Vaccine Redux - Vax up and go to Class

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BearForce2
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This country is still not having conversations about obesity and other comorbidities that put people at risk of death due to caching Covid. We are also not having honest discussions about vaccine injury and side effects due to vaccines as infrequent as these cases might be. Therapeutic treatment is also a taboo subject and is not openly discussed and the there is dead silence regarding virus origins and accountability. Instead, most of what I hear from the media and government now is about masking policy.
The difference between a right wing conspiracy and the truth is about 20 months.
sycasey
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calbear93 said:

sycasey said:

Unit2Sucks said:

calbear93 said:

BearNIt said:

BearForce2 said:

Sebastabear said:

MinotStateBeav said:

Kamala Harris while running to be VP..
https://news.yahoo.com/kamala-harris-says-she-wont-take-covid-vaccine-just-on-trumps-sayso-020511962.html
Stupidity doesn't care what your party affiliation is. Nor does the disease.
Both Biden and Kamala were anti-vaxxers.
I would hope that responsible person would do their due diligence before taking any new medication to see if that medication is right for them. If you choose not to get the vaccine nor mask when appropriate then hold on to your sack as the virus will continue to mutate because that's what viruses do. The fall is coming and we are going to see increases in infections and those that are not vaccinated and refuse to wear a mask are going to wish they had done both. Hospitals aren't relaxing as if COVID is over, they are preparing for the fall.


I personally am done with fear tactics on COVID. I will get boosters whenever CDC recommends another, but I am living my life without fear of COVID irrespective of whether someone chooses not to be vaccinated or what the case rate is.
I don't think "fear" is the right lens to look at things through. The reason certain elements brought "fear" into the equation is because they equate toughness with strength.

I'm still very concerned about COVID because it has a potential to impact my life and those around me if I'm not careful. My daughter missed a school camping trip due to a positive COVID test which we believe was a false positive. Nonetheless she missed almost a week of school and we had to protect my other kid so he wouldn't miss school. Similarly, we have to protect our elderly parents who otherwise enjoy spending time with the kid. We also carpool with one kid for soccer practices which potentially exposes 2 other families to whatever my family has (and vice versa) in addition to what happens at school.

I would also note that I've seen both vaccinated and unvaccinated family members suffer hard cases of Omicron recently. A 30 year old vaccinated and boosted family member is on week 3 of her infection and still having nasty headaches which makes it impossible for her to concentrate or work. An unvaccinated family member had Omicron in January, lost half her hair and is still struggling with brain fog 5 months later.

Having a positive test result brings a number of repercussions that I would like to avoid. I consider taking health precautions to be prudent not fearful.
Not disagreeing with your prudence here, but in fairness I would also note that in some cases this prudence is simply being forced more by overly cautious COVID policies than the actual danger posed to anyone involved.

I'll just provide my own example: I have one kid in first grade in public school, another three-year-old in a private nursery school, and since the oldest is on the spectrum he's supposed to get behavioral therapists coming to work with him several times a week.

The COVID rules are completely different for these three organizations. The public schools stayed closed/remote longer (too long IMO), but since they've been back they say your kid can go to school even with minor symptoms, as long as you have a negative test. The private nursery school wants a negative test AND for the kid to be symptom-free for at least 24 hours before returning. Practically speaking, this pretty much means my kid is missing minimum two days as soon as she has a sniffle. The therapy specialists, meanwhile, need negative tests AND a doctor's confirmation AND for everyone in the house to be symptom free before they'll send someone over (this despite the fact that all the specialists are vaccinated). This basically means my kid hasn't gotten any behavioral therapy in the last three weeks as colds (not COVID) have cycled through various members of the household.

This makes it pretty much impossible for my wife and I to keep consistent schedules. I want to be careful, but in all honesty jumping through these hoops makes me want to say "f*** it" and have no restrictions at all. Adults can get vaxxed and kids under five are at very low risk. Who are we protecting?
I think that the main point is everyone has different circumstances and risk tolerance. I am in a situation where I stopped listening to COVID warnings and COVID rates. I am fully vaccinated and double boosted. I also am not going to bifurcate people from vaccinated or unvaccinated. All of the assumptions we had early on as to whether vaccine will be effective in preventing infection turned out to be wrong, all of the assumptions as to whether the unvaccinated in a local area are preventing herd immunity when this is a global condition is wrong just like shaming the unvaccinated who are dealing with their one risk tolerance is wrong, and those who may still think we can implement a mask policy, shut sectors down, or keep unvaccinated out are wrong such like China's zero COVID policy is insane. I am however convinced from what I have seen that vaccines are damned powerful at preventing hospitalization. I can deal with a week of feeling sick, and I trust the vaccines and the science. I also don't have to worry about young kids being forced to stay at home.

So, just for me, I am done listening to any new guidance or update other than approvals for new booster. I suspect parents who have to deal with kids going to school, etc. have different risk tolerance (and probably more risk tolerance than they did a year ago). I will take the boosters and take risks like I do when I choose to drive, fly to far away places on vacation, spar, etc. I am personally done being afraid of COVID, and I will deal with it if I get it and, if I am still hospitalized after having gotten four shots, I will just give Fauci the finger.
IMO vaccination rates do matter, because the evidence shows that if those are lower then your region is much more likely to have overcrowded hospitals during a surge.

But otherwise, all fair in my view.
Unit2Sucks
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calbear93 said:

sycasey said:

Unit2Sucks said:

calbear93 said:

BearNIt said:

BearForce2 said:

Sebastabear said:

MinotStateBeav said:

Kamala Harris while running to be VP..
https://news.yahoo.com/kamala-harris-says-she-wont-take-covid-vaccine-just-on-trumps-sayso-020511962.html
Stupidity doesn't care what your party affiliation is. Nor does the disease.
Both Biden and Kamala were anti-vaxxers.
I would hope that responsible person would do their due diligence before taking any new medication to see if that medication is right for them. If you choose not to get the vaccine nor mask when appropriate then hold on to your sack as the virus will continue to mutate because that's what viruses do. The fall is coming and we are going to see increases in infections and those that are not vaccinated and refuse to wear a mask are going to wish they had done both. Hospitals aren't relaxing as if COVID is over, they are preparing for the fall.


I personally am done with fear tactics on COVID. I will get boosters whenever CDC recommends another, but I am living my life without fear of COVID irrespective of whether someone chooses not to be vaccinated or what the case rate is.
I don't think "fear" is the right lens to look at things through. The reason certain elements brought "fear" into the equation is because they equate toughness with strength.

I'm still very concerned about COVID because it has a potential to impact my life and those around me if I'm not careful. My daughter missed a school camping trip due to a positive COVID test which we believe was a false positive. Nonetheless she missed almost a week of school and we had to protect my other kid so he wouldn't miss school. Similarly, we have to protect our elderly parents who otherwise enjoy spending time with the kid. We also carpool with one kid for soccer practices which potentially exposes 2 other families to whatever my family has (and vice versa) in addition to what happens at school.

I would also note that I've seen both vaccinated and unvaccinated family members suffer hard cases of Omicron recently. A 30 year old vaccinated and boosted family member is on week 3 of her infection and still having nasty headaches which makes it impossible for her to concentrate or work. An unvaccinated family member had Omicron in January, lost half her hair and is still struggling with brain fog 5 months later.

Having a positive test result brings a number of repercussions that I would like to avoid. I consider taking health precautions to be prudent not fearful.
Not disagreeing with your prudence here, but in fairness I would also note that in some cases this prudence is simply being forced more by overly cautious COVID policies than the actual danger posed to anyone involved.

I'll just provide my own example: I have one kid in first grade in public school, another three-year-old in a private nursery school, and since the oldest is on the spectrum he's supposed to get behavioral therapists coming to work with him several times a week.

The COVID rules are completely different for these three organizations. The public schools stayed closed/remote longer (too long IMO), but since they've been back they say your kid can go to school even with minor symptoms, as long as you have a negative test. The private nursery school wants a negative test AND for the kid to be symptom-free for at least 24 hours before returning. Practically speaking, this pretty much means my kid is missing minimum two days as soon as she has a sniffle. The therapy specialists, meanwhile, need negative tests AND a doctor's confirmation AND for everyone in the house to be symptom free before they'll send someone over (this despite the fact that all the specialists are vaccinated). This basically means my kid hasn't gotten any behavioral therapy in the last three weeks as colds (not COVID) have cycled through various members of the household.

This makes it pretty much impossible for my wife and I to keep consistent schedules. I want to be careful, but in all honesty jumping through these hoops makes me want to say "f*** it" and have no restrictions at all. Adults can get vaxxed and kids under five are at very low risk. Who are we protecting?
I think that the main point is everyone has different circumstances and risk tolerance. I am in a situation where I stopped listening to COVID warnings and COVID rates. I am fully vaccinated and double boosted. I also am not going to bifurcate people from vaccinated or unvaccinated. All of the assumptions we had early on as to whether vaccine will be effective in preventing infection turned out to be wrong, all of the assumptions as to whether the unvaccinated in a local area are preventing herd immunity when this is a global condition is wrong just like shaming the unvaccinated who are dealing with their one risk tolerance is wrong, and those who may still think we can implement a mask policy, shut sectors down, or keep unvaccinated out are wrong such like China's zero COVID policy is insane. I am however convinced from what I have seen that vaccines are damned powerful at preventing hospitalization. I can deal with a week of feeling sick, and I trust the vaccines and the science. I also don't have to worry about young kids being forced to stay at home.

So, just for me, I am done listening to any new guidance or update other than approvals for new booster. I suspect parents who have to deal with kids going to school, etc. have different risk tolerance (and probably more risk tolerance than they did a year ago). I will take the boosters and take risks like I do when I choose to drive, fly to far away places on vacation, spar, etc. I am personally done being afraid of COVID, and I will deal with it if I get it and, if I am still hospitalized after having gotten four shots, I will just give Fauci the finger.
Seems like a rational choice for you and your family.

I have a good friend who just cancelled a trip to France this summer not because she's afraid someone in her family might die from COVID but because she's worried about one family member testing positive and being forced to quarantine for a month or more and unable to work while in France, which would be a real problem for her family. Being mindful of practical and foreseeable repercussions seems rational as well. We decided to postpone a big trip until next summer because the trip required months of planning and we didn't want to roll the dice that it would be negatively impacted. Basically we found it too risky to go through the brain damage of planning a trip while knowing that it could get blown up for a myriad of reasons.

One of our best friends is immuno compromised and works in a school. She's had 4 shots but has been told not to expect much protection from them. She would love to be over COVID but very much still has to watch her back. I'm not sure she would say she's afraid, per se, but her circumstances require her to be very protective of herself in public and she will continue to be cautious until such point as a there is a strong therapeutic or COVID is far less prevalent.

Given that it feels like everyone I know has had COVID hit them or their family in the current wave, I'm somewhat hopeful that we will see it recede into the background and have a relatively nice summer but I've always been an optimist.

For now I will continue to be thoughtful about what risks I choose to take on in given my family circumstances and understand that others will be doing the same. We're at the point in this pandemic where people can take very different actions which make sense for their individual circumstances.
calbear93
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Unit2Sucks said:

calbear93 said:

sycasey said:

Unit2Sucks said:

calbear93 said:

BearNIt said:

BearForce2 said:

Sebastabear said:

MinotStateBeav said:

Kamala Harris while running to be VP..
https://news.yahoo.com/kamala-harris-says-she-wont-take-covid-vaccine-just-on-trumps-sayso-020511962.html
Stupidity doesn't care what your party affiliation is. Nor does the disease.
Both Biden and Kamala were anti-vaxxers.
I would hope that responsible person would do their due diligence before taking any new medication to see if that medication is right for them. If you choose not to get the vaccine nor mask when appropriate then hold on to your sack as the virus will continue to mutate because that's what viruses do. The fall is coming and we are going to see increases in infections and those that are not vaccinated and refuse to wear a mask are going to wish they had done both. Hospitals aren't relaxing as if COVID is over, they are preparing for the fall.


