Have you been vaccinated for COVID-19?

[Roxxsmom]

Here's a Scientific American article from April on the stunning drop in flu cases in the first year of the Covid pandemic. One interesting tangent is the flu vaccines are developed off of the previous year's virus, and because of such limited circulation, last year's may not have had the chance to mutate much, making this year's vaccines more effective.

"Because each year’s flu vaccine is based on strains that have been circulating around the world during the past 12 months, it is unclear how the upcoming 2021–2022 vaccine will fare should the typical patterns of infection return. The WHO made its flu strain recommendations in late February as usual, but they were based on far fewer cases than normal. Yet with less virus circulating, there is a reduced chance of mutation, so the upcoming vaccine could be especially effective."

Here's hoping! Imagine if we had a flu surge alongside Covid's next variants. Nightmare stuff, especially for those who live where they haven't had widespread access to the Covid vaxxes yet.

That's an interesting hypothesis.

I've been wondering how social distancing, masking etc. did so much better at halting the flu than they did Covid, aside from Covid being much more contagious (possibly), even before the delta variant. It makes sense that with less opportunity for influenza A to mutate this past year, the vaccines would work better. Also, residual immunity from last year's flu might be greater. Most people don't get flu shots, so this might even be a bigger reason for last year's influnza being so light.

It is worrying, though, if the flu begins to mutate briskly again, and there is less immunity than normal next year, since so few got it this year. And folks without access to covid shots probably don't have access to flu shots either.

Wishing your husband the best! I've heard that a third booster can be helpful for people on immune suppressing drugs. I think my mom should get a third dose too, since she's on all kind of meds, some for her autoimmune disease. I haven't heard that anyone has recommended this to her yet, though.

 

[MaeZe]

Given influenza is a worldwide pathogen, it probably had plenty of opportunities to mutate.

We don't base the vaccine on last year's strain, by the way. We base it on what is circulating in the opposite hemisphere every six months. Influenza is monitored worldwide from what are called sentinel sites. In Jan. production starts in the northern hemisphere based on what has been sampled in the southern hemisphere and in June the opposite occurs.

Production starts in Jan and June so that is almost a year ahead because some strains are harder to manufacture vaccine from than others. Other components of the vaccine are started later.

The WHO holds the vaccine stocks and determines what the vaccine composition will be every six months. And we all use the same viral strains for vaccine production be it the EU or the US in the north and be it Australia or Brazil in the south.

One reason for COVID 19 being so hard to stop is we are for the most part universally susceptible. With influenza that fluctuates in kind of a rolling wave. So some people are less susceptible than others given the cross-reaction antibodies and our variable immune systems. I think about ten percent of the US population would normally on average get influenza every year. The 2009 new variant was an exception because it was the result of a recombinant event (a shift) as opposed to a mutant variant event (drift).

I would say the biggest thing that stopped influenza this year was the closed schools. School children are one of the main vectors of respiratory viruses.

But we may find out from this experience that we need to rethink droplet spread pathogens. In particular having the infected person wear the mask made a huge difference from what I have seen in the research.

And I hope if we do nothing else, could we please stop shaking hands!

 

[Albedo]

In Australia we're at about 11% fully vaccinated, which is pretty low compared to similar countries except NZ. It's picking up a lot now, but the failure's shameful. Some of the politicisation around it has really got me down, tbh: one particular vaccine targeted at old people has been undermined by elements on both sides of politics, to the point that I, as a vaccine provider, am expending vast reserves of energy trying to reassure people they're not going to die from the Oxford AZ vaccine, often failing, when I could just be giving the damn thing. Meanwhile, our mostly un-vaxxed population means we're critically vulnerable to outbreaks still, and first Sydney and now three whole states have gone back down into harsh lockdown. I'm at the end of my tether wrt people who want to 'wait for Pfizer', even while others who waited are being ventilated prone in ICUs all the fuck right over again. Feeling honestly unmoored, discombobulated, and at a loss how we got here, but I know the only way out is to vaccinate, vaccinate, and vaccinate.

 

[MaeZe]

Fox News is having a come to science moment. Hannity of all people is telling viewers to get vaccinated. When you can see the stark difference between vaccinated and unvaccinated in hospital admissions it's hard to dismiss the vaccine as some experimental drug.

