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CR: COVID-19 --Political Talk


Mrs Whiggins

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17 minutes ago, Captainant said:

... I'm fucking tired of half measures as our modus operandi for handling COVID. 

I admit, this had me thinking as well. Someone who works for a busy people-facing company that has less than a 100 employees (for example, a popular local non-chain restaurant) can still spread the disease. And even people who are un-employed, or housewives, or self employed one-man operations can still spread the disease. Heck some of them might very well be in a more exposing position to do so. And why allow weekly testing as a substitute? But this is again off from my topic.

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7 minutes ago, cactusflinthead said:

Absolutely. Next question

How do we get people who are not employed, or who are willing to lose their jobs, or who have gotten religious exemptions, or who work for under-100-employee companies, or are self-employed, etc, etc, ... vaccinated? Again, a side point, but I see large swathes of people never getting vaccinating by whatever means they see fit to avoid it. Do we just accept that at some point?

Edited by ouflak
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If you're asking me?  By letting them suffer the consequences of their inaction.  

If we can't get to herd immunity via the needle.  We'll get there via the coffin.  Either way, they lose.

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1 minute ago, Lobo said:

If you're asking me?  By letting them suffer the consequences of their inaction.  

If we can't get to herd immunity via the needle.  We'll get there via the coffin.  Either way, they lose.

Which would be fine if Covid were 100% fatal. But the fact is that the vast majority survive and many, especially younger, don't even have symptoms. They might even get multiple variants with this being the case. So how do we get those people vaccinated?

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36 minutes ago, ouflak said:

Just to clarify, I'm not asking whether they should get vaccinated or not, I'm asking whether you guys think that someone who has been confirmed tested positive for both Covid and its antibodies, should still be required by their employer to get a vaccine or lose their job?

My employer requires vaccination for recovered folks.  Definitely easier from a policy perspective than allowing for different paths. 

But it's going to be a challenge I think though for OSHA to write a rule that can withstand a court challenge requiring the same of individuals with confirmed antibody response to prior infection.

Vaccination + prior infection appears to be superior to prior infection alone, but prior infection appears to be fairly equivalent to vaccination of a naive individual. I think that that argument for infection naive folks is very clear cut, but it is not so for people with prior infection if your hard endpoint is (re/breakthrough) infection rates. At least as far as alpha goes, a few studies show risk of (re/breakthrough) infection to be similar for infected vs. naive vaccinated (no good data for delta that I am aware of). If vaccination is sufficient to address the "grave danger" (OSHA standard), than prior infection should probably be sufficient to meet that same standard. If you are going to require that prior infected individuals receive a full two dose vaccine regimen (or even a one dose regimen), I think that it's logical to also require at least one booster administration in naive folks if the intent is to effectively (and equivalently) eliminate the grave danger. Many public health officials would of course push back on the risk/benefit of a third dose booster required broadly. But that's basically what is being required of the previously infected when you require them to vaccinate.  So you start to arrive at these really illogical landing points if the policy is blunt and not nuanced, which at least to me seem primed for legal challenge.

That all being said, just to be clear, I think that people with prior infection should get at least 1 mRNA shot. The risks are minimal. 

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48 minutes ago, ouflak said:

I admit, this had me thinking as well. Someone who works for a busy people-facing company that has less than a 100 employees (for example, a popular local non-chain restaurant) can still spread the disease. And even people who are un-employed, or housewives, or self employed one-man operations can still spread the disease. Heck some of them might very well be in a more exposing position to do so. And why allow weekly testing as a substitute? But this is again off from my topic.

As far as weekly testing as a second option, I think that's a necessary option for those who legitimately can't get the vaccine. It's definitely not a proactive measure against COVID, but it is at least mitigating the worst of the damage. It is messy and suboptimal, BUT, presuming that everyone who can get vaccinated IS getting vaccinated, the chances of the folks just getting tested contracting COVID is much lower. 

Turns out, fighting pandemics and  a public health crisis is really just a big game of numbers and minimizing risk wherever possible. Getting vaccinated even after being infected is minimizing that risk wherever possible

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9 minutes ago, Captainant said:

As far as weekly testing as a second option, I think that's a necessary option for those who legitimately can't get the vaccine. It's definitely not a proactive measure against COVID, but it is at least mitigating the worst of the damage. It is messy and suboptimal, BUT, presuming that everyone who can get vaccinated IS getting vaccinated, the chances of the folks just getting tested contracting COVID is much lower. 

