There we go

[xandorxerxes]

Just got my PCR test results, positive, was supposed to fly to hawaii on friday to see my mom for the first time since 2019...

but Christ on a cracker this is never going away, and the ass clowns who control the levers of power are too fucking risk averse to let this end anytime soon.

I get the sentiment, really. My wife's grandparents are really old and not doing well and she wants to see them again and let them meet their great granddaughter. I also know COVID patients are outside of everyone here's sphere of care, though I'm sure Killa can relate to seeing his wife's reactions when her parents were in the hospital.

Dying of COVID is awful and emotionally traumatic for everyone involved. You get to watch your loved one dying a slow, agonizing death as they struggle to breathe. We've lost an immense amount doctors and nurses to burnout and public hostility. COVID patient are flooding ICUs and infecting others in them - sometimes killing them. The doctors and nurses that get infected can't see patients for weeks, making the cycle worse. The patients' families get to watch them die of COVID knowing that they did everything right and some asshole still gave it to their loved one.

Yes, it's inconvenient and people who have done the right thing this whole time are still being penalized if not suffering for it. If you want these rules to go away, push people to get vaccinated. The more people who are vaccinated, the fewer people in hospitals, and 99% fewer deaths. We won't need to pay a fortune in insurance costs or hospital bills to cover sick patients and the cost of hiring travelling nurses at half a million a year. Our medical staff can stay and treat patients instead of overworking their colleagues while they go out with COVID. Without all of the deaths and hospitalizations, we don't need restrictions.

We had this beat a year ago when we developed the vaccine, and we said fuck it we'd still rather kill each other.

[killacross]

I don't understand your logic. Truly I don't. If we say people have free agency and are willing to take their own personal [calculated] risks (regardless of if they are well informed or misinformed)...why is this still a thing?

People who wanted to get vaccinated are vaccinated at this point. The virus is no longer a "threat" to them. People who don't want to be vaccinated are not vaccinated. Why try to force them? If the "worst case scenario" now is that with a vaccination -- you will likely get mild, cold-like symptoms...

Why is the world still shut down? Personally, I don't believe it has anything to do with a virus...and has everything to do with government control, government spending to inflate the stock market, and government subsidizing jobs to keep [government imposed] unemployment low

[xandorxerxes]

I don't understand your logic. Truly I don't. If we say people have free agency and are willing to take their own personal [calculated] risks (regardless of if they are well informed or misinformed)...why is this still a thing?

People who wanted to get vaccinated are vaccinated at this point. The virus is no longer a "threat" to them. People who don't want to be vaccinated are not vaccinated. Why try to force them? If the "worst case scenario" now is that with a vaccination -- you will likely get mild, cold-like symptoms...

Why is the world still shut down? Personally, I don't believe it has anything to do with a virus...and has everything to do with government control, government spending to inflate the stock market, and government subsidizing jobs to keep [government imposed] unemployment low

I really need to get better at shortening what I write, but I really hate writing unsupported statements.

TL;DR: When you test positive, it's no longer about your agency, it's about the agency of everyone around you. They have a right to tell you to fuck off instead of infecting them.

Long version -

Two reasons - one, immunocompromised people can't get vaccinated even if they want to. Two - because we still have to treat people who aren't vaccinated with our healthcare. There are probably more, but those are the ones that impact me the most so they come to mind first.

If you want to say unvaccinated people can't go to the hospital for COVID and have to wear a mask, sure. That minimizes their ability to infect others, and if they do get COVID they're not taking someone else's hospital bed or doctor.

As for your last paragraph... I actually can't tell if you're trolling me or not. In case you're not:
1) The government doesn't care about controlling you with COVID protocols. What would they even gain? "Haha, you're delayed from your flight for 5 days because we want to control you." OK? The government has more control over you by knowing all of the information you put online and swiping your dick pics than it needs for whatever else.
2) This has been true since at least 2008, though for a while after 2010 or so it wasn't about the stock market. Then my favorite president came along and defined "the economy" as the stock market... Supposedly the governmental multiplier is a thing. I couldn't tell you.
3) Depends on what you mean by subsidizing. Given the context of COVID, I'm assuming this isn't about government jobs and more about COVID relief. The unemployment benefits are long over, and even the bonus they did give wasn't worth much of anything (though it was determined to have a positive economic outcome). The whole "no one wants to work because of government money" was proven to be a crock of shit a long time ago.