I personally am done with fear tactics on COVID. I will get boosters whenever CDC recommends another, but I am living my life without fear of COVID irrespective of whether someone chooses not to be vaccinated or what the case rate is.
I don't think "fear" is the right lens to look at things through. The reason certain elements brought "fear" into the equation is because they equate toughness with strength.

I'm still very concerned about COVID because it has a potential to impact my life and those around me if I'm not careful. My daughter missed a school camping trip due to a positive COVID test which we believe was a false positive. Nonetheless she missed almost a week of school and we had to protect my other kid so he wouldn't miss school. Similarly, we have to protect our elderly parents who otherwise enjoy spending time with the kid. We also carpool with one kid for soccer practices which potentially exposes 2 other families to whatever my family has (and vice versa) in addition to what happens at school.

I would also note that I've seen both vaccinated and unvaccinated family members suffer hard cases of Omicron recently. A 30 year old vaccinated and boosted family member is on week 3 of her infection and still having nasty headaches which makes it impossible for her to concentrate or work. An unvaccinated family member had Omicron in January, lost half her hair and is still struggling with brain fog 5 months later.

Having a positive test result brings a number of repercussions that I would like to avoid. I consider taking health precautions to be prudent not fearful.
Not disagreeing with your prudence here, but in fairness I would also note that in some cases this prudence is simply being forced more by overly cautious COVID policies than the actual danger posed to anyone involved.

I'll just provide my own example: I have one kid in first grade in public school, another three-year-old in a private nursery school, and since the oldest is on the spectrum he's supposed to get behavioral therapists coming to work with him several times a week.

The COVID rules are completely different for these three organizations. The public schools stayed closed/remote longer (too long IMO), but since they've been back they say your kid can go to school even with minor symptoms, as long as you have a negative test. The private nursery school wants a negative test AND for the kid to be symptom-free for at least 24 hours before returning. Practically speaking, this pretty much means my kid is missing minimum two days as soon as she has a sniffle. The therapy specialists, meanwhile, need negative tests AND a doctor's confirmation AND for everyone in the house to be symptom free before they'll send someone over (this despite the fact that all the specialists are vaccinated). This basically means my kid hasn't gotten any behavioral therapy in the last three weeks as colds (not COVID) have cycled through various members of the household.

This makes it pretty much impossible for my wife and I to keep consistent schedules. I want to be careful, but in all honesty jumping through these hoops makes me want to say "f*** it" and have no restrictions at all. Adults can get vaxxed and kids under five are at very low risk. Who are we protecting?
I think that the main point is everyone has different circumstances and risk tolerance. I am in a situation where I stopped listening to COVID warnings and COVID rates. I am fully vaccinated and double boosted. I also am not going to bifurcate people from vaccinated or unvaccinated. All of the assumptions we had early on as to whether vaccine will be effective in preventing infection turned out to be wrong, all of the assumptions as to whether the unvaccinated in a local area are preventing herd immunity when this is a global condition is wrong just like shaming the unvaccinated who are dealing with their one risk tolerance is wrong, and those who may still think we can implement a mask policy, shut sectors down, or keep unvaccinated out are wrong such like China's zero COVID policy is insane. I am however convinced from what I have seen that vaccines are damned powerful at preventing hospitalization. I can deal with a week of feeling sick, and I trust the vaccines and the science. I also don't have to worry about young kids being forced to stay at home.

So, just for me, I am done listening to any new guidance or update other than approvals for new booster. I suspect parents who have to deal with kids going to school, etc. have different risk tolerance (and probably more risk tolerance than they did a year ago). I will take the boosters and take risks like I do when I choose to drive, fly to far away places on vacation, spar, etc. I am personally done being afraid of COVID, and I will deal with it if I get it and, if I am still hospitalized after having gotten four shots, I will just give Fauci the finger.
Seems like a rational choice for you and your family.

I have a good friend who just cancelled a trip to France this summer not because she's afraid someone in her family might die from COVID but because she's worried about one family member testing positive and being forced to quarantine for a month or more and unable to work while in France, which would be a real problem for her family. Being mindful of practical and foreseeable repercussions seems rational as well. We decided to postpone a big trip until next summer because the trip required months of planning and we didn't want to roll the dice that it would be negatively impacted. Basically we found it too risky to go through the brain damage of planning a trip while knowing that it could get blown up for a myriad of reasons.

One of our best friends is immuno compromised and works in a school. She's had 4 shots but has been told not to expect much protection from them. She would love to be over COVID but very much still has to watch her back. I'm not sure she would say she's afraid, per se, but her circumstances require her to be very protective of herself in public and she will continue to be cautious until such point as a there is a strong therapeutic or COVID is far less prevalent.

Given that it feels like everyone I know has had COVID hit them or their family in the current wave, I'm somewhat hopeful that we will see it recede into the background and have a relatively nice summer but I've always been an optimist.

For now I will continue to be thoughtful about what risks I choose to take on in given my family circumstances and understand that others will be doing the same. We're at the point in this pandemic where people can take very different actions which make sense for their individual circumstances.
100% agree.
calbear93
How long do you want to ignore this user?
sycasey said:

calbear93 said:

sycasey said:

Unit2Sucks said:

calbear93 said:

BearNIt said:

BearForce2 said:

Sebastabear said:

MinotStateBeav said:

Kamala Harris while running to be VP..
https://news.yahoo.com/kamala-harris-says-she-wont-take-covid-vaccine-just-on-trumps-sayso-020511962.html
Stupidity doesn't care what your party affiliation is. Nor does the disease.
Both Biden and Kamala were anti-vaxxers.
I would hope that responsible person would do their due diligence before taking any new medication to see if that medication is right for them. If you choose not to get the vaccine nor mask when appropriate then hold on to your sack as the virus will continue to mutate because that's what viruses do. The fall is coming and we are going to see increases in infections and those that are not vaccinated and refuse to wear a mask are going to wish they had done both. Hospitals aren't relaxing as if COVID is over, they are preparing for the fall.


I personally am done with fear tactics on COVID. I will get boosters whenever CDC recommends another, but I am living my life without fear of COVID irrespective of whether someone chooses not to be vaccinated or what the case rate is.
I don't think "fear" is the right lens to look at things through. The reason certain elements brought "fear" into the equation is because they equate toughness with strength.

I'm still very concerned about COVID because it has a potential to impact my life and those around me if I'm not careful. My daughter missed a school camping trip due to a positive COVID test which we believe was a false positive. Nonetheless she missed almost a week of school and we had to protect my other kid so he wouldn't miss school. Similarly, we have to protect our elderly parents who otherwise enjoy spending time with the kid. We also carpool with one kid for soccer practices which potentially exposes 2 other families to whatever my family has (and vice versa) in addition to what happens at school.

I would also note that I've seen both vaccinated and unvaccinated family members suffer hard cases of Omicron recently. A 30 year old vaccinated and boosted family member is on week 3 of her infection and still having nasty headaches which makes it impossible for her to concentrate or work. An unvaccinated family member had Omicron in January, lost half her hair and is still struggling with brain fog 5 months later.

Having a positive test result brings a number of repercussions that I would like to avoid. I consider taking health precautions to be prudent not fearful.
Not disagreeing with your prudence here, but in fairness I would also note that in some cases this prudence is simply being forced more by overly cautious COVID policies than the actual danger posed to anyone involved.

I'll just provide my own example: I have one kid in first grade in public school, another three-year-old in a private nursery school, and since the oldest is on the spectrum he's supposed to get behavioral therapists coming to work with him several times a week.

The COVID rules are completely different for these three organizations. The public schools stayed closed/remote longer (too long IMO), but since they've been back they say your kid can go to school even with minor symptoms, as long as you have a negative test. The private nursery school wants a negative test AND for the kid to be symptom-free for at least 24 hours before returning. Practically speaking, this pretty much means my kid is missing minimum two days as soon as she has a sniffle. The therapy specialists, meanwhile, need negative tests AND a doctor's confirmation AND for everyone in the house to be symptom free before they'll send someone over (this despite the fact that all the specialists are vaccinated). This basically means my kid hasn't gotten any behavioral therapy in the last three weeks as colds (not COVID) have cycled through various members of the household.

This makes it pretty much impossible for my wife and I to keep consistent schedules. I want to be careful, but in all honesty jumping through these hoops makes me want to say "f*** it" and have no restrictions at all. Adults can get vaxxed and kids under five are at very low risk. Who are we protecting?
I think that the main point is everyone has different circumstances and risk tolerance. I am in a situation where I stopped listening to COVID warnings and COVID rates. I am fully vaccinated and double boosted. I also am not going to bifurcate people from vaccinated or unvaccinated. All of the assumptions we had early on as to whether vaccine will be effective in preventing infection turned out to be wrong, all of the assumptions as to whether the unvaccinated in a local area are preventing herd immunity when this is a global condition is wrong just like shaming the unvaccinated who are dealing with their one risk tolerance is wrong, and those who may still think we can implement a mask policy, shut sectors down, or keep unvaccinated out are wrong such like China's zero COVID policy is insane. I am however convinced from what I have seen that vaccines are damned powerful at preventing hospitalization. I can deal with a week of feeling sick, and I trust the vaccines and the science. I also don't have to worry about young kids being forced to stay at home.

So, just for me, I am done listening to any new guidance or update other than approvals for new booster. I suspect parents who have to deal with kids going to school, etc. have different risk tolerance (and probably more risk tolerance than they did a year ago). I will take the boosters and take risks like I do when I choose to drive, fly to far away places on vacation, spar, etc. I am personally done being afraid of COVID, and I will deal with it if I get it and, if I am still hospitalized after having gotten four shots, I will just give Fauci the finger.
IMO vaccination rates do matter, because the evidence shows that if those are lower then your region is much more likely to have overcrowded hospitals during a surge.

But otherwise, all fair in my view.
In my local area, it's 90+%. But it seems like most of the variants are coming from countries that are under-vaccinated.
BearForce2
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Unit2Sucks said:


Given that it feels like everyone I know has had COVID hit them or their family in the current wave, I'm somewhat hopeful that we will see it recede into the background and have a relatively nice summer but I've always been an optimist.

For now I will continue to be thoughtful about what risks I choose to take on in given my family circumstances and understand that others will be doing the same. We're at the point in this pandemic where people can take very different actions which make sense for their individual circumstances.

This attitude is a far cry from earlier posts when you equated any type of vaccine questioning with spreading anti-vaccine propaganda. And Covid is not receding, daily case counts have been rising.
The difference between a right wing conspiracy and the truth is about 20 months.
calbear93
How long do you want to ignore this user?
BearForce2 said:

Unit2Sucks said:


Given that it feels like everyone I know has had COVID hit them or their family in the current wave, I'm somewhat hopeful that we will see it recede into the background and have a relatively nice summer but I've always been an optimist.

For now I will continue to be thoughtful about what risks I choose to take on in given my family circumstances and understand that others will be doing the same. We're at the point in this pandemic where people can take very different actions which make sense for their individual circumstances.

