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18.7 Million Americans Vaccinated

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Re: 18.7 Million Americans Vaccinated

#431

Post by shytey »

T-hawk wrote: post #405
gruturo wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We are no longer ever allowed to make personal risk management decisions. Your freedom borders with mine - you should be allowed to do EVERYTHING which doesn't affect others without their consent. Ignoring COVID-19 precautionary measures isn't one of those things, and I am happy the joy-destroying authoritarian overlords took that choice from you.

People can't do these things even WITH everyone's consent. What if I and 500 of my friends want to have a comics convention? With everyone fully aware and accepting of any risks? Nope, absolutely not allowed anywhere in the entire damn world. It's right there in the US Constitution. "No law abridging the freedom of the people to peaceably assemble." It does not say "except in case of arbitrarily-declared forever-last…

Are you saying you would like the people in charge to remove all restrictions?

Do you agree that a higher number of people will die if they do this? Are you OK with that?

Re: 18.7 Million Americans Vaccinated

#432

Post by School-Cotton »

gruturo wrote: post #315
rmk wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not arguing that children should be kept out of in-person school. In fact, I'm against it, and was against it even when the pandemic was raging last year. I agree with you that children have been silent victims of schoolteachers' refusal to do in-person school. I do, however, strongly support reasonable precautions including masking and physical distancing, which can be achieved with children (not very young chil…

> I agree with you that children have been silent victims of schoolteachers' refusal to do in-person school What should a schoolteacher do then, die? I'm not going to ask them to do that. They should be put in one of the top priority categories for vaccination, and THEN we can expect them to go in classrooms (but we shouldn't be doing that anyway unless all kids are also vaccinated - otherwise they will keep the viru…

> What should a schoolteacher do then

Why not the same thing a grocery clerk is expected to do? Or do you not consider primary education to be “essential” ?

Re: 18.7 Million Americans Vaccinated

#433

Post by School-Cotton »

shytey wrote: post #431
T-hawk wrote: post #405

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People can't do these things even WITH everyone's consent. What if I and 500 of my friends want to have a comics convention? With everyone fully aware and accepting of any risks? Nope, absolutely not allowed anywhere in the entire damn world. It's right there in the US Constitution. "No law abridging the freedom of the people to peaceably assemble." It does not say "except in case of arbitrarily-declared forever-last…

Are you saying you would like the people in charge to remove all restrictions? Do you agree that a higher number of people will die if they do this? Are you OK with that?

A higher number of people die of the flu and common cold every normal year because we don’t do lockdowns. Are you okay with that? Why or why not?

If not, then you must admit that, _of course_, increasing longevity to the absolute maximum possible extent should not be the only goal of public policy. And then it becomes clear that we’re talking about degrees. How many deaths are worth how much misery, suffering, and lost time among healthy people? Reasonable people can answer that question in different ways, but clearly the answer isn’t “zero”.

Re: 18.7 Million Americans Vaccinated

#434

Post by School-Cotton »

lsiebert wrote: post #215
umvi wrote: post #3

At what number can we stop wearing masks, stop social distancing, start dining in, etc.? That's the number I care about. Because until somebody influential picks that number, we'll just keep masking and social distancing until the end of time.

When there's enough people vaccinated for herd immunity so there isn't community spread. Sadly it didn't have to be this bad. Compare the US to New Zealand.

The US was hit about as hard as most comparable western countries in temperate northern climates. New Zealand is an extreme outlier, in another hemisphere and with a completely different climate, so the comparison isn’t really fair.

Re: 18.7 Million Americans Vaccinated

#435

Post by mbg721 »

T-hawk wrote: post #189
eplanit wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By Springtime (in 45-60 days) we'll be at the one year mark, fatigued by masks, rules, shutdowns, and authoritarians, in general. The news will be tedious about how many are being vaccinated (it will be a lot) -- and, the weather will turn warmer. Then, many/most will say _fuck it_, I'm taking my life back. I'm visualizing that day, and will welcome it.

I said "fuck it, I'm taking my life back" months ago. And then I realized how little that is possible. How are you going to protest your way into a concert that isn't performing? How are you going to demand your way into a university that isn't teaching? How are you going to riot your way into a Disneyland that isn't running? How are you going to force your way into a sports stadium that isn't playing? How are you go…

What that really shows is how much popular culture depends on large organizations which might not agree with you at a given time.

Re: 18.7 Million Americans Vaccinated

#436

Post by Kim_Bruning »

Izkata wrote: post #428
Kim_Bruning wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or ... is it that the restrictions are the thing keeping the hospitals from going over capacity?

You're talking about now, I'm talking about then. We had a ton of extra unused capacity and could have loosened restrictions back then, but didn't. If we had, then maybe people could have handled doing this longer, but we didn't and so people care less and less about following the restrictions.

