Wear Your Mask - COVID-19 Thread II

[Inquisitive Raven]

Well, no medical intervention of any kind is 100% safe and effective so that's no surprise. Also, hasn't one of the concerns about COVID mutations been that one might be more effective at getting around the immune responses of the vaccinated?

[robkelk]

"You can come on in, we're all fully vaccinated. Except the spare room off the living room. Don't go in there, we're not fully vaccinated in there."

[LynnInDenver]

OK, so another new effect that I've now been directly impacted by that's specifically related to COVID, or rather, what COVID did to gas demand and what that did to the availability of truck drivers - https://www.cnn.com/2021/06/28/business/...index.html

I wound up filling up my car's tank with PREMIUM at the second station - the first station had a hell of a line, and my day today was busy enough I was willing to pay the extra $15-20 just to make sure I don't have to gas up tomorrow.

I'm adjusting my fillup schedule starting now. I won't wait for the light on the dashboard, I'll be looking to fill up at 1/4 of a tank left so that I can hunt for it.

[robkelk]

COVID-19 test centre closes due to lack of business

It's the first one in Ottawa to shut down.

[robkelk]

OK, so another new effect that I've now been directly impacted by that's specifically related to COVID, or rather, what COVID did to gas demand and what that did to the availability of truck drivers - https://www.cnn.com/2021/06/28/business/...index.html

I wound up filling up my car's tank with PREMIUM at the second station - the first station had a hell of a line, and my day today was busy enough I was willing to pay the extra $15-20 just to make sure I don't have to gas up tomorrow.

I'm adjusting my fillup schedule starting now. I won't wait for the light on the dashboard, I'll be looking to fill up at 1/4 of a tank left so that I can hunt for it.

We don't have a shortage of fuel here, but it's getting expensive: CA$1.29/l, which works out to US$3.95/gal for regular.

[Dartz]

State just hit 50% fully vaccinated.

67% with at least first dose.

Cases holding stable.

Travel returning.

Everyone wants the hospitality industry to open - without realising that the vast majority of those who do the front-of-house work in that industry are most likely to be unvaccinated. But hey, it's Ireland, everybody under 35 is expendable.

Government now assuring there absolutely, definitely won't be another lockdown for the Indian version but, this shower have more flip-flops than a terabyte of NAND flash.

[robkelk]

The percentage of Canadians vaccinated is now higher than the percentage of Americans vaccinated

Canada needs to jump-start a stalled first-dose campaign to avoid a fourth wave, experts say (If you aren't sure whether you do or don't want to be vaccinated at all, CBC wants to talk with you. See the email link in this story.)

[robkelk]

In the final vote, the doubters were won over by the strength of the name IMMUNION.

[robkelk]

Come for the shot, stay for the DJ

[robkelk]

(If you aren't sure whether you do or don't want to be vaccinated at all, CBC wants to talk with you. See the email link in this story.)

Meet the unvaccinated: Why some Canadians still haven't had the shot

[GethN7]

Where I live (Alabama), most people are being rather levelheaded.

Even though masks are optional in many places, many people still wear them as a precaution even now, a few go without them in some places, but most still mask up in public. The only person in my family not vaccinated is my father, and that's due to health conditions that would be dangerous for him to risk the side effects of the vaccination from.

[robkelk]

Reuters: Delta variant as contagious as chickenpox, CDC says

An internal CDC document said the variant, first detected in India in October 2020 and now dominant across the globe, is as contagious as chickenpox and far more contagious than the common cold or flu.

It can be passed on even by vaccinated people, and may cause more serious disease than earlier coronavirus strains.

The document, entitled "Improving communications around vaccine breakthrough and vaccine effectiveness," said the variant required a new approach to help the public understand the danger — including making clear that unvaccinated people were more than 10 times more likely than those who are vaccinated to become seriously ill or die.

"Acknowledge the war has changed," it said. "Improve communications around individual risk among vaccinated."

Recommended preventative measures included making vaccines mandatory for health-care professionals to protect the vulnerable and a return to universal wearing of face masks.

The CDC confirmed the authenticity of the document, which was first reported by the Washington Post.

Don't get rid of your masks. Wearing them is the new normal - like it or not, vaccinated or not.

[LynnInDenver]

Don't get rid of your masks. Wearing them is the new normal - like it or not, vaccinated or not.