 

[Friendly Frog]

Would be nice if the flu was weak next year, people forget it kills people every year too.

Yeah, it's frightening how many do not and will not have access to vaccines, COVID's or otherwise.

Vaccination campaigns have been a stalwart part of my charity donations for years now and it always felt a little bit like helping but now it just feels like a drop on an unforgiving ocean. Because it won't just be the COVID vaccines that will suffer from the misinformation and this is something that will hinder vaccination efforts for years to come. It's so galling. Do people who peddle the anti-vax scaremongery really want people to suffer or die? I don't get it. I just don't.

 

[Introversion]

Do people who peddle the anti-vax scaremongery really want people to suffer or die? I don't get it. I just don't.

I don't personally know any anti-vaxxers, so can't say for sure. But I doubt they want that?

The problem is that they're trusting very wrong sources of information. The reasons those sources do it vary all over the map. "Misleading on purpose to cause Western countries to fall into dysfunction" is a thing that people apparently are paid to do. So is, "Proclaiming a thing to be true (or false) because it hurts people whose politics we disagree with." And those are doubtless the root sources.

But many people who spread that disinformation are just part of a long chain, where their friends and relatives believe what they say because they're friends and relatives. I'm pretty sure that's how must people resistant to being vaccinated for COVID arrived there? Not because they directly drank from the Russian propaganda spigot, or the Fox News / OANN / Breitbart spigot, but because Uncle Bob said it and they like and trust Uncle Bob? "I hear people say that..." is how a lot of people seem to begin their anti-vax justifications. But those justifications don't conclude with, "and therefore I want people to die". They end with, "and that's why I think that people will die from the vaccine / their genetics will be screwed with by the vaccine / they'll be more infectious with the vaccine / COVID's no worse than flu / I can't be hurt by COVID." And keep in mind, most people are not able to understand scientific arguments for why those conclusions are nonsense. At least, not in the US -- we're barely literate and largely innumerate, to say nothing of how poorly science-educated most Americans are.

I dunno what to do about that. Just don't. The solutions usually seem to devolve into, "We need a better-educated humanity." Well, yes, and good effing luck with that.

 

[Roxxsmom]

I would say the biggest thing that stopped influenza this year was the closed schools. School children are one of the main vectors of respiratory viruses.

But we may find out from this experience that we need to rethink droplet spread pathogens. In particular having the infected person wear the mask made a huge difference from what I have seen in the research.

And I hope if we do nothing else, could we please stop shaking hands!

This makes sense, though closing schools certainly didn't stop covid in its tracks. I know there is still scientific debate over the role kids and schools play in spreading Covid, but it never made a lot of sense to me that this particular virus would somehow magically spare children (who are generally little germ factories who bring everything from colds to norovirus home to their families every year), and teens, even if they tend to experience milder symptoms when infected.

The American Society of Pediatrics recently ruled that everyone should be masked in schools for the foreseeable future, which sucks (I can't even imagine how I could teach a class while masked, as it's hard to understand folks wearing masks even when they're standing right next to you, let alone speak over background noise to a room of people). But if this is the best alternative to keeping schools closed indefinitely, then so be it. One benefit, I suppose, of this pandemic is that it's shown how inadequate online education is overall, especially for kids (but it's not equivalent to in person at the college level either, at least not for the kinds of classes I teach). Hopefully those advocating the replacement of classrooms and teachers with computers will retreat to their caves for a while.

The former Surgeon General has stated that he believes the CDC removed the masking indoors mandate (for vaccinated people) too soon in the hopes that it would encourage more people to get vaccinated, but this clearly hasn't worked. Sadly, in the US, a significant number of people are not going to get vaccinated. Period. And given the nature of our society, it is impossible to force them to do so and provide proof, except for (possibly) if they are going to attend colleges (a recent court ruling upheld at least one public university vaccine mandate, though one wonders if allowing religious and ethical exemptions doesn't render this useless) or travel.

So (sigh) masks are probably going to be in our future for a while still indoors, at least in settings where there are possibly unvaccinated people mixed in.

