I’m not sure why you think that sentence fragment is worth quoting, let alone why you think it is something that I missed.
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Right, but who’s the ones being intolerant here? People where I live don’t gaf if New York City locks down or who gets vaccinated or wears masks. The reverse isn’t true though. Of course, it’s true that the unvaccinated and un-locked down’s choices effect others, but that’s becoming less and less true with the effectiveness and availability of vaccines and boosters. And I’m not saying there’s nothing to get mad about, but it simply isn’t productive. And it ignores the increasing unpopularity of restrictions. I think we’re just going to end up in the realm of you make your own personal choices on vaccination, masks, isolation, whatever, and you take your chances. This isn’t ever going to go away, it increasingly seems like everyone’s going to get it, vaccination or not. Which obviously doesn’t mean that vaccines don’t work, they do, but breakthrough cases are obviously not rare (believe me, I know).
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I am pretty intolerant of the people who are actively working to kill like 400K of their fellow countrymen this year. I dont really think this author is an asshole for travelling somewhere in 2020 or w/e. The flippant “COVID is over you libs what are you crying about” with editors note: I looked it up and more people are dying around me than ever is…something.
I also do personally think that many Americans are a bunch of (REDACTED) for crying so much for so long about wearing masks when public health advises it.
EDIT: Im much more focused on my local area than on whats going on elsewhere at this point, I will also say that I think a lot of the pointing at red states was out of line because, I agree, we arent going to be doing much mitigation anywhere. Theres little appetite to do anything beyond scream at the unvaxxed.
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shut the fuck up
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Can we clarify that was in jest? I was about to moderate it but noticed that JT hearted it
OK, but wave after wave is going to happen regardless, right? You lock down now you’ll get it later seems to be the rule. And then mostly the unvaccinated die even though probably vaccinated can spread at least a few of these variants. And then we’re still talking about these two weeks to slow the spread tactics two years on, at some point we just have to say, OK, what are our actual public health goals here? Because to me, taking countermeasures to merely delay an inevitable wave makes very little sense at this stage of the pandemic. Although that could change if Omicron or some subsequent variant causes significant mortality in children, then you’d want to do that to try to figure out how to get them vaccinated.
Of course.
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Im not calling for lockdowns.
If you’re a normal person, your choices at this point are to fully withdraw from society in exchange for a likely barely significant difference in your health outcomes, but you live the rest of your life as essentially a solitary existence. Or you live a normalish life that includes being ok with hundreds of thousands of preventable deaths every year, mostly of people who willingly made the choice to not take simple steps to prevent their own deaths.
It’s two shitty choices for sure.
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OK well then do you not see these waves of infection as inevitable? They’re going to happen and it doesn’t seem like vaccination stops them. They’re tearing through high vaccination states and countries too, obviously not nearly as deadly but still happening. If we’re not locked down and the waves are inevitable, what’s to even get mad at the unvaccinated any more? They aren’t causing it, they’re just at higher risk because they’re not vaccinated. You’re just in you make your choices and you take your chances territory, right?
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Unvaxxed are still spreading more and are burdening the healthcare system. We could possibly live with higher transmission rates (long COVID still a question so debatable) if everyone was vaxxed.
I think waves are inevitable, but I think theres a big difference between waves and toppling the healthcare system and I really fear we are coming close to the latter. Also we dont live in a world with static tech. We have these Pfizer pills coming (which, if they are as hyped, could help a lot in wealthy countries) and we likely will get better vaccines and more tailored boosters. So delaying cases still has value.
I dont think lockdowns are tenable or desirable. I think 1) wear N95 in high risk situations when possible when case counts are high 2) rapid test on a mass scale 3) long-term investment in improving indoor ventilation all can be done without dooming us all to interact only in the metaverse. Would that eliminate waves? Probably not, but would allow more people to live more normally with less risk in a more equitable manner.
As always, there is a lot of middle ground between full lock down and doing nothing. Wearing masks and maintaining a bit of distance is simple, effective, and a very small thing to ask. The guy who wrote that shitty op-ed won’t even do that. I hope to be reading about him in another thread soon.
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Id be somewhat surprised if wearing an N95 when vaxxed/boosted wasnt pretty low risk vs Omicron, but fair point.
What annoys me is that I would be extremely surprised if everyone wearing N95 and being vaxxed/boosted wasnt effective in making a lot of places low risk, even with Omicron.
Bottom line, we are a point where first world people that want to avoid at least serious consequences can live a fairly normal existence (albeit masked and presenting vaxxed cards).
Pity the people want to vax but can’t.
But those that can but don’t will live (and die) in their own reality. Of course the brand new Pfizer pill will save them. While that’s any less experimental, I have no idea.
So endemic is going to be redefined and way too many will die.
Sure. But my point is that while communities can and should do that, individuals and communities that reject that level of mitigation probably don’t really impact the communities that want to implement that level of mitigation all that much. Because Elite Liberal City X can impose on the visiting Shithead Author testing requirements, masking requirements, vaccination requirements, whatever. And since Elite Liberal City X is eventually going to be faced with a wave it has to mitigate, does it really matter all that much the level of mitigation taking place outside the city? It’s kind of a carryover in thinking from when we maybe thought that we could keep covid from being endemic if only Insert Shithead Group quarantined/masked/got vaccinated.
I certainly agree, though there is a whole spectrum of “withdraw from society”, that could be as severe as “never leave the house” and as innocuous as “skip the Super Bowl”.
So heres a question then (not directed at you, just a jumping off point).
It seems possible Omicron can cause more severe outcomes in the vaxxed but unboosted.
No reason to think that 2 shots wont offer significant protection against bad outcomes, but possible it going to be significantly higher risk than against delta and the prior variants. Very possible that JnJ sees even more erosion.
But also very possible that, with a booster, most of the severe protection is restored at least for x amount of time.
At some point do (the royal) we then start saying fuck the unboosted in the same way that we say fuck the unvaxxed? Why or why not?
But why do we say fuck the unvaccinated?!? It’s one thing when you could plausibly blame the continued existence of the pandemic on the unvaccinated. Now that the “pandemic of the unvaccinated” ship has well and truly sailed, I don’t know. Do you get furious at strangers who don’t wear seat belts and motorcycle helmets?
Yesterday. Somewhat facetious but there is a lot of intolerance for having to take precautions because 30%ish are morons. I don’t have any person experience with anyone not wanting to boost that already got “fully” vaxxed. The old neighbor lady is somehow convinced she can’t have the mRNA but she got JJ and is actively looking for another JJ as a booster.
Politicians don’t have the stones or maybe the electorate is net too moronic to have unvaxxed lockdowns. Lots of handwringing in Philly over vax cards needed for indoor activities.
Im not with you on us having no reason to be angry at many of the unvaccinated or having no interest in their vaccination choice. They are harming society in much greater ways than people who dont wear seatbelts are. I do think its a little more complicated than “fuck the unvaccinated” and is going to get more complicated in the coming months.
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