That’s my hometown team ! A nice bit of trolling. If only they could bring back Chief Nok-a-Homa and the teepee.

Maybe MLB can move all their home games to Colorado.

Deleted

I'd like to think the Braves didn't put much thought into this because they've had vaccination drives with free tickets.

But yeah, the optics of having Travis Tritt do the National Anthem were not good.

Maybe MLB can move all their home games to Colorado.

Well, with batting averages at their lowest point in fifty years...

Hopefully for the World Series they can bring in an Atlanta based Soundcloud rapper to mix it up.

Good God what is wrong with today’s leftists? Does every single goddamned thing have to be about their politics? He’s a musician, not your therapist.

Yes, they definitely brought in Travis Tritt because of his musical skill.

Good God what is wrong with today’s leftists? Does every single goddamned thing have to be about their politics? He’s a musician, not your therapist.

They can't abide the existence of any thinking that's contrary to theirs. And then they do things like insist that they're just people following the "science," all the while insisting things like that men can too give birth.

Didn't we just have a Vice President walk out of an NFL stadium because players knelt during the National Anthem?

Recognize that a lot of us are tired of the pandemic and people like Tritt who insist on promoting it. If the Braves were trying to make a statement with Tritt singing the anthem, it was the wrong one.

Good God what is wrong with today’s leftists? Does every single goddamned thing have to be about their politics? He’s a musician, not your therapist.

getting a vaccine in a pandemic is not politics, it's lifesaving. The fact that it still is looked at as political is about the dumbest thing ever.

Mandating that an entire society get a vaccine is inherently political.

getting a vaccine in a pandemic is not politics, it's lifesaving.

Yes, other than the people whom the vaccine has killed, it's lifesaving. (And yes, I'm well aware that the number of deaths is statistically very low.)

Good God what is wrong with today’s leftists? Does every single goddamned thing have to be about their politics? He’s a musician, not your therapist.

I always mute the sound before the actual first pitch, so I wouldn't even know who's singing the SSB, but when you feature a singer who's known for promoting a toxic political message about "tyrants in the Biden machine", it's not as if you're making a neutral choice. I can just imagine what the reaction would've been if the Dixie Chicks had been brought out to perform on Opening Day in 2003, three weeks after Natalie Maines had said this at a London concert:

Just so you know, we're on the good side with y'all. We do not want this war, this violence, and we're ashamed that the President of the United States is from Texas.

Yeah, I'm sure that would've been seen as a politically neutral choice....

getting a vaccine in a pandemic is not politics, it's lifesaving.

Yes, your own life. People have the right to choose to do things that (statistically) shorten their lives.

As a vaccinated person, I have no idea why I should care if anyone else is. The vaccine works, right?

As a vaccinated person, I have no idea why I should care if anyone else is. The vaccine works, right?

Because ultimately with leftists, it's not about whether the vaccine works; it's about enforcing total conformity.(*)

And of course, as often happens with leftist whims, they become ultimately counterproductive to the professed goal for the exact reasons snapper is saying. If the vaccines really worked as advertised, there would be no reason for all the fear and phobias and neuroses we see. Why would a fence sitter ever decide to get vaccinated when he sees vaccinated people still walking around with masks and still worried that the unvaccinated are going to infect them? (**) There's no sense in any of that.

Coming fast around the bend is going to be the "cancellation" of our existing vaccines, and the fatuous claim that if you aren't boostered, you should lose the privileges vaccinated status gives you. That will be when the rubber truly meets the proverbial road. My decision when that point inevitably comes will be just that -- my decision. The most important factor will be the level of antibodies I currently have and I would anticipate being given a test for that if I ask. And then I will check to see the degree of protection that level affords me and the amount it makes me potentially a spreader. If it seems insufficient, I will get boosted. If it's sufficient, I will not. If there's real FDA signoff in a way that I personally deem free enough from political pressure, that will be a factor, too. I do not put unnecessary chemicals into my system, particularly at gunpoint.

