outbreak! (ebola, sars, coronavirus, etc)

You don’t live in a high vaccination area. You live in a high vaccination area relative only to a bunch of people you apparently don’t care about, but relative to whats actually needed to keep your community safe, and what’s being achieved elsewhere, you don’t live in a high vaccination area.

I’m not trying to tell you you should be more worried. And by all means stop worrying about other people.

I’m saying that politicians and public health officials keep being surprised when things that have happened in other countries happen here. And that doesn’t fill me with optimism about the next six months.

What does "keep my community safe" mean? People who want to be vaccinated in my community are vaccinated by now. I can't expend any more energy worrying about those who refuse. "My community" is made up of people who think it makes sense to get vaccinated. I know almost no one who still refuses. If someone I loved refused, I would worry about them. I don't have extra empathy to spare for people I don't know who insist on not being vaccinated, any more than people who refuse to wear seatbelts or drive drunk.

For what it's worth, my county is 70% fully vaccinated. And my county is geographically very large, and I would guarantee you the area of my county I live in is significantly higher, probably more like 80%. And I would bet my town is higher than that.

Are you a public health official? If not, I’m not talking about you. Do whatever you like.

Actually the state apparently tracks by zip code, and I just learned that mine is 82% fully vaccinated and 97% at least one dose. Not completely clear on whether that includes age groups that only just became eligible, I'd guess not but who knows.

So, in other words, I do in fact live in a high vaccination area.

If it’s 97% then obviously not.

One last time, I’m not trying to tell you that you personally should be more worried or expect what’s happening in some random country to happen in your little community. Not making a point about vaccination rates either. I’m saying that at the state and national level, the fact that people keep being surprised when things that have happened elsewhere happen here is maddening.

But re vaccination rates: Bergen county (not sure if that’s you?) has 79% of all people with 1+ dose. Your numbers are presumably fractions of adults or eligible population. And obviously you live in a country/state with no internal travel restrictions and much lower numbers elsewhere so sure your local rate is more relevant to you than the national rate, but it’s not like the situation in adjacent counties/states is irrelevant.

Portugal (the entire country) is 89% 1+ dose, and that’s including the entire population and the national average including their kids and holdouts. That’s high. Probably high enough for “over”.

Thks for clarification above caek i get you now

What’s the vax rate for Portugal. The Man?

100% chance of passion.

can’t believe man alive is planning to soon stop posting about how much he’s worried for the immunocompromised, home and emergency care workers, children that aren’t his, and ppl in unstable living situations in his area

People immunocompromised to the point that the vaccine can’t protect them are extremely rare, yet extremely common as a talking point for holier than thou posters.

Oooooook let's dial it back dude

Also they were in danger from many other viruses pre COVID, including ones for which there is no highly effective vaccine. What steps did you take to protect them?

Whataboutism

How about the shutins now making a moral crusade out of continuing to be shut ins and browbeating me with it "dial it back."

I'm not a shut in and I'm not unsympathetic but....come on

i’m going to try to refrain from posting too much about this latest contretemps but i FP’ed you for that man alive. that’s a really fucked up thing to say

Otm

There's some comfort to be found in the shared human experience of the pandemic making us all just a little bit more insane than we were before.

Otm

Is OTM the symptom or the disorder, and is there a shot for that?

logging in specifically to call man alive an asshole, fp, and log back out again

sorry, one more thing, we’re still grappling with a pandemic that’s led to nearly a million excess deaths, GOD FORBID some unsympathetic suburbanites get “browbeaten”

There's some comfort to be found in the shared human experience of the pandemic making us all just a little bit more insane than we were before.

?? is there? The rhythm of this sentence works but the sentiment sounds like you’re the Joker!

Personally aiming for “less insane” but maybe that’s just me!

We could save everyone time over the next year if we just assume caek’s going to bring some well-researched doomposting, man alive’s going to tell everyone they’re scaredy cats, and Josh has antibodies that are in various states of arousal

Have I missed anyone

Good morning!

Ah of course :)

My antibodies are hot, ready and legal.

Tracer I think the “us all” part of OL’s line is the nugget of sincere sentiment in a grimly ironic post

also there have been over five million deaths so far, and that’s without trustworthy figures from eg China, India and Brazil

man alive more like child dead, boom roasted

― class project pat (m bison), Tuesday, February 23, 2021 4:25 PM (six months ago) bookmarkflaglink

― class project pat (m bison), Tuesday, August 24, 2021 7:09 PM (two months ago) bookmarkflaglink

another extremely good piece on family dynamics with covid deniers. i know it's paywalled, sorry.

