As for vaccinations eradicating COVID, that is looking less and less likely by the day.
Yes, they are the best line of defense we know of so far, but they have hardly been the magic bullet that was advertised.
Even the biggest proponents of vaccines are backing off their claims that we can "eradicate" COVID with the vaccines we have at present, many of the so called experts are conceding that the vaccines are really only effective at reducing the severity of the disease once infected, not that getting vaccinated will prevent getting infected.
A few days ago, Norway decided to end all their Covid restrictions. Norway's government said enough is enough, we're going to go back to living our lives like normal human beings.
Compare this to New York state, which is getting ready to fire 70,000 health care workers, which Democrats have been saying were heroes for the last 18 months, but are now Enemy #1. New York's crazed new Governor is even willing to bring in the military to help replace those workers. Just imagine, if you had as much money to give to Democrats as Pfizer did, you too could hire a bunch of lunatic politicians who are drunk on power to work on your behalf. Just think, if Democrats can force you to take the vaccine, then what else can they force you to take? It's not like they're not getting crazier by the day.
hire a bunch of lunatic politicians who are drunk.
Are you sure we don't already have them?
can force you to take the vaccine, then what else can they force you to take?
Arms and go fight some stupid war.
Norway is too cold for the virus to survive. Didn't they say by winter the virus was going to die?
I don't know maybe Norwegians don't go face to face close enough.
How can I go about punching an unvaccinated medical worker in the face?
From The NY Times: "When New York State announced a mandate for hospital and nursing-home staff members in August, about 75 percent of them had received a shot. By Monday, the share had risen to 92 percent. The increase amounts to roughly 100,000 newly vaccinated people."
Please stop lying, willy.
Mandates work. While it's preferable that people get vaccinated voluntarily, for their own good and for the good of society as a whole, we've reached a point in time where vaccine mandates are necessary. With freedom comes responsibility. A functioning, successful free society cannot survive without responsible, sober citizens who are willing to sacrifice for the public good. With a highly vaccinated population we haven't lost our liberty, rather we have gained better public health and our best opportunity to defeat this virus.
We never even tried to incentivize. We have a $3.5T reconciliation bill written and not one penny would go to paying people to get vaccinated. Wasted opportunity imo.
Yes we did. 26 states provided incentives to get vaccinated ranging from million dollar lottery prizes to scholarships at state universities, to free event tickets, to free food, to savings bonds. Biden called on all states to offer $100 for getting vaccinated. Some cities and employers also offered incentives. While these programs may have motivated a few people who were on the fence, they failed to boost vaccination rates to the needed level. It's now time for disincentives and mandates.
26 states is not 50 and all of those things you mention wouldn't nearly have the dramatic impact a $500/pp check would accomplish. "Calling on states" to do something is passing the buck and $100 isnt nearly enough anyway. It should come from the feds. Do you really think a large portion of middle class (and below) people would pass on that 500 bucks? No we needed a real, large incentive and we didn't get it from either administration. Nothing motivates like money.
We can debate how much a monetary incentive should be or we can all just get vaccinated. The only incentive I needed was to protect myself and others from this deadly virus. That I did for free.
It is the middle class Trumpettes and the inner city minorities that are at issue and imo, the overwhelming majority of those would be greatly incentivized by the $500. The beauty of it is that they can lie to their neighbor about getting the shot so they don't lose any street cred with that person while at the same time pocketing the money and getting us closer to the number of vaccinated we need. To me it would be money well spent and good government. Good debate. Thanks!
In both New York and Norway, 70% of the population is vaccinated. And yet, Norway has said it’s now time to go back to being a free country. New York, on the other hand, is becoming more authoritarian by the day. If Democrats can force you to take a medicine against your will, then what will they demand you take next?
What you call authoritarian I consider to be reasonable, scientific, common sense, public health actions to defeat the worst global pandemic in 100 years.
Like the "emergency" COVID actions, The Patriot Act attacks on our personal freedoms/privacy etc were supposed to be temporary, yet here we are 20 years later with the Patriot Act overreaches still intact.