(*) There's nothing in science or medicine that has ever required literal 100% acceptance of a vaccine for the vaccine to be considered successful or to even fully eradicate the disease it's aimed at, much less this flawed vaccine. The quixotic quest for 100% acceptance of this particular set of vaccines has zero support in science. Since it doesn't, the quixotic quest isn't about science or medicine, but about something else.

(**) And it's obviously highly strange that at this late date, so many leftists continue to insist that they can only be infected by the unvaxxed. There isn't an iota of science in that cultist belief, either.

They can't abide the existence of any thinking that's contrary to theirs. And then they do things like insist that they're just people following the "science," all the while insisting things like that men can too give birth.

Wow, you're really beating the #### out of that strawman! Way to go!

Meanwhile, the right has actual Nazis supporting them.

As a vaccinated person, I have no idea why I should care if anyone else is.

I think you are being disingenuous. You have an idea.

Meanwhile, the right has actual Nazis supporting them.

I don't give two shits about your silly conflict with "the right," other than the degree to which both of y'all's tribes share the same authoritarian and illiberal bent -- which you do to a monumental degree. Leave me out of it.

I find it humorous that leftists think that only the republican unwashed are not getting the vaccine when the data shows that whites/Asians have been vaccinated in higher proportions more than blacks/Hispanics almost everywhere. It’s further humorous that everyone on the left justifies excluding unvaccinated from society because they “will infect us” when there is ample evidence that vaccinated people both infect and can be infected. Which then leads to the argument that unless everyone gets vaccinated, a new variant will develop completely ignoring that no matter what we do here, there’s a big bad world out there incubating variants no matter what we do. This is the same group that thinks shutting down our coal and oil plants will save the planet when India and China pollute a million times more than us.

“Follow the science” unless it doesn’t conform to your narrative and then ignore it.

Why can’t we simply say, it would be in your best interest in getting vaccinated to save your life, here’s why and leave it at that.

I find it humorous that leftists think that only the republican unwashed are not getting the vaccine when the data shows that whites/Asians have been vaccinated in higher proportions more than blacks/Hispanics almost everywhere.

The second part doesn't contradict the first.

"We aren't protected from the unvaxxed" is little more than Hillary's "Deplorables" updated to 2021. There isn't a lick of "science" to it; in fact, it's anti-scientific. Do the strident leftists actually believe their vaccines and their immune systems treat the virus breathed on them from a vaxxed person differently?

ITT Dusty Old Men circle jerk each other about how lefties make everything political.

I think you are being disingenuous. You have an idea.

No I don't. I'd have unvaccinated people into my home. Well, I wouldn't even know because I wouldn't ask people I'm inviting. If I had a close family member of friend that had active COVID I would go visit them and take care of them. I'm vaccinated. The odds of COVID getting me seriously ill are tiny.

That's what the science says, right?

That's a narrow view of "caring."

The odds of COVID getting me seriously ill are tiny.

It's possible to care about other people that aren't "me."

No I don't. I'd have unvaccinated people into my home. Well, I wouldn't even know because I wouldn't ask people I'm inviting. If I had a close family member of friend that had active COVID I would go visit them and take care of them. I'm vaccinated. The odds of COVID getting me seriously ill are tiny.

That's what the science says, right?

You have no idea why you should care if anyone else is vaccinated |= having an idea why other people might care. Other people may have children or immunocompromised people living with them, people who not only aren't vaccinated themselves but can't be. Or they're fully vaccinated and susceptible to dying of COVID anyway, as Colin Powell was.

You have no idea why you should care if anyone else is vaccinated |= having an idea why other people might care. Other people may have children or immunocompromised people living with them, people who not only aren't vaccinated themselves but can't be. Or they're fully vaccinated and susceptible to dying of COVID anyway, as Colin Powell was.

