Some Covid-19 thoughts
POSTED BY: captaincrunch
UPDATED: Monday, September 29, 2025 18:59
VIEWED: 301579
PAGE 309 of 384
Anyway, back to COVID-19 and the current state of the US economy.
Certainly the war in Afghanistan and a larger war in Iraq and their combined 22 TRILLION spending with no benefit to the US is something that weakened the US considerably, and which I believe is putting the US in a position where it may not be able to recover from COVID-19 in a good state.
In fact, my contention is that the US was in a precarious state already, even without COVID-19.
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Every country has Covid skeptics, anti-vaxxers and anti-maskers. The United States is hardly the only place where some people are afraid of vaccines, angry at pandemic restrictions, open to wild conspiracy theories, and distrustful of experts. But there's one key reason why the world's wealthiest nation, home to many of the planet's top public health experts, is the red-hot bubbling epicenter of a pandemic that just won't quit.
The US is one of a few major countries where the people pushing against common-sense measures hold positions of power, where they can shape policy, influence large swaths of the population, and weaponize the pandemic for their own political benefit. (In Brazil, another place where this has happened, President Jair Bolsonaro faces investigations for his pandemic shenanigans and their catastrophic consequences).
Some in the Republican Party have turned the coronavirus crisis into the vehicle they hope will propel them to new political heights. It's a cynical game. If Biden fails to contain the pandemic, their hope is that they can use that failure to gain control of Congress in the 2022 midterm elections and pave the way for a Republican president in 2024.
After Biden revealed his six-step plan against the still raging pandemic, which includes vaccines mandates, Fox News slammed him as an "authoritarian," and Republican officials vowed to fight his new mandates in court. It was another battle in their campaign to defeat Biden by undercutting America's public health efforts.
Evidence of this strategy was visible at the Conservative Political Action Conference in July, when the crowds cheered after a speaker said the US government failed to "sucker" people into getting vaccinated. (Biden wanted to get 70% of the population vaccinated with at least one shot by July 4, a goal the US reached a month later). Imagine that -- they were effectively cheering for the virus.
Meanwhile, individual politicians are focused on advancing their own careers. It seems people like Florida's Gov. Ron DeSantis, Texas' Gov. Greg Abbott, and others, are trying to outdo each other with measures that defy common sense. One could be forgiven for thinking they want the virus to win.
Their goal is to try to emerge as the heirs to former President Donald Trump, who pushed against the guidance of public health experts, motivated at least in part, no doubt, by fears of what pandemic restrictions might do to the economy, and hence to his reelection prospects. Trump also urged his followers to take on Democratic governors who were desperately trying to keep hospitals and morgues from overflowing with Covid victims. "LIBERATE MICHIGAN!" and "LIBERATE MINNESOTA!" he tweeted in all caps, among many other inflammatory and harmful exhortations.
It seems his would-be heirs took note of the way Trump's bravado appealed to his followers, so now they are taking up the mantle to look tough . . .
More at https://www.cnn.com/2021/09/10/opinions/republicans-weaponized-covid-1
9-pandemic-ghitis/index.html
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Ha ha.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/covid-mask-mandate-florida-ban-upheld-202
1-09-10/
I hope Biden's* got some lube. That vaccine mandate by proxy he just pulled is going to get rammed up his ass.
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Vaccinated People: "You need to get muh vaccination shots that don't work because I got muh vaccination shots that don't work and I'm afraid of people that didn't get muh vaccination shots that don't work because muh vaccination shots that don't work don't work."
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Quote:Actually, that's not true. If you look at per-capita cases and deaths, the USA is about the middle of the pack. Some nations, like Luxemburg and Belgium, had huge caseloads early. Others, like Israel managed to avoid the early virus but got nailed by delta, even with high vaccination rates. Same thing with deaths. Spain, UK, Luxemburg, Belgium, Sweden etc had higher death rates early. I think because they had widespread infection, they may now have a resistant population.
Originally posted by second:
Every country has Covid skeptics, anti-vaxxers and anti-maskers. The United States is hardly the only place where some people are afraid of vaccines, angry at pandemic restrictions, open to wild conspiracy theories, and distrustful of experts. But there's one key reason why the world's wealthiest nation, home to many of the planet's top public health experts, is the red-hot bubbling epicenter of a pandemic that just won't quit.
Quote:There are widespread demonstrations against "vaccine passports", continued lockdowns, and mandatory vaccinations across the globe.
The US is one of a few major countries where the people pushing against common-sense measures hold positions of power, where they can shape policy, influence large swaths of the population, and weaponize the pandemic for their own political benefit. (In Brazil, another place where this has happened, President Jair Bolsonaro faces investigations for his pandemic shenanigans and their catastrophic consequences).
