Sometimes I feel like reading this board is not anywhere consistent with the real world. At least not the real world I live in. Maybe because it’s pretty much the same people who continue to post.
People here are living there lives Mostly people wear masks inside but not all, and I’m not afraid of them.
Very few if any wear their masks outside. The people who are most afraid stay home. The rest of us live our lives with some precautions.
I don’t really care if people I encounter or associate with are vaccinated or not. I really don’t feel that the unvaccinated are any more risky to others than a break through case of a vaccinated individual. They may be more at risk to themselves. I pray they don’t get sick. If they do get sick, I pray for a speedy recovery. If they do require hospitalization I pray they get the care they need and in my opinion also deserve.
I’ve spent the last two weekends at weddings and it was great to see some family I haven’t seen in 2 years. We hugged, we laughed, we danced and we sang. I flew through several airports. I hope no one gets sick but I know it’s a possibility.
I believe Covid is endemic. Our numbers are going down at the moment but I’m pretty convinced they will go up again in a few months. I think this site and thread definitely attracts those who are most afraid of the virus. That’s ok. We all have to live within our own comfort levels. In my world that does not include “excluding” others from participating in society.
Of course it is! You don’t have the right to any job, public or private. You have to follow the rules set by your employers, be they a dress code or hours you need to be there or making personal phone calls from your desk (if they give you a desk). As an employee, you have very few demands you can make. You accept the conditions or you find a different job or work for yourself. There are some protections like minimum wage, working conditions, safety rules and protections, but for the most part you work at the pleasure of your employer and if the employer requires masks or vaccinations, you comply or you can’t work there.
I’m not sure what you are talking about. Tons of people get tested without actually thinking they are positive for covid. People who are undergoing surveillance testing for example. People who have been told that they are marginally close contacts to positive people, even though they have no symptoms, still go to get tested. Some responsible people just go weekly to get tested (in my state, our governor has asked people in contact-facing professions to just get weekly tests), people about to travel or do something that requires a negative test get tested, people about to visit elderly loved ones get tested, college kids in programs often get tested 1-3 x per week without having symptoms, etc etc. The vast majority of people getting tested do not actually suspect that they currently have covid, they are just being cautious and/or responsible. Are you thinking that because positivity rates might be, say, 5%, that 95% of people who think they have covid symptoms are wrong??? That’s just not right. But separate from that, yes, there are LOADS of people who have tested twice positive for covid. My niece, multiple friends, etc. Plus, one unfortunate person i know had covid, then vaxxed, then covid. So yes, the vaccine isn’t foolproof, neither is natural immunity, and unfortunately, neither is both!!!
Let us know when you receive your health insurance premium renewal, @bhs. I am interested in your reaction
Actually, I think this board pretty much reflects the real world, at least in polling numbers. There is a very slim majority that prefers vaccine mandates and a fair majority that has been fully vaccinated, similar to what I see on this board.
@bluebayou, I love the WSJ’s reporting (I have subscribed for many years) but their Editorial Board is run by troglodytes as far as I can tell and their Op-Ed articles are typically right wing talking points. On areas on which I’m knowledgeable, they tend to present very slanted arguments that don’t acknowledge other, often strong, counter-arguments or start with flawed assumptions (and some folks like Holman Jenkins just seem dumb). Occasionally I find something enlightening there, but usually I have cognitive dissonance (how can such a great newspaper have such a propagandistic Editorial/Op-ED page?).
I’m not capable of evaluating the legal arguments but for the above reasons I tend to view Opinion pieces in the WSJ with skepticism. The fact that their medical source is a controversial guy who wrote a WSJ Op-Ed piece in March saying we’d have herd immunity in April is not a strong recommendation. He’s a surgeon and not a virologist or epidemiologist or specialist in infectious diseases who by some accounts has useful things to say about surgery and hospital organization. Did a quick search and he is also against indoor mask mandates that include vaccinated folks.
Incidentally, I’m not disrespecting all WSJ OpEd pieces. I’ve published a few that were not politically oriented (so they must have been good) although when I submitted one with political content, they didn’t publish it.
Yes, but try to reason with someone who has drunk the Kool-Aid and will not believe anything other than the nonsense they spout.
