COVID-19 Threat Level Back to Red - Now What? (Houston: 2015, apartment)

[As Above So Below...]

Originally Posted by ParaguaneroSwag

Illegal immigrants are found everywhere from the largest to the tiniest cities. The portions of the USA that they’re least in is the deep Midwest (excluding the Great Lakes region)

Yes, but they don’t show up in huge numbers outside of the types of places I mentioned. No one said they weren’t there at all. The response was to a poster who is trying to blame the Covid upsurge on illegal immigrants.

[ninbud]

You might want to due some fact checking and see where they are being placed. Oh wait, good luck getting honest information from the government.

Originally Posted by As Above So Below...

Most are not shipped all over the country. Illegal immigrants congregate in specific larger cities and some smaller communities that require lots of unskilled labor. That hasn’t been where cases (per capita) are exploding. It’s in places where they don’t congregate like Mississippi, Louisiana and southern Missouri.

[ParaguaneroSwag]

Originally Posted by ninbud

You might want to due some fact checking and see where they are being placed. Oh wait, good luck getting honest information from the government.

yeah there’s been very large waves of “undocumented people” in rural/small cities more recently. Good luck getting data from the undocumented population.

Obviously I know too much about this topic so I’ll shut up

[As Above So Below...]

Originally Posted by ninbud

You might want to due some fact checking and see where they are being placed. Oh wait, good luck getting honest information from the government.

You just said you cant get honest information from the government so what makes you think you know? When undocumented immigrants are "placed" somewhere by the government, its usually a detention center. Otherwise, they choose where they want to live once they get here. The places where I get my data arent tied to the government.

Youre claim that this waive of Covid is fueled by illegal immigrants is easily dispelled. We have very good ideas where illegal immigrants exist in larger numbers vs. where they exist in smaller numbers. Its not the places where they exist in larger numbers that is driving this waive of the pandemic.

Originally Posted by ParaguaneroSwag

yeah there’s been very large waves of “undocumented people” in rural/small cities more recently. Good luck getting data from the undocumented population.

Obviously I know too much about this topic so I’ll shut up

Youre no more an expert at this than I am.

Are you prepared to argue that this wave of Covid is being caused by illegal immigrants? Because that is what I was disputing.

There are people who study this topic thoroughly. You arent one of them and neither am I, but I do trust non-governmental organizations who spend their full time finding out the information. Organizations like Pew and Brookings are not biased towards a political side and focus on data. Thats not to say that illegal immigrants dont exist most places (I specifically said small communities with high demand for unskilled labor are sought out by illegal immigrants), but scale of where they exist is important. There is going to be a higher than normal margin of error when trying to estimate where illegal immigrants reside but we still have a relatively clear picture within a 10% or so margin of error.

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tan...ed-immigrants/

https://www.brookings.edu/policy2020...-who-are-they/

[ParaguaneroSwag]

Originally Posted by As Above So Below...

Youre no more an expert at this than I am.

Are you prepared to argue that this wave of Covid is being caused by illegal immigrants? Because that is what I was disputing.

There are people who study this topic thoroughly. You arent one of them and neither am I, but I do trust non-governmental organizations who spend their full time finding out the information. Organizations like Pew and Brookings are not biased towards a political side and focus on data. Thats not to say that illegal immigrants dont exist most places (I specifically said small communities with high demand for unskilled labor are sought out by illegal immigrants), but scale of where they exist is important. There is going to be a higher than normal margin of error when trying to estimate where illegal immigrants reside but we still have a relatively clear picture within a 10% or so margin of error.

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tan...ed-immigrants/

https://www.brookings.edu/policy2020...-who-are-they/

You don’t know what I know, I don’t know what you know. We can’t speak on who’s a bigger expert. I know that undocumented labor has gone up in rural areas and small towns rapidly in recent years. I also know that the countries where the labor comes from has been recently shifting to Honduras, Cuba and Haiti as opposed to Mexico which was a leader many years ago.

No I’m not prepared to argue that COVID was caused by illegal immigrants because I would be lying if I said that. What I agreed with Ninbud on is that the federal government isn’t an accurate source for this information. That’s all regardless of what was talked about before that. Yes, there’s less biased studies out there but these studies take years to complete. The margin of error is much higher than 10%. Not because of the terrible researchers but because of the length that studies take. Undocumented migration isn’t something that you can see count as it comes. It’s something that’s well hidden, corrupt, innovative, constantly evolving, logistically diverse. There’s real estate, bribery, protection, etc etc etc. It is a very complex study and it’s something that takes a lot of time to get accurate information on updated numbers, trends, etc. COVID obviously had an impact on this just like it did on everything else, so that set information even more years behind.

