How has the coronavirus affected your personal life?

[Ulu]

I walked into my local vons to get hot pockets, and they said I could get my first dose. But that’s in California.

Yeah, we're way behind other places on vaccinating but then we have no covid.

California is not Rhode Island. There’s a lot of different places here with a lot of different situations. We have seven major metropolitan areas and a lot of small isolated towns too.

Here, we also evidently cornered the market on vaccines. I could walk one block down the street and get a shot right now in five minutes if I wanted to. I understand that if you live in Santa Clara, Santa Barbara, San Jose (the very wealthy coastal communities) you would have to wait longer.

Personally I wanted to wait at least a year after this roll out to see how people are doing before I decided to take it, because I’ve been exposed to people with Covid and have not become sick. I just don’t think I’m highly susceptible for a number of reasons, including the fact that I have been continually taking zinc and vitamins which act as a prophylactic.



The town where I live has been very lucky. Part of it is the high standard of living and the concern in general for health. In the next town over things are rather worse.

People are taking the vaccines but by and large the general health is not as good and they are suffering more because of that.

This is an area where people do get respiratory distress from working in dusty farm conditions or on construction. My brother-in-law died from a fungal lung infection called valley fever. He grew up poor in farm country and spent his whole life as an Ag teacher, & in a greenhouse.

I think that is a huge factor in who gets sick with Covid and who is not. The factor of exposure and pre-existing conditions outweighs everything else in my mind at least half the time.

 

[dogofwar]

I'm mainly reacting to the perpetuation of false information.

What should be our collective level of tolerance for misinformation targeted at discouraging people from taking an action that could save their lives and - more importantly to me - not placing my children, immune-suppressed friends and community at risk?

As with other issues in which science agrees (e.g. the existence, human contribution and dire threat of climate change), too often we frame this as a "both sides" issue. As if there is legitimate scientific disagreement. Which there's not.

This John Oliver bit (warning bad language) really brings this point home:

Vaccination...like everything else in life...is indeed a gamble, but the odds are so overwhelmingly in your favour of getting a good result that it is a pretty safe bet. I really think many people use the idea that it is dangerous simply because they just need to argue and can't come up with anything more plausible to bolster their side of the debate.

This isn't an extreme perspective. I really am trying to see the validity on both sides, and admitting that there is some on both sides. Bear in mind that I have made my choice, I am already fully vaccinated; I am in your camp, so to speak. I weighed the minute risks posed by the vaccination against the greater risks posed by the virus and made what I believe to be the obvious, logical choice.

"Extreme" would be categorically stating that one's own side is absolutely, completely correct in all aspects, and that the opposing side is completely wrong. "Extreme" would be pointing at someone (i.e. me) who agrees with you and has followed the same course as you, but implying that my commitment isn't absolute (which, of course, it isn't) so I'm still not correct. "Extreme" would be deciding that some particular source of information is the ultimate Holy Grail of Truth and everything else is worthless.

In this thread, who has been and continues to be extreme? I'm pretty sure it's not me. I enjoy a spirited debate as much as the next guy and more than most, but I'm not getting into this one; debates often run their course after all the arguments are presented. After that they just become shouting matches with the same old stuff repeated and reworded. No fun in that. You two fellows are doing a fine job of updating "Who's on first?" Carry on!

 

[dogofwar]

The strain of COVID to which you're exposed (along with pre-existing conditions) are the main factors. The Delta variant is no joke.

Studies to date suggest the Delta variant is between 40 and 60 percent more transmissible than the Alpha variant first identified in the U.K.—which was already 50 percent more transmissible than the original viral strain first detected in Wuhan, China.

“It is the most hypertransmissible, contagious version of the virus we’ve seen to date, for sure—it’s a superspreader strain if there ever was one,” says Eric Topol, a professor of molecular medicine and an executive vice president at the Scripps Research Institution. The U.S. is poorly prepared, he says. Less than half of the nation’s population is fully vaccinated—and that number is much lower in some states, particularly in the South and Mountain West. “We’ve been warned three times by the U.K.,” Topol says, referring to previous surges in early 2020 and last winter. “This time is the third warning.”

How Dangerous Is the Delta Variant, and Will It Cause a COVID Surge in the U.S.?