He knows all this. He's read all this before. He was being disingenuous in his ignorance about these things.

Yeah, my beef with the antivaxxers isn't fear for my personal safety. I probably wouldn't have someone unvaccinated in my home because I don't tend to like the sort of people who don't like vaccines. But my beef with them, on the politics, is that it is prolonging the pandemic.

Pandemics are the sort of things government action is meant to handle, like an invasion. If the Russkies landed troops in Maine and you learned that your neighbor was providing them support, would you shrug and move on?

You have no idea why you should care if anyone else is vaccinated |= having an idea why other people might care. Other people may have children or immunocompromised people living with them, people who not only aren't vaccinated themselves but can't be. Or they're fully vaccinated and susceptible to dying of COVID anyway, as Colin Powell was.

Then I would restrict my own behavior rather than trying to coerce others, but really it will do no good. COVID's not ging away. Do you really think you can avoid COVID forever. The vaccines aren't that good, and never will be. Corona viruses mutate too fast.

Everyone's going to get COVID eventually. Some will die. That's life. We're all going to die. Get vaccinated, encourage those you know to get vaccinated, and move on with your life.

The death rate from COVID is nowhere near high enough to justify Gov't coercion, and violation of people's liberty.

You guys are such cowards on this. All the 70 and 80 year olds I know are less worried than you are. They got the shots (or got COVID) and now live their lives normally. Not one of them thinks vaccine should be forced on people.

Pandemics are the sort of things government action is meant to handle, like an invasion. If the Russkies landed troops in Maine and you learned that your neighbor was providing them support, would you shrug and move on?

The odds of him getting seriously injured by the Russians are tiny. That's what the science says, right?

#### you, I've got mine as an ideology.

I think snapper has shown he legitimately doesn’t care about others’ well being.

Incidentally, the science doesn't say you're completely immune if you're vaccinated. It says you're 10-20x less likely to contract the disease or, if you do, get very sick or die. What you do with the difference between 10x and infinite is up to you, I guess.

#### you, I've got mine as an ideology.

That must be in the lost gospel.

You guys are such cowards on this. All the 70 and 80 year olds I know are less worried than you are. They got the shots (or got COVID) and now live their lives normally. Not one of them thinks vaccine should be forced on people.

So you know stupid old people. Hardly makes you unique in America.


And I am, more or less, living my life normally. But then I never much liked congregating with crowds of dirty people.

The second part doesn't contradict the first.

No, but you certainly don't see the left-wing mainstream media focusing on it for fear that they might offend a major portion of their constituency. (How said that when talking about media, we can reasonably use "constituency" rather than "viewership.") Their hostility is clearly directed towards white conservative men. At least my hostility is aimed at all those who refuse - except for those younger folks who have genuine concerns about long-term effects.

The media will talk about the horrible wrongs that were perpetrated on black people in the Tuskegee experiments as justification for their vaccine avoidance. (Yet somehow it's good enough for my white children, spouse, extended family, etc.)

Pandemics are the sort of things government action is meant to handle, like an invasion. If the Russkies landed troops in Maine and you learned that your neighbor was providing them support, would you shrug and move on?

Can you really not tell the difference between a collect threat and an individual one? An invasion is a threat to the existence of the nation as a nation. COVID isn't that. If 500,000 Americans dies every year from COVID from now until eternity, the country is not threatened. We'll all just adjust. Cancer and heart disease kill more than that already.

I think snapper has shown he legitimately doesn’t care about others’ well being.

I care, I just care about their rights every bit as much as their health.

I encourage everyone to get vaccinated. I think it's smart.

I don't believe we have any right to impose that decision on anyone, anymore than I think we have the right to ban smoking, or junk food. Those things kill more people than COVID.

Incidentally, the science doesn't say you're completely immune if you're vaccinated. It says you're 10-20x less likely to contract the disease or, if you do, get very sick or die. What you do with the difference between 10x and infinite is up to you, I guess.


