COVID Stupid

Renzatic

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This is about us getting back to normal, not protecting the rights of the stupid.

It's not even about protecting rights, rather it's about not capitulating to stupid demands.

Some people need to understand that freedoms are a double edge sword, and apply to others as equally as it applies to themselves. For example, you cannot force anyone to take the vaccine against their will. If you don't want to take it, you don't have to take it. Your body, your right. On the flipside of that, anyone who wants to instate a vaccine mandate at their privately owned business is equally free to do so. Their property, their right. You cannot force them to continue to employ you.

In this free country we find ourselves living in, no one is outright beholden to anyone by default, and anyone who represents a risk or burden to the wellbeing of others will be treated as such.

...I remember when this was a conservative argument.
 

fischersd

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Yet it was these same people who took care of "us" during the early stages of the pandemic putting their lives and their family's lives at risk and we are just saying FU to them. Good luck getting them to help the next time China releases a virus on us.

And let's be real. Is anyone really going to say to a Dr. in an emergency situation "You aren't vaccinated, don't touch me". Are you really willing to die because the Dr. or nurse is not vaccinated? I seriously doubt it. Talk about stupid.
Actually, people won't have to check. Most areas of the world, health professionals won't have jobs if they're not vaccinated. Of course, in 'merica - at least in the red states, it's unlikely you'll enact legislation that would actually protect people.

Love the China bit - you're obviously an avid Fox News watcher.
 

Runs For Fun

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D3799CF7-676F-4192-99BF-1A050D445F6F.jpeg


:ROFLMAO: :ROFLMAO: :ROFLMAO: :ROFLMAO:
 

hulugu

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Interestingly that would be the same proportion to the Americans who believe angels are real. Do we think now that reality is defined by popularity of concepts?:) You’re also totally contradicting yourself, you propose it’s a bubble issue but you also suggest it’s not a bubble issue.

You mean I shouldn’t be concerned about people meeting the minimum requirements of the job they are doing? Do you ask your doctor whether they have a license?

Also, ANSWER: if COVID is bioterrorism isn’t vaccination patriotic?

The fact that a certain segment of the population believes in a theory doesn't prove the theory, rather it illustrates that the GQP's constant iterative propaganda often works. They wanted it to be the fault of China because that was an attempt to insulate the Republican party from its often disastrous response. And, once they discovered that they could use the idea to ding Fauci, who became a target because of his criticism, they pushed even harder.

Certainly, there are good reasons to be suspicious of the Chinese government— and we need to be sure that the lab-borne theory is wrong because understanding how this virus spread is the key to stopping the next one—but much of the effort around the lab-borne theory is disingenuous.

So, of course, a reasonable person who thinks that COVID-19 is an attack would also accept that making the country immune would be a smart strategic goal.

But, it's not a reasonable idea. The people who believe that China attacked us also vehemently fight the vaccine, because they're fundamentally irrational.
 

Renzatic

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Certainly, there are good reasons to be suspicious of the Chinese government— and we need to be sure that the lab-borne theory is wrong because understanding how this virus spread is the key to stopping the next one—but much of the effort around the lab-borne theory is disingenuous.

Right now, the consensus among the intelligence community seems to be split, and among those who do believe it's likely lab borne, they don't believe it was a purposeful attack.

It's less "China created a bioweapon designed to wipe out the western hemisphere", and more "Some Chinese lab was studying a strain of SARS, and they didn't follow basic safety and control protocols."
 
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hulugu

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Right now, the consensus among the intelligence community seems to be split, and among those who do believe it's likely lab borne, they don't believe it was a purposeful attack.

It's less "China created a bioweapon designed to wipe out the western hemisphere", and more "Some Chinese lab was studying a strain of SARS, and they didn't follow basic safety and control protocols."

Right. Even if we accept the lab-borne theory, there's a big difference between a failure of containment and an intentional act. The GQP will insist on the latter, even after the former is proven. And, even if every bit of evidence shows that it's just bad luck, the GQP will push the lab-borne idea because they're fundamentally counter-factual.
 