Turns out, fighting pandemics and  a public health crisis is really just a big game of numbers and minimizing risk wherever possible. Getting vaccinated even after being infected is minimizing that risk wherever possible

Yeah, that's all fine. But what about the many who can get the vaccine and choose to do the testing instead? I believe that will be the overwhelming majority of those who have that route as an option and do so. And then ofcourse there are the tens of millions who don't fall under any mandate of any kind.

Edited by ouflak
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What is the timeline for (a) a positive test result and (b) viral shedding in a high enough amount to be contagious?

I seem to recall that it takes 3-4 days for a test to pick up the immune response, and that the most contagious period for an infected person is 1-2 days prior to the onset of symptoms.  If true, it would appear those line up fairly well (on average), and so one might then question the value of a weekly test.  I agree, it's better than nothing, but it's likely to miss a lot of cases before those individuals have spread the disease.

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8 minutes ago, ouflak said:

Yeah, that's all fine. But what about the many who can get the vaccine and choose to do the testing instead? I believe that will be the overwhelming majority of those who have that route as an option and do so.

Time to show those chuds what right to work means, I guess. If your job has you interacting face to face with many people every day, it would be irresponsible as a business owner to not fire those people in my opinion. You don't want your customers to get sick because of you. 

Granted, I'm not a hollow feckless "profits above all else" kind of person, so I probably have differing opinions from many business owners on that point. 

A decent middle ground between firing and just letting them slide would be to reduce the scope of their job or change their responsibilities to interact with fewer people. No more travel for business conferences, no more manning the cash register, stay in your cube/home, go work in the back, far away from the customers. 

Edit: for context, my employer doesn't require vaccination but does put the above restrictions in place if you're not vaxxed. No more company outings, no more conferences, no more travel, none of that until you can show proof of vaccination. But it's also big tech, so 100% of the people I work with personally are vaxxed because we aren't mouth breathing dumbasses

Edited by Captainant
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@ouflak

We require a variety of things to have a job, to the extent we are willing to claim some sample from your body to ensure you don't do the wrong kind of drugs. 

If we can mitigate the risks from the unwilling or unable with testing, on whatever rotation is effective that's fine.

I want allllll the antibodies I can get. Others are absolutely determined they won't get it. The social death is worse to them than the physical death. Denying the reality past the grave. Survivors refusing to admit that this disease caused the death of their own.

You got a secret recipe to convince those folks? I'd love to hear it.

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15 minutes ago, Captainant said:

Time to show those chuds what right to work means, I guess. If your job has you interacting face to face with many people every day, it would be irresponsible as a business owner to not fire those people in my opinion.

 

Ok they lose their job, but let's say they still aren't going to get themselves vaccinated. How do we get those people vaccinated? And what about the many many people who currently can't have their jobs put on the line? John's Hopkins estimates the overall mortality rate in the United States to be about 1.6%. And after an infection we know they have significant resistance subsequently, which means and even lower mortality rate for breakthough infections - if they even ever do get infected. So letting them just 'die off' isn't an option. Even worse, once a chunk of those in that group get a confirmed infection and pull through, they may even be more likely to never try to get a vaccination. Since they can't be coered with the lose-your-job argument, how do we got those people vaccinated? @cactusflinthead, I don't think arguments (rational, emotive, etc...) are going to work, so no, I do not have a secret recipe nor do I believe anybody does. So how do we get those people vaccinated anyway?

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2 minutes ago, ouflak said:

Ok they lose their job, but let's say they still aren't going to get themselves vaccinated. How do we get those people vaccinated? And what about the many many people who currently can't have their jobs put on the line? John's Hopkins estimates the overall mortality rate in the United States to be about 1.6%. And after an infection we know they have significant resistance subsequently, which means and even lower mortality rate for breakthough infections - if they even ever do get infected. So letting them just 'die off' isn't an option. Even worse, once a chunk of those in that group get a confirmed infection and pull through, they may even be more likely to never try to get a vaccination. Since they can't be coered with the lose-your-job argument, how do we got those people vaccinated? @cactusflinthead, I don't think arguments (rational, emotive, etc...) are going to work, so no, I do not have a secret recipe nor do I believe anybody does. So how do we get those people vaccinated anyway?

Not vaccinated? Can't fly, take a bus or some other form of transit that doesn't increase others risk just by your presence. Take away their privileges. Just like you would with a stubborn child. 

