Delta Variant is here...

[Admin]

My brother Scott did this interview today on Morning Joe.  Speaks to Delta, hesitancy, the role of vaccination for protection of others, etc.  His interview starts about 3 minutes into the video but the whole thing is interesting (and a bit disorienting).

https://www.msnbc.com/morning-joe/watch/doctor-discusses-rising-coronavirus-infection-rates-in-tennessee-117457477729?fbclid=IwAR3It3Au9E8rb_t-vkBpzqYC1rsot2tVohhxIMytvIGODhVmlQ9trsH1uSU

[TallDude]

What your brother wants to say is " look... there are a lot of uneducated people living in this state and they don't understand what vaccines do." They don't understand how cell phones work either, but they use them every day. They should be more afraid putting a Lithium-ion battery against their ear all day. 

[Admin]

Can you imagine the frustration?  They are stuck at 42% of eligible adults with vaccine doses sitting on the shelves.  At the same time they have people who are trusted by the unvaccinated community actively dissuading people from taking precaution and state officials seeking to reduce the outreach programs for all vaccines (not just covid). 

[Bean]

It's ironic that in their overzealous pursuit to avoid looking like lemmings, they become lemmings. (I know - actual lemmings get a bad rap, they are really just as smart as their cousin rodents...)

[Tom]

I think that all public businesses should voluntarily post a sign that states the percentage of how many of their employees are vaccinated. I have a right to know if a restaurant's, retail store, dentist's office, what ever, business's employees are vaccinated. I can then use that information to determine how safe I'll feel using that business.

[Hdip]

Except the business is not legally allowed to ask it's employee's if they are vaccinated I thought.

[Tom]

Except the business is not legally allowed to ask it's employee's if they are vaccinated I thought.

Not sure about that.  There is talk about requiring employees to either be vaccinated or recently tested. Also, I stated it as voluntarily.  The point is, I'll chose a restaurant where all of their employees are vaccinated over one with a low rate.

[Bean]

I was surprised to find that in our state it's ok for the employer to ask (at least for the moment).

[PonoBill]

Every human sits in a bubble, communicating only with peers and a few family members, adding to the framework of their beliefs only the things that support the framework and rejecting everything else no matter how stupid or illogical the accepted stuff is, or how compelling and obvious the rejected information is. Advertising works by leveraging that reality--that's what I did, that's ALL that I did. Anyone seeking to educate with advertising is a moron. The government sucks at persuasion because they govern by fiat.

If you are writing in a forum, no matter how crappy your spelling is or how hideous your grammar, you are in a tiny segment of humanity capable of expressing your thoughts and opinions. At least 50% of humanity can't do that. The short and brutal reason is--too stupid. You don't know any of them, you never talk to them unless you have to.

The simple notion that we could dispense with all this drag and humanity would be better off has been proven disastrously wrong so many times it's hardly worth recounting. It's what we are. A better government might figure out that they need to persuade the stupid, and that once persuaded nothing would change their mind, but they'd likely be authoritarian shortly after they started making that work. That's where we were headed with Trump, and it's where we will go if/when the current set of charlatans pretending to be conservative republicans gain more power.

There's one simple reason why voter suppression is critical to the future of those assholes. Gen Z is 51 percent non-white. Boomers were 70 percent white. The lefties can't afford to call that out--it would energize white people to suppress non-white voting. Not the outcome they want to see. No altruism there--just a desire for power and money.

The persistent lack of effective direction from the government is equally simple--effective direction always alienates some block of voters. Neither side can afford to lose a block.

The FDA will plod through their painfully slow process regardless of the damage it causes. It's the only safe course for them, even if it costs a few hundred thousand lives. I would hope no one believes that the agency that approved Fentanyl has your best interests at heart.

[SUP Leave]

Apt post Pono bill.

16% of Americans smoke, 67% are overweight or obese. 40% did not vote. There is no amount of "outreach" that is going to educate an apathetic society. Humans and even more Americans live by two simple words "me first". Things that don't work: "you'll kill grandma", "do it for your neighbor", or even "you will die if you don't get this vaccine." Everyone who buys those has the vaccine in them already. Calling the unvacc'd disease ridden vermin, which is basically the media's other tactic is divisive and pointless, and also doesn't work.

Now we have the re-up on the masks, which removes the best carrot from the vaccine (no mask). WTF? Perfect chance to double down on vaccines effectiveness and they pulled the rug out. Especially because the Delta variant is going to start to recede in some regions pretty quickly (See India, UK), they could have used that to an advantage.

"Outreach" is just jobs for bureaucrats. Unless the outreach is door to door with a needle and a spear (a nurse and a sheriff), it has a zero effect.

I would bet that the unvacc'd are a pretty fractured political block. I only have my n=1 to go by, but most people who aren't getting vacc'd are not that political, they just don't care.

[PonoBill]

More than 70% believe in angels, which makes the "50% are stupid" estimate more than a little optimistic.

[gone_foiling]

More than 70% believe in angels, which makes the "50% are stupid" estimate more than a little optimistic.

  Laughing my ass off here - that was good Bill.

[sflinux]

I think that all public businesses should voluntarily post a sign that states the percentage of how many of their employees are vaccinated. I have a right to know if a restaurant's, retail store, dentist's office, what ever, business's employees are vaccinated. I can then use that information to determine how safe I'll feel using that business.

Are you vaccinated and afraid of unvaccinated people?

The latest data suggests that vaccinated people may be unsymptomatic spreaders:
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/07/27/cdc-to-reverse-indoor-mask-policy-to-recommend-them-for-fully-vaccinated-people-in-covid-hot-spots.html
"Walensky said new data shows the variant behaves “uniquely differently from past strains of the virus,” indicating that some vaccinated people infected with the delta variant “may be contagious and spread the virus to others.”
Based on the latest data, if I was to "use that information to determine" doing business with a business, I would:
a) feel safe wearing a mask wherever
b) feel at risk not wearing a mask in a herd immunity (vaccinated/covid recovered) maskless crowd
c) feel possibly responsible for exposing others if not wearing a mask in a low vaccinated masked crowd.

Bottom line: latest data suggests that unsymptomatic spreaders of the delta variant can be vaccinated or unvaccinated so adjust your fear accordingly.

[PonoBill]

Actually, reading the articles carefully, they don't actually say vaccinated people are likely to be symptomatic spreaders--at least for the studies available to a layman like me. And anyone who writes "uniquely differently" should be subject to careful scrutiny anyway. It looks to me like the "data" is really just statistically inferred--or more accurately, it's just math. The delta and similar varieties spread about a thousand times more easily. The percentage of vaccinated people who test positive is unknown since very few vaccinated people are subsequently tested and no study is intentionally exposing people to the virus to see what happens. It's all fuzzy stats. But obviously, 1000 times very small (delta) is 1000 times more than one times very small.

Wearing the cheesy masks most of us wear has always been more about preventing you from spreading virus-filled snot than preventing you from breathing virus-filled snot. Given how marvelously altruistic Americans are it's always been wise to infer otherwise.

[Tom]

Bottom line: latest data suggests that unsymptomatic spreaders of the delta variant can be vaccinated or unvaccinated so adjust your fear accordingly.

The a vaccinations are extremely effective in preventing people from catching Covid but a few do catch it and can spread it. Dealing with a only vaccinated people greatly reduces the odds that you'll be dealing with an infective person. Also, only dealing with vaccinated people insures you're dealing with people that have some common scene. In other words, I want to avoid unvaccinated people for more reasons than being safe.