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Vaccinated Americans now may go without masks in most places, the CDC said

nytimes.com

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Re: Vaccinated Americans now may go without masks in most places, the CDC said

#861

Post by ixacto »

nexuist wrote: post #311
thrwhizzle wrote: post #240

For some people the goalposts are moving faster than the speed of light. The goal was to flatten the curve. Remember that? Flatten. The. Curve. Is the curve not flat? How much flatter do you want it to be before returning to normal life? Do you want literally 0.000% risk?

There is a worryingly large constituency, mostly on Twitter, who believe that any unjust death at all is damning evidence that all of our institutions and economic systems must be destroyed and rebuilt. Of course unjust death is tragic, but it's not an excuse to throw out all of society and start over again. I think many of these people saw mask mandates as that "rebuilding society" step, and to get rid of it so quic…

The individuals on Twitter are an extremist “mob” on both sides of the political spectrum that really has little relevance to larger society, except for politicians and the like who use it for communication.

Follow the science and draw your conclusions for your own life and don’t let the mob bully you, they are living in a world where dogma/politics trumps science [full disclosure that is word choice, I’m independent btw & not a Trump supporter].

I double masked up until 2 weeks after the second mRNA shot (early April), at which time COVID was effectively over for me. If others want to wear masks for years of that makes them feel better that’s totally ok, but the reality is that the pandemic is over for the vaccinated, although I’d get a booster if needed.

Also if we do have to wear masks for another pandemic I absolutely will, but not any longer than needed they really mess with my ability to read facial expressions and communicate.

The political landscape has also changed now so that the government is forced to admit that and now the fully vaccinated can go shopping without masks. It is about damn time. This pandemic has damaged the mental health of the nation but finally rolling back restrictions is the best way to give everyone an end to the pandemic that is in sight.

Re: Vaccinated Americans now may go without masks in most places, the CDC said

#862

Post by totalZero »

greedo wrote: post #741
codingdave wrote: post #636

Earlier quoted context omitted.

36.3% are fully vaccinated. It is great progress. But it is not a majority.

Currently 46.6% of the population. Over 2m/day on average being vaccinated.

NB: codingdave is referring to fully vaccinated individuals, while greedo is referring to individuals with at least one shot. Both are correct.

https://www.mayoclinic.org/coronavirus-covid-19/vaccine-trac...

Re: Vaccinated Americans now may go without masks in most places, the CDC said

#863

Post by totalZero »

throwkeep wrote: post #385
josephcsible wrote: post #254

I find it interesting that the people who screamed "trust/listen to the CDC!" the loudest when the CDC's position was "everyone wear your mask and stay home as much as you can" are now the ones looking hardest for reasons to ignore/downplay/criticize the CDC's guidance.

Because it's a publicly visible political statement and tribal signaling. What the MAGA hat was for the right, the mask is for the left.

Respectfully, I think your suggestion is an exaggeration of reality.

There is perhaps a correlation between masks and political leaning, but there is also cross correlation between those things and higher education, age, race, urban residence, and other confounding variables.

Moreover, I think it's a greater signal to refuse to wear a mask. At least where I live, pretty much everyone goes along with the mask guidance despite a large Republican presence. So if you're simply wearing a mask, there's not much ground to assume anything about your political affiliations.

Re: Vaccinated Americans now may go without masks in most places, the CDC said

#864

Post by herbst »

garmaine wrote: post #775
herbst wrote: post #399

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not entirely true. All the political parties and ideas from back then are gone. The government was replaced completely multiple times and time has changed to the better. IMO the past is not hidden at all in fact we are regularly reminded about all these things, we just embrace our better future.

Are they? There's plenty of far-right parties in Europe, some of which have even entered into governments or came close to it. And in any case the core threat isn't fascism per se, but the darker aspects of human nature which remain unchanged. The USA after all didn't have a fascist government in that time period but nevertheless performed widespread involuntary sterilizations. More relevant to the circumstances unde…

As said I don't think Europeans generally think that way. We are very aware about things that happened, sometimes more sometimes less, but we have a long history we are not always proud of and build our future based on that knowledge.

We do not have, and also never really had, this kind of far right here in Switzerland. Our most right party is very liberal. I think you are generalizing Germany to Europe.

Re: Vaccinated Americans now may go without masks in most places, the CDC said

#865

Post by herbst »

vcavallo wrote: post #665
herbst wrote: post #394

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From and outside perspective this government you are describing is only hard to visualize. For years now voting comes down to the lesser of two evils where everywhere else in the world new parties form and establish new ideas America still has two of them only, kinda. As Swiss it's also far from our understanding what democracy is supposed to be.

There is a political duopoly in this country that has a democracy-murdering stranglehold and barely anyone is aware of it.