Because that's what it boils down to. Stubborn childish obstinance to protect their widdle snowflake egos. 

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39 minutes ago, ouflak said:

Ok they lose their job, but let's say they still aren't going to get themselves vaccinated. How do we get those people vaccinated?

 

Let's assume the opposite for a moment.  Say the GOP and Trump were incredibly hard core for vaxxing, Covid counter measures, etc.

What the hell do you think they would do about it?  If they are willing to pass punative laws in their own states to restrict voting for God's sake, don't you think they would not be above doing the same for people who were anti-vax?  

That's what it is going to take, at least in states that are solidly blue. And it still won't be enough, because of "muh freedom" states that exist.

 

Edited by Francisco 2.0
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40 minutes ago, fuggled said:

My man, you've asked the same question a dozen times already.  You obviously aren't getting the answer you want to hear.  Would you like to try just putting your opinion out here and see were that goes?

I think there should be a vaccine mandate without exception for all people (except obviously those who would literally be killed by the procedure). Even some of those who get medical exemptions should get it under heavy medical supervision. No 'religious' exemptions at all. I believe the vaccine is about to be approved for children. None of this vaccine-to-go-school business. They must vaccine whether they attend a public school or not.

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1 minute ago, Gatorubet said:

Dude calls me yesterday wanting to sue his employer for requiring he be vaccinated. I told him that an employer can make rules to protect its employees and workplace. He offered up some false equivalencies (So - he can require me to have sex with him?) and went on about his “rights and Freedoms. He had no reason not to be vaxxed other than “it was not tested”.

I told him to google “At will doctrine”, and to accept the fact that he does not have a right to continued employment - absent age, sex, race, religion or medical condition discrimination. Being stupid was not a protected class.

 

Congrats.  After the call, he went to Facebook/Twitter/TikTok/whatever and bitched to his dwindling (chortles) circle of followers how you are nothing more than a librul attorney and to avoid your practice, and how you are probably also a member of the Deep State paid by Soros & Gates.  Shit, your office might get picketed, too.

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8 minutes ago, Francisco 2.0 said:

 

Let's assume the opposite for a moment.  Say the GOP and Trump were incredibly hard core for vaxxing, Covid counter measures, etc.

What the hell do you think they would do about it?  If they are willing to pass punative laws in their own states to restrict voting for God's sake, don't you think they would not be above doing the same for people who were anti-vax?  

That's what it is going to take, at least in states that are solidly blue. And it still won't be enough, because of "muh freedom" states that exist.

 

They'd be dropping even vaccinated liberals off in the middle of the Mexican desert. 

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1 hour ago, ouflak said:

Ok they lose their job, but let's say they still aren't going to get themselves vaccinated. How do we get those people vaccinated? And what about the many many people who currently can't have their jobs put on the line? John's Hopkins estimates the overall mortality rate in the United States to be about 1.6%. And after an infection we know they have significant resistance subsequently, which means and even lower mortality rate for breakthough infections - if they even ever do get infected. So letting them just 'die off' isn't an option. Even worse, once a chunk of those in that group get a confirmed infection and pull through, they may even be more likely to never try to get a vaccination. Since they can't be coered with the lose-your-job argument, how do we got those people vaccinated? @cactusflinthead, I don't think arguments (rational, emotive, etc...) are going to work, so no, I do not have a secret recipe nor do I believe anybody does. So how do we get those people vaccinated anyway?

There's no way to vaccinate everyone.  But we can make the choice to be unvaccinated as painful as possible for those who choose it in order to protect the rest of us.  No restaurants, no air travel, no theaters, no public transportation, no taking your own car to the shop to be fixed, no working in any public facing job, no working in any non-public facing job if you have any coworkers (i.e. you can only work at home by yourself), no entering stores.

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1 minute ago, cactusflinthead said:

From r/Texas. Dateline Mansfield

 

vlki2x6nndq71.jpg

95h2bw6nndq71.jpg

This has to be satire. There's too many simple spelling mistakes, and the writer couldn't even count to four lol. 

If this is real, add it to the pile of evidence that evangelical churches are nothing more than tax shelters for political campaigns

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5 minutes ago, cactusflinthead said:

From r/Texas. Dateline Mansfield

 

vlki2x6nndq71.jpg

 

 

 

95h2bw6nndq71.jpg

I would write a more perfect encapsulation of 'murica, 2021 if I could.  I can't.  It's flawlessly accurate.  The very fact that we have to ask "is it real or is it satire?" emphasizes its perfection.