...that's really the most frustrating thing, that we may well have had a chance to get to something approximating the old normal, but now everyone needs to review ALL their old "outside the house" activities and review whether or not they're going to be worth it going forward. Especially if anyone they know might be among the ones that vaccinations have limited or no effect. We're not considering the vaccinations wasted on us, but it's clear that the science is now in that the vaccinations aren't quite opening up the range of options that it could have, and that some people are literally going to be locked out of public event participation because we can't even rely on herd immunity.

Depending on how it plays out, my husband and I may no longer be going to anything resembling a convention, which is going to be heartbreaking. I do know our dining out frequency is never going to get anywhere close to what it was pre-pandemic, we're probably pretty much done board gaming outside of our home (or our friends' homes). What dismays me right now is that we're not yet having the hard discussion on the government level of what it means for legally allowed event sizes, or building codes (specifically regarding ventilation standards), or occupancy limits of buildings, and that mandating vaccines for participation in things isn't even on the radar as some will still insist we can get back to old normal.

[Dartz]

https://twitter.com/PositivDee/status/14...4012490752

I think we're No.1 in the EU now. And, more importantly, ahead of the UK.

OTOH, with regards to the New Normal --- there was was looks like a Coronavirus epidemic in the 1890s. It was mistaken for the flue at the time, but might've been a Cow Coronavirus. It killed a million people. When you needed ships and carts to get around. It's now the common cold.

You can still get a killer cold if you're unlucky - or have another underlying issue - but it's unlikely.

It'll just be one of these endemic things, that either people get when they're young and it's harmless - or they get the vaccine for it as a baby and the endemic exposure keeps the immunity ticking.


In the end, there's also a point where not going out is bad for the soul, and you have to balance that certainty against the risk of the virus. The same as any other virus. These events, ultimately, exist because they let people feel good in a way that zoom calls and shit don't. I can't stand the morning meeting zoom call in work -- there's always someone with a fucky mic, someone too quiet, too loud, someone driving, and you can never properly understand what they're saying - and then the internet goes down and you need to restart.

And I'm normally a shut-in. But I don't want to interact with computers for the rest of existance. It's already soul-killing.

[robkelk]

As some Australians enter 6th lockdown, comedian wonders how she'll pay the rent

Yes, that says "sixth lockdown".

[robkelk]

Agoraphobia therapy helped me see the world wasn't as perilous as I thought. Then COVID-19 hit

What I had feared for years became real overnight: The outside world was officially a dangerous place. I braced myself, sure that I'd lose years of hard work and regress to a point where I could again no longer leave the house.

But that's not what happened.

It turns out that undergoing extensive therapy for agoraphobia ended up being a master class for pandemic resilience.

[robkelk]

Canadian federal government to require vaccinations for all federal public servants, Crown corporation employees, employees of other federally regulated businesses, and air, train, and cruise ship passengers

"Soon".

So, basically, one's options in Canada are about to be "get the shots" or "stay home". (Greyhound stopped operating in Canada last year, so don't expect to be able to take a bus anywhere.)

[Inquisitive Raven]

I was reading an article in the New York Times about post-outbreak Provincetown when it occurred to me to wonder: How many of the breakthrough infections from the Fourth of July outbreak were in people who are HIV positive?

Edited to add link to article.

[robkelk]

Companies [in Canada] are implementing vaccine mandates. Can employees reject them?

tl;dr: Maybe, but the court cases would set some constitutional precedents.

EDIT: One lawyer offered this opinion: "Your employer doesn't even need a reason to let you go as long as the proper amount of severance is paid."

[Bob Schroeck]

Assuming Canadian law is reasonably similar to American law on this topic, if a job is explicitly defined at time of hire to be "at will", the employee has no complaint coming. Per Wikipedia:

In United States labor law, at-will employment is an employer's ability to dismiss an employee for any reason, and without warning, as long as the reason is not illegal. When an employee is acknowledged as being hired "at will," courts deny the employee any claim for loss resulting from the dismissal.

[Dartz]

Of people over 18 in the State

90% have one Dose
85% have two doses.

80% of those between 25 and 50 are fully vaccinated
5% have just the one dose.

Of people between 18 and 24,
60% are fully vaccinated
Anotyher 18.4 are one-shot only

Of those up to 18
1% are fully vaccinated
14% are one-shot only.