Do any of you really believe that we are EVER going to get our rights back after this "emergency" is behind us?
Yes I do. COVID can be eradicated with vaccinations. Terrorism, including domestic terrorism, requires active and ongoing vigilance. The only vaccine that can mitigate domestic terrorism is truth which is unfortunately in short supply in today's Republican party.
As for vaccinations eradicating COVID, that is looking less and less likely by the day.
Yes, they are the best line of defense we know of so far, but they have hardly been the magic bullet that was advertised.
Even the biggest proponents of vaccines are backing off their claims that we can "eradicate" COVID with the vaccines we have at present, many of the so called experts are conceding that the vaccines are really only effective at reducing the severity of the disease once infected, not that getting vaccinated will prevent getting infected.
Which is 50% more than usual, but I digress. What changed the equation, from potential eradication to protection against hospitalization and death, is the delta variant mutation that is much more transmissible than the original iteration. That's what happens when viruses continue in circulation among the unvaccinated. They mutate and may become more resistant to vaccines.
Which is 100% above your usual, but I too digress.
Herd immunity is comprised of BOTH the vaccinated and the previously infected so PLEASE quit acting like all unvaccinated people are the problem. There are tens of millions of people who have already been exposed to COVID and are walking around just fine TYVM. I am no more likely to contract or pass on the virus than anyone who has been vaccinated, and I didn't even have to get a sore arm in the process.
Yes if you've had COVID you may, or may not, have some neutralizing antibodies from the infection. But didn't you tell us you've never been diagnosed with COVID but you assume you've had it from being around others? Is that how they diagnose COVID in Texas? There is no reason to assume that you have antibodies unless you get an antibody test which, as I recall, you also refuse to get. Being unvaccinated and without evidence of antibodies makes you vulnerable to getting the delta variant and passing it on to others. So get vaccinated or get an antibody test. If you're not part of the solution you're part of the problem.
Or maybe you can mind your own goddamned business and not tell people how to live their lives.
The government makes you do all kinds of things: wear a seat belt; stop when the light turns red; not yell "Fire!" in a crowded theater. Hell, until recently they could make you join the Army and go get killed.
So for god's sake, stop your infernal whining.
...to being forced to take a needle against your will? If you don't have the security of your own bodily autonomy, then you're not free, period.
My point is there's a long laundry list of things the government forces you to do that you may not like.
But you knew that and made your feeble point anyway.
Not to mention that kids have been required to have certain vaccinations for YEARS in order to go to school.
But people don’t have the choice to not work. What else will this lead to? Should the government demand people to take infertility drugs to combat climate change? Or a drug designed to make people more obedient towards the government? Should the government be able to tell women what the government wants to insert inside them against their will?
If you don’t have a right to your own body then, by definition, you are a slave.
Brig. Gen. Jack D. Ripper every day:
I loved Kubrick's work, but I think this was maybe his best. Hard to say, The Shining was really up there.
There's quite a lot of people now who are suing over the mandate. Those who have natural immunity are suing over being forced to take something that is, as the research clearly shows, is medically unnecessary.
The right not to be vaccinated during the worst pandemic in a century? Yeah, that's a cherished right. Mandated inoculations actually started at Valley Forge in 1778. Every Continental soldier was required by Washington to be inoculated against smallpox. And that was BEFORE there was even a United States or a Constitution. So, please, don't lecture us on our "rights," despite being such an excellent historian and Constitutional scholar. LMAO.
In the 20th century alone, smallpox killed a half a BILLION people. It killed 60% of the people who caught it, and killed 80% of children who caught it. Those that survived were typically horrifically scarred, blind, and crippled. Furthermore, military soldiers have always been required to take certain medicines for the purposes of national defense. This is a far cry from being denied the right to your own bodily autonomy because Democrats want to maximize Pfizer's profits.
We're not talking about "the 20th century." And in the 18th century smallpox inoculations were VERY experimental and actually made you sick. Just not as sick as getting the real thing. Washington's troops were laid up for days, which is why it was done gradually, so that the entire army was never out of commission.