That's what I said. If you're vaccinated you have very little chance of being seriously ill.

I 100% expect I'll get COVID eventually.

Sure, they're different things. They are similar in what the response should be.


We did ban public smoking because it killed non-smokers. If you could transmit heart disease through the air, we should ban fatty foods.

You don't have a right to risk others. That you think you do says volumes about your ideology.

You guys are such cowards on this. All the 70 and 80 year olds I know are less worried than you are. They got the shots (or got COVID) and now live their lives normally. Not one of them thinks vaccine should be forced on people.

So you know stupid old people. Hardly makes you unique in America.

These are the survivors of the hanging chad folks who (along with that idiot Ralph Nader,) inadvertently gave us GWB, the Iraq War and a debt problem that will not be properly addressed in the next 100 years.

So you know stupid old people. Hardly makes you unique in America.

How are they stupid? They all got vaccinated. My parents (both PhD's BTW) got the first shot, and got COVID anyway. It was no big deal, probably due to the vaccine. Why should they be worried? Why should they not enjoy life?

These are the survivors of the hanging chad folks who (along with that idiot Ralph Nader,) inadvertently gave us GWB, the Iraq War and a debt problem that will not be properly addressed in the next 100 years.

Yeah, but liberals got triggered so it's a net positive.

We did ban public smoking because it killed non-smokers. If you could transmit heart disease through the air, we should ban fatty foods.

You don't have a right to risk others. That you think you do says volumes about your ideology.

Of course we have the right to risk others. You drive, right? Or ride a bike? Or take a train or plane or bus? All those activities kill hundreds and thousands of innocent people every year.

You want to ban all travel except by foot?

You guys must really think you're going to live forever. I'm out of here.

Yes, your own life.

And others' lives. Getting vaccinated means I'm less likely to contract the disease and pass it on to someone else. The fact that it protects me is a bonus, although I was never at huge risk anyway due to my age and health. But I don't want to risk giving it to my unvaccinated son who can't receive it yet, or to anyone else who might have a legitimate reason to be unvaccinated. Getting the vaccine is as much a societal responsibility as a personal one (actually, more so in my opinion).

You guys are such cowards on this. All the 70 and 80 year olds I know are less worried than you are.

You are probably right. I do fear for the sick and the elderly probably more than they themselves fear. I don't base my concern for others based off of how they themselves fear things. I have kids, I am almost certain I fear for them more than they fear for themselves.

I am still not sure how that is political. As a Catholic I would have thought caring for those that are vulnerable would be a priority.

Matthew 25:34-40

Of course we have the right to risk others. You drive, right? Or ride a bike? Or take a train or plane or bus? All those activities kill hundreds and thousands of innocent people every year.

All of those have heavily weighted benefits to society as a whole, not just the individual. We do restrict how people can do those activities based on safety to themselves and others though.

Yeah, my beef with the antivaxxers isn't fear for my personal safety. I probably wouldn't have someone unvaccinated in my home because I don't tend to like the sort of people who don't like vaccines.

At least you're honest.

But my beef with them, on the politics, is that it is prolonging the pandemic.

They're not though. The idea that if every single person in the US got vaccinated, COVID would disappear isn't in the same galaxy of reality and I'm honestly puzzled as to how you could believe that. Every single data point suggests otherwise. There are counties in Ireland that are like 99.5$ vaccinated and they still have boatloads of cases. The vaccine helps with symptoms; it doesn't stop spread -- or anything close to that. Maybe your political disaffinities for said group, which I share to a great degree, are affecting your perception?

I think snapper has shown he legitimately doesn’t care about others’ well being.

So then you take a COVID test before every time you venture around people, SoSH? Your vaccine isn't keeping you from getting COVID or spreading it. Best evidence we have right now is, after about three months or so with Pfizer, about a 2X advantage in getting infected but a zero advantage in spreading it if you do get infected. And if you're vaccinated, you don't have the checkpoint of having the symptoms keep you at home.