I'm curious about hand shaking and disease spread, though. Has there ever been a study into its significance? I know fomites are now considered less significant in spreading Covid, at least, though they may play a greater role in other respiratory viruses. I've never worried much about hand shaking myself, because I am meticulous about hand washing before eating and doing other things that involve my hands touching my eyes/nose/mouth. Perhaps for this reason, I have not experienced a "stomach flu" type virus since I was a young child, even living in a dorm where it broke out once (and in those days, no one talked about noro or took cleanup/disinfection of the environment at all seriously). With covid, wouldn't the greater risk be the fact that you are face to face with the person with whom you are shaking hands?

I'd personally hate to see us evolve into a society where all physical contact is taboo, though.

As a college instructor, I have been aware (especially during influenza outbreaks) for years how close you have to get to students when teaching, especially in lab classes. They need me to come to their stations and look through their microscopes or look at their set ups, while they hover over my shoulder breathing on me (sometimes when they are snorting and snuffling with a cold or worse). And some people do want to stand right on top of you when having a conversation, though the large amount of background noise in classrooms may be part of the reason for this. One thing about this pandemic is it might at least raise awareness of the importance of masking and courteous social distancing when ill. It won't feel so "uptight" to ask someone to stand back and give me some space in these situations.

 

[Lyv]

If you were vaccinated, but were also just told to self-isolate and get tested because you were in a location where there has been a big outbreak, with a lot of breakthrough cases, during a specific timeframe, would you warn your cleaners or assume that since they're going into people's homes regularly, they know they're at risk? Personally, I would have paid them for the cleaning and said, "See you in two weeks or if you have an opening once I get negative test results." But I know I tend to be stricter than most people (for good reason). Also, this is someone who knew there was an outbreak and still kept going to the gym until I told him to stop because the state had asked everyone who had been in this location to isolate and get tested. I honestly am trying to get a feel for where vaccinated people are with regard to exposures, etc.

 

[MaeZe]

This makes sense, though closing schools certainly didn't stop covid in its tracks. I know there is still scientific debate over the role kids and schools play in spreading Covid, but it never made a lot of sense to me that this particular virus would somehow magically spare children (who are generally little germ factories who bring everything from colds to norovirus home to their families every year), and teens, even if they tend to experience milder symptoms when infected.

The American Society of Pediatrics recently ruled that everyone should be masked in schools for the foreseeable future, which sucks (I can't even imagine how I could teach a class while masked, as it's hard to understand folks wearing masks even when they're standing right next to you, let alone speak over background noise to a room of people). But if this is the best alternative to keeping schools closed indefinitely, then so be it. One benefit, I suppose, of this pandemic is that it's shown how inadequate online education is overall, especially for kids (but it's not equivalent to in person at the college level either, at least not for the kinds of classes I teach). Hopefully those advocating the replacement of classrooms and teachers with computers will retreat to their caves for a while.

The former Surgeon General has stated that he believes the CDC removed the masking indoors mandate (for vaccinated people) too soon in the hopes that it would encourage more people to get vaccinated, but this clearly hasn't worked. Sadly, in the US, a significant number of people are not going to get vaccinated. Period. And given the nature of our society, it is impossible to force them to do so and provide proof, except for (possibly) if they are going to attend colleges (a recent court ruling upheld at least one public university vaccine mandate, though one wonders if allowing religious and ethical exemptions doesn't render this useless) or travel.

So (sigh) masks are probably going to be in our future for a while still indoors, at least in settings where there are possibly unvaccinated people mixed in.

I'm curious about hand shaking and disease spread, though. Has there ever been a study into its significance? I know fomites are now considered less significant in spreading Covid, at least, though they may play a greater role in other respiratory viruses. I've never worried much about hand shaking myself, because I am meticulous about hand washing before eating and doing other things that involve my hands touching my eyes/nose/mouth. Perhaps for this reason, I have not experienced a "stomach flu" type virus since I was a young child, even living in a dorm where it broke out once (and in those days, no one talked about noro or took cleanup/disinfection of the environment at all seriously). With covid, wouldn't the greater risk be the fact that you are face to face with the person with whom you are shaking hands?

I'd personally hate to see us evolve into a society where all physical contact is taboo, though.