Interesting response. I’m not sure what this means in relation to any of my posts but I’ll bite. I just got my health insurance renewal and I can say pretty confidently that I pay less than you do. I’m not the least concerned about it going up next year either.
So, what exactly does what I pay for insurance have to do with my post?
Not trying to be contrary, really just want to know.
Those of us paying a fortune for health insurance who are about to see premiums skyrockets due to the medical costs of covid are less sympathetic to the unvaxxed who are largely responsible for those costs.
That good ole natural immunity. 
“Unfortunately, he didn’t want to get vaccinated. He wanted to get the Covid so he could build immunities and his wish came true about a month ago,” said Wollenweber in a telephone interview with CNN.
https://www.cnn.com/2021/09/21/us/george-holliday-rodney-king-video-obit-trnd/?hpt=ob_blogfooterold
In traditional broadsheet newspapers like The Wall Street Journal and many others, the editorials and opinions are in their own separate section, since they are quite different from the reporting (the difference between reporting what is found versus promoting the writer’s opinion). Perhaps that is because their target reader wants such a clear delineation, in that they want to know what is actually happening without being filtered through an opinion, unless they turn to the opinion pages because they want to read someone’s opinion on it.
Other media, including television news and social media, often blur the distinction between reporting and opinions, perhaps because their target markets are not so picky about reporting versus opinion. Even with traditional newspapers’ web sites, it is somewhat less obvious what is reporting and what is opinion, since the “separate section for editorials and opinions” is less obvious, to the point that some people on these forums post links to opinions from newspapers’ web sites as “articles” rather than “opinions”. But that means that it is easy to pass off opinions as news to many naive media consumers. And that is what has been going on with COVID-19, help along by the fact that so much about COVID-19 is unknown (and what is known has been changing rapidly), so it is easy for opinion pushers to “fill in the blanks” with speculation that may or may not be true, but is taken as truth by their naive believers.
Other than not being willing to work at school while Covid is still a thing (classrooms with many unmasked, unvaxxed students), we’re living our lives pretty much as we did prior to Covid. We’ve traveled across the country (and back) and more. Soon we’ll be going to see our newest Grandkitties again. They live with Medical lad.
We avoid crowded times at stores and restaurants or get take out, but… we did that before Covid too. I’ve been telling people I have a crowd allergy for many years.
Prior to vaxxes we masked from near the beginning, as soon as masking was suggested. Now we mask if asked or if a fair number of others are too. If not, we don’t bother. (When in Rome…) We trust our vaxxes. And soon we’ll likely get boosters.
All that said, I still want essentially everyone to get vaxxed and look down upon those who don’t knowing they are putting others or even themselves at risk.
I don’t text or use substances while driving either, and I look down upon those who do knowing they are putting lives at risk. Same deal as Covid vaxxes to me.
It may have to do with seeing too much of the aftermath of both when things go wrong and knowing it all could have been prevented. Survivors didn’t have to lose their loved ones, esp innocent survivors.
I’m pretty comfortable with my level of sympathy for all. I would never, and could never wish ill will on the unvaccinated. I don’t wish them poor health, I don’t wish them death and I don’t advocate withholding health care. Even if my health care premiums go up.
There are subsets of people that are affecting the greater good with their choices that are in fact causing me to pay increased taxes in subsidies and entitlements. I can not specify sub groups as that starts to get political. But I would not and could never wish them poor health, illness, death or advocate with holding health care.
I’m not going to pick and choose. But, Hey, that’s just me. I sleep well at night.
You may be sympathetic, but you are also enabling. I have less sympathy but more regard for adults’ ability to make the right decision when properly incentivized
Incentivized or punished?
I’m enabling nobody. They get to make their own choice. My opinion and my not advocating withholding health care, I can assure you, has no bearing on anyone else’s decision.
Yup. Which is why I vote for every union I can, even though I grew up in unionland in the 70s and know what kind of hell unions can bring.
They’re considerably more risky in that they’re much more likely to be covid+ and contagious. About 5x more likely, with delta. Going into a room full of unvaccinated people is about 5 times riskier than going into a room full of vaccinated people. Hugging an unvaccinated person is five times riskier than hugging an unvaccinated person.