Roller

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However, what you, I or anyone else on this board thinks is irrelevant.
I wouldn't assume that.

Don't forget, one of the main reasons for me to get vaccinated when I did was so I could visit my mom in an assisted living facility.
That's good — the desire to be physically close to family and friends can be a strong motivator. So, too, can the need to maintain a livelihood. What most troubles us in healthcare is that many of the workers who are refusing vaccination are doing so not for any legitimate reason, but rather because they're being told to. That endangers not only their own health, but that of the people they should care about, including patients. This is largely the result of the poison they're fed by Fox News, where employees are required to be vaccinated. Absent that and other sources of misinformation, and mandates probably wouldn't be needed.
 

SuperMatt

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Right. Even if we accept the lab-borne theory, there's a big difference between a failure of containment and an intentional act. The GQP will insist on the latter, even after the former is proven. And, even if every bit of evidence shows that it's just bad luck, the GQP will push the lab-borne idea because they're fundamentally counter-factual.
Gotta love how people with no degrees in science whatsoever are suddenly “Gain of function” this and “hydroxychloroquine” that. Ask them what gain of function means or show them 4 skeletal formulas and ask them which one is Hydroxychloroquine and none of them will know.
 

SuperMatt

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Freedom has nothing to do with it. If you are traveling and have an accident, is "are you vaccinated" the first question you are going to ask the paramedic?
I count on hospital directors to require vaccines so that when I have an emergency, nobody working there will be unvaccinated and give me a disease. This is EXACTLY why we need mandates for health workers. I don’t get a choice when a paramedic comes for me, so those workers MUST be vaccinated to protect the health of those they serve. If they don’t like it? They’re probably working in the wrong field.

This stance against vaccine mandates is just completely and utterly moronic. If you oppose vaccine mandates, you are pushing for people to die of COVID. You don’t have the freedom to drive drunk because you could hit me with your car. Same exact concept when it comes to safety procedures among healthcare workers.

If you want healthcare workers to have all this freedom to decide which safety measures they take when caring for patients... are you ok with them not wearing a mask in the ER? How about not wearing gloves or washing their hands? Don’t they have the FREEDOM to show up to work in shorts and a t-shirt without having taken a bath for a week, and stick their dirty hands in open wounds?
 
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SuperMatt

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More from Allen West:

https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1447562535113150465/

You know the vaccine only costs about $20 and doesn’t require you to go to the hospital, right? You’d think a “common sense” Republican would know the old adage “an ounce of prevention…”

Instead, you’d rather be hospitalized and taking all manner of treatments over one simple vaccine? This 💩 makes my head hurt.
 

Alli

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Yet it was these same people who took care of "us" during the early stages of the pandemic putting their lives and their family's lives at risk and we are just saying FU to them. Good luck getting them to help the next time China releases a virus on us.
This was my response. ⬇️
First of all we didn't have a good way to combat the virus at the beginning other than PPE. They were pretty much all on the front line with some tinfoil body armor. Now we have an incredibly effective solution but some refuse it. Second (someone correct me if I'm wrong) I'm pretty sure nurses are required to have several other vaccines and had no problem with getting those, but they are against the COVID vaccine because of misinformation and conspiracy bullshit. How stupid. What a strange hill to die on. We are not saying FU to them. Their decision not only affects them, but everyone around them in a very dangerous way. They are saying FU to everyone around them. There are consequences to your actions.
 
U

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The fact that a certain segment of the population believes in a theory doesn't prove the theory, rather it illustrates that the GQP's constant iterative propaganda often works. They wanted it to be the fault of China because that was an attempt to insulate the Republican party from its often disastrous response. And, once they discovered that they could use the idea to ding Fauci, who became a target because of his criticism, they pushed even harder.

Certainly, there are good reasons to be suspicious of the Chinese government— and we need to be sure that the lab-borne theory is wrong because understanding how this virus spread is the key to stopping the next one—but much of the effort around the lab-borne theory is disingenuous.

So, of course, a reasonable person who thinks that COVID-19 is an attack would also accept that making the country immune would be a smart strategic goal.

