outbreak! (ebola, sars, coronavirus, etc)

While it's ultimately less important than the fact that the messaging around vaccination is actually evolving with many of the right-wing crank media people and influencers, I'm still left wondering what finally motivated the change these past two weeks. Obviously it's not the renewed threat of it being *their* voters dying off, since that didn't move the needle a bit in any of the previous waves when the red states were slammed with cases and deaths either. I've seen idle speculation that it's internal polling numbers (which I'm very skeptical about) or threat of lawsuits (also skeptical, I doubt anything would actually stick).

"you do actually personally need to get vaccinated or you're going to get it" - i know one person who got their first dose last week because this is now so obviously true. they were not anti-vaxx as such, and understood other people getting vaccinated helped them, but they were happy to let the public health duty/inconvenience/tiny risk of side effects, etc. fall on other people, while enjoying the thrill of being anti-establishment, or something? that changed with this wave.

shame it's come to this, but this wave is probably going to be the most effective public health measure in driving vaccinations this summer.

i don't know if it even requires polling for them to make the very obvious electoral calculation. 70% of voters have had 1+ dose.

at least among the adults in the GOP (fox news execs, mcconnell, desantis, etc.) i think these big-brained bloggers are right about what's happening:

I don't think this is that complicated.

The vaccinated are a supermajority of voters, they have every reason to be highly annoyed with the unvaccinated and the people who abet them, and the Delta variant makes it more likely this will still be a salient issue by November 2022. https://t.co/sZBeblCzSO

— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) July 21, 2021

For as much as we're a hopelessly polarized country, ~70% of adults (and I'd guess more like ~75% of likely voters) are already at least partly vaccinated. It's hard to get 70-75% of the country to agree on anything!

— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) July 21, 2021

Yeah, this is basically what I argued in the post. They suddenly feel very exposed carrying the anti-vax brand. It's the turning on a dime that's harder to figure. Yes, Delta is running out of control. But they've been fairly immune to other new facts on this front.

— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) July 21, 2021

xpost - I mean, yeah, but logic rarely dictates anything for these people who are infamous for only digging in their heels harder. I think I'm more struck by how FAST the turn came, not like slowly one or two people every few weeks coming around. It was almost whiplash enducing.

they thought it was over and they could criticize public health measures that were behind us without any consequence, and then 2 weeks ago it very suddenly became clear it wasn't over. honestly think it's this simple.

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

Yeah, again, that makes sense as a simple explanation. But we've seen surges like this before and they didn't give a fuck. I have a hard time imagining these ghouls just suddenly care.

shame it's come to this, but this wave is probably going to be the most effective public health measure in driving vaccinations this summer.

― 𝔠𝔞𝔢𝔨 (caek), Thursday, July 22, 2021 12:40 PM bookmarkflaglink

supposedly my friend didn't even plan to get his today and went to his physical and his doctor basically said "come on, bro." and pointed out exactly what you mentioned above - if you don't, you'll probably get it, and dude has two kids under 6 years old.

I think the sudden turn is 100% connected to the stock market scare on Monday

Meantime, good thoughts from Bob Wachter. I mean, there really wasn't a reason not to mask up in general.

https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Why-unvaccinated-people-wear-mask-UCSF-Wachter-16327481.php

does make sense honestly. it also becomes easier to revisit months/years later and invoke a little revisionism by fucking with the timeline - "they were never anti-vax/anti-COVID, they were talking about taking it seriously from the beginning".

Maybe they've seen polling numbers indicating that their audiences + constituents are finally growing wary of taking an increasing amount of the collateral damage in their endless intransigent attempts to own the libs.

xposts

i share your confusion there, jon. i think it might be hard for us to wrap our heads around the logic of being a covid-hoax/overblown person for 18 straight months, in the face of all the real death happening all around, multiple waves. why now?

i don't know. maybe it's like the end of a party. a couple people leave. one person joins and is super loud. it goes on for a while. and then suddenly, hannity leaves, a couple other influential people leave with him. the party is still going right? but 5 minutes later, it isn't. it's late, and a bunch of people have died. maybe it's time to go to some other death party now.

?

there's also the idea that when systems collapse, it's often when they're at their most complex and overextended.

But we've seen surges like this before and they didn't give a fuck.

We haven't seen surges that would be this easy to stop. Easy? Maybe not. But EASIER than virtual schools, shutting down businesses, restricting interstate travel?? Hell yeah.

Oh I like this.

The NFL just informed clubs that if a game cannot be rescheduled during the 18-week season in 2021 due to a COVID outbreak among unvaccinated players, the team with the outbreak will FORFEIT and be credited with a loss for playoff seeding, per sources.

Massive implications.

— Tom Pelissero (@TomPelissero) July 22, 2021

Here’s more from today’s memo, which also says the team responsible for a canceled game because of an outbreak among unvaccinated players/staff will be responsible for financial losses and subject to potential discipline from the commissioner. Wow. pic.twitter.com/Q86a2WcG1K

— Tom Pelissero (@TomPelissero) July 22, 2021

Of course, we know that threats from Goodell are mostly 'hah yeah right' but I kinda have a feeling that this has some actual teeth behind it.

does make sense honestly. it also becomes easier to revisit months/years later and invoke a little revisionism by fucking with the timeline - "they were never anti-vax/anti-COVID, they were talking about taking it seriously from the beginning".