As a college instructor, I have been aware (especially during influenza outbreaks) for years how close you have to get to students when teaching, especially in lab classes. They need me to come to their stations and look through their microscopes or look at their set ups, while they hover over my shoulder breathing on me (sometimes when they are snorting and snuffling with a cold or worse). And some people do want to stand right on top of you when having a conversation, though the large amount of background noise in classrooms may be part of the reason for this. One thing about this pandemic is it might at least raise awareness of the importance of masking and courteous social distancing when ill. It won't feel so "uptight" to ask someone to stand back and give me some space in these situations.

This is how I put it: What makes schools the biggest factor spreading any viral respiratory infection is that one comes to school infected and then infects the class who then go home and infect the parents who then go to work and infect co-workers who don't have kids in school and at some point the whole community is infected.

That isn't how a new pandemic that people have no immunity from spreads.

"Religious and ethical exemptions" in mandatory school vaccinations differ from state to state with some being very strict only allowing documented medical exemptions and some being open to just about any reason not to vaccinate your kids which is lumped under "personal exemption". I'm not sure if religious exemptions have been tested in court.

"Sometimes when they are snorting and snuffling with a cold or worse." It makes me cringe just to see people and/or their kids in public doing this. I'm going to be more freaked out now. When our critique group started back up we were all vaccinated plus we eat and drink during the session. I was sitting so one person was between me and the glare of the Sun and I could see every little droplet that came out of his mouth when he talked. Aaaaaahhhhh!

I'll see if I can find some handshaking vector literature. I know frequently touched surfaces have been studied as well as what fomites employees in hospitals contaminate which result in nosocomial spread. It's an extensive list. I can't imagine hands not topping the list.

And we do things in employee training where you put an invisible substance that can be seen in black-light on hands and have people wash their hands. There is always some substance left behind as well as you can find it all over everything including their faces.

 

[H.L.Dyer]

Definitely not out of the woods yet. I'm fully vaxxed and I'm still wearing masks shopping and while I'm at work even though I got approved from HQ with my vaccine card. With this delta variant I don't want to take chances with my dad. He's fully vaxxed as well, but he's also going through immunotherapy, so I don't know well the vaccine will protect him while he's undergoing treatments--especially of reports of "breakthrough infections" with the vaccinated.

 

[MaeZe]

If you were vaccinated, but were also just told to self-isolate and get tested because you were in a location where there has been a big outbreak, with a lot of breakthrough cases, during a specific timeframe, would you warn your cleaners or assume that since they're going into people's homes regularly, they know they're at risk? Personally, I would have paid them for the cleaning and said, "See you in two weeks or if you have an opening once I get negative test results." But I know I tend to be stricter than most people (for good reason). Also, this is someone who knew there was an outbreak and still kept going to the gym until I told him to stop because the state had asked everyone who had been in this location to isolate and get tested. I honestly am trying to get a feel for where vaccinated people are with regard to exposures, etc.

Not sure I have a good answer for this.

First the public heath just assumed it was the standard droplet spread and recommended the usual measures: three feet apart and surfaces were how it spread. Then the literature began to filter in documenting there was airborne spread. Instead of just calling it airborne (because you have to drag people kicking and screaming if you need them to reassess a belief) they changed it to six feet apart.

It's airborne, and they needed to face it.

So what about surface contaminants? It doesn't look like it plays much of a role. We aren't seeing people getting infected long after a contagious person left the room. But this is from limited data. We can recover the virus on lots of surfaces but it's always reported with the caveat: but we don't know if that is viable virus.

The biggest problem is we (me anyway) want that data to be there. But research like on the spread take time and resources to carry out. There are so many options vying for those resources from the vaccines to the reasons people aren't getting vaccinated to potential treatments to spread.

I'm just happy the research did show very early on that one) it was airborne regardless of other means of spread, and two) having the infected person wear the mask was tremendously successful in preventing infection. Too bad it took a few more months before Fauci, the CDC, and the WHO included that research in their recommended policies, but I digress.

If you have a vaccinated housekeeper and they wear at least a well fitting cloth mask, I don't think you will get infected from them. Vaccinated persons who do get breakthrough infections tend to shed very little virus.

As for surfaces, you have to decide what you want to do about the lack of research to guide you.

For me the choice was how badly do I want to stop wiping down everything I bring in the house? I'm on a low-moderate dose of an immune suppressant, I have a couple of specific risk factors and I'm vaccinated. I assessed my risk and I'm no longer wiping any of that stuff down.