Sweden had some control measures, but is lifting them.
So is Denmark
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/aug/27/denmark-to-lift-all-rema
ining-covid-restrictions-on-10-september
Japan NEVER had a hard lockdown, and can't actually enforce one. https://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory/lockdowns-vaccines-pacific-nat
ions-diverging-paths-79584515
Quote:If you look at the latest case rates in the USA, they are falling SHARPLY. Death rates will soon follow. Perhaps we have reached "herd immunity" wth a combination of previous infection and vaccination. If Republicans are counting on Biden* losing the battle with Covid, they may be disappointed
Some in the Republican Party have turned the coronavirus crisis into the vehicle they hope will propel them to new political heights. It's a cynical game. If Biden fails to contain the pandemic, their hope is that they can use that failure to gain control of Congress in the 2022 midterm elections and pave the way for a Republican president in 2024.
After Biden revealed his six-step plan against the still raging pandemic,
Biden's* mandate, however, may leave him with egg on his face if the "emergency" disappears, as it seems to be doing at the moment.
Quote:Vaccine mandate is NOT, IMHO, a "public health issue". The current vaccine is pretty good at protecting against serious disease, but not so good at preventing transmission. Forcing someone else to get a vaccine to keep ME healthy doesn't work because that's not how the vaccine works. The vulnerable should be vaccinated, and if necessary take further precautions ... such as limiting exposure and wearing an N95 in public. Elder-care facilities need to be extra-vigilant about isolation techniques.
which includes vaccines mandates, Fox News slammed him as an "authoritarian," and Republican officials vowed to fight his new mandates in court. It was another battle in their campaign to defeat Biden by undercutting America's public health efforts.
Natural infection confers longer-lasting and more robust resistance to disease. From a purely SELFISH POV, I want everyone who does not want to be vaccinated to go out and get infected as quickly as possible. That way, they will either be dead (unlikely) or be more resistant to the NEXT variant that rolls around and I, as a result, will be protected.
I will, of course, be standing in line for the latest vaccine agai
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Deaths 669,197 + 1, sad and unnecessary.
‘It Took Her So Fast’: 4-Year-Old Texas Preschooler Dies of COVID Within Hours of First Symptoms
A Texas preschooler died of COVID-19 this week within hours of a fever first coming on, her family says. Kali Cook, 4, died in her sleep early Tuesday morning, about five hours after she was found to have a fever, her mother Karra Harwood told the Houston Chronicle.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/it-took-her-so-fast-4-year-old-texas
-preschooler-dies-of-covid-within-hours-of-first-symptoms/ar-AAOjvUp?ocid=msedgntp
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Getting the vaccine can still feel like an act of treason
CNN had come to Carter County, in the Ozark Mountains, in October 2020, when coronavirus was starting to hit rural America. At the time, the debate was over masks, and it was very political. "We sit in the coffee shop and we see someone wearing a mask and we think: Democrat," Brian Keathley said last fall, weeks before he got the virus.
CNN came back in August to see what had changed since last fall and what hadn't -- and why, if people here personally knew so many people who got sick, just 27% of the county is fully vaccinated.
"I had both shots of the vaccine, and people just acted like, 'Oh, it doesn't help,'" Cheryl Wetton said. "It bothers me sometimes that people act like Covid is a big joke. I always want to say, 'Well, why don't you just come right up here to the cemetery, and I'll show you my husband's grave? And I can show you it's no joke.'"
Wetton actually did say that to a guy in town, she later confirmed. "He just got real quiet."
There was "no way" Tara Chitwood would get the vaccine. Her mom had gotten vaccinated, she said, and got sick anyway. "I've survived this long," Chitwood said, and then expressed a fatalism we heard a lot: She was going to die of something, eventually.
"Nobody died for a long time, so it's taken a while for people to get serious," Jim Rodebush said. The Delta variant is what made it more serious. "It spread so fast. We've had, I guess, 15 people die here." (It is now 16 in Carter County.)
Rodebush's wife Ruth fought cancer for 12 years, he said. Covid-19 killed her in eight days. She died July 20, 2021. "I talked to her up until the Sunday before she died," Rodebush said. "She said, 'This is bad, I think you all need to get the shot.' And I think she's right."
Neither had been vaccinated. Ruth had said her doctor had told her not to get the vaccine because of her chemo, Rodebush said. "I was pretty skeptical of it until I watched all this happen," he said. Now, he plans to get the shot.
When Ruth was dying, the hospital called at about 2:30 a.m., so Rodebush and his son went to see her. The Covid-19 ward was eerie -- dark, everyone in protective gear, the patients on ventilators, which he knew was the end of the line.
"There's nothing good about it," he said. "I don't ever want to go back in one."
