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

It's heartening to hear anecdotal evidence that some people are staying the masks + distancing course, but surely y'all can understand the dreadful anticipation that a lot of people are just gonna do what they want now because MURRICA. And I get that there were already a bunch of MURRICA sociopaths already doing whatever they wanted, and they are and were and probably always will be a lost cause on pretty much every level imaginable, but my concern is more re: the people who've been begrudgingly going through the COVID safety motions whatever their personal feelings who will take this as the prompt to stop going along with the sheeple because COVID is clearly fixed now.

On the plus side, I don't know if it's bullshit or not but I've seen a couple accounts of race tracks opening up to the public as a reward for going through drive-through vaccine clinic. That sounds fun!

xpost how is hypothetical evidence superior to anecdotal evidence?

There are a handful of instances where people will still need to wear masks — in a health-care setting or at a business that requires them — even if they’ve had their final vaccine dose two or more weeks ago, CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky told reporters at a press briefing. Fully vaccinated people will also still need to wear masks on airplanes, buses, trains and other public transportation, she said.

Walensky said unvaccinated people should still continue to wear masks, adding they remain at risk of mild or severe illness, death, and risk of spreading the disease to others. People with compromised immune systems should speak with their doctor before giving up their masks, she said.

She added there is always a chance the CDC could change its guidance again if the Covid pandemic worsens or additional variants emerge.

that message clearly isn't "COVID is over". people will hear "COVID is over" because we are a county full of assholes, idiots, and grifters. but people have heard "COVID is over" before when it wasn't said too, many many times. we've vented about them ITT. People have been sharing Youtube videos that say exactly that (or that it never existed) since the beginning.

I'm not saying we won't be welcoming new participants to the Ignorant Olympics after this, no, but I don't really buy that suddenly, this is the watershed moment in which nobody masks again.

my main worry is getting vaccination levels back up, as we are back below 2 million a day again, though we haven't had time to benefit from the 12-15 crowd yet. we did clear 2 million in today's report, but it was still below what we did last Saturday.

https://www.wired.com/story/the-teeny-tiny-scientific-screwup-that-helped-covid-kill/?

silver spoon up his ass:

Former child star Rick Schroder harasses a Costco employee over face masks pic.twitter.com/HRlWeJJlt1

— Fifty Shades of Whey (@davenewworld_2) May 16, 2021

fuckin asshole

I haven't trusted him since he antagonized the Soviet premier and caused a nuclear war.

"Walk to the edge of a cliff, Yuri. And drop off!"

I don't know exactly when Schroder became a piece of shit, but his commitment appears to be absolute.

Just one-fifth of epidemiologists said it was safe for fully vaccinated people to socialize indoors without masks in a group of unlimited size. https://t.co/u3SNNNGNBp

— NYT Health (@NYTHealth) May 14, 2021

that's so vaguely worded ('safe', 'socialize', 'indoors', unlimited') that if I were an epidemiologist I'd hesitate to endorse it, too.

i think the thing that bothers me most about this change (apart from the lack of warning) is that if you are a healthy under 50 who was one of the lucky people who got one of the appointments and took time off work to get your first done on literally the first day you became eligible in the most populous state in the nation, then you are not fully vaccinated until late next week.

*dose

Schroder was one of the big donors to get that little nazi shit out of jail on bond, hope he gets incurable shingles on his penis.

The question posed in the survey was:

If you had to predict, how long will Americans need to wear masks when indoors with people whose vaccination status they don’t know?

Nowhere does it stipulate "Americans" as being vaccinated or unvaccinated, it mushes them into the same bucket. It's worded terribly right off the bat.

Also dates back to 4/28

i think the thing that bothers me most about this change (apart from the lack of warning) is that if you are a healthy under 50 who was one of the lucky people who got one of the appointments and took time off work to get your first done on literally the first day you became eligible in the most populous state in the nation, then you are not fully vaccinated until late next week.

https://i.imgur.com/gaH923J.png

welp

Detailed but intriguing short thread

Just published @NatureMedicine: For 7 vaccines, the neutralizing antibody levels are highly predictive of the magnitude of clinical efficacy, support long term protection vs severe illness, and preserved efficacy vs variantshttps://t.co/ZQIrTQErMm pic.twitter.com/rUl9TMbVrC

— Eric Topol (@EricTopol) May 17, 2021

The last time the US had <17,500 confirmed cases in a day was June 8, ~11 months ago, when the testing was 1/3rd as much as now.
The descent (exponential decay) continues pic.twitter.com/ehb2LHP6qb

— Eric Topol (@EricTopol) May 17, 2021

I thought The World in Data's site had frozen last night, until NYT's numbers came in for the evening and we're even lower. Waiting to see what CDC recorded for yesterday, but they tend to have lower counts than the other two.