Need to get 90% of the kids jabbed to get back to full normal. But uptake is very high.
We've about a million doses of vaccine to hand -- enough for another 500,000 individuals.


We're getting about 1500-2000 daily cases --- mostly confined to the unvaccinated population. Fatalities have near flatlined, and ICU and Hospitalisation stats are steadily creeping up, but not going nuclear. We've 320 in hospital, and 56 in ICU - out of around about 250.

They were maxed out with Covid in January.

Pubs are open.
Restaraunts are open.
Music festivals are possibly going ahead.
Capacities aren't 100% but shit's almost back to normal.

[robkelk]

I'll just drop these here without comment.

Quebec could make changes to vaccination passport after flaws in system exposed

He is quick to point out that he is not a hacker. Yet, within six hours, Louis said he used an external software to create fake proof of vaccination for people who don't exist. He then stored that proof into the province's VaxiCode app.

Ontario health units could create their own vaccine passports, says leading doctor

[Labster]

Remember back early in the pandemic when people tried hydroxychloroquine and other fun things that maybe cure covid?  Well, here's this morning's tweet from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration:

You are not a horse. You are not a cow. Seriously, y'all. Stop it.

Invectin is probably okay for uma musume, though.

[LilFluff]

Remember back early in the pandemic when people tried hydroxychloroquine and other fun things that maybe cure covid?  Well, here's this morning's tweet from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration:

You are not a horse. You are not a cow. Seriously, y'all. Stop it.

Invectin is probably okay for uma musume, though.

I liked a coworker's idea. Start a rumor among the vaccine doubters that the FDA has been hiding the horse drug in the vaccine.

I don't like that I've been getting some nice schadenfreude from the folks who have bought into the death cult's lies. But when they do stuff like try to hunt down horse deworming medications, drink bleach, or that guy who was (past tense, in every way) the head of an anti-mask/fauxdemic group in Texas demonstrates why some of the senior death cult party are now worrying about whether killing off some of their most ardent supporters is a good idea... It gets a little hard not to have that schadenfreude.

And apparently the Lincoln Project is still a thing. They've put out a new spot under the title, Pro Life?, that runs through Florida covid statistics for school age children and then ends with a snippet of DeSantis bragging at CPAC about how states like his are showing up 'those lockdown states'. Of course I'm in another of the states run by a member of the death cult so my schadenfreude here is a bit blunted knowing that our governor sees DeSantis as a role model.

Although apparently our governor ended up leaving some loopholes in his prohibition on anything even vaguely state or local government related because the legal office for my employer looked over his executive order and drafted up a new safety order for us. So all the mask requirements and safety rules were only down for about two weeks and are now back in full force with the legal office pretty much going, "Come at us, Bro. We'll be happy to replace the state funding that's been cut over the years with court awards instead."


On a more personal level, my sister and I are doing okay. Our drastic reduction in fast food has probably been good for us and having done almost a year of work from home for anything but absolutely must be done in person work (and even now work from home 3 out of 5 workdays) has meant I've spent a lot less on junk over lunch hours. Of course I ended up dropping much of that savings into a pricey car repair but, yeah.

[Bob Schroeck]

I liked a coworker's idea. Start a rumor among the vaccine doubters that the FDA has been hiding the horse drug in the vaccine.

I've toyed with the idea of trying to start a meme that all medicine and disease is a liberal hoax -- something really outrageous claiming that the very idea of being sick didn't exist until doctors showed up in the (random number)th century to convince people they were sick and needed curing. Seed the web with a few sites that support the story, ranging from "serious academic" to "frothing conspiracist" all pointing at each other in a massive round robin; if you can pull in and repurpose genuine quotes from the right about healthcare, all the better. Insert a couple notes in Conservapedia or the Conservative Bible Project how the passages in the Bible about Jesus curing the sick were fraudulent inserts made centuries after the fact to support the liberal medical conspiracy. Then drop a couple posts in appropriate venues, sit back and let Poe's Law take over.

Why not take advantage of what the right has wrought to convince its most numerous and rabid supporters to kill themselves off? See if we can convince them that even broken bones and bleeding wounds are a liberal hoax and if they don't buy into alleged need for care they don't really require it? And if 15-20% of the country starts avoiding all doctors and medications for purely political reasons, how long until Big Pharma, the AMA and the like make their displeasure known?

Yeah, silly idea, but we're talking about people who've willingly set their brains to "stun".