I have not yet gone to eating anything from a takeout that I can't reheat at home. And groceries like those ready made salads I'm still avoiding. I am eating fruit I can wash off at home.

Everyone has to make their own risk/benefit analysis based on the information we currently have.

 

[Chris P]

Do people who peddle the anti-vax scaremongery really want people to suffer or die? I don't get it. I just don't.

The ones I know claim to have some sort of invulnerability already. One told me he was asymptomatic and therefore couldn't get it or spread it. He wouldn't listen when I told him that's not what that word means. But he heard it somewhere and applied it to himself based on . . . Yeah, dunno. Others think it's not going to be effective anyway, so why bother? Breakthrough cases are just playing into their hands. Still others simply resent being told to do so, and will cut off their own noses if anyone leaning politically left told them they look better with noses. Or if anyone got in the way of them doing only what they want to do, no matter what it was.

I don't know anyone who is seriously arguing a quasi-Darwinian thinning of the herd or mass immunity through exposure, or vast hoax/conspiracy. The only conspiracy angle is the "lab escape" theory supporters, who somehow argue that because someone in a lab messed up and this got out it's somehow not going to kill them.

 

[Unimportant]

Imma sign up as soon as I can. New Zealand is waaaay behind the rest of the world with vaccinations, but that's largely because they've put themselves last in the queue since we have zero community cases.

I know we're safer here than pretty much anywhere on the planet, but I'll still breathe a sigh of relief when me and mine (under 60, no serious comorbidities) are fully vaccinated.

 

[Introversion]

The Atlantic has an article about the sadly “vaccine-resistant” states, in which the author says this is what she hears people in her state of Arkansas say about why they won’t get jabbed:

During last year’s relative isolation, more people went online, especially to Facebook, for socialization and information; today, that is where the vaccines’ loudest opponents announce why they’re not getting the shots. People I know seemed concerned about the fact that the vaccine was approved only for emergency use. They also believe that people have died from the vaccines in large numbers, that the vaccines themselves have caused illness, that they’re responsible for the Delta variant, that they’re made with fetal tissue from aborted babies, that they alter your DNA, that they cause infertility, that the government’s eagerness to offer incentives for vaccination is suspicious, and that because the vaccines are new, their use amounts to a government experiment on the citizen population. There is some understandable distrust of the pharmaceutical industry because of the U.S. opioid epidemic, and of the government because of this country’s history with medical racism. Every vaccinated friend of mine who has tried to champion vaccines to the disbelievers said they end up sad, disappointed, and frustrated, caught in circular arguments that rely more on ideology than facts, and in which every piece of evidence is taken as more proof of conspiracy.

It’s not just Facebook, and it’s not just the US of course, where such disinformation lives. I recently argued on a Quora Canadian group with anti-vaxxers who said that it’s a matter of personal freedom to choose to be jabbed or not, and anyone trying to pressure them into it didn’t understand that. One guy said COVID was far less of a problem than obesity, so if “draconian measures” like restricting access to any public spaces to only those with proof of vaccination were proposed, as a public-safety measure, enact them on obesity first because “fat people cost us all more than COVID does”. (I responded that he should get back to me when obesity becomes contagious, and laid out the reasons to be concerned about COVID’s evolution. I was accused of mindlessly believing the CBC’s “panic-mongering”. Every one of my posts was downvoted into being hidden.)

Sadly, I think what it takes to get through to people is a death, or deaths, in their inner circle. So unless we have a huge spike, with mass deaths again, vaccination rates will burble up slowly. Let’s hope “variant Omega” doesn’t arrive before we reach herd immunity.

 

[lizmonster]

Sadly, I think what it takes to get through to people is a death, or deaths, in their inner circle. So unless we have a huge spike, with mass deaths again, vaccination rates will burble up slowly. Let’s hope “variant Omega” doesn’t arrive before we reach herd immunity.

It needs to be federally mandated wherever the feds have jurisdiction, but that won't happen for Reasons. We are, I think, the most ignorant species to ever roam the earth.

 

[Introversion]

I was a little surprised to read such nonsense from Canadians, but I guess we all share the same stupid genes? Sigh.