Even thought it's the most obvious thing ever. It's really hard to understand as a bystander

Re: Vaccinated Americans now may go without masks in most places, the CDC said

#866

Post by Gene_Parmesan »

kodah wrote: post #810
bb123 wrote: post #448

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’d be pretty careful drawing any conclusions about the mood of the nation from Twitter. The Twitter crowd are very loud and quite extremist but I believe they are small in number. To be honest I’d just avoid Twitter all together. Nothing good comes out of it.

Debating how small or big they are is fruitless when their power and impact via their network effect is palpable. "Avoiding Twitter" and it's collection of extremists (and their followers that signal boost) is not possible. These people have their tweets and reactions in the news, they are constantly quoted on blogs and websites. I'd argue the opposite that you are. Twitter extremists influence the rest of the nation…

If you are someone who is active on Twitter, your thoughts about how important Twitter is are biased by your engagement with it. None of the actual people I know and talk to in real life harbor any sort of extremist views one way or another. Literally none of them ever mention Twitter in daily conversation. (And many of them are software devs.)

IMO their statements are amplified by things like national media because of their extremism; the extremism generates strong feelings (whether positive or negative), and strong feelings leads to more eyes on the media for longer. That doesn't mean the people consuming the media also have those extremist beliefs.

Re: Vaccinated Americans now may go without masks in most places, the CDC said

#867

Post by Gene_Parmesan »

cout wrote: post #607
ptaipale wrote: post #537

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I quite agree, but I think the message from health authorities has also been problematic here: they repeated that "vaccinated individuals will still spread the infection". That is true of course: some vaccinated individuals will still spread the infection because efficacy is not 100 %. But the public has, predictably, got this message wrong: I keep getting told that "vaccinated people will get the infection and sprea…

Yes, that's the confusing bit. In February, the CDC said that those with the vaccine can have asymptomatic infections ( https://web.archive.org/web/20210209162120/https://www.cdc.g... ). The NY Times used the term "silent spreaders". Then in March the CDC's guidance was to continue wearing a mask after vaccination, except in situations where transmission risk was minimal (such as when everyone present has been vaccin…

I don't have a source for you, but my understanding is that the main reason for the change is that very recent studies have shown that people with vaccines and asymptomatic "breakthrough" infections carry a much lower viral load + viral shedding than previously thought. So even those vaccinated people who may have an asymptomatic infection are really at an extremely minimal chance to spread it to anyone else; they just aren't shedding enough virus particles to make the risk high.

Re: Vaccinated Americans now may go without masks in most places, the CDC said

#868

Post by Gene_Parmesan »

tidydata wrote: post #678
iso1210 wrote: post #449

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You post on your website, somebody notices, 'spreaders' race to get faulty quick copy out (better fast than right), gives the conspiracy theorists a headstart as people start looking for more detail. Or you issue an embargoed release, allowing responsible 'spreaders' to get their ducks in a row, and then cometh the hour, cometh the copy-edited verbose well referenced pieces. The latter is far better than the former.

This model gives government the power of choosing who is and is not a “trusted source” and depends on a relationship where those sources report uncritically about the information they are being given. It is also prioritizing which (for-profit) business gets favorable access. From a practicality perspective it makes sense. From a propaganda perspective it’s chilling.

There is really nothing chilling about national media outlets getting a PR a few hours before the PR is made public. Promise.

Re: Vaccinated Americans now may go without masks in most places, the CDC said

#869

Post by Gene_Parmesan »

ceejayoz wrote: post #606
josephcsible wrote: post #254

I find it interesting that the people who screamed "trust/listen to the CDC!" the loudest when the CDC's position was "everyone wear your mask and stay home as much as you can" are now the ones looking hardest for reasons to ignore/downplay/criticize the CDC's guidance.

One must evaluate the consequences of not following a particular piece of advice. If masks work, and you don’t wear one, you are potentially killing people and worsening the pandemic. If they aren’t needed, and you do wear one anyways, no harm has been done.

I'm as pro-science (and progressive) as anyone, but under this logic you would have to wear a mask at all times for the rest of your life. This is just not reasonable. We have dealt with flus and other infections that kill people every year without feeling like we have a moral obligation to prophylactically wear a mask at all times, whether we feel sick or not. At some point the mandate needs to end.

Re: Vaccinated Americans now may go without masks in most places, the CDC said

#870

Post by [deleted] »

Gene_Parmesan wrote: post #868
tidydata wrote: post #678

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This model gives government the power of choosing who is and is not a “trusted source” and depends on a relationship where those sources report uncritically about the information they are being given. It is also prioritizing which (for-profit) business gets favorable access. From a practicality perspective it makes sense. From a propaganda perspective it’s chilling.

There is really nothing chilling about national media outlets getting a PR a few hours before the PR is made public. Promise.

[deleted]
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