Maybe in the euphoria of last April/May we could hope for a world in which people would get vaccinated and that would greatly stop the spread. There wasn't any real science in that, but it was a reasonable hope. That world and that hope passed from reality weeks ago. This is essentially COVID 101 at this point.

We do restrict how people can do those activities based on safety to themselves and others though.

And people routinely blow through those restrictions and we don't stop the activity.

And people routinely blow through those restrictions and we don't stop the activity.

I am not sure where your analogy/comment is going here?

We let people drive even though we know people are going to speed and get drunk and text and wind up killing people.

The claim was made that "you don't have the right to risk others" and that's just completely false. No one's ever proffered such a thing and no one ever thought such a thing ... until COVID. Baseball is a risk to others -- people don't have a right to play it? Sorry, but that really doesn't seem like an accurate description or anything close.

My parents (both PhD's BTW) got the first shot, and got COVID anyway.

So two unvaccinated people got Covid. Were their advanced degrees supposed to protect them somehow?

The claim was made that "you don't have the right to risk others" and that's just completely false. No one's ever proffered such a thing and no one ever thought such a thing ... until COVID. Baseball is a risk to others -- people don't have a right to play it? Sorry, but that really doesn't seem like an accurate description or anything close.

These tortured analogies must break some sort of international law, right?

There are counties in Ireland that are like 99.5$ vaccinated and they still have boatloads of cases.

Those were the vaccination rates among adults >18. It's obviously not the whole county population since <12 can't get vaccinated yet.

I haven't looked at Ireland, but in the UK, by far the highest incidence of COVID is in 12-18 year-olds, who have the lowest vax rate among those who are eligible given the phasing of the rollout there, and then 0-11, who aren't approved for vaccinations yet. The UK has been averaging comparable or more* cases per capita than the US, largely due to cases among kids, but significantly fewer deaths per capita, due to much higher vaccination rates among adults.

In the US, we have 90+% vaccination rates for MMR, polio, and chicken pox. The first two I believe used to be higher before the anti-vax crowd gained traction, and is a large reason why those disease were virtually (and in some cases, actually) eradicated in the U.S. Eliminating diseases is a goal of public health policy and is achievable depending on the disease and vaccine effectiveness.

It's not going to be possible to eliminate COVID until the vaccines are approved for kids under 12, especially not with vaccine uptake <80% among the 12+ crowd. So if we want to avoid another serious wave in the winter**, we should be trying to get as many of the eligible population vaccinated as possible. Stating the obvious, but even if the vaccines are ~90% effective at preventing serious cases and death, a significant COVID wave like we just had in the Southeast will put vaccinated people at risk, too.

Vaccinated people can get infected and spread the disease, but the odds of them doing so are much less likely than unvaccinated people. So yes, you're at greater risk if you're spending time around more unvaccinated people.

Maybe you don't care because you can work from home, don't ride public transportation, don't eat out, and don't go to concerts or theater. But if you like doing those things and you don't want to put yourself or the others you interact with at risk, you should be all for trying to get more people vaccinated. I'd have an unvaccinated person in my home, but I wouldn't go to a party or indoor event that didn't have a vaccine requirement at this point with the case numbers where they are. If I had lived in the Southeast during the most recent wave, I would have acted like I did before being vaccinated, given the prevalence of cases in the community. I think to fully get the country back to normal we will need

YMMV with respect to whether you're in favor of mandates (I can understand the argument against), but it does seem like they work. The situations I've followed, it seems like <1% of employees end up refusing to get vaccinated.

* Hard to tell exactly, since the UK does a lot more tests than we do.
** Florida alone has had >20,000 COVID deaths since the beginning of August.