Great progress considering how much more severely undercounted cases were at this time last year.

We're also at threshold of 60% of adults vaccinated.

Long way to go, but promising:

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/covid-19-second-wave-turns-a-corner-as-cases-fall-for-7-days/articleshow/82669447.cms

Wow, IL reporting <1000 new cases today. I think that's only happened one other time since last summer.

Yeah, that's incredibly promising.

https://i.ibb.co/R44V3cr/Screenshot-2021-05-17-2-42-22-PM.png

Pfizer
Got me on my knees
Pfizer

(Robert De Niro asks coronavirus to come look at some dresses)

it's in the way that you use it!

We're also at threshold of 60% of adults vaccinated.

we're not.60% have had one dose. 37% have had two doses. under 30% of the US population are two weeks out from their second dose and "fully vaccinated".

this isn't hair splitting, given the mask mandate change. 70+% of the US population needs to consider avoiding indoor spaces again because the CDC decided masks weren't white boy summer.

I meant with at least one dose, because it does still provide some, if incomplete protection. it's not a 0 to 100 thing

every place I've been this weekend has still had people overwhelmingly masking. it is, as Ive said, likely more based on the environment where you live than anything. I can guarantee this is NOT the case in Brevard County or outwards towards Daytona - but ....they've never been masking.

Someone should tell the cdc

considering that separate studies found vaccine effectiveness of 89-91% in Pfizer (a fact you acknowledged many months back, in fact, to correct me) 15 days or more after the shot, and 92% for Moderna greater than 14 days after the shot - it's pretty good protection.

Which isn't to say people shouldn't get their second shot, as it does provide more protection, and nor should the CDC give people with one shot permission, as the study was done with two shots so more confidence in the data for two shots. just sayin....it ain't like these folk are lying out there completely exposed.

https://www.healthline.com/health/why-two-doses-of-covid-vaccine#immunity-after-second-dose

this argument has done nothing but go in circles for days and we're just not going to agree so I'm going to leave it there.

Oregon's new case numbers rose through April and have been holding fairly steady until a couple of days ago. This puts us as an outlier in the midst of most states' sharp drops in new cases. I'm fully vaxxed, but I'm still masking for public indoor places like grocery stores and mostly avoiding them as much as in 2020. (I did visit a used book store last week for the first time in 15 months!)

On the whole, I do feel much more at ease now about my own prospects for avoiding a bout with covid-19, based on all the data I've seen about vaxx efficacy.

I was out this weekend: grocery stores, small stores, walking streets, sitting at outdoor bars (several friends visiting family for the first time since '19, all jabbed). Not a single person without masks. In Publix, which lifted its mask requirements on Saturday, 100% compliance from employees and customers.

If the cdc thinks people should act like they’re two weeks out from the second dose after their first dose they should say so.

people are pretty much all wearing masks at groceries and other stores here. restaurants, bars, and clubs are a different story.

Xpost literally not what I said. C'mon

So CDC is showing 3k vaccinations in the US today. That has to be incomplete data, right? Cos it says 0 vaccinations in NY

caek, are you fully jabbed?

Not until Friday. I got first dose the first day under 50s were allowed to in California so it’s not because I dawdled.

Xpost literally not what I said. C'mon

Fauci just ended a segment on Chris Hayes' show. The "takeaway":

1. He disagrees, he said mildly, with the date of the CDC's decision but agrees with the science.

2. The vaccine has exceeded every expectation.

3. The breakthrough cases with the baseball teams are better than expected: asymptomatic with viral loads so low that the infected couldn't transmit it. In other words, the players wouldn't have known they had it unless they'd been tested, and they weren't dangerous anyway.

California keeping mask mandate in place until June 15. Good.

yes, I am glad about that

I'm in an airport, first time in a year. Once again, no big "return to normalcy" rush. Just feels... normal.

there was a misentry of vaccinations on Sunday for New Hampshire I believe which overcounted by 400,000k , which they adjusted. so we're pretty well under 2 mill/day again. hoping the 12-15 starts making a dent soon - but being that it's still the school year, can't imagine they have a lot of pockets of time to get their kids vaccinated until weekends.

https://ohiovaxamillion.com/

into this

NEW: Anyone can call 312-746-4835 to request that vaccine be brought to your home, Arwady says

— Heather Cherone (@HeatherCherone) May 18, 2021