Nothing is shut down anymore, for precisely the reason you stated - people who aren't vaccinated aren't going to get vaccinated, so the risk is on them. The extra precautions like requiring a negative test are there so those people aren't going to infect others. You can fly on an airplane. You can't fly on an airplane testing positive. Since this is in reference to the federal government, I'm assuming you're not talking about local ordinances? Even the federal "vaccine mandate" didn't mandate that you got a vaccine. It mandated that you got a vaccine or tested negative.

[Digital Masta]

Posted something intense and decided it wasn't worth it. So I'll just say this

I don't think it's even possible for XX to see any other viewpoint. I mean literally, he can't do it. He will hold the line and die on this hill.

Oh, it's the unvaccinated's fault. Even though both can still transmit it (and cloth masks don't do shit to stop it) but it's the unvaccinated's fault. Oh, okay.

[killacross]

I really need to get better at shortening what I write, but I really hate writing unsupported statements.

TL;DR: When you test positive, it's no longer about your agency, it's about the agency of everyone around you. They have a right to tell you to fuck off instead of infecting them.

Long version -

Two reasons - one, immunocompromised people can't get vaccinated even if they want to. Two - because we still have to treat people who aren't vaccinated with our healthcare. There are probably more, but those are the ones that impact me the most so they come to mind first.

If you want to say unvaccinated people can't go to the hospital for COVID and have to wear a mask, sure. That minimizes their ability to infect others, and if they do get COVID they're not taking someone else's hospital bed or doctor.

As for your last paragraph... I actually can't tell if you're trolling me or not. In case you're not:
1) The government doesn't care about controlling you with COVID protocols. What would they even gain? "Haha, you're delayed from your flight for 5 days because we want to control you." OK? The government has more control over you by knowing all of the information you put online and swiping your dick pics than it needs for whatever else.
2) This has been true since at least 2008, though for a while after 2010 or so it wasn't about the stock market. Then my favorite president came along and defined "the economy" as the stock market... Supposedly the governmental multiplier is a thing. I couldn't tell you.
3) Depends on what you mean by subsidizing. Given the context of COVID, I'm assuming this isn't about government jobs and more about COVID relief. The unemployment benefits are long over, and even the bonus they did give wasn't worth much of anything (though it was determined to have a positive economic outcome). The whole "no one wants to work because of government money" was proven to be a crock of shit a long time ago.

Nothing is shut down anymore, for precisely the reason you stated - people who aren't vaccinated aren't going to get vaccinated, so the risk is on them. The extra precautions like requiring a negative test are there so those people aren't going to infect others. You can fly on an airplane. You can't fly on an airplane testing positive. Since this is in reference to the federal government, I'm assuming you're not talking about local ordinances? Even the federal "vaccine mandate" didn't mandate that you got a vaccine. It mandated that you got a vaccine or tested negative.

Just did the same. Not trolling at all. Typed up a long reply and realized we just see it completely differently. I see the line where the government "forces compliance" and people step up and are responsible or are held accountable for their actions/decisions at a different location on the spectrum than you.

Also -- with countries relaxing their restrictions this week -- guarantee we discover a new variant in 2 weeks!! Gonna need to lockdown to control the spread.

[superbob]

We're still averaging almost a 9-11 of deaths a day right now to covid...

[killacross]

Of people who are vaccinated?

[superbob]

Of people who are vaccinated?

Total US covid deaths per day, though i haven't really seen good pure data on deaths of fully vaccinated vs partially vaccinated vs unvaccinated but numbers i've seen floated are 17x more likely to die unvaccinated than vaccinated.

edit:
https://ourworldindata.org/covid-deaths-by-vaccination

per this page, though this data is 2 months old now so pre omicron wave, we're looking at an unvaccinated death rate of 9.7/100,000 for unvaccinated, 0.7/100,000 for 2 shots, and 0.1/100,000 for 2 shots and a booster.

