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The coronavirus will be here for "many, many months"
That's an interesting way to describe more than 1.5 years.
Quote:
"We’re going to be living with it. And we’re not having that discussion at all."
Further proving my point!
Thanks for digging up those links! I'm not surprised there were a handful of people that said these things. But the quote from your second article is what I was really getting at. It was known that we would be dealing with this for more than a year, but the general public was generally left in the dark about this information. The leaders felt it was better to slowly ease us into the reality of this pandemic, rather than be transparent with us. It's why people like you thought that April 2020 would be the peak of COVID-19.
That's an interesting way to describe more than 1.5 years.
Further proving my point!
Thanks for digging up those links! I'm not surprised there were a handful of people that said these things. But the quote from your second article is what I was really getting at. It was known that we would be dealing with this for more than a year, but the general public was generally left in the dark about this information. The leaders felt it was better to slowly ease us into the reality of this pandemic, rather than be transparent with us. It's why people like you thought that April 2020 would be the peak of COVID-19.
I only picked two of his quotes / there are thousands of pages on the internet where you can read more about Dr. Osterholm. But the May article did say 18 months. And the country’s first peak was in April 2020, then cases fell until states started reopening and the second wave hit. Fully expected multiple waves of this virus until vaccines deployed. This current wave was preventable.
Living with the virus means society is open but precautions (masks, limited capacity/ distancing) are being taken - and some short-terms shutdowns required - for example, when a school or business cannot be open due to a high level of sick staff. We are still in this pandemic so we should be living like that.
The information WAS out there - Trump’s earliest messaging that he would be a “war time” President was spot on, IMO. Unfortunately, after about 3 weeks, he decided he was tired of Covid and wanted it to go away and the extreme right media & elected officials fell in line behind him. The country would have been a lot better off and more United if he could have pulled off the “war time” mentality for the rest of his term. He probably would have been re-elected, too. Pandemics shouldn’t be political. Vaccines shouldn’t be political.
I only picked two of his quotes / there are thousands of pages on the internet where you can read more about Dr. Osterholm. But the May article did say 18 months. And the country’s first peak was in April 2020, then cases fell until states started reopening and the second wave hit. Fully expected multiple waves of this virus until vaccines deployed. This current wave was preventable.
Living with the virus means society is open but precautions (masks, limited capacity/ distancing) are being taken - and some short-terms shutdowns required - for example, when a school or business cannot be open due to a high level of sick staff. We are still in this pandemic so we should be living like that.
The information WAS out there - Trump’s earliest messaging that he would be a “war time” President was spot on, IMO. Unfortunately, after about 3 weeks, he decided he was tired of Covid and wanted it to go away and the extreme right media & elected officials fell in line behind him. The country would have been a lot better off and more United if he could have pulled off the “war time” mentality for the rest of his term. He probably would have been re-elected, too. Pandemics shouldn’t be political. Vaccines shouldn’t be political.
I agree the information WAS out there, but it feels like it wasn't being communicated well enough for the general public to understand how much of a long haul this would be.
I used to think that we could have handled this better, but after seeing how badly things have been in Europe, I'm not really sure it would have made much of a difference. They seemed to have taken much more stricter precautions and did a great job of flattening the initial spread, but in the end it really didn't seem to matter too much. In my eyes, what was really accomplished was they delayed infections/deaths at the expense of their economy.
I also don't agree with you when you say the virus was political. There were plenty of Democratic voting college aged students partying it up for the past year and not taking precautions.
In Texas, Greg Abbott has declared that no one can require proof of vaccination, As a direct result of this decision, the Texas Tribune reports that only half of workers at Texas nursing homes are vaccinated. And as a direct result of that, “The number of nursing homes across the state with at least one active COVID-19 case has shot up nearly 800% in the past month.”
Texas now requires all Nursing and Assisted Living to report Numbers and one of those numbers is how much of the staff is vaccinated. You can get those numbers here:
Also since Sept 2020 Assisted Living has no longer been on lockdown where family can visit. I doubt there is a requirement for them to report vaccinations. Don't blame any increase on workers only.