A new, more transmissible form of SARS-CoV-2 is rapidly spreading in the country and poses a threat to unvaccinated and partially vaccinated people

www.scientificamerican.com

I think that is a huge factor in who gets sick with Covid and who is not. The factor of exposure and pre-existing conditions outweighs everything else in my mind at least half the time.

 

[jjohnwm]

Well, you know what they say: Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but nobody is entitled to their own facts. The question really boils down to separating facts from gobbledygook. Sorry, I just don't know if I can trust "Bill Nye, the Science Guy" as an unimpeachable source of date.

I like to hold off on my own decision-making until I get the real truth from Rick Sanchez; the dude sounds like he knows what he is talking about...

 

[dogofwar]

Fortunately, Bill Nye isn't the source of the research supporting the overwhelming scientific support for cc. He's just a mouth piece. But my point is that Bill Nye + 96 scientists on one side of the "debate" and 3 people on the other is a better representation of reality (vs. one on one side and one on the other).

Matt

Well, you know what they say: Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but nobody is entitled to their own facts. The question really boils down to separating facts from gobbledygook. Sorry, I just don't know if I can trust "Bill Nye, the Science Guy" as an unimpeachable source of date.

I like to hold off on my own decision-making until I get the real truth from Rick Sanchez; the dude sounds like he knows what he is talking about...

 

[Ulu]

On the TV I hear that if I don’t take the vaccine, that automatically makes me a “Covid spreader.” Criminal, really. I should probably be locked up for public safety.

The jails and prisons are already full of Covid but this crazy woman on TV wants to send me there when she thinks I’m a spreader?

It started me wondering, should we lock up all the people that have aids? Other physical illnesses?

Obviously we don’t lock up mentally ill people anymore. We have a whole entertainment industry devoted to putting people who act mentally ill up on stage for entertainment. Like this woman who cursed me to a fiery eternity for not being vaccinated.

People became so used to this that they don’t realize we are all being encouraged to go nuts. And, hey, you can always blame it on the Covid crisis or the climate crisis or toxic masculinity or feminism or excess whiteness or excess blackness or excess drinking or TV or consumption of processed foods, ad naseum.

Crazy people often spend their money like water. Our media is very busy trying to show them all how to spend.

This is really a subject for a new thread about mental health and the health industry.

Just for the record, I have never counseled anyone against taking the vaccine. I am only thinking about my personal medical history in this matter.

Finally, is there some test that determines whether I am a spreader? I understand people are often afraid to trust you when you tell them you have had the vaccine. They want to see a document and so now there is a new industry in forged documents.

So the document is not trustworthy either.

I see some mandatory test in our future.

“You must be taller than Mickey to ride the Jungle Bus, now just breathe into the machine…”

 

[Ulu]

. . . What should be our collective level of tolerance . . .

Well we locked up people in prison camps just for being Japanese so I say any “collective” level of tolerance is highly suspect in every case. In fact it is a manipulated number and rarely subject to the truth.

Anyhow, we are not a collective with a collective consciousness or a collective level of anything. It’s a dog-eat-dog world dude.

We are not the freaking Borg!

The fact that civilization conceals this fact under a thin patina of formalized civility does nothing to restrain it. Take 90% of the toilet paper out of Walmart, and you will see how much collective consciousness rules.

People telling you to take the vaccine for your own health and the health of all humanity would often have enough concern for your personal health to put you in jail with a bunch of Covid cases and murderers, if you disagree.

 

[jjohnwm]

Well we locked up people in prison camps just for being Japanese so I say any “collective” level of tolerance is highly suspect in every case. In fact it is a manipulated number and rarely subject to the truth.

Anyhow, we are not a collective with a collective consciousness or a collective level of anything. It’s a dog-eat-dog world dude.

We are not the freaking Borg!

The fact that civilization conceals this fact under a thin patina of formalized civility does nothing to restrain it. Take 90% of the toilet paper out of Walmart, and you will see how much collective consciousness rules.

People telling you to take the vaccine for your own health and the health of all humanity would often have enough concern for your personal health to put you in jail with a bunch of Covid cases and murderers, if you disagree.

Yep. Tens of thousands of years of developing civilization...maybe a week or two without food, a day or two without water, and pffffft!...so much for society.