[killacross]

is that 10 deaths per 100k infections??...that looks like a 99% chance of surviving if you're unvaccinated to me...but I haven't read the article
truth be told -- I'll probably glance at it. But not vested enough in the conversation and doubt we are swaying anyone's opinions here

Unrelated... What program can I use to hwrdcode subtitles? I can do it with VLC... but it causes a noticeable drop in picture quality

Finally... Anyone watching Vox Machina on Amazon.? So far... Got me cracking up

[Digital Masta]

Of people who are vaccinated?

Total US covid deaths per day, though i haven't really seen good pure data on deaths of fully vaccinated vs partially vaccinated vs unvaccinated but numbers i've seen floated are 17x more likely to die unvaccinated than vaccinated.

edit:
https://ourworldindata.org/covid-deaths-by-vaccination

per this page, though this data is 2 months old now so pre omicron wave, we're looking at an unvaccinated death rate of 9.7/100,000 for unvaccinated, 0.7/100,000 for 2 shots, and 0.1/100,000 for 2 shots and a booster.

Also, what is the health of these people? Are they really old? Do they have co-morbidities? That stuff matters a lot.


Anyway, So Bill Clinton has a class on the Masterclass platform? Really, Masterclass? Bill Clinton? Well...they do have Paul Krugman teaching economics so at times they just miss.

[superbob]

Of people who are vaccinated?

Total US covid deaths per day, though i haven't really seen good pure data on deaths of fully vaccinated vs partially vaccinated vs unvaccinated but numbers i've seen floated are 17x more likely to die unvaccinated than vaccinated.

edit:
https://ourworldindata.org/covid-deaths-by-vaccination

per this page, though this data is 2 months old now so pre omicron wave, we're looking at an unvaccinated death rate of 9.7/100,000 for unvaccinated, 0.7/100,000 for 2 shots, and 0.1/100,000 for 2 shots and a booster.

Also, what is the health of these people? Are they really old? Do they have co-morbidities? That stuff matters a lot.


Anyway, So Bill Clinton has a class on the Masterclass platform? Really, Masterclass? Bill Clinton? Well...they do have Paul Krugman teaching economics so at times they just miss.

Just an assumption, but from what we've seen so far with covid, those that are not vaccinated tend to lean republican and are on the heavier side of the average American, and knowing obesity rates with type 2 diabetes, they're probably running multiple co-morbidities (obesity, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, type 2 diabetes).

@killa: that death rate is per 100,000 population, not cases.

[killacross]

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-nc ... index.html

890k total deaths
75MM total cases

If you took that and split it 18 ways (so you could say 17x more likely to survive with vaccine)....that looks an awful lot like a 99% chance of surviving, even if you're unvaccinated.

[xandorxerxes]

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-nc ... index.html

890k total deaths
75MM total cases

If you took that and split it 18 ways (so you could say 17x more likely to survive with vaccine)....that looks an awful lot like a 99% chance of surviving, even if you're unvaccinated.

Also, what is the health of these people? Are they really old? Do they have co-morbidities? That stuff matters a lot.

Current US death rate is about 1.2%. That number is a bit misleading, because that's total so far - so vaccinated deaths have dropped, while unvaccinated haven't. Death rate for the disease itself is higher. Vaccinated + boosted people are over 50x less likely to die from the disease. Those numbers also don't account for people who are seriously ill but recover. Even if we assume that 1.2% is the actual death rate among unvaccinated, you're still talking about a million more people dying. It also doesn't account for the 20% of our medical workforce that has quit. Even if we say that COVID is less deadly than the already lowered number because current numbers are declining, let's say that only half die and half of that amount of medical personnel quit. That's still another 500K dead and once everything is said and done, we're running at 70% of our medical staff. Before the pandemic we were already having a doctor shortage.