But... Considering that 80-98% of the people over 65 and especially the ones in Nursing homes are vaccinated, if there is an increase it would be largely due to failure of the vaccines.
I agree the information WAS out there, but it feels like it wasn't being communicated well enough for the general public to understand how much of a long haul this would be.
I used to think that we could have handled this better, but after seeing how badly things have been in Europe, I'm not really sure it would have made much of a difference. They seemed to have taken much more stricter precautions and did a great job of flattening the initial spread, but in the end it really didn't seem to matter too much. In my eyes, what was really accomplished was they delayed infections/deaths at the expense of their economy.
I also don't agree with you when you say the virus was political. There were plenty of Democratic voting college aged students partying it up for the past year and not taking precautions.
I think it depended on who your primary source of news was - on the channels I watch & papers I read, the info was clearly communicated if you followed the science, not the politicians. On some channels, this is still being called a plandemic / scamdemic. It also doesn’t help that most Americans now get most news from social media where the algorithms give you more of what you consume, not a balanced media diet. I know I actively have to search The Hill, Fox News, etc to read the conservative headlines.
Where Europe screwed up majorly was the vaccinations. You can read up on your own but they spent too much time haggling on price and not speed to market - and that has cost them with Delta.
On your last point, I would say that college age students - anywhere on the political spectrum - are not a good gauge of much of anything. Most of us thought we were pretty invincible until age 25 or so. Myself included. But you have to be able to see that there is a huge difference in how red states and blue states have acted w/r/t vaccination rates. We will see in another 30-45 days as schools in the Northeast start if having 60-70% vaccination rates make a difference in keeping more of the unvaccinated out of the hospitals if/when Delta surges there.
Last edited by TurtleCreek80; 08-16-2021 at 11:34 AM..
My sons girlfriend is a nurse at Baylor and she is a emotional wreck after dealing with this pandemic. She lost a 32 year old patient to Covid just last night. The patients keep coming and they are getting younger. The only she hates more than unvaxxed patients is nurses who refuse to be vaxxed. We will never rid ourselves of Covid but we can certainly flatten the curve by using basic safety protocols. I'm vaxed and I swill wear a mask. I do it for the safety of overs not myself. One thing I know for certain is we cannot get back to normal life until lower the cases of Covid. Hoping it will run it's course on it's own is foolish thinking. Getting the vaccine does not ensure you want get Covid. What is is good for is keeping the virus from placing you in ER or ICU. I will be the first to say that your chances of death from Covid is small but it is much smaller if you are vaccinated. We need to do what put's the odds in our favor.
I think it depended on who your primary source of news was - on the channels I watch & papers I read, the info was clearly communicated if you followed the science, not the politicians. On some channels, this is still being called a plandemic / scamdemic. It also doesn’t help that most Americans now get most news from social media where the algorithms give you more of what you consume, not a balanced media diet. I know I actively have to search The Hill, Fox News, etc to read the conservative headlines.
I followed Fauci (aka 'the science') and I don't believe he did the best job at being transparent. I don't think I'm alone in this given the comments in this exact thread over a year ago.
Quote:
Originally Posted by TurtleCreek80
Where Europe screwed up majorly was the vaccinations. You can read up on your own but they spent too much time haggling on price and not speed to market - and that has cost them with Delta.
That's not what I was getting at. I was talking about the winter surge that hit them really hard, despite the fact that they put in hard restrictions and got cases down to a minimum over the summer. One city went so far as to celebrate the end of COVID: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-53244688
Quote:
Originally Posted by TurtleCreek80
On your last point, I would say that college age students - anywhere on the political spectrum - are not a good gauge of much of anything. Most of us thought we were pretty invincible until age 25 or so. Myself included. But you have to be able to see that there is a huge difference in how red states and blue states have acted w/r/t vaccination rates. We will see in another 30-45 days as schools in the Northeast start if having 60-70% vaccination rates make a difference in keeping more of the unvaccinated out of the hospitals if/when Delta surges there.
