation and conspiracy theory crap, but my "favorite" part is the disclaimers:

Statements in this site are substantiated with facts that will stand in a court of law. Informed Consent requires a flow of information. Click on the hyperlinked sections to direct you to primary sources such as CDC, WHO, FDA documents.

Anyone trying to take down this site will be named as codefendant in Nuremberg 2.0 for being an accomplice to crimes against humanity. That includes social media. Lawyers are standing by.

They forgot to add that they are all Navy SEALs who will come break your arm if you try to take down the site.

Fair point, but, especially right now, it's really hard to not mix the two, given how much the vaccine hesitancy and general COVID denial overlaps very specifically with American politics.

As of January 2020, Kelly's Facebook page had higher levels of engagement than either the Prime Minister or the Opposition Leader, leading the Sydney Morning Herald to call Kelly "one of Australia's most influential politicians" on the platform. Kelly has had more engagement on Facebook when posting his messages on health than NSW Health, Victoria's Department of Health and the national health minister.

people are wild....

The most deranged yet delightful thing I read today is that some anti-maskers/vaxxers are now wearing masks out of fear that a vaccinated person will “shed” vaccine side effects onto them

— paige dzenis (@paiiige) May 2, 2021

where

Cases are currently at the peak of the pandemic so far btw. Infections have doubled in the last two months.

where

― bobo honkin' slobo babe (sic), Monday, May 3, 2021 6:31 PM (twelve minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

probly read it in a tweet somewhere

Yeah, that is sobering to see sic.

Cases are currently at the peak of the pandemic so far btw. Infections have doubled in the last two months.

You mean globally?

Yes.

How much of that is just ("just") India and Brazil, though?

Those countries are a big part of “the world” Joshua

Also - Argentina, Turkey. Uruguay, Sweden and Mongolia are doing pretty badly now as well.

xpost Absolutely! That's why I put "just" in quotes. But those two alone are doing a ton of the heavy lifting in terms of total number of new cases, aren't they? I did notice, when I was googling travel policies just a few days ago (just because) that Costa Rica was extremely lax. Like, not so much as a negative test required for entry. I told my wife, since it seemed odd, and just in the couple of days between reading about it and telling her the policy had switched to a limited lockdown due to an outbreak. It's almost as though no restrictions in a pandemic might lead to more cases.

Speaking of which, anyone else see the WaPo piece about the world turning its back on Bolsonaro, because he's just been that big of a counter-productive asshole?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/04/30/brazil-coronavirus-bolsonaro-india-vaccine/

I don’t think we need a new apolitical thread but we may need a USA thread shortly as our experience with covid is rapidly becoming one that isn’t even close to reflective of the global moment

Every country's experience with Covid is different. Do I really have to point that out?

'Every US state's experience with Covid is different.' Yep, gotcha.

Worth noting that, while Sweden's case count is high, its deaths remain very low.