Edited by Brisketexan
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5 minutes ago, Captainant said:

This has to be satire. There's too many simple spelling mistakes, and the writer couldn't even count to four lol. 

If this is real, add it to the pile of evidence that evangelical churches are nothing more than tax shelters for political campaigns

Older kindly black man is my gut feeling. Handing them out at Wally world

Correction. Albertson's

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2 minutes ago, cactusflinthead said:

Older kindly black man is my gut feeling. Handing them out at Wally world

Maybe. But "kindly"? 

If this is true then he is the devil. He is evil. He is helping to kill people. 

Fuck that guy and all his "kindliness".

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54 minutes ago, ouflak said:

I think there should be a vaccine mandate without exception for all people (except obviously those who would literally be killed by the procedure). Even some of those who get medical exemptions should get it under heavy medical supervision. No 'religious' exemptions at all. I believe the vaccine is about to be approved for children. None of this vaccine-to-go-school business. They must vaccine whether they attend a public school or not.

Hey, we agree.

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26 minutes ago, lemonlime said:

There's no way to vaccinate everyone.  But we can make the choice to be unvaccinated as painful as possible for those who choose it in order to protect the rest of us.  No restaurants, no air travel, no theaters, no public transportation, no taking your own car to the shop to be fixed, no working in any public facing job, no working in any non-public facing job if you have any coworkers (i.e. you can only work at home by yourself), no entering stores.

Without a proper federal mandate, and I mean no exceptions, I don't see how you could possibly get all of the vaccinated to have this 'painful' life.

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9 minutes ago, Biff Tannen said:

Hey, we agree.

So how do we do it? I mean, extreme hypothetical that probably ignores any political reality, but let's just suppose the President orders that blanket vaccine mandate tomorrow. How do we enforce it on stay-at-home housewives, Jehovah's witnesses, the independtly-weathly-enough-to-not-work, and the plain old stubborn?

Edited by ouflak
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2 minutes ago, ouflak said:

Without a proper federal mandate, and I mean no exceptions, I don't see how you could possibly get all of the vaccinated to have this 'painful' life.

I don't know what you mean.  How do you think the federal government is going to give a "proper federal mandate" that everyone be vaccinated against Covid?  Calling up the Guard and sending them to everyone's house and forcibly giving them shots at gunpoint?

Nothing is 100%.  But if you want to be a part of society, society needs to require that people act like it and do the bare minimum to protect each other, which includes a jab with a needle.  If people still choose not to get vaccinated they can stay the fuck home and not interact with others.  Like a time out for a two year old until the toddler behaves.

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Yeah. There's obviously a bit of a grey area re: what is actual trolling and what might not be, but when a guy asks the same stupid question twenty different times, ignoring every answer he gets and simply repackaging the question, it's pretty obviously trolling. The point isn't to learn an answer, the point is to convince some of the readers who aren't actually engaged in the conversation that it is "reasonable" to have questions about the subject.

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40 minutes ago, Asithappens said:

Maybe. But "kindly"? 

If this is true then he is the devil. He is evil. He is helping to kill people. 

Fuck that guy and all his "kindliness".

Funny how that works. A kind demeanor sharing what he believes to be in your best interest when it's actually inviting disaster.

I mean he tested how far a sneeze travels. 27" was the best he could do.

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30 minutes ago, lemonlime said:

 If people still choose not to get vaccinated they can stay the fuck home and not interact with others.  Like a time out for a two year old until the toddler behaves.

So sort of like a nation-wide house arrest? But if there are restaurant owners, car garages, cinema owners/managers, store owners/managers, etc..., who are not going to police these people, how do we get this 'time out' from society firmly established?

13 minutes ago, wildcat09 said:

....ignoring every answer he gets and simply repackaging the question, it's pretty obviously trolling...

In my defense, I think the only person who's actually tried to answer my question is lemonlime. I see a lot of extreme positions in all of this, from a variety of perspectives and directions. I haven't really seen anybody push forward, or the media accept, some kind of middle ground where everybody is made as safe as reasonably possible by coherent policies from our federal government. I don't think you can call Biden's 'mandate' a 'mandate'. I don't think businesses holding people job's as extortion is going to work (and is even the right thing to do, especially to minorities). I don't think this piecemeal approach is going to get everybody who we all want vaccinated, vaccinated. The extremes are so severe that it look likes to me we will never get tens of millions vaccinated and they will not suffer in any noticeable or meaningful way because of it, likely not even getting sick or dying - because this thing just isn't virulent enough to even get the point across the 'hard' way. I don't know a way through this. And I don't think anybody else does either.