But, it's not a reasonable idea. The people who believe that China attacked us also vehemently fight the vaccine, because they're fundamentally irrational.

This is going to be longish, but since most of y'all mature I'll drop it here.


To be scientifically sound, the lab leak idea isn't even a theory. It's a hypothesis. It's important to emphasize, because it's totally fine to hypothesize anything, including that COVID may have been a result of a lab leak. Hypotheses are there for testing and if they hold after thorough testing, they become theories. And theories that become proven over and over and over again become facts. Biomedical facts are perhaps the hardest to establish. This is a phenomenon people usually don't care until they are suddenly become impacted. When this happens, they start lashing out on the people tasked to actually overcome these issues, like Anthony Fauci.

The issue with the lab leak hypothesis is that to date, it had not had sufficient supporting evidence to even progress into what I'd consider a theory, yet people like @Herdfan already throw it around like it was a fact and try to weaponize this in a conversation to make a (n insincere) point. The consequence is that people cannot have a mature discussion about this. I was asked about what I think about a lab leak a year ago, and my opinion hasn't changed a lot since:

1) It's not impossible because there are some really weird things about this acute infectious pandemic, such as being perpetuated by asymptomatic carriers. You could hypothesize that such feature could enable an outbreak among lab workers to run undetected until it's way too late.

2) However, RNA viruses can mutate easier due to the less stable genome and if people can believe in the emergence of vaccine-resistant variants they should also easily believe that something can develop through natural evolution.

3) More recent analyses show that the initial epicenter(s) of the outbreak may have been separated in both space and time from the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

4) The fact that evolutionarily intermediate coronavirus strains are found in mammals and the rate of SARS-CoV-2 antibodies in deers inNorth America (vast majority testing positive) for example can indicate how enormous the pool of susceptible animal hosts for this virus and it's not "human specific".

Now, mature adults can discuss these without jumping into conclusions, but children will do what @Herdfan is doing, select aspects that they confirm their ideas, and fully ignore others that contradict those.

I used the verbiage "indirect act of bioterrorism", because it's obvious that COVID-19 served nobody's short-term interests (not even big pharma's, which is a very risk-averse industry). My impression has been that even the right wingers agree with this. The issue is accidental bioweapon production is still bioweapon production. So this is where the next level of dishonesty gets released on us, implying US funding of such research even though there not only absolutely zero evidence that such played a role in COVID. Even better, I've never seen Rand Paul back pedal so quickly when he admitted that his gain-of-function circus has nothing to do with COVID. The soundbites didn't include that for Fox. So we can talk gain-of-function all day long, Rand admitted to have no corroborative evidence to link it to COVID. It's sole purpose was political theatrics.

The only gain-of-function I see is how people who couldn't care less about life-sciences, now gained the ability to mutate any sort of evidence into some Frankenstein's monster of literally toxic confirmation bias.

More from Allen West:

https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1447562535113150465/

You know the vaccine only costs about $20 and doesn’t require you to go to the hospital, right? You’d think a “common sense” Republican would know the old adage “an ounce of prevention…”

Instead, you’d rather be hospitalized and taking all manner of treatments over one simple vaccine? This 💩 makes my head hurt.
Like Allen West. A self-proclaimed fiscal conservative who fails to recognize the cost-efficiency differential between the vaccine and Regeneron (I did the estimate here before, and AFAIR it was >100x more expensive than shots...).
 