 

[Diana Hignutt]

I don't personally know any anti-vaxxers, so can't say for sure. But I doubt they want that?

The problem is that they're trusting very wrong sources of information. The reasons those sources do it vary all over the map. "Misleading on purpose to cause Western countries to fall into dysfunction" is a thing that people apparently are paid to do. So is, "Proclaiming a thing to be true (or false) because it hurts people whose politics we disagree with." And those are doubtless the root sources.

But many people who spread that disinformation are just part of a long chain, where their friends and relatives believe what they say because they're friends and relatives. I'm pretty sure that's how must people resistant to being vaccinated for COVID arrived there? Not because they directly drank from the Russian propaganda spigot, or the Fox News / OANN / Breitbart spigot, but because Uncle Bob said it and they like and trust Uncle Bob? "I hear people say that..." is how a lot of people seem to begin their anti-vax justifications. But those justifications don't conclude with, "and therefore I want people to die". They end with, "and that's why I think that people will die from the vaccine / their genetics will be screwed with by the vaccine / they'll be more infectious with the vaccine / COVID's no worse than flu / I can't be hurt by COVID." And keep in mind, most people are not able to understand scientific arguments for why those conclusions are nonsense. At least, not in the US -- we're barely literate and largely innumerate, to say nothing of how poorly science-educated most Americans are.

I dunno what to do about that. Just don't. The solutions usually seem to devolve into, "We need a better-educated humanity." Well, yes, and good effing luck with that.

Sadly, I fear the propagation of disinformation through social media has a very real chance of ending civilization.

 

[Introversion]

Sadly, I fear the propagation of disinformation through social media has a very real chance of ending civilization.

Social media is a tiger we're riding and don't know how to get off.

On the one hand, here we are. Yay! AW is good! So are many sites. But only the sites that have effective moderation seem to be a net good. Facebook? Sad trombone noises.

 

[karasunoyashi]

I was just able to sign up for my first shot. I will have the appointment in late August. When I tried to set up a second shot ahead of time, the online system didn't show any available days. However, that may be due to the first appointment not passing yet.

 

[lizmonster]

Sadly, I fear the propagation of disinformation through social media has a very real chance of ending civilization.

I think this is true, but I'm always of two minds about it.

We've got a young person in the house, and that mandates a certain amount of optimism - she's planning for college, for her eventual career, and I don't want to crush her with "it doesn't matter because we're burning the world" stuff.

Because I think we are burning the world. But I also think that if anything is going to change - if there's any good ahead of us - optimism will be required to implement it. The energy of younger generations is necessary, and should be fed and nurtured rather than crushed.

I've seen astonishing things in my life, and they haven't all been bad. It's easy to look back and see the negatives. It's easy - especially with things like fascism and climate - to see downward trends.

But there was a time nobody knew Germany would lose WWII. There was a time the Berlin Wall was this thing that was always going to be there.

Sometimes fighting back works. And that means I have to believe there are possibilities, even knowing I may never see anything get better. Even knowing my kid may never see anything get better. Because optimism costs me nothing, and there's a tiny, slim possibility it might actually help.

I am a cynic by nature. I am working to fight that. It's not easy right now, but even so.

 

[MaeZe]

The Atlantic has an article about the sadly “vaccine-resistant” states, in which the author says this is what she hears people in her state of Arkansas say about why they won’t get jabbed:

It’s not just Facebook, and it’s not just the US of course, where such disinformation lives. I recently argued on a Quora Canadian group with anti-vaxxers who said that it’s a matter of personal freedom to choose to be jabbed or not, and anyone trying to pressure them into it didn’t understand that. One guy said COVID was far less of a problem than obesity, so if “draconian measures” like restricting access to any public spaces to only those with proof of vaccination were proposed, as a public-safety measure, enact them on obesity first because “fat people cost us all more than COVID does”. (I responded that he should get back to me when obesity becomes contagious, and laid out the reasons to be concerned about COVID’s evolution. I was accused of mindlessly believing the CBC’s “panic-mongering”. Every one of my posts was downvoted into being hidden.)

Sadly, I think what it takes to get through to people is a death, or deaths, in their inner circle. So unless we have a huge spike, with mass deaths again, vaccination rates will burble up slowly. Let’s hope “variant Omega” doesn’t arrive before we reach herd immunity.