[LML]

If you live in a state whose Governor is willing to endanger the lives of your children for their own political purpose, ask yourself if your children aren't more important than the politicians willing to use their lives as pawns in their game.

[houston-nomad]

The new superintendent of HISD just announced a mask mandate, despite our Governor's insistence on micromanaging and defying the CDC. So that's an interesting development.

[As Above So Below...]

Im getting ready to become even more unpopular but here goes.

So much of this is a fools errand. We arent going to stop this. Covid will be with us for years and years to come. I look at people who think they can stop it like I look at politicians who say "I can unite the country". Nobody can unite the country. We are so divided that all hope is dead of us every being united. Its hopeless, so theres no need to pretend otherwise. Covid is like that because its going to do what viruses do: move from person to person until it runs out of people to go through. The only way to stop it would be a worldwide lockdown for 3 weeks where everyone is frozen in an isolated place and that will never happen so its hopeless. We just have to learn to live with it.

Im all for getting vaxxed. I got mine as soon as I could even though I had already had Covid. Im all for efforts to encourage vaccination even if that includes paying people to get it. I also go to Walgreens and test myself every two weeks just to be sure.

But were in a balancing act. We have to thread the needle between Australia where the phrase "this should never be happening in a democracy" doesnt begin to cover it and the anti-vax crowd.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-58021718

So where does that leave us? Frankly, life is about risks. Everything you do has a risk associated with it. For example, getting in your car to go to the store and jumping out of an airplane with no parachute both have risks attached to them. However, the risks are minimal driving to the store so we all do it where as jumping out of an airplane without a parachute would lead to almost certain death so almost no one does that. That means, assuming youre not of the anti-vax/denalist variety, you must look at yourself and determine your risk to transmission and contraction. For me, Im not much of a risk to either because Ive had it and Ive had the Pfizer vax. If I somehow get it again, I would go into quarantine and if a place requires a mask, Ill wear one. Otherwise, Im living a normal life which means going out to eat, being around people, flying on plane, and most of it I wont be wearing a mask.

Assess your risk and go with it. Get vaxxed if you havent and go on with life.

[As Above So Below...]

Originally Posted by houston-nomad

The new superintendent of HISD just announced a mask mandate, despite our Governor's insistence on micromanaging and defying the CDC. So that's an interesting development.

Cool, but if anything Abbott, Desantis and the like are the opposite of micromanaging. Telling people they can’t force someone to do something is the opposite of micromagment.

For the record I’m for whatever local jurisdictions decide more so than the state.

[houston-nomad]

Originally Posted by As Above So Below...

Im getting ready to become even more unpopular but here goes.

So much of this is a fools errand. We arent going to stop this. Covid will be with us for years and years to come. I look at people who think they can stop it like I look at politicians who say "I can unite the country". Nobody can unite the country. We are so divided that all hope is dead of us every being united. Its hopeless, so theres no need to pretend otherwise. Covid is like that because its going to do what viruses do: move from person to person until it runs out of people to go through. The only way to stop it would be a worldwide lockdown for 3 weeks where everyone is frozen in an isolated place and that will never happen so its hopeless. We just have to learn to live with it.

Im all for getting vaxxed. I got mine as soon as I could even though I had already had Covid. Im all for efforts to encourage vaccination even if that includes paying people to get it. I also go to Walgreens and test myself every two weeks just to be sure.

But were in a balancing act. We have to thread the needle between Australia where the phrase "this should never be happening in a democracy" doesnt begin to cover it and the anti-vax crowd.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-58021718

So where does that leave us? Frankly, life is about risks. Everything you do has a risk associated with it. For example, getting in your car to go to the store and jumping out of an airplane with no parachute both have risks attached to them. However, the risks are minimal driving to the store so we all do it where as jumping out of an airplane without a parachute would lead to almost certain death so almost no one does that. That means, assuming youre not of the anti-vax/denalist variety, you must look at yourself and determine your risk to transmission and contraction. For me, Im not much of a risk to either because Ive had it and Ive had the Pfizer vax. If I somehow get it again, I would go into quarantine and if a place requires a mask, Ill wear one. Otherwise, Im living a normal life which means going out to eat, being around people, flying on plane, and most of it I wont be wearing a mask.

Assess your risk and go with it. Get vaxxed if you havent and go on with life.

I think everything you said here makes sense. I would add that when we're in one of the worst, if not the worst, surges in this pandemic, and children can't be vaccinated, it makes sense to require masks in schools to protect kids. They can go to school, life can go on, as you say, but with masks, under the surge passes.