This attitude is a far cry from earlier posts when you equated any type of vaccine questioning with spreading anti-vaccine propaganda. And Covid is not receding, daily case counts have been rising.
Cases do not matter as much as hospitalization rates. It's mostly the unvaccinated who are dying from this now. I feel for those who compromised immune system, but the unvaccinated are risking their own lives. I don't blame them but I don't worry too much about them just like I don't worry about those who skydive or ride motorcycles.

Do what you want. I am not for shaming those who choose not to get vaccinated, but I am also not for catering to them. And we should stop prioritizing COVID patients over other emergency patients.
sycasey
How long do you want to ignore this user?
calbear93 said:

sycasey said:

calbear93 said:

sycasey said:

Unit2Sucks said:

calbear93 said:

BearNIt said:

BearForce2 said:

Sebastabear said:

MinotStateBeav said:

Kamala Harris while running to be VP..
https://news.yahoo.com/kamala-harris-says-she-wont-take-covid-vaccine-just-on-trumps-sayso-020511962.html
Stupidity doesn't care what your party affiliation is. Nor does the disease.
Both Biden and Kamala were anti-vaxxers.
I would hope that responsible person would do their due diligence before taking any new medication to see if that medication is right for them. If you choose not to get the vaccine nor mask when appropriate then hold on to your sack as the virus will continue to mutate because that's what viruses do. The fall is coming and we are going to see increases in infections and those that are not vaccinated and refuse to wear a mask are going to wish they had done both. Hospitals aren't relaxing as if COVID is over, they are preparing for the fall.


I personally am done with fear tactics on COVID. I will get boosters whenever CDC recommends another, but I am living my life without fear of COVID irrespective of whether someone chooses not to be vaccinated or what the case rate is.
I don't think "fear" is the right lens to look at things through. The reason certain elements brought "fear" into the equation is because they equate toughness with strength.

I'm still very concerned about COVID because it has a potential to impact my life and those around me if I'm not careful. My daughter missed a school camping trip due to a positive COVID test which we believe was a false positive. Nonetheless she missed almost a week of school and we had to protect my other kid so he wouldn't miss school. Similarly, we have to protect our elderly parents who otherwise enjoy spending time with the kid. We also carpool with one kid for soccer practices which potentially exposes 2 other families to whatever my family has (and vice versa) in addition to what happens at school.

I would also note that I've seen both vaccinated and unvaccinated family members suffer hard cases of Omicron recently. A 30 year old vaccinated and boosted family member is on week 3 of her infection and still having nasty headaches which makes it impossible for her to concentrate or work. An unvaccinated family member had Omicron in January, lost half her hair and is still struggling with brain fog 5 months later.

Having a positive test result brings a number of repercussions that I would like to avoid. I consider taking health precautions to be prudent not fearful.
Not disagreeing with your prudence here, but in fairness I would also note that in some cases this prudence is simply being forced more by overly cautious COVID policies than the actual danger posed to anyone involved.

I'll just provide my own example: I have one kid in first grade in public school, another three-year-old in a private nursery school, and since the oldest is on the spectrum he's supposed to get behavioral therapists coming to work with him several times a week.

The COVID rules are completely different for these three organizations. The public schools stayed closed/remote longer (too long IMO), but since they've been back they say your kid can go to school even with minor symptoms, as long as you have a negative test. The private nursery school wants a negative test AND for the kid to be symptom-free for at least 24 hours before returning. Practically speaking, this pretty much means my kid is missing minimum two days as soon as she has a sniffle. The therapy specialists, meanwhile, need negative tests AND a doctor's confirmation AND for everyone in the house to be symptom free before they'll send someone over (this despite the fact that all the specialists are vaccinated). This basically means my kid hasn't gotten any behavioral therapy in the last three weeks as colds (not COVID) have cycled through various members of the household.

This makes it pretty much impossible for my wife and I to keep consistent schedules. I want to be careful, but in all honesty jumping through these hoops makes me want to say "f*** it" and have no restrictions at all. Adults can get vaxxed and kids under five are at very low risk. Who are we protecting?
I think that the main point is everyone has different circumstances and risk tolerance. I am in a situation where I stopped listening to COVID warnings and COVID rates. I am fully vaccinated and double boosted. I also am not going to bifurcate people from vaccinated or unvaccinated. All of the assumptions we had early on as to whether vaccine will be effective in preventing infection turned out to be wrong, all of the assumptions as to whether the unvaccinated in a local area are preventing herd immunity when this is a global condition is wrong just like shaming the unvaccinated who are dealing with their one risk tolerance is wrong, and those who may still think we can implement a mask policy, shut sectors down, or keep unvaccinated out are wrong such like China's zero COVID policy is insane. I am however convinced from what I have seen that vaccines are damned powerful at preventing hospitalization. I can deal with a week of feeling sick, and I trust the vaccines and the science. I also don't have to worry about young kids being forced to stay at home.

So, just for me, I am done listening to any new guidance or update other than approvals for new booster. I suspect parents who have to deal with kids going to school, etc. have different risk tolerance (and probably more risk tolerance than they did a year ago). I will take the boosters and take risks like I do when I choose to drive, fly to far away places on vacation, spar, etc. I am personally done being afraid of COVID, and I will deal with it if I get it and, if I am still hospitalized after having gotten four shots, I will just give Fauci the finger.
IMO vaccination rates do matter, because the evidence shows that if those are lower then your region is much more likely to have overcrowded hospitals during a surge.

But otherwise, all fair in my view.
In my local area, it's 90+%. But it seems like most of the variants are coming from countries that are under-vaccinated.
Right, same for me. Very high vaccination rates in the Bay Area. High hospitalization rates and new variants arise from places where the vax rates are low.

Honestly, I think this should have been the primary public health messaging for months now: getting vaccines to everyone (including other countries) rather than squabbling about mask rules. It doesn't help that the right wing decided not to take vaccines as a political statement too.
BearForce2
How long do you want to ignore this user?
sycasey said:

calbear93 said:

sycasey said:

calbear93 said:

sycasey said:

Unit2Sucks said:

calbear93 said:

BearNIt said:

BearForce2 said:

Sebastabear said:

MinotStateBeav said:

Kamala Harris while running to be VP..
https://news.yahoo.com/kamala-harris-says-she-wont-take-covid-vaccine-just-on-trumps-sayso-020511962.html
Stupidity doesn't care what your party affiliation is. Nor does the disease.
Both Biden and Kamala were anti-vaxxers.
I would hope that responsible person would do their due diligence before taking any new medication to see if that medication is right for them. If you choose not to get the vaccine nor mask when appropriate then hold on to your sack as the virus will continue to mutate because that's what viruses do. The fall is coming and we are going to see increases in infections and those that are not vaccinated and refuse to wear a mask are going to wish they had done both. Hospitals aren't relaxing as if COVID is over, they are preparing for the fall.


I personally am done with fear tactics on COVID. I will get boosters whenever CDC recommends another, but I am living my life without fear of COVID irrespective of whether someone chooses not to be vaccinated or what the case rate is.
I don't think "fear" is the right lens to look at things through. The reason certain elements brought "fear" into the equation is because they equate toughness with strength.

I'm still very concerned about COVID because it has a potential to impact my life and those around me if I'm not careful. My daughter missed a school camping trip due to a positive COVID test which we believe was a false positive. Nonetheless she missed almost a week of school and we had to protect my other kid so he wouldn't miss school. Similarly, we have to protect our elderly parents who otherwise enjoy spending time with the kid. We also carpool with one kid for soccer practices which potentially exposes 2 other families to whatever my family has (and vice versa) in addition to what happens at school.

I would also note that I've seen both vaccinated and unvaccinated family members suffer hard cases of Omicron recently. A 30 year old vaccinated and boosted family member is on week 3 of her infection and still having nasty headaches which makes it impossible for her to concentrate or work. An unvaccinated family member had Omicron in January, lost half her hair and is still struggling with brain fog 5 months later.

Having a positive test result brings a number of repercussions that I would like to avoid. I consider taking health precautions to be prudent not fearful.
Not disagreeing with your prudence here, but in fairness I would also note that in some cases this prudence is simply being forced more by overly cautious COVID policies than the actual danger posed to anyone involved.

I'll just provide my own example: I have one kid in first grade in public school, another three-year-old in a private nursery school, and since the oldest is on the spectrum he's supposed to get behavioral therapists coming to work with him several times a week.

The COVID rules are completely different for these three organizations. The public schools stayed closed/remote longer (too long IMO), but since they've been back they say your kid can go to school even with minor symptoms, as long as you have a negative test. The private nursery school wants a negative test AND for the kid to be symptom-free for at least 24 hours before returning. Practically speaking, this pretty much means my kid is missing minimum two days as soon as she has a sniffle. The therapy specialists, meanwhile, need negative tests AND a doctor's confirmation AND for everyone in the house to be symptom free before they'll send someone over (this despite the fact that all the specialists are vaccinated). This basically means my kid hasn't gotten any behavioral therapy in the last three weeks as colds (not COVID) have cycled through various members of the household.

This makes it pretty much impossible for my wife and I to keep consistent schedules. I want to be careful, but in all honesty jumping through these hoops makes me want to say "f*** it" and have no restrictions at all. Adults can get vaxxed and kids under five are at very low risk. Who are we protecting?
I think that the main point is everyone has different circumstances and risk tolerance. I am in a situation where I stopped listening to COVID warnings and COVID rates. I am fully vaccinated and double boosted. I also am not going to bifurcate people from vaccinated or unvaccinated. All of the assumptions we had early on as to whether vaccine will be effective in preventing infection turned out to be wrong, all of the assumptions as to whether the unvaccinated in a local area are preventing herd immunity when this is a global condition is wrong just like shaming the unvaccinated who are dealing with their one risk tolerance is wrong, and those who may still think we can implement a mask policy, shut sectors down, or keep unvaccinated out are wrong such like China's zero COVID policy is insane. I am however convinced from what I have seen that vaccines are damned powerful at preventing hospitalization. I can deal with a week of feeling sick, and I trust the vaccines and the science. I also don't have to worry about young kids being forced to stay at home.

So, just for me, I am done listening to any new guidance or update other than approvals for new booster. I suspect parents who have to deal with kids going to school, etc. have different risk tolerance (and probably more risk tolerance than they did a year ago). I will take the boosters and take risks like I do when I choose to drive, fly to far away places on vacation, spar, etc. I am personally done being afraid of COVID, and I will deal with it if I get it and, if I am still hospitalized after having gotten four shots, I will just give Fauci the finger.
IMO vaccination rates do matter, because the evidence shows that if those are lower then your region is much more likely to have overcrowded hospitals during a surge.

But otherwise, all fair in my view.
In my local area, it's 90+%. But it seems like most of the variants are coming from countries that are under-vaccinated.
Right, same for me. Very high vaccination rates in the Bay Area. High hospitalization rates and new variants arise from places where the vax rates are low.

Honestly, I think this should have been the primary public health messaging for months now: getting vaccines to everyone (including other countries) rather than squabbling about mask rules. It doesn't help that the right wing decided not to take vaccines as a political statement too.

Joe Biden and Kamala Harris were the original anti-vaxxers and they used their platforms to make political statements that you would agree were irresponsible.
The difference between a right wing conspiracy and the truth is about 20 months.
sycasey
How long do you want to ignore this user?
BearForce2 said:

sycasey said:

calbear93 said:

sycasey said:

calbear93 said:

sycasey said:

Unit2Sucks said:

calbear93 said:

BearNIt said:

BearForce2 said:

Sebastabear said:

MinotStateBeav said:

Kamala Harris while running to be VP..
https://news.yahoo.com/kamala-harris-says-she-wont-take-covid-vaccine-just-on-trumps-sayso-020511962.html
Stupidity doesn't care what your party affiliation is. Nor does the disease.
Both Biden and Kamala were anti-vaxxers.
I would hope that responsible person would do their due diligence before taking any new medication to see if that medication is right for them. If you choose not to get the vaccine nor mask when appropriate then hold on to your sack as the virus will continue to mutate because that's what viruses do. The fall is coming and we are going to see increases in infections and those that are not vaccinated and refuse to wear a mask are going to wish they had done both. Hospitals aren't relaxing as if COVID is over, they are preparing for the fall.