U

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First of all we didn't have a good way to combat the virus at the beginning other than PPE. They were pretty much all on the front line with some tinfoil body armor. Now we have an incredibly effective solution but some refuse it. Second (someone correct me if I'm wrong) I'm pretty sure nurses are required to have several other vaccines and had no problem with getting those, but they are against the COVID vaccine because of misinformation and conspiracy bullshit. How stupid. What a strange hill to die on. We are not saying FU to them. Their decision not only affects them, but everyone around them in a very dangerous way. They are saying FU to everyone around them. There are consequences to your actions.
While I agree with this statement, @Herdfan has already achieved his goal here. His goal was to imply that not getting vaccinated is a highly prevalent issue among MDs and RNs. It's not. See this article from a month ago:

It can be startling to read reports of disparate vaccination rates among health workers. In the south or the borough of Staten Island in New York City, for example, there are pockets of health workers who are strongly opposed to vaccination. Vaccine hesitancy tends to be more common among the staff of long-term care facilities, where only 60% of staff is vaccinated. A CDC reportin July found the lowest vaccination rate of health workers was among aides, including certified nursing assistants, nurse aides and medication aides and assistants, at 45.6% – but that figure was as of March, and it’s likely that rate has risen since. (Nursing aides or assistants usually undergo a four- to 12-week training course, while registered nurses receive two- or four-year degrees and must pass a licensing test.)

In contrast, 88% of nurses and 96%* of physicians in the US have already gotten vaccinated or plan to do so, according to surveys by the American Nurses Association and the American Medical Association.

Those with hesitations often said they were waiting for full approval from the Food and Drug Administration, or they weren’t sure about side-effects during pregnancy and breastfeeding, Valdez said
 

Thomas Veil

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Abbott is losing it. Not only is his order moot with regard to federal employees or facilities in Texas (Biden's order overrides it), but I don't see businesses, counties and municipalities standing for this. This is one cigar that's gonna blow up in Abbott's face.
 
U

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Abbott is losing it. Not only is his order moot with regard to federal employees or facilities in Texas (Biden's order overrides it), but I don't see businesses, counties and municipalities standing for this. This is one cigar that's gonna blow up in Abbott's face.
He impresses me like he's been trying to one-up DeSantis but without the strategic thought behind any of it.
 

hulugu

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This is going to be longish, but since most of y'all mature I'll drop it here.


To be scientifically sound, the lab leak idea isn't even a theory. It's a hypothesis. It's important to emphasize, because it's totally fine to hypothesize anything, including that COVID may have been a result of a lab leak. Hypotheses are there for testing and if they hold after thorough testing, they become theories. And theories that become proven over and over and over again become facts. Biomedical facts are perhaps the hardest to establish. This is a phenomenon people usually don't care until they are suddenly become impacted. When this happens, they start lashing out on the people tasked to actually overcome these issues, like Anthony Fauci.



Like Allen West. A self-proclaimed fiscal conservative who fails to recognize the cost-efficiency differential between the vaccine and Regeneron (I did the estimate here before, and AFAIR it was >100x more expensive than shots...).

I meant theory in the colloquial sense, but I think you're right to point out the difference. In fact, I'd go further in saying that they're not even creating hypothesis, but engaging in wild suppositions.

And, you're correct about West.

He refused to take the vaccine, a cheap and viable way to mitigate COVID, and has instead promoted a wide-range of treatments, including Regeneron monoclonal antibody infusion therapy, Budesonide nebulizer treatments, as well as "healthy over the counter therapies" such as zinc, D3, vitamin C, Hydroxychloroquine, Ivermectin.

His wife meanwhile received the vaccine, and is apparently fine.

From any reasonable public policy standpoint, West's entire "treatment" protocol is a risky and expensive proposition. Rather than a $20 shot, he's asking people to take a wide-range of treatments, including a failed prophylactic protocol, so they can then spend even more on treatment, including a multi-day hospital stay.

And, he's still sick, and is currently on blood-thinners.

Moreover, he's arguing that the medical professionals "listened" to him and put him on these treatments, as if they're not part of the evolving standard of care, and haven't been for months.

Lastly, he darkly argued that "I am not a conspiracy theorist but something very nefarious is at work here , and the innocent blood of Texans are on some dirty, corrupt hands. I promise y'all, as Governor of Texas, I will find those hands and ensure they're held accountable."

The reality is that men like West told people to take zinc, and that the medical establishment was untrustworthy, and yet, when push came to shove, they ran to the very people they've attacked and begged for expensive treatments available only to the privileged.

West has always been a ridiculous character. And, COVID-19 didn't change that.
 
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