Coronavirus in the United States - news and thoughts

"Colin Kaepernick is super butthurt about an allegedly racist American system that has made him worth millions of dollars, and millions more for taking a knee for the National Anthem and whining about how terrible America is despite being a millionaire."

 

I assume you mean government laws. Which government laws/mandates have any bearing on your life?

Why are you whining about this?

 

That's a nonanswer.

 

Ok, no, 90% hospitalization prevention is not acceptable at our current vax rates.

 

I don't know. If most people were vaxed probably.

You are trying to come up with some definitive criteria that I don't think is out there, and new variants can affect the rate of spread and vaccine effectiveness.

Personally I would think we would be shooting for something similar to flu frequency. My guess is if we were 75-80% vaccinated for everyone, in all states, we would get there, assuming a booster process. But that is a wild guess.

 

So, to be clear, we're only allowed to whine about draconian protocols if they directly impact us?

Is that the new rule?

 

Not good enough.

 

Then what is?

 

Maybe just don’t melt down on the internet about it for four hours.

 

Lol. You characterizing my arguments as a "meltdown" is a pretty soft attempt to try and get me to shut up.

I can assure you, the day I leave this board, it'll be because I wanted to (or because I'm kicked out ).

 

It’s a stupid question because several other variables are at play.

I already said that if the transmissibility prevention did not wane and hospitals were not overrun like the currently are I don’t think there would be any backtracking on “draconian policies” like masks and distancing.

Hospitalization/death prevention is by far the most important number. But it doesn’t exist in a vacuum.

 

Wearing a soft mask and staying 6 feet apart is draconian.

That reminds me of this:

 

"Transmissibility matters because it causes hospitalizations."

Wouldn't we just save a lot of trouble by considering the hospitalized cases, themselves, if that's the real problem?

 

Not good enough for what?

 

You keep asking people for a specific benchmark and said we passed your benchmark. So what was your specific benchmark for infection rates, hospitalization rates, death rates, etc. (i.e., whatever metric you used) to stop all government interventions?

 

More reasons the Lockdowns and keeping kids from playing sports or going to school was a disaster. Doubling the BMI for kids is very, very troubling.

'Staggering' Doubling of Type 2 Diabetes in Kids During Pandemic

"Among a cohort of 432,302 persons aged 2–19, rate of Type 2 diabetes increase approximately doubled during pandemic compared to prepandemic period. Persons w/ prepandemic overweight or obesity & younger school-aged children experienced largest increases."

 

Isolated individually they aren’t even a real problem. The overwhelming majority of those dying from this disease now are choosing to do so.

The problem is that it’s happening all at once. The disease is SPIKING right now. And that’s caused at least in part by waning efficacy of the vaccines against transmissibility.

If it wasn’t overwhelming hospitals all over the country I think the general population could stomach it a lot more easily.

 

I agree with you stopping kids sports and activities is probably overkill, especially outdoor ones. Problem is inside douchebag parents some will refuse to mask.

 

COVID is a public health crisis. One must not just look on how things effect himself or herself, but how it effects the public overall. Hospitals may be at 90% ICU limits from time to time, but how common is it to be this way for weeks? Or months? Not very. And it could possibly effect the level of care one receives if they need to visit a hospital for a non-COVID reason.

There is also the cost factor. Each non-vaxxed COVID patient costs about $20,000 if they end up in the hospital. Who is going to pay for all this?

There are also risk factors. My risk for ending up in the hospital is low because I'm fully vaccinated. But the more people who get vaccinated, the lower my risk is reduced. Reach herd immunity, and it goes down to zero. Until we reach that point, even those fully vaccinated will end up in the hospital.

The other risk factor is the next variant. The more hosts the virus has, the greater the chance for another variant. What happens if Mu has double the vaccine resistance than Delta?

The reason for mask mandates now is the same reason as before. To slow the spread. If we could force vaccinations, things would be different. But we can't. But if 90%+ of the population got the jab, then it is highly likely we wouldn't need any restrictions. But that's not reality. Reality is full ICUs and thousands of new cases daily.

 

Not good enough to rebut anything that I'm saying.

You're defending the protocols, you have to justify them.

You said Pfizer is 77% effective at preventing hospitalizations after 4 months. You said that's not 100% of even 90%. Then, I asked you if 90% would be enough and you said "probably" but basically you don't know.

Might as well have said, well, 77% isn't as good as 80% guys. We still need mask mandates and social distancing protocols. Then, when we get to 80%, you'll just say, "well, it's not 85%."

If you want my support regarding COVID protocols, you're going to have to at least give me a reason to believe you won't keep playing that argumentative game even if we're at 99% effective at preventing hospitalizations. And right now, you haven't earned that... nor have the people issuing these mandates and protocols.