I personally am done with fear tactics on COVID. I will get boosters whenever CDC recommends another, but I am living my life without fear of COVID irrespective of whether someone chooses not to be vaccinated or what the case rate is.
I don't think "fear" is the right lens to look at things through. The reason certain elements brought "fear" into the equation is because they equate toughness with strength.

I'm still very concerned about COVID because it has a potential to impact my life and those around me if I'm not careful. My daughter missed a school camping trip due to a positive COVID test which we believe was a false positive. Nonetheless she missed almost a week of school and we had to protect my other kid so he wouldn't miss school. Similarly, we have to protect our elderly parents who otherwise enjoy spending time with the kid. We also carpool with one kid for soccer practices which potentially exposes 2 other families to whatever my family has (and vice versa) in addition to what happens at school.

I would also note that I've seen both vaccinated and unvaccinated family members suffer hard cases of Omicron recently. A 30 year old vaccinated and boosted family member is on week 3 of her infection and still having nasty headaches which makes it impossible for her to concentrate or work. An unvaccinated family member had Omicron in January, lost half her hair and is still struggling with brain fog 5 months later.

Having a positive test result brings a number of repercussions that I would like to avoid. I consider taking health precautions to be prudent not fearful.
Not disagreeing with your prudence here, but in fairness I would also note that in some cases this prudence is simply being forced more by overly cautious COVID policies than the actual danger posed to anyone involved.

I'll just provide my own example: I have one kid in first grade in public school, another three-year-old in a private nursery school, and since the oldest is on the spectrum he's supposed to get behavioral therapists coming to work with him several times a week.

The COVID rules are completely different for these three organizations. The public schools stayed closed/remote longer (too long IMO), but since they've been back they say your kid can go to school even with minor symptoms, as long as you have a negative test. The private nursery school wants a negative test AND for the kid to be symptom-free for at least 24 hours before returning. Practically speaking, this pretty much means my kid is missing minimum two days as soon as she has a sniffle. The therapy specialists, meanwhile, need negative tests AND a doctor's confirmation AND for everyone in the house to be symptom free before they'll send someone over (this despite the fact that all the specialists are vaccinated). This basically means my kid hasn't gotten any behavioral therapy in the last three weeks as colds (not COVID) have cycled through various members of the household.

This makes it pretty much impossible for my wife and I to keep consistent schedules. I want to be careful, but in all honesty jumping through these hoops makes me want to say "f*** it" and have no restrictions at all. Adults can get vaxxed and kids under five are at very low risk. Who are we protecting?
I think that the main point is everyone has different circumstances and risk tolerance. I am in a situation where I stopped listening to COVID warnings and COVID rates. I am fully vaccinated and double boosted. I also am not going to bifurcate people from vaccinated or unvaccinated. All of the assumptions we had early on as to whether vaccine will be effective in preventing infection turned out to be wrong, all of the assumptions as to whether the unvaccinated in a local area are preventing herd immunity when this is a global condition is wrong just like shaming the unvaccinated who are dealing with their one risk tolerance is wrong, and those who may still think we can implement a mask policy, shut sectors down, or keep unvaccinated out are wrong such like China's zero COVID policy is insane. I am however convinced from what I have seen that vaccines are damned powerful at preventing hospitalization. I can deal with a week of feeling sick, and I trust the vaccines and the science. I also don't have to worry about young kids being forced to stay at home.

So, just for me, I am done listening to any new guidance or update other than approvals for new booster. I suspect parents who have to deal with kids going to school, etc. have different risk tolerance (and probably more risk tolerance than they did a year ago). I will take the boosters and take risks like I do when I choose to drive, fly to far away places on vacation, spar, etc. I am personally done being afraid of COVID, and I will deal with it if I get it and, if I am still hospitalized after having gotten four shots, I will just give Fauci the finger.
IMO vaccination rates do matter, because the evidence shows that if those are lower then your region is much more likely to have overcrowded hospitals during a surge.

But otherwise, all fair in my view.
In my local area, it's 90+%. But it seems like most of the variants are coming from countries that are under-vaccinated.
Right, same for me. Very high vaccination rates in the Bay Area. High hospitalization rates and new variants arise from places where the vax rates are low.

Honestly, I think this should have been the primary public health messaging for months now: getting vaccines to everyone (including other countries) rather than squabbling about mask rules. It doesn't help that the right wing decided not to take vaccines as a political statement too.

Joe Biden and Kamala Harris were the original anti-vaxxers and they used their platforms to make political statements that you would agree were irresponsible.

I don't care for those statements, but given that it's the Biden/Harris voters who wound up taking the vaccine in large numbers I don't think they're the main problem here.
AunBear89
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BearForce2 said:







"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics." -- (maybe) Benjamin Disraeli, popularized by Mark Twain
BearForce2
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AunBear89 said:





FIFY
The difference between a right wing conspiracy and the truth is about 20 months.
BearForce2
How long do you want to ignore this user?
sycasey said:

BearForce2 said:

sycasey said:

calbear93 said:

sycasey said:

calbear93 said:

sycasey said:

Unit2Sucks said:

calbear93 said:

BearNIt said:

BearForce2 said:

Sebastabear said:

MinotStateBeav said:

Kamala Harris while running to be VP..
https://news.yahoo.com/kamala-harris-says-she-wont-take-covid-vaccine-just-on-trumps-sayso-020511962.html
Stupidity doesn't care what your party affiliation is. Nor does the disease.
Both Biden and Kamala were anti-vaxxers.
I would hope that responsible person would do their due diligence before taking any new medication to see if that medication is right for them. If you choose not to get the vaccine nor mask when appropriate then hold on to your sack as the virus will continue to mutate because that's what viruses do. The fall is coming and we are going to see increases in infections and those that are not vaccinated and refuse to wear a mask are going to wish they had done both. Hospitals aren't relaxing as if COVID is over, they are preparing for the fall.


I personally am done with fear tactics on COVID. I will get boosters whenever CDC recommends another, but I am living my life without fear of COVID irrespective of whether someone chooses not to be vaccinated or what the case rate is.
I don't think "fear" is the right lens to look at things through. The reason certain elements brought "fear" into the equation is because they equate toughness with strength.

I'm still very concerned about COVID because it has a potential to impact my life and those around me if I'm not careful. My daughter missed a school camping trip due to a positive COVID test which we believe was a false positive. Nonetheless she missed almost a week of school and we had to protect my other kid so he wouldn't miss school. Similarly, we have to protect our elderly parents who otherwise enjoy spending time with the kid. We also carpool with one kid for soccer practices which potentially exposes 2 other families to whatever my family has (and vice versa) in addition to what happens at school.

I would also note that I've seen both vaccinated and unvaccinated family members suffer hard cases of Omicron recently. A 30 year old vaccinated and boosted family member is on week 3 of her infection and still having nasty headaches which makes it impossible for her to concentrate or work. An unvaccinated family member had Omicron in January, lost half her hair and is still struggling with brain fog 5 months later.

Having a positive test result brings a number of repercussions that I would like to avoid. I consider taking health precautions to be prudent not fearful.
Not disagreeing with your prudence here, but in fairness I would also note that in some cases this prudence is simply being forced more by overly cautious COVID policies than the actual danger posed to anyone involved.

I'll just provide my own example: I have one kid in first grade in public school, another three-year-old in a private nursery school, and since the oldest is on the spectrum he's supposed to get behavioral therapists coming to work with him several times a week.

The COVID rules are completely different for these three organizations. The public schools stayed closed/remote longer (too long IMO), but since they've been back they say your kid can go to school even with minor symptoms, as long as you have a negative test. The private nursery school wants a negative test AND for the kid to be symptom-free for at least 24 hours before returning. Practically speaking, this pretty much means my kid is missing minimum two days as soon as she has a sniffle. The therapy specialists, meanwhile, need negative tests AND a doctor's confirmation AND for everyone in the house to be symptom free before they'll send someone over (this despite the fact that all the specialists are vaccinated). This basically means my kid hasn't gotten any behavioral therapy in the last three weeks as colds (not COVID) have cycled through various members of the household.

This makes it pretty much impossible for my wife and I to keep consistent schedules. I want to be careful, but in all honesty jumping through these hoops makes me want to say "f*** it" and have no restrictions at all. Adults can get vaxxed and kids under five are at very low risk. Who are we protecting?
I think that the main point is everyone has different circumstances and risk tolerance. I am in a situation where I stopped listening to COVID warnings and COVID rates. I am fully vaccinated and double boosted. I also am not going to bifurcate people from vaccinated or unvaccinated. All of the assumptions we had early on as to whether vaccine will be effective in preventing infection turned out to be wrong, all of the assumptions as to whether the unvaccinated in a local area are preventing herd immunity when this is a global condition is wrong just like shaming the unvaccinated who are dealing with their one risk tolerance is wrong, and those who may still think we can implement a mask policy, shut sectors down, or keep unvaccinated out are wrong such like China's zero COVID policy is insane. I am however convinced from what I have seen that vaccines are damned powerful at preventing hospitalization. I can deal with a week of feeling sick, and I trust the vaccines and the science. I also don't have to worry about young kids being forced to stay at home.

So, just for me, I am done listening to any new guidance or update other than approvals for new booster. I suspect parents who have to deal with kids going to school, etc. have different risk tolerance (and probably more risk tolerance than they did a year ago). I will take the boosters and take risks like I do when I choose to drive, fly to far away places on vacation, spar, etc. I am personally done being afraid of COVID, and I will deal with it if I get it and, if I am still hospitalized after having gotten four shots, I will just give Fauci the finger.
IMO vaccination rates do matter, because the evidence shows that if those are lower then your region is much more likely to have overcrowded hospitals during a surge.

But otherwise, all fair in my view.
In my local area, it's 90+%. But it seems like most of the variants are coming from countries that are under-vaccinated.
Right, same for me. Very high vaccination rates in the Bay Area. High hospitalization rates and new variants arise from places where the vax rates are low.

Honestly, I think this should have been the primary public health messaging for months now: getting vaccines to everyone (including other countries) rather than squabbling about mask rules. It doesn't help that the right wing decided not to take vaccines as a political statement too.

Joe Biden and Kamala Harris were the original anti-vaxxers and they used their platforms to make political statements that you would agree were irresponsible.

I don't care for those statements, but given that it's the Biden/Harris voters who wound up taking the vaccine in large numbers I don't think they're the main problem here.