They'd watched our 2020 story for CNN, and he thought it was "bullsh*t." He knew everyone in the video -- every single one of them. At the time, he thought they were wrong about masks, but now it was more visceral. "Those boys sitting in the coffee shop don't know what they're talking about when they're talking about Covid. They need to walk through the Covid ward. That'll change your mind. Just stay a day there. See how you like it. It's a different story then."
In Missouri, as well as in Arkansas and Tennessee, many people have said they're at peace with the possibility they could die from Covid-19 because they know they're right with God. "If I lose the battle to it, I know where I'm going. I get to go the heavens," Brandon Helvey said. And Tom Wilder said, "I believe if the good Lord wants me right now, it doesn't matter if I take a vaccine or I don't. If he wants me to go, he's going to take me."
This kind of "fatalism" usually melts away, Dr. Chris Cochran said, with the intimacy of a one-on-one visit to his office, Cochran said. But what remains is peer pressure to not get vaccinated. "People have banded together for security, like people do in any crisis," he said. But bad information had been introduced to those circles, and attempts to correct it had made them close tighter.
"It's a real, severe, heavy peer pressure in their church, in their family, in their fr
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Quote:
Originally posted by THG:
Deaths 669,197 + 1, sad and unnecessary.
‘It Took Her So Fast’: 4-Year-Old Texas Preschooler Dies of COVID Within Hours of First Symptoms
A Texas preschooler died of COVID-19 this week within hours of a fever first coming on, her family says. Kali Cook, 4, died in her sleep early Tuesday morning, about five hours after she was found to have a fever, her mother Karra Harwood told the Houston Chronicle.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/it-took-her-so-fast-4-year-old-texas
-preschooler-dies-of-covid-within-hours-of-first-symptoms/ar-AAOjvUp?ocid=msedgntp
You're fucking gross Ted.
--------------------------------------------------
Vaccinated People: "You need to get muh vaccination shots that don't work because I got muh vaccination shots that don't work and I'm afraid of people that didn't get muh vaccination shots that don't work because muh vaccination shots that don't work don't work."
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Quote:A young child dying of Covid is tragic, for sure, but it's also rare. And to die THAT quickly means something truly unique happened. Maybe she had an unknown heart defect, or developed septic shock bc in my experience those are the only things that can take someone out that fast. (I've known two people who died of septic shock - one was hubby's surgeon and another was a guy who worked for me- and it began with an inconsequnetial infection that killed them in one and two days, respectively.)
Originally posted by THG:
Deaths 669,197 + 1, sad and unnecessary.
‘It Took Her So Fast’: 4-Year-Old Texas Preschooler Dies of COVID Within Hours of First Symptoms
A Texas preschooler died of COVID-19 this week within hours of a fever first coming on, her family says. Kali Cook, 4, died in her sleep early Tuesday morning, about five hours after she was found to have a fever, her mother Karra Harwood told the Houston Chronicle.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/it-took-her-so-fast-4-year-old-texas
-preschooler-dies-of-covid-within-hours-of-first-symptoms/ar-AAOjvUp?ocid=msedgntp
But using the death of one child to score points is just gross. More children die in car accidents. What are you going to do about THAT, THGR?
*****
There is some dispute whether the delta version of SARS-CoV2 has a higher infection fatality rate (IFR). For sure, it spreads at least twice as fast so more people get sick overall. I tried looking up it's IFR. Some say it's so far indistinguishable from the original version
https://healthfeedback.org/claimreview/there-is-no-evidence-that-the-d
elta-variant-of-sars-cov-2-has-a-lower-fatality-rate-than-the-wild-type-virus-craig-kelly-dan-bongino/
An early paper said it was twice as likely to lead to hospitalization as the original version
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(21)013
58-1/fulltext
But so far, nobody seems to have come up with a definitive answer as to whether or not the delta version is actually "deadlier".
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Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake
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Quote:
SECOND: We sit in the coffee shop and we see someone wearing a mask and we think: Democrat," Brian Keathley said last fall, weeks before he got the virus.
Like I said: Highly politicized.
BOTH parties have made this a political issue because BOTH parties have ridiculous policies. Fauci (for example) waffled on masking, when he should have told the truth: We need to reserve masks for emergency and healthcare staff. Democrats insisted on longterm and repeated lockdowns. "Face covering" is not sufficient and quite often is virtue-signalling.
OTOH being anti-vax is just stupid, which is where the Republicans are.
BOTH parties are using Covid-19 to attempt to score points and gain power.
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Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake
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Virus #1 fertilizing the ground for #2 in action:
(i du ho GoPs helping C19)
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DUZ XaT SEM RiT TQ YQ? - Jubal Early
The real pandemic solution: http://uvpk.net/
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