Commenting on the Atlantic article: The problem is not a knowledge deficit. People seek out sources that confirm their beliefs.

Much as I know it's too little too late, we (as in the US) are addressing the propaganda sites. Facebook and Twitter have been made aware they are killing people and they've both made an effort to take some of the stuff down.

So what's still to be done? We need the news media to stop promoting Trump's every news release. They are addicted to the return they get on investment when it comes to Trump. I'm not sure how to address that except we need more stories like this one:

I'm sorry but it's too late doctor tells his patients asking for the vaccine just before they go on a ventilator

One of the last things they do before they're intubated is beg me for the vaccine. I hold their hand and tell them that I'm sorry, but it's too late," Brytney Cobia, a hospitalist at Grandview Medical Center in Birmingham, wrote on Facebook this week. "A few days later when I call time of death, I hug their family members and I tell them the best way to honor their loved one is to go get vaccinated and encourage everyone they know to do the same,"

And Zuckerberg needs to let go of his ignorant belief that Facebook should be a free marketplace of ideas because Zuck thinks people can sort out on their own what is true.

I hang out with a lot of science folks and I've been telling them for years that the one science they ignore is the science of marketing. We do ourselves a favor to learn more about the science of persuasion. In particular it doesn't mean lying to people or tricking them.

The first response I get from my friends is their belief marketing is, by it's nature, dishonest. No it isn't. It's just that dishonest people are much more skilled marketers than we are. So that's the first hurdle, changing critical thinkers' minds for which they themselves seek out information that confirms their existing beliefs.

Back to the problem at hand. At least two Fox News talking heads have now switched sides: Hannity and Doocy. They make the others look ignorant and that adds to the pressure on the Fox higher-ups to get Carlson, Pirro and Ingraham to tone it down. Fox is likely also getting pressure not just from sponsors but also from threats of liability.

What's changing are all the news stories about the people dying are almost all unvaccinated people. That's the kind of news story that can sway people on the fence or the people who were just following the GOP leaders. McConnell has been out there more often telling folks to get vaccinated.

Not sure if it's true but Fauci said in a news conference yesterday that the FDA was working 24/7 to wade through the red tape they need to in order to officially approve the vaccines. It would at least end some of the arguments people use to avoid getting the vaccines if FDA approval happened.

There are still going to be folks one can never reach. It's going to take people close to them dying and even that won't convince some of them to get vaccinated.


Re the rest of your post, Introversion, it's disappointing people can troll your posts to make them hidden. It is a particular attribute of the alt-reality crowd. They also click on misinformation sites to get them to show up on the top of Google searches. That has been especially true for the anti-vaxxer crowd before the pandemic. I don't have an answer for that.

I do think that massive spike in cases and deaths is indeed coming. Or at least the news media will be describing it as huge.

Be prepared for the next phase. When the proportion of vaccinated persons grows the statistics are going to shift to make it look like vaccinated persons are getting sick and dying more than unvaccinated persons. Hypothetically, if 100% of the population is vaccinated then 100% of the cases and deaths are going to be in vaccinated people. Be ready to counter with the differences in the totals when you start seeing news stories where it appears that the vaccine is worse than no vaccine.

 

[nighttimer]

Though we're all fully vaccinated in my family and have largely avoided COVID-19, I am hyper hesitant about going back to the office next month. I work in I.T. for an agency of the State of Ohio and we've been teleworking since last March.

My dilemma is not simply due to a fear of working around non-vaccinated individuals. Our office held 11 people in the room at a time and it wasn't cozy. It was noisy, too many people in too small a place and it felt like a damn fishbowl.

But mostly, I don't want to keep working around White people anymore.

The Future Forum, a research consortium organized by Slack, surveyed 5,085 U.S. office workers and professionals who “work with data, analyze information or think creatively” from April to May, asking about their work lives during this stage of the pandemic.

Although a majority of people surveyed said that they want to work at least part of the time away from the office, Black employees were the group most likely to want a flexible working experience, either through a remote-only or hybrid model that would have them in-office only part of the time. In the survey, 68% of Black workers wanted flexible work policies, compared to 56% of white workers.