The majority of people who didn't get the vaccine were not doing it for the purposes of making a political statement as you said. Maybe you were confused with protests over government enforced vaccine mandates. They were mostly concerned about side effects, some didn't think the vaccine will be effective, while others, especially younger people weren't concerned about Covid effects in general.
The difference between a right wing conspiracy and the truth is about 20 months.
sycasey
How long do you want to ignore this user?
BearForce2 said:

sycasey said:

BearForce2 said:

sycasey said:

calbear93 said:

sycasey said:

calbear93 said:

sycasey said:

Unit2Sucks said:

calbear93 said:

BearNIt said:

BearForce2 said:

Sebastabear said:

MinotStateBeav said:

Kamala Harris while running to be VP..
https://news.yahoo.com/kamala-harris-says-she-wont-take-covid-vaccine-just-on-trumps-sayso-020511962.html
Stupidity doesn't care what your party affiliation is. Nor does the disease.
Both Biden and Kamala were anti-vaxxers.
I would hope that responsible person would do their due diligence before taking any new medication to see if that medication is right for them. If you choose not to get the vaccine nor mask when appropriate then hold on to your sack as the virus will continue to mutate because that's what viruses do. The fall is coming and we are going to see increases in infections and those that are not vaccinated and refuse to wear a mask are going to wish they had done both. Hospitals aren't relaxing as if COVID is over, they are preparing for the fall.


I personally am done with fear tactics on COVID. I will get boosters whenever CDC recommends another, but I am living my life without fear of COVID irrespective of whether someone chooses not to be vaccinated or what the case rate is.
I don't think "fear" is the right lens to look at things through. The reason certain elements brought "fear" into the equation is because they equate toughness with strength.

I'm still very concerned about COVID because it has a potential to impact my life and those around me if I'm not careful. My daughter missed a school camping trip due to a positive COVID test which we believe was a false positive. Nonetheless she missed almost a week of school and we had to protect my other kid so he wouldn't miss school. Similarly, we have to protect our elderly parents who otherwise enjoy spending time with the kid. We also carpool with one kid for soccer practices which potentially exposes 2 other families to whatever my family has (and vice versa) in addition to what happens at school.

I would also note that I've seen both vaccinated and unvaccinated family members suffer hard cases of Omicron recently. A 30 year old vaccinated and boosted family member is on week 3 of her infection and still having nasty headaches which makes it impossible for her to concentrate or work. An unvaccinated family member had Omicron in January, lost half her hair and is still struggling with brain fog 5 months later.

Having a positive test result brings a number of repercussions that I would like to avoid. I consider taking health precautions to be prudent not fearful.
Not disagreeing with your prudence here, but in fairness I would also note that in some cases this prudence is simply being forced more by overly cautious COVID policies than the actual danger posed to anyone involved.

I'll just provide my own example: I have one kid in first grade in public school, another three-year-old in a private nursery school, and since the oldest is on the spectrum he's supposed to get behavioral therapists coming to work with him several times a week.

The COVID rules are completely different for these three organizations. The public schools stayed closed/remote longer (too long IMO), but since they've been back they say your kid can go to school even with minor symptoms, as long as you have a negative test. The private nursery school wants a negative test AND for the kid to be symptom-free for at least 24 hours before returning. Practically speaking, this pretty much means my kid is missing minimum two days as soon as she has a sniffle. The therapy specialists, meanwhile, need negative tests AND a doctor's confirmation AND for everyone in the house to be symptom free before they'll send someone over (this despite the fact that all the specialists are vaccinated). This basically means my kid hasn't gotten any behavioral therapy in the last three weeks as colds (not COVID) have cycled through various members of the household.

This makes it pretty much impossible for my wife and I to keep consistent schedules. I want to be careful, but in all honesty jumping through these hoops makes me want to say "f*** it" and have no restrictions at all. Adults can get vaxxed and kids under five are at very low risk. Who are we protecting?
I think that the main point is everyone has different circumstances and risk tolerance. I am in a situation where I stopped listening to COVID warnings and COVID rates. I am fully vaccinated and double boosted. I also am not going to bifurcate people from vaccinated or unvaccinated. All of the assumptions we had early on as to whether vaccine will be effective in preventing infection turned out to be wrong, all of the assumptions as to whether the unvaccinated in a local area are preventing herd immunity when this is a global condition is wrong just like shaming the unvaccinated who are dealing with their one risk tolerance is wrong, and those who may still think we can implement a mask policy, shut sectors down, or keep unvaccinated out are wrong such like China's zero COVID policy is insane. I am however convinced from what I have seen that vaccines are damned powerful at preventing hospitalization. I can deal with a week of feeling sick, and I trust the vaccines and the science. I also don't have to worry about young kids being forced to stay at home.

So, just for me, I am done listening to any new guidance or update other than approvals for new booster. I suspect parents who have to deal with kids going to school, etc. have different risk tolerance (and probably more risk tolerance than they did a year ago). I will take the boosters and take risks like I do when I choose to drive, fly to far away places on vacation, spar, etc. I am personally done being afraid of COVID, and I will deal with it if I get it and, if I am still hospitalized after having gotten four shots, I will just give Fauci the finger.
IMO vaccination rates do matter, because the evidence shows that if those are lower then your region is much more likely to have overcrowded hospitals during a surge.

But otherwise, all fair in my view.
In my local area, it's 90+%. But it seems like most of the variants are coming from countries that are under-vaccinated.
Right, same for me. Very high vaccination rates in the Bay Area. High hospitalization rates and new variants arise from places where the vax rates are low.

Honestly, I think this should have been the primary public health messaging for months now: getting vaccines to everyone (including other countries) rather than squabbling about mask rules. It doesn't help that the right wing decided not to take vaccines as a political statement too.

Joe Biden and Kamala Harris were the original anti-vaxxers and they used their platforms to make political statements that you would agree were irresponsible.

I don't care for those statements, but given that it's the Biden/Harris voters who wound up taking the vaccine in large numbers I don't think they're the main problem here.

The majority of people who didn't get the vaccine were not doing it for the purposes of making a political statement as you said. Maybe you were confused with protests over government enforced vaccine mandates. They were mostly concerned about side effects, some didn't think the vaccine will be effective, while others, especially younger people weren't concerned about Covid effects in general.


So either they were doing it for politics or they had other dumb reasons, got it.
BearForce2
How long do you want to ignore this user?
sycasey said:

BearForce2 said:

sycasey said:

BearForce2 said:

sycasey said:

calbear93 said:

sycasey said:

calbear93 said:

sycasey said:

Unit2Sucks said:

calbear93 said:

BearNIt said:

BearForce2 said:

Sebastabear said:

MinotStateBeav said:

Kamala Harris while running to be VP..
https://news.yahoo.com/kamala-harris-says-she-wont-take-covid-vaccine-just-on-trumps-sayso-020511962.html
Stupidity doesn't care what your party affiliation is. Nor does the disease.
Both Biden and Kamala were anti-vaxxers.
I would hope that responsible person would do their due diligence before taking any new medication to see if that medication is right for them. If you choose not to get the vaccine nor mask when appropriate then hold on to your sack as the virus will continue to mutate because that's what viruses do. The fall is coming and we are going to see increases in infections and those that are not vaccinated and refuse to wear a mask are going to wish they had done both. Hospitals aren't relaxing as if COVID is over, they are preparing for the fall.


I personally am done with fear tactics on COVID. I will get boosters whenever CDC recommends another, but I am living my life without fear of COVID irrespective of whether someone chooses not to be vaccinated or what the case rate is.
I don't think "fear" is the right lens to look at things through. The reason certain elements brought "fear" into the equation is because they equate toughness with strength.

I'm still very concerned about COVID because it has a potential to impact my life and those around me if I'm not careful. My daughter missed a school camping trip due to a positive COVID test which we believe was a false positive. Nonetheless she missed almost a week of school and we had to protect my other kid so he wouldn't miss school. Similarly, we have to protect our elderly parents who otherwise enjoy spending time with the kid. We also carpool with one kid for soccer practices which potentially exposes 2 other families to whatever my family has (and vice versa) in addition to what happens at school.

I would also note that I've seen both vaccinated and unvaccinated family members suffer hard cases of Omicron recently. A 30 year old vaccinated and boosted family member is on week 3 of her infection and still having nasty headaches which makes it impossible for her to concentrate or work. An unvaccinated family member had Omicron in January, lost half her hair and is still struggling with brain fog 5 months later.

Having a positive test result brings a number of repercussions that I would like to avoid. I consider taking health precautions to be prudent not fearful.
Not disagreeing with your prudence here, but in fairness I would also note that in some cases this prudence is simply being forced more by overly cautious COVID policies than the actual danger posed to anyone involved.

I'll just provide my own example: I have one kid in first grade in public school, another three-year-old in a private nursery school, and since the oldest is on the spectrum he's supposed to get behavioral therapists coming to work with him several times a week.

The COVID rules are completely different for these three organizations. The public schools stayed closed/remote longer (too long IMO), but since they've been back they say your kid can go to school even with minor symptoms, as long as you have a negative test. The private nursery school wants a negative test AND for the kid to be symptom-free for at least 24 hours before returning. Practically speaking, this pretty much means my kid is missing minimum two days as soon as she has a sniffle. The therapy specialists, meanwhile, need negative tests AND a doctor's confirmation AND for everyone in the house to be symptom free before they'll send someone over (this despite the fact that all the specialists are vaccinated). This basically means my kid hasn't gotten any behavioral therapy in the last three weeks as colds (not COVID) have cycled through various members of the household.

This makes it pretty much impossible for my wife and I to keep consistent schedules. I want to be careful, but in all honesty jumping through these hoops makes me want to say "f*** it" and have no restrictions at all. Adults can get vaxxed and kids under five are at very low risk. Who are we protecting?
I think that the main point is everyone has different circumstances and risk tolerance. I am in a situation where I stopped listening to COVID warnings and COVID rates. I am fully vaccinated and double boosted. I also am not going to bifurcate people from vaccinated or unvaccinated. All of the assumptions we had early on as to whether vaccine will be effective in preventing infection turned out to be wrong, all of the assumptions as to whether the unvaccinated in a local area are preventing herd immunity when this is a global condition is wrong just like shaming the unvaccinated who are dealing with their one risk tolerance is wrong, and those who may still think we can implement a mask policy, shut sectors down, or keep unvaccinated out are wrong such like China's zero COVID policy is insane. I am however convinced from what I have seen that vaccines are damned powerful at preventing hospitalization. I can deal with a week of feeling sick, and I trust the vaccines and the science. I also don't have to worry about young kids being forced to stay at home.

So, just for me, I am done listening to any new guidance or update other than approvals for new booster. I suspect parents who have to deal with kids going to school, etc. have different risk tolerance (and probably more risk tolerance than they did a year ago). I will take the boosters and take risks like I do when I choose to drive, fly to far away places on vacation, spar, etc. I am personally done being afraid of COVID, and I will deal with it if I get it and, if I am still hospitalized after having gotten four shots, I will just give Fauci the finger.
IMO vaccination rates do matter, because the evidence shows that if those are lower then your region is much more likely to have overcrowded hospitals during a surge.

But otherwise, all fair in my view.
In my local area, it's 90+%. But it seems like most of the variants are coming from countries that are under-vaccinated.
Right, same for me. Very high vaccination rates in the Bay Area. High hospitalization rates and new variants arise from places where the vax rates are low.

Honestly, I think this should have been the primary public health messaging for months now: getting vaccines to everyone (including other countries) rather than squabbling about mask rules. It doesn't help that the right wing decided not to take vaccines as a political statement too.

Joe Biden and Kamala Harris were the original anti-vaxxers and they used their platforms to make political statements that you would agree were irresponsible.

I don't care for those statements, but given that it's the Biden/Harris voters who wound up taking the vaccine in large numbers I don't think they're the main problem here.

The majority of people who didn't get the vaccine were not doing it for the purposes of making a political statement as you said. Maybe you were confused with protests over government enforced vaccine mandates. They were mostly concerned about side effects, some didn't think the vaccine will be effective, while others, especially younger people weren't concerned about Covid effects in general.