An enormous study just came out saying that about 40% of people who contract covid are still struggling with symptoms months later. A much smaller study came out recently saying that vaccination appears to drop the long-covid risk by about half. That still leaves a substantial risk of continuing health problems from getting covid.
The takeaway: it’s not time to ditch your mask or start hanging around in large crowds or spending lots of time indoors with lots of unmasked people of undetermined vax status. Not unless you don’t know why to fear chronic health problems, including trouble breathing, thinking, and staying on your feet, and chronic pain. And not unless you’ve given careful thought to who’s going to be taking care of you and supporting you if you can’t go on working and living as you do as a result, and had some conversations with those people about their feelings about turning over their lives to that work because you decided you wanted to live free. If someone else is going to be your caregiver if you gamble and lose, it seems to me only right that they should have some voice in that gamble.
I meet an awful lot of people for whom “risk assessment” and “optimism” are mutually exclusive. But I think that’s a misunderstanding of what risk assessment is.
I guess I now fall under the vaccine hesitant/reluctant….
Myself, my family and most people whom I have chosen to have in my life are vaccinated. We all did it as quickly as possible. So, we’re coming up on the magical 6 or 8 month marker where some will official qualify for a booster. And, given the abundant supply of vaccine, anyone who really has a bug in their bonnet can easily talk their way into receiving a booster.
But…I’m going to hold off and I’m encouraging those closest to me to seriously take a breath and a pause before storming ahead with boosters.
Here’s why.
Original Antigenic Sin (OAS). Those with impressive letters after their names – working for institutions which garner homage and reverence on CC are looking into this issue. And they are asking questions. Do the current vaccines induce an immune system response which then predisposes the immune system to NOT respond effectively to the ongoing COVID variants.
It’s an unknown…and could go either way…you could wind up with better immunity with the vaccines/boosters…or you could be setting yourself up for low resistance to all variants in the future…
‘In the case of Covid, some scientists are concerned that the immune system’s reaction to the vaccines being deployed now could leave an indelible imprint, and that next-generation products, updated in response to emerging variants of the SARS-CoV-2, won’t confer as much protection.
Michael Worobey, who was been involved in groundbreaking research on imprinting with influenza, said he worries the responses to first-generation Covid-19 vaccines will prove to be “a high-water mark” for people’s immune responses to these inoculations.”
But not everyone thinks it will be a problem…from the same article…
‘Vineet Menachery is a coronavirus expert at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, one of the smallish community of researchers who were studying coronaviruses before the Covid-19 pandemic hit. He noted that the SARS-2 spike protein — the protein that projects from the virus’ surface, giving it the appearance of wearing a crown — doesn’t have as much wiggle room to change as the hemagglutinin proteins that sit atop of flu viruses.’
‘We hypothesize that updated vaccines against SARS-CoV-2 variants might primarily boost ‘imprinted’ immune responses to conserved regions of the Spike protein to the detriment of new neutralizing responses to antigenically altered sites within new variants. We argue that this ‘updated strain’ vaccine strategy can still yield partial efficacy against the new variants, particularly for vaccines that induce potent neutralizing responses. However, robust long-term control of COVID-19 may require the development of strategies that avoid primarily boosting imprinted immune responses and instead focus neutralizing antibody immunity on the novel RBD epitopes evolving in emerging VOC.’
So I think I’m going to sit out this round for a bit…….But clearly we need an official designator for those ‘orignally vaxxed’…but now are ‘anti-vax’. Need to know whom to denigrate and whom to elevate!
Meh. Don’t discount the importance of academic politics in debates like this: Mr. Imprinting has a whole research career/program/funding base built on his theory, which is still very much in “interesting theory” territory. Making a stir now amps “more research is needed,” and what academic doesn’t like the grants that show up from a convincing MRIN sally. I don’t think it’s particularly responsible of him.
I’d look first to Israel’s experience. I expect they read his papers there, too.
Same goes with the mandates.
Yes. People who have great plans (such as those through the fed, state, and local gov’ts and very large companies) don’t see the hurt the way those who have small group plans or individual plans that aren’t subsidized by the ACA. And yes, I know not all state and municipal plans are great, but on the whole they are a LOT better than the individual and small group plans. And while the total cost of the governmental plans isn’t low, most people have no idea because their employer is covering a large part of the premiums. And the benefits are almost always better.