But why are more Black professionals rejecting an office-centric workplace? The study suggests that it might be because they feel more welcome when they work away from the office. Future Forum found that Asian, Black and Latinx employees hold a higher sense of belonging when working remotely compared to working in-office and relative to their white counterparts.

“It was just wanting to have a greater sense of control, and I think people of color, in many situations, are so used to having to adapt and adjust and think about what are we going to let go, and how do we choose our battles. And I just realized, in this space, I don’t have to live my life in that way.”

I am the only Black person in I.T. working as a technician. We have a sista who is a technical writer and a new brutha who took as a manager of the Network division, but that's it. For my part, I've had enough. I let my manager know I will be putting in my retirement papers in November and by the time my birthday rolls around in January, I'll be done with it.

Can't wait. There are a multitude of reasons, but to be totally honest, I've been working in predominantly White spaces with predominantly White faces since I was 18 years old and frankly, I'm completely over it. The pandemic only accelerated what was already evolving in my mind.

 

[frimble3]

Though we're all fully vaccinated in my family and have largely avoided COVID-19, I am hyper hesitant about going back to the office next month. I work in I.T. for an agency of the State of Ohio and we've been teleworking since last March.

My dilemma is not simply due to a fear of working around non-vaccinated individuals. Our office held 11 people in the room at a time and it wasn't cozy. It was noisy, too many people in too small a place and it felt like a damn fishbowl.

But mostly, I don't want to keep working around White people anymore.



Can't wait. There are a multitude of reasons, but to be totally honest, I've been working in predominantly White spaces with predominantly White faces since I was 18 years old and frankly, I'm completely over it. The pandemic only accelerated what was already evolving in my mind.

Talk to your bosses, or your union. A lot of places are liking not having to accommodate people. Or, at least, all those people. There's apparently a trend to let people who are happy at home (and are as productive as they were at work) stay home.
Possibly don't mention 'I don't want to work with Whitey', but emphasise how the lack of travel time is really great, and you're never late, because you're right there?
I've got a friend who's in this boat, the whole call center was sent to work from home, and now she doesn't want to go back. Apparently the bosses are considering this.

After all, you've been doing this for a year with no problems, why shouldn't you just keep doing what you're doing?

 

[Roxxsmom]

Commenting on the Atlantic article: The problem is not a knowledge deficit. People seek out sources that confirm their beliefs.

This is what leads me to despair. I don't know what we can do about this in an age when BS exists side by side with (or eclipses) more accurate sources of information. For some reason, many people enjoy wallowing in willful ignorance.

Just had a terse exchange (on social media) with a relative who still thinks Covid isn't, and was never, a real pandemic (she calls Fauci "Faux-ci) and that the government only exists to protect our rights (she means the rights of people like her to be assholes to everyone else, of course, not the rights of people who are traditionally marginalized), not to protect public health. I acerbically asked if she's really against food safety laws and so on and thinks the Department of Health and Human Services should be eliminated.

If I we can't even convince recalcitrant family members that Covid is real and that the fastest way back to normality is for everyone who can be to get vaccinated, what hope is there for anyone to convince random strangers to embrace information sources that reflect the real world, let alone develop a sense of social responsibility?

We're heading for a nasty fall virus season, but it's mostly unvaccinated people who are dying of it now at least (barring new mutations that completely evade our vaccines). Of course those who can't benefit from vaccination for health reasons (or are too young) are screwed too, because so many others don't give a crap about protecting them.

 

[JJ Litke]

Wow, Elaine, that's great news about the flu. I hadn't thought about the long-term effect of the low case rate in the past year.

I got Pfizer in mid-March, the minute I was eligible.

We tried going to a restaurant; pure insanity, not a mask in sight except for ours. Fortunately, we went while cases were at their lowest, trying to take advantage of the lull before the next surge, but we won't be trying that again. I already stopped going out to the grocery store again, too, and went back to doing curbside orders.

I had initially predicted a small surge in the summer then a larger one when they force all the unvaccinated kids back into schools. Now it looks like we're just going to get one massive surge, because I don't think the current one will have time to really settle before the fall semester starts. In fact, it's entirely likely that it won't be safe to return to campus in the spring like my college is already planning. I'm going to have to push for keep teaching online classes. Or decide if my job is worth the risk (spoiler, it's really not).