So either they were doing it for politics or they had other dumb reasons, got it.
Again, the reasons weren't political, most were concerned about side effects.
The difference between a right wing conspiracy and the truth is about 20 months.
sycasey
How long do you want to ignore this user?
BearForce2 said:

sycasey said:

BearForce2 said:

sycasey said:

BearForce2 said:

sycasey said:

calbear93 said:

sycasey said:

calbear93 said:

sycasey said:

Unit2Sucks said:

calbear93 said:

BearNIt said:

BearForce2 said:

Sebastabear said:

MinotStateBeav said:

Kamala Harris while running to be VP..
https://news.yahoo.com/kamala-harris-says-she-wont-take-covid-vaccine-just-on-trumps-sayso-020511962.html
Stupidity doesn't care what your party affiliation is. Nor does the disease.
Both Biden and Kamala were anti-vaxxers.
I would hope that responsible person would do their due diligence before taking any new medication to see if that medication is right for them. If you choose not to get the vaccine nor mask when appropriate then hold on to your sack as the virus will continue to mutate because that's what viruses do. The fall is coming and we are going to see increases in infections and those that are not vaccinated and refuse to wear a mask are going to wish they had done both. Hospitals aren't relaxing as if COVID is over, they are preparing for the fall.


I personally am done with fear tactics on COVID. I will get boosters whenever CDC recommends another, but I am living my life without fear of COVID irrespective of whether someone chooses not to be vaccinated or what the case rate is.
I don't think "fear" is the right lens to look at things through. The reason certain elements brought "fear" into the equation is because they equate toughness with strength.

I'm still very concerned about COVID because it has a potential to impact my life and those around me if I'm not careful. My daughter missed a school camping trip due to a positive COVID test which we believe was a false positive. Nonetheless she missed almost a week of school and we had to protect my other kid so he wouldn't miss school. Similarly, we have to protect our elderly parents who otherwise enjoy spending time with the kid. We also carpool with one kid for soccer practices which potentially exposes 2 other families to whatever my family has (and vice versa) in addition to what happens at school.

I would also note that I've seen both vaccinated and unvaccinated family members suffer hard cases of Omicron recently. A 30 year old vaccinated and boosted family member is on week 3 of her infection and still having nasty headaches which makes it impossible for her to concentrate or work. An unvaccinated family member had Omicron in January, lost half her hair and is still struggling with brain fog 5 months later.

Having a positive test result brings a number of repercussions that I would like to avoid. I consider taking health precautions to be prudent not fearful.
Not disagreeing with your prudence here, but in fairness I would also note that in some cases this prudence is simply being forced more by overly cautious COVID policies than the actual danger posed to anyone involved.

I'll just provide my own example: I have one kid in first grade in public school, another three-year-old in a private nursery school, and since the oldest is on the spectrum he's supposed to get behavioral therapists coming to work with him several times a week.

The COVID rules are completely different for these three organizations. The public schools stayed closed/remote longer (too long IMO), but since they've been back they say your kid can go to school even with minor symptoms, as long as you have a negative test. The private nursery school wants a negative test AND for the kid to be symptom-free for at least 24 hours before returning. Practically speaking, this pretty much means my kid is missing minimum two days as soon as she has a sniffle. The therapy specialists, meanwhile, need negative tests AND a doctor's confirmation AND for everyone in the house to be symptom free before they'll send someone over (this despite the fact that all the specialists are vaccinated). This basically means my kid hasn't gotten any behavioral therapy in the last three weeks as colds (not COVID) have cycled through various members of the household.

This makes it pretty much impossible for my wife and I to keep consistent schedules. I want to be careful, but in all honesty jumping through these hoops makes me want to say "f*** it" and have no restrictions at all. Adults can get vaxxed and kids under five are at very low risk. Who are we protecting?
I think that the main point is everyone has different circumstances and risk tolerance. I am in a situation where I stopped listening to COVID warnings and COVID rates. I am fully vaccinated and double boosted. I also am not going to bifurcate people from vaccinated or unvaccinated. All of the assumptions we had early on as to whether vaccine will be effective in preventing infection turned out to be wrong, all of the assumptions as to whether the unvaccinated in a local area are preventing herd immunity when this is a global condition is wrong just like shaming the unvaccinated who are dealing with their one risk tolerance is wrong, and those who may still think we can implement a mask policy, shut sectors down, or keep unvaccinated out are wrong such like China's zero COVID policy is insane. I am however convinced from what I have seen that vaccines are damned powerful at preventing hospitalization. I can deal with a week of feeling sick, and I trust the vaccines and the science. I also don't have to worry about young kids being forced to stay at home.

So, just for me, I am done listening to any new guidance or update other than approvals for new booster. I suspect parents who have to deal with kids going to school, etc. have different risk tolerance (and probably more risk tolerance than they did a year ago). I will take the boosters and take risks like I do when I choose to drive, fly to far away places on vacation, spar, etc. I am personally done being afraid of COVID, and I will deal with it if I get it and, if I am still hospitalized after having gotten four shots, I will just give Fauci the finger.
IMO vaccination rates do matter, because the evidence shows that if those are lower then your region is much more likely to have overcrowded hospitals during a surge.

But otherwise, all fair in my view.
In my local area, it's 90+%. But it seems like most of the variants are coming from countries that are under-vaccinated.
Right, same for me. Very high vaccination rates in the Bay Area. High hospitalization rates and new variants arise from places where the vax rates are low.

Honestly, I think this should have been the primary public health messaging for months now: getting vaccines to everyone (including other countries) rather than squabbling about mask rules. It doesn't help that the right wing decided not to take vaccines as a political statement too.

Joe Biden and Kamala Harris were the original anti-vaxxers and they used their platforms to make political statements that you would agree were irresponsible.

I don't care for those statements, but given that it's the Biden/Harris voters who wound up taking the vaccine in large numbers I don't think they're the main problem here.

The majority of people who didn't get the vaccine were not doing it for the purposes of making a political statement as you said. Maybe you were confused with protests over government enforced vaccine mandates. They were mostly concerned about side effects, some didn't think the vaccine will be effective, while others, especially younger people weren't concerned about Covid effects in general.


So either they were doing it for politics or they had other dumb reasons, got it.
Again, the reasons weren't political, most were concerned about side effects.
And yet, somehow these people are very much concentrated on one side of the political aisle.
BearForce2
How long do you want to ignore this user?
sycasey said:

BearForce2 said:

sycasey said:

BearForce2 said:

sycasey said:

BearForce2 said:

sycasey said:

calbear93 said:

sycasey said:

calbear93 said:

sycasey said:

Unit2Sucks said:

calbear93 said:

BearNIt said:

BearForce2 said:

Sebastabear said:

MinotStateBeav said:

Kamala Harris while running to be VP..
https://news.yahoo.com/kamala-harris-says-she-wont-take-covid-vaccine-just-on-trumps-sayso-020511962.html
Stupidity doesn't care what your party affiliation is. Nor does the disease.
Both Biden and Kamala were anti-vaxxers.
I would hope that responsible person would do their due diligence before taking any new medication to see if that medication is right for them. If you choose not to get the vaccine nor mask when appropriate then hold on to your sack as the virus will continue to mutate because that's what viruses do. The fall is coming and we are going to see increases in infections and those that are not vaccinated and refuse to wear a mask are going to wish they had done both. Hospitals aren't relaxing as if COVID is over, they are preparing for the fall.


I personally am done with fear tactics on COVID. I will get boosters whenever CDC recommends another, but I am living my life without fear of COVID irrespective of whether someone chooses not to be vaccinated or what the case rate is.
I don't think "fear" is the right lens to look at things through. The reason certain elements brought "fear" into the equation is because they equate toughness with strength.

I'm still very concerned about COVID because it has a potential to impact my life and those around me if I'm not careful. My daughter missed a school camping trip due to a positive COVID test which we believe was a false positive. Nonetheless she missed almost a week of school and we had to protect my other kid so he wouldn't miss school. Similarly, we have to protect our elderly parents who otherwise enjoy spending time with the kid. We also carpool with one kid for soccer practices which potentially exposes 2 other families to whatever my family has (and vice versa) in addition to what happens at school.

I would also note that I've seen both vaccinated and unvaccinated family members suffer hard cases of Omicron recently. A 30 year old vaccinated and boosted family member is on week 3 of her infection and still having nasty headaches which makes it impossible for her to concentrate or work. An unvaccinated family member had Omicron in January, lost half her hair and is still struggling with brain fog 5 months later.

Having a positive test result brings a number of repercussions that I would like to avoid. I consider taking health precautions to be prudent not fearful.
Not disagreeing with your prudence here, but in fairness I would also note that in some cases this prudence is simply being forced more by overly cautious COVID policies than the actual danger posed to anyone involved.

I'll just provide my own example: I have one kid in first grade in public school, another three-year-old in a private nursery school, and since the oldest is on the spectrum he's supposed to get behavioral therapists coming to work with him several times a week.

The COVID rules are completely different for these three organizations. The public schools stayed closed/remote longer (too long IMO), but since they've been back they say your kid can go to school even with minor symptoms, as long as you have a negative test. The private nursery school wants a negative test AND for the kid to be symptom-free for at least 24 hours before returning. Practically speaking, this pretty much means my kid is missing minimum two days as soon as she has a sniffle. The therapy specialists, meanwhile, need negative tests AND a doctor's confirmation AND for everyone in the house to be symptom free before they'll send someone over (this despite the fact that all the specialists are vaccinated). This basically means my kid hasn't gotten any behavioral therapy in the last three weeks as colds (not COVID) have cycled through various members of the household.

This makes it pretty much impossible for my wife and I to keep consistent schedules. I want to be careful, but in all honesty jumping through these hoops makes me want to say "f*** it" and have no restrictions at all. Adults can get vaxxed and kids under five are at very low risk. Who are we protecting?
I think that the main point is everyone has different circumstances and risk tolerance. I am in a situation where I stopped listening to COVID warnings and COVID rates. I am fully vaccinated and double boosted. I also am not going to bifurcate people from vaccinated or unvaccinated. All of the assumptions we had early on as to whether vaccine will be effective in preventing infection turned out to be wrong, all of the assumptions as to whether the unvaccinated in a local area are preventing herd immunity when this is a global condition is wrong just like shaming the unvaccinated who are dealing with their one risk tolerance is wrong, and those who may still think we can implement a mask policy, shut sectors down, or keep unvaccinated out are wrong such like China's zero COVID policy is insane. I am however convinced from what I have seen that vaccines are damned powerful at preventing hospitalization. I can deal with a week of feeling sick, and I trust the vaccines and the science. I also don't have to worry about young kids being forced to stay at home.

So, just for me, I am done listening to any new guidance or update other than approvals for new booster. I suspect parents who have to deal with kids going to school, etc. have different risk tolerance (and probably more risk tolerance than they did a year ago). I will take the boosters and take risks like I do when I choose to drive, fly to far away places on vacation, spar, etc. I am personally done being afraid of COVID, and I will deal with it if I get it and, if I am still hospitalized after having gotten four shots, I will just give Fauci the finger.
IMO vaccination rates do matter, because the evidence shows that if those are lower then your region is much more likely to have overcrowded hospitals during a surge.

But otherwise, all fair in my view.
In my local area, it's 90+%. But it seems like most of the variants are coming from countries that are under-vaccinated.
Right, same for me. Very high vaccination rates in the Bay Area. High hospitalization rates and new variants arise from places where the vax rates are low.

Honestly, I think this should have been the primary public health messaging for months now: getting vaccines to everyone (including other countries) rather than squabbling about mask rules. It doesn't help that the right wing decided not to take vaccines as a political statement too.