Laurel’s most sustained interaction with the couple over the summer had not been face-to-face. When she moved out, she had surreptitiously ripped the Infowars sticker off her daughter’s car. Sam and D slapped on new Infowars stickers in its place, including one that read “THE MEDIA IS THE VIRUS.” But Laurel again secretly tampered with the bumper, adding stickers saying “Hillary is my homegirl” and “Biden Harris 2020.” Sam and D removed them, and the proxy war ended. The family had never spoken about it.

The vaccine tore her family apart. Could a death bring them back together?

Oh yeah, that reminds me. Someone has put infowars stickers all over the stop signs in my neighborhood. What would be the best stickers to cover them up with?

“We’re talking more since your dad died,” she said. Now they talked about Laurel’s favorite recipe for catfish bait, and their mixed feelings about Joel’s funeral — how they were ready for it to be over, but also weren’t, because then he would really be gone. And eventually they started talking about the reason they had stopped talking: the vaccine.

“It was just too quick for them to come up with it,” Sam said.

“But it wasn’t quick,” Laurel said.

“My biggest thing is my skin …”

“That makes you more medically in need of it.”

“I’m gonna wait and see how it goes with the people who got the shot, and when I’m comfortable with it, I’ll talk to my dermatologist,” Sam told her mother.

“I’m just gonna pray you don’t get covid and die in the meantime,” Laurel said.

Raindrops were clattering over the pontoon’s tin roof. Sam excused herself to go pick up some dinner with D, who had just finished work at the Rural King farm supply store.

Part of Laurel wanted to drop all the restraint that she tried to bring to these conversations and scream at her daughter that she was being stupid, that after losing Joel she couldn’t bear to lose her, too. But as Sam walked up the road Laurel sat there saying nothing, smoking her dead husband’s cigarettes and watching the rain.

take heart, Laurel - it doesn't matter what you say or do

xpost i'd say “Hillary is my homegirl” and something about RBG the legend

Oh yeah, that reminds me. Someone has put infowars stickers all over the stop signs in my neighborhood. What would be the best stickers to cover them up with?

― peace, man, Monday, November 15, 2021 12:31 PM bookmarkflaglink

goatse

Oh yeah, that reminds me. Someone has put infowars stickers all over the stop signs in my neighborhood. What would be the best stickers to cover them up with?

― peace, man, Monday, November 15, 2021 9:31 AM (one minute ago) bookmarkflaglink

I covered up a bunch in my neighborhood with some stickers my friend, graffiti artist POORBOY, gave me. They say "POORBOY" and feature an Apache holding a scalp aloft with a dead (white) body beside him.

Oh yeah, that reminds me. Someone has put infowars stickers all over the stop signs in my neighborhood. What would be the best stickers to cover them up with?

― peace, man, Monday, November 15, 2021 5:31 PM (forty-two minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Are you sure they don't mean "stop infowars?"

haha

"they're saying boo-urns"

When I find conspiracy nutjob / white nationalist stickers around I leave them where they were but deface them, hoping that the person who put them there sees that they were not accidentally covered or removed but destroyed.

Probably naive but makes me feel better for some reason.

Are you sure they don't mean "stop infowars?"

― DJI, Monday, November 15, 2021 1:15 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

No, they're on the reverse side. lol

the latest narrative that I see emerging amongst actually grown-ass adults is "why is the south doing so well against COVID now when they were the least restrictive states in terms of COVID mitigation?"

Idk, maybe the hundreds of thousands of people that died and more that went into the hospital could answer that for you? it's like saying a fireman put out a fire by just watching it burn until there was no house left.

even saw a columnist from NYT ask this but that's par for the course w/ a lot of them.

there probably just aren't enough people who haven't already had it or been vaccinated left for the virus to spread to in some of these places

that's exactly it and it should be obvious to these fuckin' liars

the latest narrative that I see emerging amongst actually grown-ass adults is "why is the south doing so well against COVID now when they were the least restrictive states in terms of COVID mitigation?"

what the actual fuck, can they not look at the charts and see "the south was less restrictive and had a bigger wave earlier instead of a smaller wave later like the interior west"

one would think and yet