These people range from critically ill to fully healthy. These are deaths due to COVID, not to their co-morbidities. These people would be alive without COVID. Omicron especially has hit children harder than other variants. Additionally, these numbers don't account for long-term COVID sufferers or those who suffer long-term organ damage.

Keep in mind that this disease is so potent that when we locked down, we eliminated the flu season entirely but still lost hundreds of thousands of people to COVID. If we say that locking down is so awful for everyone, know also that by letting almost half the population run around unvaccinated means that immunocompromised people have to lock down forever. They can't ever go to work, they can't do any leisure outside of their home, their friends and family can't visit them without extreme precaution. That also means everyone in hospitals will continue to be unable to have visitors. With the extra precautions we currently have, those people can still at least do things while also taking multiple measures to protect themselves. It means a lot to people to be able to see their families before they die.

I know I'm on the heavier side of this, but that's because 1% to you guys is not 1% to me. I'm not directly exposed to hospital COVID experiences, but I hear much more about them than you do and far more frequently. I also hear of all of the extra work that happens when nurses and doctors have to quarantine, or they just transfer or quit. The stories I've heard and read about can be amazingly awful. If we can save hundreds of thousands of people from that, I'm OK being forced to test negative or be vaccinated to do things. Speaking of the country losing their religion - love thy neighbor. Seriously.

If you smoke in your home and give yourself cancer, that's your choice. If you want to die to COVID in your home, that's still your choice. You don't have the right to give me cancer with your smoke, you don't have the right to give me COVID. I don't see why that's so hard.

[killacross]

It's "so hard" because it is LITERALLY IMPOSSIBLE TO STOP

You can be 100% vaccinated and boosted 27x and still be a carrier

You can be 100% vaccinated and have 0 symptoms and still be a carrier

Testing doesn't help because I get tested... Then IMMEDIATELY infected afterwards... Travel to 15 stores and talk to 8000 people (without a mask in my state)... But hey... I got negative test results... it should be fine right?

... If it's IMPOSSIBLE TO STOP.. The ONLY way you can protect yourself is to get vaccinated. So the world shuts down for 2 weeks...then you're on your own. Not this perpetual nanny state thing we have right now

[xandorxerxes]

We don't have to stop it; we just have to actually make an effort to mitigate the damage it does. Testing negative then getting COVID or carrying it while vaccinated is just unfortunate. Packing people like sardines into a plane, auditorium, or boat for an extended period of time without making any effort to confirm that people aren't sick is just reckless. I'm not saying we have to cure COVID; I'm saying the steps we're currently doing are annoying, but they allow for everyone to have lives until we can manage the disease at a level similar to the flu.

We could have that a lot sooner if people would stop thinking the vaccine will turn them magnetic or "doing their own research."

[killacross]

Again.. We just see the threshold of government responsibility and PERSONAL accountability at different points

[xandorxerxes]

Again.. We just see the threshold of government responsibility and PERSONAL accountability at different points

It's possible, but how do you hold someone accountable? What happens when no personal responsibility is met?

[killacross]

Vaccine is offered free of charge until this date
Vaccine gives you a 99% chance of survival
Vaccine gives you highest protection from this and this variant

Make your personal decision
.. After that, you have to pay out of pocket for the vaccine and deal with the consequences of being unvaxxed and you get sick

The personal responsibility is to not go outside if you KNOW you are sick. The personal accountability is to get the vaccine to protect yourself and your family [and to decide whether you want to avoid travel or large crowds]

What doesn't work is saying you have to be home by this time, must wear this mask, must put up signs, tape, barriers, close down industries, pick random numbers for gatherings as "safe"... I can't even rember all of the things they've done

Honestly, like I've said before Obamacare opened floodgates to a lot of things. If they were serious about this instead of trying to expand government control via other [more direct] methods

They would say.. Get the vaccine or pay this "non compliance tax"

Perfectly constitutional /s

[xandorxerxes]

Vaccine is offered free of charge until this date
Vaccine gives you a 99% chance of survival
Vaccine gives you highest protection from this and this variant

Make your personal decision
.. After that, you have to pay out of pocket for the vaccine and deal with the consequences of being unvaxxed and you get sick