Joe Biden and Kamala Harris were the original anti-vaxxers and they used their platforms to make political statements that you would agree were irresponsible.

I don't care for those statements, but given that it's the Biden/Harris voters who wound up taking the vaccine in large numbers I don't think they're the main problem here.

The majority of people who didn't get the vaccine were not doing it for the purposes of making a political statement as you said. Maybe you were confused with protests over government enforced vaccine mandates. They were mostly concerned about side effects, some didn't think the vaccine will be effective, while others, especially younger people weren't concerned about Covid effects in general.


So either they were doing it for politics or they had other dumb reasons, got it.
Again, the reasons weren't political, most were concerned about side effects.
And yet, somehow these people are very much concentrated on one side of the political aisle.
The majority of conservatives have been vaccinated with at least one shot. And I think most people are concerned about what they put into their bodies and some have found out about vaccine related injuries the hard way. This idea that people aren't taking vaccines primarily for political reasons isn't supported anywhere.
The difference between a right wing conspiracy and the truth is about 20 months.
sycasey
How long do you want to ignore this user?
BearForce2 said:

sycasey said:

BearForce2 said:

sycasey said:

BearForce2 said:

sycasey said:

BearForce2 said:

sycasey said:

calbear93 said:

sycasey said:

calbear93 said:

sycasey said:

Unit2Sucks said:

calbear93 said:

BearNIt said:

BearForce2 said:

Sebastabear said:

MinotStateBeav said:

Kamala Harris while running to be VP..
https://news.yahoo.com/kamala-harris-says-she-wont-take-covid-vaccine-just-on-trumps-sayso-020511962.html
Stupidity doesn't care what your party affiliation is. Nor does the disease.
Both Biden and Kamala were anti-vaxxers.
I would hope that responsible person would do their due diligence before taking any new medication to see if that medication is right for them. If you choose not to get the vaccine nor mask when appropriate then hold on to your sack as the virus will continue to mutate because that's what viruses do. The fall is coming and we are going to see increases in infections and those that are not vaccinated and refuse to wear a mask are going to wish they had done both. Hospitals aren't relaxing as if COVID is over, they are preparing for the fall.


I personally am done with fear tactics on COVID. I will get boosters whenever CDC recommends another, but I am living my life without fear of COVID irrespective of whether someone chooses not to be vaccinated or what the case rate is.
I don't think "fear" is the right lens to look at things through. The reason certain elements brought "fear" into the equation is because they equate toughness with strength.

I'm still very concerned about COVID because it has a potential to impact my life and those around me if I'm not careful. My daughter missed a school camping trip due to a positive COVID test which we believe was a false positive. Nonetheless she missed almost a week of school and we had to protect my other kid so he wouldn't miss school. Similarly, we have to protect our elderly parents who otherwise enjoy spending time with the kid. We also carpool with one kid for soccer practices which potentially exposes 2 other families to whatever my family has (and vice versa) in addition to what happens at school.

I would also note that I've seen both vaccinated and unvaccinated family members suffer hard cases of Omicron recently. A 30 year old vaccinated and boosted family member is on week 3 of her infection and still having nasty headaches which makes it impossible for her to concentrate or work. An unvaccinated family member had Omicron in January, lost half her hair and is still struggling with brain fog 5 months later.

Having a positive test result brings a number of repercussions that I would like to avoid. I consider taking health precautions to be prudent not fearful.
Not disagreeing with your prudence here, but in fairness I would also note that in some cases this prudence is simply being forced more by overly cautious COVID policies than the actual danger posed to anyone involved.

I'll just provide my own example: I have one kid in first grade in public school, another three-year-old in a private nursery school, and since the oldest is on the spectrum he's supposed to get behavioral therapists coming to work with him several times a week.

The COVID rules are completely different for these three organizations. The public schools stayed closed/remote longer (too long IMO), but since they've been back they say your kid can go to school even with minor symptoms, as long as you have a negative test. The private nursery school wants a negative test AND for the kid to be symptom-free for at least 24 hours before returning. Practically speaking, this pretty much means my kid is missing minimum two days as soon as she has a sniffle. The therapy specialists, meanwhile, need negative tests AND a doctor's confirmation AND for everyone in the house to be symptom free before they'll send someone over (this despite the fact that all the specialists are vaccinated). This basically means my kid hasn't gotten any behavioral therapy in the last three weeks as colds (not COVID) have cycled through various members of the household.

This makes it pretty much impossible for my wife and I to keep consistent schedules. I want to be careful, but in all honesty jumping through these hoops makes me want to say "f*** it" and have no restrictions at all. Adults can get vaxxed and kids under five are at very low risk. Who are we protecting?
I think that the main point is everyone has different circumstances and risk tolerance. I am in a situation where I stopped listening to COVID warnings and COVID rates. I am fully vaccinated and double boosted. I also am not going to bifurcate people from vaccinated or unvaccinated. All of the assumptions we had early on as to whether vaccine will be effective in preventing infection turned out to be wrong, all of the assumptions as to whether the unvaccinated in a local area are preventing herd immunity when this is a global condition is wrong just like shaming the unvaccinated who are dealing with their one risk tolerance is wrong, and those who may still think we can implement a mask policy, shut sectors down, or keep unvaccinated out are wrong such like China's zero COVID policy is insane. I am however convinced from what I have seen that vaccines are damned powerful at preventing hospitalization. I can deal with a week of feeling sick, and I trust the vaccines and the science. I also don't have to worry about young kids being forced to stay at home.

So, just for me, I am done listening to any new guidance or update other than approvals for new booster. I suspect parents who have to deal with kids going to school, etc. have different risk tolerance (and probably more risk tolerance than they did a year ago). I will take the boosters and take risks like I do when I choose to drive, fly to far away places on vacation, spar, etc. I am personally done being afraid of COVID, and I will deal with it if I get it and, if I am still hospitalized after having gotten four shots, I will just give Fauci the finger.
IMO vaccination rates do matter, because the evidence shows that if those are lower then your region is much more likely to have overcrowded hospitals during a surge.

But otherwise, all fair in my view.
In my local area, it's 90+%. But it seems like most of the variants are coming from countries that are under-vaccinated.
Right, same for me. Very high vaccination rates in the Bay Area. High hospitalization rates and new variants arise from places where the vax rates are low.

Honestly, I think this should have been the primary public health messaging for months now: getting vaccines to everyone (including other countries) rather than squabbling about mask rules. It doesn't help that the right wing decided not to take vaccines as a political statement too.

Joe Biden and Kamala Harris were the original anti-vaxxers and they used their platforms to make political statements that you would agree were irresponsible.

I don't care for those statements, but given that it's the Biden/Harris voters who wound up taking the vaccine in large numbers I don't think they're the main problem here.

The majority of people who didn't get the vaccine were not doing it for the purposes of making a political statement as you said. Maybe you were confused with protests over government enforced vaccine mandates. They were mostly concerned about side effects, some didn't think the vaccine will be effective, while others, especially younger people weren't concerned about Covid effects in general.


So either they were doing it for politics or they had other dumb reasons, got it.
Again, the reasons weren't political, most were concerned about side effects.
And yet, somehow these people are very much concentrated on one side of the political aisle.
The majority of conservatives have been vaccinated with at least one shot. And I think most people are concerned about what they put into their bodies and some have found out about vaccine related injuries the hard way. This idea that people aren't taking vaccines primarily for political reasons isn't supported anywhere.




BearForce2
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Yes but this poll doesn't show reasons for vaccine hesitancy.
The difference between a right wing conspiracy and the truth is about 20 months.
bearister
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Contra Costa County Covid Hospitalization stats of April 19, 2022 contrasted with those of May 27.
Cancel my subscription to the Resurrection
Send my credentials to the House of Detention
I got some friends inside
Unit2Sucks
How long do you want to ignore this user?
Predictable impact of radicalized anti-vaxxers is predictable.

NYT has a great long form article which gets into a lot of the details., much of it will seem familiar to anyone reading this thread regularly. I recommend reading the whole article because there is a lot to digest, but I wanted to pull in a few paragraphs that I found interesting.

Quote:

The mother of four brought her children, ranging in age from grade school to high school, to the doctor's office last summer for their annual checkup. When their pediatrician, Robert Froehlke, said that it was time for shots and several boosters and then mentioned the Covid vaccine, her reaction stunned him. "I'm not going to kill my children," Froehlke recalls her saying, as she began to shake and weep. He ushered her out of the examination room, away from her children, and tried to calm her. "We're just trying to help your kids be healthy," he told her. But he didn't press the issue; he sensed that she wasn't persuadable at that moment. And he didn't want to drive her away from his practice altogether. "That really shook me up," he says.



Although it is convenient to refer to anti-vaccine efforts as a "movement," there really is no single movement. Rather, disparate interests are converging on a single issue. Many reject the "anti-vaccine" label altogether, claiming instead to be "pro-vaccine choice," "pro-safe vaccine" or "vaccine skeptical." For some, there may be a way to make money by pushing the notion that vaccines are dangerous. For politicians and commentators, the "tyranny" of vaccine mandates can offer a political rallying cry. For states like Russia, which has disseminated both pro- and anti-vaccine messages on social media in other countries, vaccines are another target for informational warfare. For conspiracy-minded private citizens, vaccine misinformation can be a way to make sense of the world, even if the explanations they arrive at are often nightmarish and bizarre.

Around the same time, Renee DiResta, a researcher at the Stanford Internet Observatory, a cyber-policy center where she studies online anti-vaccine activity, started seeing what she describes as a "weird libertarian crossover": vaccine opponents networking with Second Amendment and Tea Party activists. One reason for this outreach, DiResta says, is that arguments about the supposed dangers of vaccines had proved ineffective in blocking SB277, because no good evidence supported the claim that vaccines were injurious. To keep their movement alive, anti-vaccine advocates therefore needed a new line of attack. They hoped to recruit a larger army as well.

These online groups, quite small in number, proved to be very adept at leveraging the viral potential of social media to make themselves seem large. Although surveys have repeatedly indicated that the great majority of parents support vaccination, these activists fostered, DiResta says, "a perception among the public that everyone was opposed to this policy." To her dismay, some California Republican politicians adopted this new rhetoric of "parental choice," despite the fact that SB277 had several Republican co-sponsors. They seemed to have sensed a wedge issue, she says, "an opportunity to differentiate themselves from Democrats," who held a majority in the Legislature. "It was pure cynicism." Many of their own children were vaccinated, she points out. But the rhetoric galvanized people in a way that previous anti-vaccine messaging hadn't.


With Donald Trump's arrival on the national political scene, the politicization of vaccines that was happening in California accelerated in the national arena. Figures like Wakefield and Kennedy reached new levels of visibility: Wakefield attended Trump's inaugural ball, where he called for a "shake-up" of the C.D.C. he has refused to divulge who invited him to the event and Kennedy told The Washington Post that the president was considering appointing him to lead a commission on vaccine safety. Trump himself had already thrown fuel on the anti-vaccine fire. While campaigning for president, he repeated the by-then thoroughly debunked claim that vaccines cause autism. "That took this fringe issue," David Broniatowski says, "and made it a political issue associated with the parties."



Kennedy is chairman of an organization named Children's Health Defense; it applied for the permit to hold the Washington rally. The nonprofit group, which says it aims to "end childhood health epidemics by working aggressively to eliminate harmful exposures," churns out online articles that sow doubt about vaccine safety. And it has expanded aggressively during the pandemic. In January 2020, the Children's Health Defense website received just under 84,000 monthly visits from the United States, according to the tracking firm Similarweb. As of this March, that number had reached more than 1.4 million monthly visits, a 17-fold increase in traffic. (Revenue, coming from donations and fund-raising events, was already surging before the pandemic, according to the group's tax filings, to $6.8 million in 2020 from just under $1.1 million in 2018.)