As for your statement on Pfizer's profits, it is -- like most off what you say -- monumentally stupid. What about Moderna an J&J's profits?
Nicky, I’m well aware that the 18th century wasn’t in the 20th century. Very experimental? At the time, no one yet understood the germ theory of disease. In those days, smallpox inoculations were performed by digging the puss out of a person sick with smallpox. Then the person receiving the inoculation would be cut open with a knife and the puss was wiped into it. If the puss contained mostly dead smallpox virus, then it would allow someone to produce smallpox antibodies without contracting smallpox. But it was always a gamble if the puss still contained live smallpox virus. Regardless, no one would have dared to take people’s rights away if they refused to undergo such a thing.
This isn’t hard to follow, Nicky. Big Pharma gave the Democrats a ton of money. Democrats are repaying them by trying to force people to take those vaccines.
The purpose of "2 weeks to flatten the curve" was not to overwhelm our health care workers. The purpose of vaccinations was not to overwhelm our health care workers. Now, New York is getting ready to fire 70,000 of those health care workers, who for the last 18 months have been treating Covid patients, and New York's governor is willing to bring in the military to backfill the loss of health care workers. Does this make sense?
If this was about public health, then there would be an antibody mandate, not a vaccine mandate. Everyone, regardless of whether they were vaccinated, should be tested to see if they have Covid antibodies. If they don't have antibodies, then choices to remedy this should be offered. That's good governance. But the purpose of this is not public health. The purpose is to maximize Pfizer's profits.
The purpose of vaccines is to prevent infections, hospitalizations, and death. Further, a robust vaccination program can result in herd immunity. With herd immunity the virus has difficulty finding hosts and spreading/mutating. The virus burns out. Your antibody mandate requires a blood draw or finger stick from 330 million Americans and 8 billion humans worldwide. Then, after overworked labs determine the antibody results, the patient must return for the vaccination for those with no or low antibodies. That is totally impractical. Even if that was possible (and it's not) what good is accomplished when a patient has no or low COVID antibodies and is only given "choices to remedy" and not the vaccine? Oh wait maybe in willy's world "choices to remedy" include hydroxychloroquine, or ivermectin, or the snake oil of the day, or eating healthy, or going to the gym, or just refusing vaccination. Vaccines for all is more practical and much more effective.
The purpose of the vaccines is to produce antibodies. But having the vaccine is not direct evidence that you have Covid antibodies. Those antibodies can wane over time. A person who's had Covid and recovered naturally will also have Covid antibodies. Why are we requiring people to take vaccines, when we should be testing for antibodies? Why are they *any* mandates at all when many countries have ended all their Covid restrictions?
Those choices could be to do regular Covid testing, taking monoclonal antibodies, taking the vaccine, or a preventative dose of ivermectin. Hydroxychloroquine wouldn't make sense, since this drug was used to treat Covid patients who were sick and suffering from a runaway inflammatory event.
I provided you proof yesterday that almost all have been vaccinated and nothing like that number will be fired.
Willy is a liar.
Willy has been known to tell a whopper or two or a thousand. Like BLM protesters burnt down half the country last year.
...for calling me a liar.
"As the vaccination mandate went into full effect on Monday, 92 percent of the state’s more than 650,000 hospital and nursing home workers had received at least one vaccine dose, state officials said. That was a significant increase from a week ago, when 82 percent of the state’s nursing home workers and at least 84 percent of hospital workers had received at least one dose." More have been vaccinated since.
And there are even more covered by exemptions, which the mandate allows. So the final number is not known but it's clear that nowhere near 70,000 will be fired.
As for apologies, you get ZERO. Especially until you apologize for the MANY lies you have told (and continue to tell) here.
Diseases will come back and win in the end.
Some people say we shouldn't play god and let nature take its course. God invented viruses for a reason and we shouldn't interfere with the "perfect plan" or whatever.
A question if you ended up with a deforming disease because your parents didn't vaccinated you? What would you do?
Lick, Lick.
I for one don't care what people chose to do... but the children... they are not my children...
http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/parents/diseases/forgot-14-diseases.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rs7s00VF33M
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahBvI4pdh9U