 

[dogofwar]

As someone who is not vaccinated, you do risk spreading COVID (and getting it, of course) unless you're wearing a mask around other people. That's a fact and why the CDC recommends that people who aren't vaccinated should continue to wear masks in many situations: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/prevent-getting-sick/cloth-face-cover-guidance.html

The reason that we don't have a mandate either for vaccination or for vaccine passports (i.e. official cards) - as they do in other countries - is that we depend on people - like you - who have chosen not to be vaccinated to follow voluntary rules.

Our society creates laws when people can't voluntarily do the right thing.

On the TV I hear that if I don’t take the vaccine, that automatically makes me a “Covid spreader.” Criminal, really. I should probably be locked up for public safety.

The jails and prisons are already full of Covid but this crazy woman on TV wants to send me there when she thinks I’m a spreader?

It started me wondering, should we lock up all the people that have aids? Other physical illnesses?

Obviously we don’t lock up mentally ill people anymore. We have a whole entertainment industry devoted to putting people who act mentally ill up on stage for entertainment. Like this woman who cursed me to a fiery eternity for not being vaccinated.

People became so used to this that they don’t realize we are all being encouraged to go nuts. And, hey, you can always blame it on the Covid crisis or the climate crisis or toxic masculinity or feminism or excess whiteness or excess blackness or excess drinking or TV or consumption of processed foods, ad naseum.

Crazy people often spend their money like water. Our media is very busy trying to show them all how to spend.

This is really a subject for a new thread about mental health and the health industry.

Just for the record, I have never counseled anyone against taking the vaccine. I am only thinking about my personal medical history in this matter.

Finally, is there some test that determines whether I am a spreader? I understand people are often afraid to trust you when you tell them you have had the vaccine. They want to see a document and so now there is a new industry in forged documents.

So the document is not trustworthy either.

I see some mandatory test in our future.

“You must be taller than Mickey to ride the Jungle Bus, now just breathe into the machine…”

 

[skjl47]

I'm mainly reacting to the perpetuation of false information.

What should be our collective level of tolerance for misinformation targeted at discouraging people from taking an action that could save their lives and - more importantly to me - not placing my children, immune-suppressed friends and community at risk?

As with other issues in which science agrees (e.g. the existence, human contribution and dire threat of climate change), too often we frame this as a "both sides" issue. As if there is legitimate scientific disagreement. Which there's not.

This John Oliver bit (warning bad language) really brings this point home:

Hello; The video did indeed have some very bad language, the sort banned from this site by the rules. But you posted it anyway. It is not my place to make a decision about your judgement in posting this, that is for the mods. In a way I would like to see them loosen up some, but since I have been punished in the past when I was being civil and within the rules I do not figure I could get away with doing such a thing.

Also this is about climate change in a thread about Covid19. It was a bit of theater to be sure. I even get the implication which seems to be the more people you have on your side then the closer to the truth you must be sort of reasoning.
I use to tell my students that no matter how small it may be the truth is still the truth. I used a few examples of past popular consensus.
One was how most everybody at a point in the past believed the earth was flat. The much smaller number of people who questioned this turned out to be correct.

The other was the heliocentric versus the geocentric view of the solar system. Some of the very early scientist astronomers who figured the earth was not the center of things were told they were wrong. One even had to face the inquisition with a threat against his life. Almost all the established "scientists" of the day spoke out against the notion the sun was the center of what turned out to be a small solar system. When the retrograde motion of Mercury did not fall into place with the earth centered notion there were very complicated attempts to build models to help explain it away. Lots of fiddley bits trying to make Mercury behave and go around the earth. Mercury never did comply and eventually most accepted the sun as the center of the small solar system.

There is a difference between us. I try to present my ideas and points with the understanding it is OK to question. Over time my take is it has not been a committee of scientists who figure out some new concept or intuit a new truth, rather it is most often an individual who makes a leap of understanding.

That I figure the vaccines are some degree of a gamble is not misinformation, but a way of looking at things realistically. Too many examples of problems with medications have shown up. Medications which went thru the full testing routines and were certified for use by the FDA, not just with an emergency use allowance as the vaccines currently have. There is a reason the vaccines are still under emergency use rules.