Coronavirus in the United States - news and thoughts

80 year old. Or looks like he was smart, doesn’t it. Chose not to expose himself when he is at greater risk because of his age

 

Meanwhile, Israel is finding a resurgence of Delta. They are usually ahead of things.
Israeli researchers warn of new international COVID wave, driven by Delta comeback | The Times of Israel

 

Why would there be outrage? Are you suggesting that indoor gatherings like concerts, sporting events, and indoor dining should be prohibited?

Yet another partisan hypocrisy comment. Yawn.

 

You realize Trump has had rallies in 2022? Where was the “big deal”? This is nonsense. There are all kinds of events going on of all types with zero outrage and likely without even testing for illness due to the weaker variant not putting people in the hospital at nearly the rate COVID-19 did in 2020 and 2021.

Let’s see what happens with these people. Most likely with all being vaxxed and with this being Omicrion there is no issue, although with Biden’s age and the implications arguably he personally shouldn’t have been there as an extra precaution for him.

 

This would be far more concerning as Delta was the worst variant in terms of hospitalizations.

 

What I and many others said for months. The lockdown of schools will cause a huge gap in learning. But the Dems didn't care and didn't follow science. Affected minorities the most.

‘Not Good for Learning’

 

Is he just supposed to operate in a bubble? It was a dinner. He's president of the United States. What's an acceptable level of risk for him to take that wouldn't make this a "big deal?"

 

Incoming response....

Damn you Fauci!!!! Your reach has no bounds!!!

 

Have you read his gazillion posts railing against vaccines as not working, about how supposedly our public health approach has damaged the US for generations?

Of course it was about the spread & reducing the severity--early on, when we didn't have any vaccines, there was no reducing severity--only slowing the spread...to keep people from getting sick and dying.

That shifted with increasingly imperfect vaccines that didn't hold up all that great against later variants in slowing the spread but did hold up extremely well against severe sickness and death.

I don't think the problem comes from what we were being told.

 

See post 36156

 

I wish people would stop repeating this. Multiple studies in Singapore and the US confirmed that vaccines reduced viral load below the level of being infectious (measured RNA strands) to between 24-48 hours vs unvaccinated people who were infectious for 3-5 days.

Where the mistruthers spew garbage about how the vaccines did not "slow the spread", right thinking people pointed out how much more rapidly and widespread variants would have been without a large part of the population being vaccinated.

 

To me, he's been pretty consistent with suggesting that folks who are high risk should get vaccinated and not pushing the vaccines on the children. To that extent, I am on the same page as him. I've expressed several times on here (maybe some on the FL thread when it was around) that we've failed the communication aspect of COVID measures. There's a laundry list of what we can do better the next time a pandemic hits, and it starts with more legitimate outreach, more complete disclosures of the known (I have no problem pointing to our own governor for not producing as much information as people would have liked), and more honesty with the unknown. I think governments could have done a better job of diffusing the us vs. them mentality. Emphasize compassion for folks who are put off by what they are being asked to do (or being restricted from doing...whether that's wear a mask or not wearing a mask; get vaccinated or not get vaccinated...any number of the dichotomies that took place and in some cases still are taking place). I only saw that being done in extremely small circles around here, it was a breath of fresh air where it existed.

Go GATORS!
,WESGATORS

 

That may be, but he's also been consistent in misrepresenting a lot about covid vaccines on this thread since at least last October and it comes in part from his misguided adherence to the great barrington declaration (that was rejected by public health experts for extremely valid reasons).

I won't claim that public health officials have been perfect, but they're not the main source of the problems with the way a large swath of the public responded to covid. Sorry, that's on the people who saw the blood in the streets and capitalized on it to muddy the waters and confuse the **** out of vulnerable people.

Covid has also shown us we have a vulnerable public, having been primed for conspiracy theories and rejection of scientific knowledge and rational thought, in ways that should not be in this day & age, imo. It's the central reason why there was such an ill-informed and irrational, and often deadly resistance to reasonable if sometimes onerous & disruptive social distancing measures and vaccines.

 

I think it's worth mentioning here that this exact problem, i.e. continuing surges, mutations, and resurgence of covid strains is exactly why from the outset, that experts and officials were alarmed based on only a few cases. It strikes to the heart of the destructive and in some ways uncontrollable effects of infectious disease.

People don't appreciate the potential for destruction enough despite centuries of knowledge.

 

I'm not sure why his attendance was expected at a journalism fundraiser.

 

Well I’m sure many a journalist benefited from writing stories associated with him. And he announced that he wasn’t attending which meant that he had been invited

 

This is *exactly* why we have to expect more from leadership, and it's futile to blame the public.

Go GATORS!
,WESGATORS

 

It is interesting how it all continues to play out.
Sitting in a surgery center waiting to see how my mother is doing. One guy wearing his Vietnam VFW hat keeps taking of his mask and they politely ask him to put it back on.
I would chalk it up to mask resistance, except he is sprawled in his chair blocking a walkway. I had to get up and ask him to move his legs in order to let an old lady with a walker get by. He was just ignoring her.
It’s like all the political differences have given people a license just to be an asshole.
Manners maketh the man

 

Up against a some large scale forces of mis & disinformation, including a major news media company and quite a few politicos too. That is not something government can *control.*

I think we should be expecting more from our fellow Americans. We sure don't act like a great country.