― making splashes at Dan Flashes (Neanderthal)

100% on the timeline fuckery. the lines are "i'm waiting til CDC approves the vaccinations!" or "i waited until i could see my doctor in person to get their advice" or "i wanted to do my research" or whatever. there will be no learning or vindication or apologies or anything like that. we just have to be happy that eventually they did the right thing.

good on the NFL, and that's something i haven't thought in a long time

fuck this looks terrible, Illinois' daily new cases for the last month:

Week over week reference:
28 Days Ago: 248
21 Days Ago: 457
14 Days Ago: 617
7 Days Ago: 861
Today: 1,993

well the difference between this surge and all the others is that A) this one is almost exclusively happening among unvaccinated people and B) it's coming after a prolonged period of things looking better and more "normal". if lockdown measures need to be initiated again and suddenly baseball games and outdoor gatherings start getting cancelled people are gonna know exactly who's responsible, especially since "I don't wanna get the same shot that hundreds of millions of people already got" is a bit less sympathetic than "I don't want to punt a year of my life".

in other words I think Nate Silver's mostly right here, all the anti-vaxx stuff looks like it might be a major albatross for them, and since it's disproportionately killing Republicans it also threatens to undo all the work they've put into preventing black people from voting

This is blunt, but.

Prayers to his loved ones, RIP pic.twitter.com/8uFVG4zxg5

— T. Greg Doucette (@greg_doucette) July 22, 2021

Setting aside the snark in the replies, this does all appear to be real. Reading back over his tweets throughout July, it ain't pretty.

https://twitter.com/stephenharmon

And that last screenshot is indeed Brian Houston, founder of Hillsong.

Ben has just passed on to us the devastating news that our beloved friend, Stephen Harmon has passed away from Covid. Heartbreaking.

— Brian Houston (@BrianCHouston) July 22, 2021

tbh I'm also reeling from the sudden turn in Republican Lizard Land toward "please, y'all, get jabbed," and the only explanation I can come up with is, "Whoa, we're seeing terrible polling that might doom our midterm chances next year."

Let 'em suffer.

Very good piece, similar to the Wachter one.

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2021/07/fully-vaccinated-masking-delta/619532/

the thing about dying of Covid when your social media is full of anti-vaxx bullshit is that it's such an incredibly embarrassing way to die, I almost feel bad for them

it doesn't matter. his friends and family won't speak of it, and they'll make up other reasons. there will be no Moment when they all speak the truth and talk about it openly. they just won't talk about it. everyone else, you, me, whoever's laughing at them - some other idiot will die tomorrow. they'll forget about Stephen...Harmon? what was his name? i don't want to load the previous page right now. but that's the point. Stephen __ will be forgotten by everyone else, and his former inner circle just won't talk about it. that makes the problem "go away" for them

for example, i believe stephen harmon died of advanced pneumonia. it's a tragedy that the lord had to take him away in the prime of his life, and doubly tragic that people are blaming it on covid. i heard that covid actually makes pneumonia more likely and also more severe - if covid wasn't so overblown maybe stephen could have gotten better healthcare. it's the hospital's fault.

everyone at the table nods along to that. yes. it could have been the hospital's fault. and billy had pneumonia a few years back - it was awful. no one at the table wants to talk about it anymore, neither with their family or the other people who will come calling. "I'm sorry to hear about Stephen passing. but masks wouldn't have helped, we know that. all this BS about covid and we drop the ball on pneumonia. it's sad. see you at church"

think of Roy Cohn's monologue to his doctor in Angels in America.

There's all this overblown hype about COVID killing people but the thing nobody wants to admit is that everybody dies anyway so (crosses arms, smirks)

(dies of COVID)

To quote our birthday boy Don Henley, offer up your best defense.

xp i haven't seen it! you mean the play or the movie/miniseries? probably both

I don't actually think this is *the* reason but maybe worth adding to the pile: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2021-07-22/delta-variant-stock-market-reacts-return-to-work-threatened

The miniseries

it looks really good. from the plot overview i just read, also highly relatable to our current context

The stock market attempted to return to work today after being temporarily sidelined by a work-related injury, but was threatened by a colleague upon arriving in the office.

The stock market was not vaccinated and the colleague was trying to get the stock market to put a mask on

the stock market doesn't understand the american faith in freedom and markets

yea KM I'm sure you're right, I mean I did recently meet a lady whose father died of Covid and her #1 priority right now seems to be getting Covid taken off the death certificate as she believes it was a Chinese bioweapon designed to stop Trump from winning re-election because he was so tough on them

and she doesn't want a public record of that? huh

dang, does she have money? because she's not going to be able to get compensated for the funeral unless the death certificate says it was covid.

Jesus killed her father

look don't even try to comprehend it unless you can get into the galaxy brain conservative mindset of believing everything at once. I'm sure she'll take the money while simultaneously decrying it as socialism but also crediting Trump who is actually calling the shots at the moment, even though China schemed a real/fake virus to take him out of office

good point

*everyone at dinner table nods and continues eating*

Absolutely every last thing the Tories do in the UK is about winning elections and holding on to power, even if it means abandoning everything they've previously said or done, without a second thought. I imagine Republicans are cut from the same cloth.

The virus is real
The virus is fake
Together we learn
Vaccine = mistake

Absolutely every last thing the Tories do in the UK is about winning elections and holding on to power, even if it means abandoning everything they've previously said or done, without a second thought. I imagine Republicans are cut from the same cloth.

Generally this is true, though they've been known to absolutely refuse to budge on certain issues even an inch, even when electorally unpopular (see: guns, abortion) because the loudest yellers with the deepest pockets give more power than just the stupid voters.

Meantime, some perfect comedy.

I'm never deleting this app. pic.twitter.com/OwYClG6L2R

— Labcoat Lesbian, Sundress Killa (@IpheliaPaine) July 22, 2021