The personal responsibility is to not go outside if you KNOW you are sick. The personal accountability is to get the vaccine to protect yourself and your family [and to decide whether you want to avoid travel or large crowds]

What doesn't work is saying you have to be home by this time, must wear this mask, must put up signs, tape, barriers, close down industries, pick random numbers for gatherings as "safe"... I can't even rember all of the things they've done

I agree 100%. If it's a risk to your life, it's a risk that you can choose to assume if you want to. It's a risk to other people's lives, and so people have a responsibility to minimize their impact to others. That's the problem though - people don't do that, people go out knowing they are sick. We've seen people go to events and parties knowing they are sick or go to work sick. We don't have any way to hold people accountable for that. If we did, we wouldn't need the restrictions. Just look at how many people refused to wear masks until it was mandated.

Honestly, like I've said before Obamacare opened floodgates to a lot of things. If they were serious about this instead of trying to expand government control via other [more direct] methods

They would say.. Get the vaccine or pay this "non compliance tax"

Perfectly constitutional /s

I mean, it is, so sayeth the SC (until they don't anymore). We can always just go founding father on people - if you're not vaccinated, then you're forcibly quarantined. If the infections get bad, you're forcefully inoculated.

I'm not sure I'm fully understanding when y'all say "expanding government control." That's why I keep typing all this out. Help me get it, seriously. Vaccine mandates are already a thing, you have to be vaccinated to even go to school. What is the point of controlling us with things like masks? Just to say they can? What would they do when the reason to use masks isn't there anymore? It's not like the mask-supporters only wear masks because the government says so. What's the endgame?

Edit: Also fuck Illinois for gerrymandering.

[Digital Masta]

We don't have to stop it; we just have to actually make an effort to mitigate the damage it does. Testing negative then getting COVID or carrying it while vaccinated is just unfortunate. Packing people like sardines into a plane, auditorium, or boat for an extended period of time without making any effort to confirm that people aren't sick is just reckless. I'm not saying we have to cure COVID; I'm saying the steps we're currently doing are annoying, but they allow for everyone to have lives until we can manage the disease at a level similar to the flu

.

And yet places have been doing this for at least a year and half by this point and they are no worse off than the places that went super lock down.

That is not a conspiracy. It's true.

We could have that a lot sooner if people would stop thinking the vaccine will turn them magnetic or "doing their own research."

And there it is. This is how you really feel, you want everyone to just go along with the outcome you want, opposing viewpoints be damned. Your side is pure and righteous and others are just fools.

Unless I missed it, you also constantly avoid the fact that being vaccinated doesn't stop you from spreading it, meaning in the end it doesn't matter since both can spread it. You also don't mention ALL the people who had it and now have natural immunity which is countless by this point both vaxxed and unvaxxed.

What we are doing now with all these ridiculous measures that don't do anything is just managing people's anxiety, which isn't others' responsibility.

At this point If you're vaxxed and you're worried about others (because the only group that's really still freaking out is the vaxxed) then YOU stay in your house, you wear a mask, you stay away from everyone because that is your problem.

We don't alter the world for a virus that has a 99% survival rate (or rather we shouldn't be), but at the end of the day, your views are consistent. You would have us alter the world for this small percentage just like you would have us alter the world for the infinitesimal percentage of people that think they are the opposite sex.

If this virus were killing people at a very high rate regardless of health status (like particular venoms from snakes do for example meaning you get bit, if you don't have anti-venom with you, you're dead) then you'd have more of a reason to be this strict. But at this point, it's basically become like the flu. You get it, you get over it, you move on. A small number of people get it and die, which sucks but that's how the numbers play out. More people will get it in the winter versus the summer.

And if you think this is just about the virus in terms of governmental control then you are being naive.

I also love how worldwide there seems to be absolutely no push for a healthier lifestyle. Everyone is vaccine and masks and stupid bullshit but nobody is talking about altering your lifestyle so you eat better and move around so that you're just healthier overall and thus less likely to be hit severely with covid.