So you're just going to ignore an entire demographic of people to prove your point?
As for vaccination rates, I do know that black people are the most vaccine hesitant racial demographic and also the demographic that generally votes blue. I think the whole thing is more nuanced than you are making it out to be.
What is so difficult about wanting to try to protect our under 12 kiddos until they have a chance to get vaccinated? I don’t think anyone (any reasonable people?) are pushing for universal masking for all eternity but rather until everyone has a chance to have all the prevention tools available and / or the community risk falls again.
!
This I can understand. That argument makes sense.
Quote:
Originally Posted by loves2read
Works for me
Last year’s flu cases and deaths were the lowest in decades because people WERE wearing masks in public, isolating more, washing theirs hands more (supposedly), getting more flu vaxes…avoiding travel which can spread flu…
So yes—great suggestion for public health measures
This ABSOLUTELY NOT. Im all for getting vaccines and washing hands but human contact IS essential. We need more human contact, not less especially as time goes on.
I followed Fauci (aka 'the science') and I don't believe he did the best job at being transparent. I don't think I'm alone in this given the comments in this exact thread over a year ago.
That's not what I was getting at. I was talking about the winter surge that hit them really hard, despite the fact that they put in hard restrictions and got cases down to a minimum over the summer. One city went so far as to celebrate the end of COVID: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-53244688
So you're just going to ignore an entire demographic of people to prove your point?
As for vaccination rates, I do know that black people are the most vaccine hesitant racial demographic and also the demographic that generally votes blue. I think the whole thing is more nuanced than you are making it out to be.
I’m peacing out after this post:
1. Fauci - I give him a C+/B- But I think a lot of that was because he was on a short leash and/or did not want to panic the entire country.
2. Well that was stupid. No one should have been celebrating the end of Covid before vaccines were deployed.
3. I think a stronger argument about Democrats not following their own advice would be Nancy Pelosi getting her hair done while salons were closer or Gov Newsom having dinner at French Laundry. College kids are not exactly “leaders” to follow….
Black communities are certainly at risk and have a long history of valid skepticism. The work on vaccines there will need to be done on the ground, in their churches and barbershops (yes, literally).
Younger Americans across the political spectrum are another holdout, as are rural Americans.
But in total, 5% of Democrats say the “absolutely will not” get vaccinated vs 20-30% of Republicans and 10-25% of Independents.
1. Fauci - I give him a C+/B- But I think a lot of that was because he was on a short leash and/or did not want to panic the entire country.
2. Well that was stupid. No one should have been celebrating the end of Covid before vaccines were deployed.
3. I think a stronger argument about Democrats not following their own advice would be Nancy Pelosi getting her hair done while salons were closer or Gov Newsom having dinner at French Laundry. College kids are not exactly “leaders” to follow….
Black communities are certainly at risk and have a long history of valid skepticism. The work on vaccines there will need to be done on the ground, in their churches and barbershops (yes, literally).
Younger Americans across the political spectrum are another holdout, as are rural Americans.
But in total, 5% of Democrats say the “absolutely will not” get vaccinated vs 20-30% of Republicans and 10-25% of Independents.
1. Fauci is a scientist. He should be communicating 'the science' and not worrying about how the public will perceive 'the science'. This is my problem when people say 'just listen to the science'. Clearly the science isn't always transparent with us, and what you're saying about Fauci not wanting to panic the entire country is an example of that.
2. It's because the messaging wasn't clear enough. If an entire country of people felt they could celebrate the end of COVID, clearly the messaging has failed.
3. Or Obama's birthday bash.
Those are interesting statistics you have. I wouldn't say they are up to date or definitive, so I'll be taking them with a grain of salt. Too many outlets have a bias these days too.
Personally, I think all skepticism is valid, not just skepticism in the black communities. The leaders, government, and scientists have lost the trust of the general public and they aren't doing enough to address that. Instead, they are vilifying people who don't fall in line and get the vaccine, which isn't really going to convince too many people to change their mind. They need to change their tune and acknowledge that trust is low and start making changes to rectify that.
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