Ok, so take a look at this data page from Germany, if you mess with the graphs a bit, you'll see new cases drop off around June, in time for summer holidays. Germany chose to reduce restrictions at that time. That's reasonable, right? https://news.google.com/covid19/map?hl=en-IE&mid=%2Fm%2F0345...

So New Zealand was even more successful. By July, they got things well and truly under control: https://news.google.com/covid19/map?hl=en-IE&mid=%2Fm%2F0ctw...

Or take France: https://news.google.com/covid19/map?hl=en-IE&mid=%2Fm%2F0f8l...

All of these are having a bit more trouble with the second wave, Clearly something has changed about the nature of Covid. But you can see them weathering the first wave, and dealing with the second wave. You see how the number of cases drops off to near 0 during summer?

---

This is the USA: https://news.google.com/covid19/map?hl=en-IE&gl=IE&ceid=IE%3...

Take care: that Y axis is much larger than the other examples above.

On June 1 2020 there were still 22000 measured new cases on that day alone. Sure that's a slight drop from the 34000 cases on April 9. But that's not really safe to loosen restrictions, now is it?

(Now we do know that that's an aggregate and some individual states have done better. You can drill down to get that information.)

Re: 18.7 Million Americans Vaccinated

#437

Post by Kim_Bruning »

Izkata wrote: post #428
Kim_Bruning wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or ... is it that the restrictions are the thing keeping the hospitals from going over capacity?

You're talking about now, I'm talking about then. We had a ton of extra unused capacity and could have loosened restrictions back then, but didn't. If we had, then maybe people could have handled doing this longer, but we didn't and so people care less and less about following the restrictions.

Continuing on from my other reply on country scale, we can actually drill down to Illinois and take a look:

https://news.google.com/covid19/map?hl=en-IE&gl=IE&ceid=IE%3...

You can see that restrictions did have clear effects in first and second wave. By June, restrictions had beaten back the virus almost far enough.

You can also see the effect of strong restrictions at the end of November (up to "Tier 3" by Nov 20) : the number of infections is trending back down.

Looks like Illinois is doing a fair job! Thank goodness those extra beds weren't needed.

Re: 18.7 Million Americans Vaccinated

#438

Post by T-hawk »

shytey wrote: post #431
T-hawk wrote: post #405

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People can't do these things even WITH everyone's consent. What if I and 500 of my friends want to have a comics convention? With everyone fully aware and accepting of any risks? Nope, absolutely not allowed anywhere in the entire damn world. It's right there in the US Constitution. "No law abridging the freedom of the people to peaceably assemble." It does not say "except in case of arbitrarily-declared forever-last…

Are you saying you would like the people in charge to remove all restrictions? Do you agree that a higher number of people will die if they do this? Are you OK with that?

Yes, yes, and yes.

People should choose their own risk management decisions, not have a government forcibly do it for them. If you're concerned, you can choose to restrict yourself, but you have no business restricting me and any number of people that mutually wish to interact with me.

Re: 18.7 Million Americans Vaccinated

#439

Post by hsbauauvhabzb »

nradov wrote: post #426
hsbauauvhabzb wrote: post #420

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Overeating and poor exercise only hurts yourself. The difference is that you going to a concert, contracting corona and passing it around our household/workplace may kill somebody completely unrelated to the initial risk vector, how would you feel if your neighbour eating McDonald’s directly affected your health?

Even before coronavirus, going to a concert, contracting influenza and passing it around could have killed someone. Influenza kills thousands every year, asymptomatic transmission is common, and the vaccine is only partially effective. COVID-19 is significantly more deadly but that's just a difference in degree; the same fundamentals still applied. So by your logic apparently concerts shouldn't have ever been permitt…

Corona is substantially more deadly, and long term effects can be permanent, it’s also in addition to the flu. By your logic we should just let corona run it’s course? You’re willing to let others die just so you can see a concert?

Re: 18.7 Million Americans Vaccinated

#440

Post by Izkata »

Kim_Bruning wrote: post #437
Izkata wrote: post #428

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're talking about now, I'm talking about then. We had a ton of extra unused capacity and could have loosened restrictions back then, but didn't. If we had, then maybe people could have handled doing this longer, but we didn't and so people care less and less about following the restrictions.

Continuing on from my other reply on country scale, we can actually drill down to Illinois and take a look: https://news.google.com/covid19/map?hl=en-IE&gl=IE&ceid=IE%3... You can see that restrictions did have clear effects in first and second wave. By June, restrictions had beaten back the virus almost far enough. You can also see the effect of strong restrictions at the end of November (up to "Tier 3" by Nov 20) :…

You continue to ignore the extra hospital capacity that is my entire point for here, but I'll just add - the cases started dropping Nov 16, days before the new restrictions went into place. If it was the new restrictions having an effect, they shouldn't have started dropping until somewhere around Dec 5.
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