 

Alright, I'll stop trolling then.

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2 minutes ago, ouflak said:

So sort of like a nation-wide house arrest? But if there are restaurant owners, car garages, cinema owners/managers, store owners/managers, etc..., who are not going to police these people, how do we get this 'time out' from society firmly established?

In my defense, I think the only person who's actually tried to answer my question is lemonlime. I see a lot of extreme positions in all of this, from a variety of perspectives and directions. I haven't really seen anybody push forward, or the media accept, some kind of middle ground where everybody is made as safe as reasonably possible by coherent policies from our federal government. I don't think you can call Biden's 'mandate' a 'mandate'. I don't think businesses holding people job's as extortion is going to work. I don't think piecemeal approach is going to get everybody who we all want vaccinated, vaccinated. The extremes are so severe that it look likes to me we will never get tens of millions vaccinated and they will no suffer in any noticeable way because of it, likely not even getting sick or dying - because this thing just isn't virulent enough to even get the point across the 'hard' way. I don't know a way through this. And I don't think anybody else does either.

 

Alright, I'll stop trolling then.

To be clear, I think you're trolling and I wasn't really answering your question, as pointing out the absurdity of your question, as though the federal government could ever successfully force 100% vaccination, which is apparently your idiotic metric of success.  FFS, just stay the fuck home and away from me and my loved ones if you're too fucking selfish to be vaccinated.

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14 minutes ago, ouflak said:

So sort of like a nation-wide house arrest? But if there are restaurant owners, car garages, cinema owners/managers, store owners/managers, etc..., who are not going to police these people, how do we get this 'time out' from society firmly established?

In my defense, I think the only person who's actually tried to answer my question is lemonlime. I see a lot of extreme positions in all of this, from a variety of perspectives and directions. I haven't really seen anybody push forward, or the media accept, some kind of middle ground where everybody is made as safe as reasonably possible by coherent policies from our federal government. I don't think you can call Biden's 'mandate' a 'mandate'. I don't think businesses holding people job's as extortion is going to work (and is even the right thing to do, especially to minorities). I don't think this piecemeal approach is going to get everybody who we all want vaccinated, vaccinated. The extremes are so severe that it look likes to me we will never get tens of millions vaccinated and they will not suffer in any noticeable or meaningful way because of it, likely not even getting sick or dying - because this thing just isn't virulent enough to even get the point across the 'hard' way. I don't know a way through this. And I don't think anybody else does either.

 

Alright, I'll stop trolling then.

lulz

"extortion"

but I'm not trolling

fuck outta here

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37 minutes ago, ouflak said:

So how do we do it? I mean, extreme hypothetical that probably ignores any political reality, but let's just suppose the President orders that blanket vaccine mandate tomorrow. How do we enforce it on stay-at-home housewives, Jehovah's witnesses, the independtly-weathly-enough-to-not-work, and the plain old stubborn?

Negged. You aren't lying, but you're using not-lying as a semantical, rhetorical dodge. I don't believe you are arguing in good faith. At the foundation of your rhetoric is, "why do it if it's not 100% effective/legal/enforceable/totally beyond any hypothetical I can invent.

You're far more articulate than the usual asking questions crowd, but that's at the root of this insidious undermining of the public faith in reason and pragmatism.

I have to base the neg on opinion rather than a fact such as you are lying, but I retain the spirit of my usual negs. Insidious intent is at least as bad as lying

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The disingenuous "but how do we get to 100%?" bullshit is exhausting.  It's not all or nothing.

 

Driving with a BAC over 0.08% is illegal.  People do it every day.

Driving without wearing your seatbelt is illegal.  People do it every day.

Beating up your spouse is illegal.  Happens every day.

Embezzling from the petty cash drawer is illegal.  Yup, still happens, every day.

 

We deal with those who don't abide by a vaccine mandate as best we can, with tickets and fines.  Some still won't get the shot.  But some WILL, and that's the point.  We don't need 100% of the population vaccinated to knock this thing out, but we need a larger percentage than we have right now.  Get that number higher and guess what?  More personal freedom.  Weird how that works.

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