By one measure, C.H.D.'s reach now occasionally outstrips that of bona fide news outlets. Indiana University's Observatory on Social Media, whose CoVaxxy Project follows how vaccine-related content is shared on Twitter, has found that the organization's vaccine-related posts these might falsely claim that thousands of people have died from being vaccinated, for example, or that the risks of Covid-19 boosters outweigh the benefits are frequently shared more widely than vaccine-related items from CNN, NPR and the Centers for Disease Control. In some weeks, the vaccine-related content of the Children's Health Defense was shared more widely than that of The New York Times or The Washington Post.
….
The picture of the world these professional vaccine agitators paint full of conspiracies and cover-ups, with a dangerous medicine being forced on the populace could be seen as a form of advertising. "I look at these companies and go, 'Yeah, these are well-run marketing organizations,'" Ahmed told me. They often employ what he calls "a marketing funnel": a net of interconnected websites that lead users down a rabbit hole until finally, somewhere, they are asked to buy something or donate money.
….
Sean O'Leary, vice chairman of the Committee on Infectious Diseases at the American Academy of Pediatrics, suspects that, hesitancy aside, we are probably in for outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases in the near future. Young children are undervaccinated. Polio and measles are already flaring up in some parts of the developing world, where the pandemic has stymied vaccination efforts. He worries that one of those infections will hop to the United States, where it would now find a public-health infrastructure that is stretched very thin and a combustible population of under-vaccinated bodies to burn through. "We're potentially staring at a huge problem in the coming months to years," O'Leary says. "Now you add in potentially more people refusing vaccines we're setting ourselves up for really bad outbreaks here."
bearister
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Cancel my subscription to the Resurrection
Send my credentials to the House of Detention
I got some friends inside
BearForce2
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Blood clots are now normal.
The difference between a right wing conspiracy and the truth is about 20 months.
oski003
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https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-fda-staff-says-novavax-vaccine-lowers-covid-risk-2022-06-03/

In the company's nearly 30,000 patient trial, conducted between December 2020 and September 2021, there were four cases of myocarditis, a type of heart inflammation also associated with mRNA vaccines, detected within 20 days post vaccination.
Unit2Sucks
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oski003 said:

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-fda-staff-says-novavax-vaccine-lowers-covid-risk-2022-06-03/

In the company's nearly 30,000 patient trial, conducted between December 2020 and September 2021, there were four cases of myocarditis, a type of heart inflammation also associated with mRNA vaccines, detected within 20 days post vaccination.
Doesn't sound any better than mRNA and the effectiveness pre-dates Omicron so we don't know how effective it would be in today's environment. No wonder the stock is down 14% today.

I still hope that the FDA approves it because it appears to be safe and effective.
oski003
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Fyi, two of the four myocarditis cases were in the placebo group. The article is slanted and misleading. The stock is down 26% today. I honestly think this is outright corruption by Reuters and the FDA. They treat Novavax as a pariah.
Unit2Sucks
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oski003 said:

Fyi, two of the four myocarditis cases were in the placebo group. The article is slanted and misleading. The stock is down 26% today. I honestly think this is outright corruption by Reuters and the FDA. They treat Novavax as a pariah.
The article says 1 case was placebo.
Quote:

In the company's nearly 30,000 patient trial, conducted between December 2020 and September 2021, there were four cases of myocarditis, a type of heart inflammation also associated with mRNA vaccines, detected within 20 days post vaccination.

One patient in the trial reported myocarditis after receiving placebo.

Here's an article from Marketwatch:
Quote:

There were at least four instances of myocarditis, a type of heart inflammation, in the clinical-trial participants. "If causally associated, the risk of myocarditis following NVX-CoV2373 could be higher than reported during post-authorization use of mRNA COVID-19 vaccines," the FDA said. No cases of myocarditis were reported in clinical trials for either of the approved mRNA vaccines, which were developed by Moderna Inc. MRNA, -1.75% and BioNTech SE [sbntx] and Pfizer Inc. PFE, 1.11%. The first reports about myocarditis came after the mRNA vaccines had already been authorized. The FDA report was released in advance of next Tuesday's meeting of the Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee. The two-shot vaccine has a 90% efficacy rate against mild to severe symptomatic COVID-19. Novavax's stock is down 70.0% this year, while the broader S&P 500 SPX, -1.44% has declined 12.3%.

I know you have a conspiracy theory about Reuters, but don't recall if you have a separate one to handle other media sources reporting on facts.

It would appear that despite a year and a half of 003's breathless anti-mRNA propaganda, his favored solution is comparable but not necessarily any more safe or effective.

Given that Novavax has never had an approved vaccine and experienced numerous difficulties actually producing doses, we've seen nothing to indicate that having approved Novavax earlier would have helped anything, except perhaps 003's financial stake in Novavax.

I hope the FDA approves Novavax and that people go out and take it, but this doesn't appear to be a game changer at this point.
BearForce2
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Article summary: It's complicated!
The difference between a right wing conspiracy and the truth is about 20 months.
Unit2Sucks
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NYT has an update on Novavax. The FDA advisory committee recommended that Novavax be approved. Also looks like (based on FDA briefing here) that 6 cases of Myocarditis were found in the trial which is more than previously reported. It would appear that if myocarditis in the big knock on mRNA (as 003 has stated over and over and over), then Novavax isn't a solution. That said, it may be tolerated better by some people and could prove to be more effective against current or upcoming variants. Only real world experience will tell us this.

Quote:

A federal advisory committee on Tuesday voted to recommend that regulators authorize a Covid-19 vaccine made by Novavax, an early beneficiary of the government's Operation Warp Speed program.

If the Food and Drug Administration accepts the panel's recommendation on the Novavax two-dose vaccine, it would become the fourth shot to win clearance for adults in the United States. But before the agency could authorize the shots, the F.D.A. would need to sign off on Novavax's manufacturing process, which has stumbled again and again over the course of two years.

Those ongoing issues are likely to mean the vaccine would not be available for weeks, in contrast to the already cleared Covid vaccines that became available just days after the same committee endorsed those shots. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention must also recommend use of the shots before they could become available.

...

In briefing documents released on Friday, F.D.A. scientists identified six cases of myocarditis and pericarditis, forms of heart inflammation, in about 40,000 trial volunteers. The F.D.A. documents said that the cases raised concern that the vaccine was the cause and that the rates of the problems could turn out to be higher than with mRNA vaccines.

Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech did not find any cases of myocarditis or pericarditis in their initial clinical trials. But after authorization, once the vaccines were given to millions of people, they were both found to create a small extra risk of myocarditis in boys and young men.

oski003
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The FDA data includes several trials, the trials of adolescents as well and later trials with existing covid infections. There were no more incidences of myocarditis than the placebo population. Novavax > mRNA despite the bought and paid for media. It is no coincidence that Moderna PR'd a superior variant vaccine this morning. It is not about lives and safety. It is about profit for Moderna and Pfizer.
Unit2Sucks
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oski003 said:

The FDA data includes several trials, the trials of adolescents as well and later trials with existing covid infections. There were no more incidences of myocarditis than the placebo population. Novavax > mRNA despite the bought and paid for media. It is no coincidence that Moderna PR'd a superior variant vaccine this morning. It is not about lives and safety. It is about profit for Moderna and Pfizer.
According to the FDA data, there were 6 instances of myocarditis/pericarditis among people who received the vaccine (males age 16, 19, 20, 28 and 67, female aged 60) and only 1 instance in the placebo (female age 31). That doesn't sound like "no more incidences".

More context:


Quote:

In summary, the events of myocarditis/pericarditis are concerning for a causal association with
NVX-CoV2373 for the following reasons: 1) five events were reported within 2 weeks of
vaccination, 2) only 1 event had a clearly identified alternative etiology (COVID-19) strongly
associated with myocarditis, and other events had only circumstantial evidence of potentially
plausible alternative etiologies, and 3) four of the events occurred in young men, a subject
population known to be at higher risk for mRNA COVID-19 vaccine-associated myocarditis.
Additionally, identification of multiple potential vaccine-associated cases in a premarket safety
database of ~40,000 vaccine recipients raises concern that if causally associated, the risk of
myocarditis following NVX-CoV2373 could be higher than reported during post-authorization
use of mRNA COVID-19 vaccines (for which no cases were identified in pre-authorization
evaluation).
More context from another article that shows Novavax's view which 003 seems to be parroting:
Quote:

Myocarditis concerns may also dog the vaccine. The data revealed on 3 June by FDA described five cases of myocarditis that occurred in people in the vaccine arms of the Novavax clinical trials in the United States and the United Kingdom. Four occurred within 20 days of vaccination, a time frame during which there were no cases in the placebo arm. Three cases were in men ages 16 to 20. Young men have had the highest rates of myocarditis or pericarditis after receiving mRNA vaccines. "These events raise the concern for a causal association with this vaccine, similar to the association documented with mRNA COVID-19 vaccines," FDA wrote.

Novavax countered that collectively across all of its clinical trials, the risk of myocarditis and pericarditis was not significantly different in the vaccine group (0.007%) and in the placebo groups (0.005%). "We believe that the totality of the clinical evidence here is not enough to establish an overall causal relationship with the vaccine," Denny Kim, Novavax's chief safety officer, told the FDA advisers.

But Paul Offit, a committee member and infectious disease physician at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, told today's meeting that the "handful of cases of myocarditis [that] occurred within 3 or 4 days of receiving the second dose of vaccine in young men is consistent with what was seen with the mRNA-induced myocarditis. So I think that is likely a cause and not a coincidental association."


I know 003 has his obvious biases here but as an objective observer it would appear far too early to determine whether Novavax will end up being a superior long-term vaccine. Certainly too early to conclude that Novavax should have been prioritized, particularly given their production issues and now that we know it has the same type of elevated myocarditis risk as mRNA (exact risk still TBD after broader usage).
oski003
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I believe there is a causal link between Novavax covid vaccine and myocarditis, but at lower rates than mRNA, especially Moderna. Moderna and Pfizer did not provide adolescent data for EUA so there was no analysis of myocarditis rates for young men, the highest risk group. Novavax adolescent data was included. It is a safer vaccine that has been given the run around. Much of their production issues are either the result of or could have been solved by the US giving/not giving preferential treatment to Big Pharma/NIH.
Unit2Sucks
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oski003 said:

I believe there is a causal link between Novavax covid vaccine and myocarditis, but at lower rates than mRNA, especially Moderna. Moderna and Pfizer did not provide adolescent data for EUA so there was no analysis of myocarditis rates for young men, the highest risk group. Novavax adolescent data was included. It is a safer vaccine that has been given the run around. Much of their production issues are either the result of or could have been solved by the US giving/not giving preferential treatment to Big Pharma/NIH.
Anyone who held off on mRNA due to myocarditis will hold off on Novavax for the same reason. You have no idea whether the risks are higher, lower or the same vs mRNA but since you favor Novavax you will continue to represent that it's safer. While I'm disappointed that Novavax has a myocarditis problem, I'm not surprised that you are willing to overlook it where you gave no such benefit of the doubt to mRNA. That says more about you than the vaccine companies or any conspiracy theories you offer.
sycasey
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Are we sure oski003 doesn't work for Novavax?
bearister
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Concern grows as two new Omicron sub-variants spread across US


https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jun/08/new-omicron-sub-variants-ba4-ba5-coronavirus?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
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