Drought, epidemic disease, and the fall of classic period cultures in Mesoamerica (AD 750-950). Hemorrhagic fevers as a cause of massive population loss

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15922121/

Native Americans and The Smallpox Epidemic

https://www.varsitytutors.com/earlyamerica/early-america-review/volume-11/native-americans-smallpox


The first plague in history ended the Byzantine empire, was considered an act of God

https://indianexpress.com/article/research/coronavirus-covid-19-the-first-plague-in-history-ended-the-byzantine-empire-6393584/


Hun migrations 'linked to deadly Justinian Plague

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-44046031?piano-modal

Effects of the Black Death on Europe

https://www.worldhistory.org/article/1543/effects-of-the-black-death-on-europe/

“The Small Pox desolates them to such a degree that they think no longer of Meeting nor of Wars, but only of bewailing the dead, of whom there is already an immense number.”

https://www.historyofvaccines.org/content/indian-plague

Pneumonic plague can be weaponized for bioterrorism, highlighting the importance of understanding its clinical syndromes

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7513766/


How Epidemics Change Civilizations

https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-epidemics-change-civilizations-11585350405


“There hasn’t been a kill off in human history to match what happened in the Americas—90 to 95 percent of the indigenous population wiped out over a century,” says Mockaitis. “Mexico goes from 11 million people pre-conquest to one million.”

https://jmvh.org/article/the-history-of-plague-part-1-the-three-great-pandemics/

Large epidemics of plague, which have had significant demographic, social, and economic consequences, have been recorded in Western European historical documents since the sixth century

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/308959724_Plague_A_Disease_Which_Changed_the_Path_of_Human_Civilization

Rome simply could not recover, its armies laid low by disease, its finances depleted, its borders increasingly insecure, its population cut by half. What have sometimes been disparagingly referred to as the Dark Ages were caused, then, by the construction of an advanced, networked, sophisticated civilization and its subsequent destruction by microbes you couldn’t even see.

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/07/coronavirus-pandemic-plagues-history.html


How the 1918 Flu and COVID-19 Pandemics Transformed Women's Lives


https://asm.org/Articles/2021/March/How-the-Spanish-Flu-and-COVID-19-Pandemics-Transfo

Tell me again how pandemics aren't a threat to civilization.

What a dipsh!t.

We let people drive even though we know people are going to speed and get drunk and text and wind up killing people.

This analogy does not work since we DO have things in place to stop this. People are breaking the law when they do this. People who get caught doing these things very often find themselves having more restrictions than someone not doing any of these things.

The comparisons of something being dangerous yet we still do it falls on its face in comparisons like this. Laws change every year to make driving more safe and have done so for as long as there have been cars on roads. If there was no driving 3 years ago in the past 2 years we enacted ALL the safe driving laws and restrictions it would make masks and vaccines look like child's play. The amount of infringements on your driving freedom are vast and pretty well enforced and most of them are for other peoples safety and not your own, though there are a good deal of infringements that are there for people who have no regard for their own life as well as others.

Vaccinated people can get infected and spread the disease, but the odds of them doing so are much less likely than unvaccinated people.

Not true, particularly when you adjust for the lack of signaling mechanism to stay home -- i.e., symptoms -- among the vaccinated. It's actually possible it's a complete wash, in aggregate. Net-net, it's more like the vaxxed are driving 55 in a 55; the unvaxxed are driving 75.

Maybe you don't care because you can work from home, don't ride public transportation, don't eat out, and don't go to concerts or theater. But if you like doing those things and you don't want to put yourself or the others you interact with at risk, you should be all for trying to get more people vaccinated.

I do all those things, in spades. My Moderna two-stage vaccination protects me from both the vaxxed and the unvaxxed. If it didn't, I wouldn't be doing those things. I don't have the psychic need to think that my vaccine protected everyone else around me and put some kind of ethical and moral halo around me and prevented me from being a potential spreader, nor is that anywhere close to true. It would be better if it did, of course, and for a stretch there it looked like it might, and hopefully they'll one day develop a vaccine that does -- but like I said upthread, those potentialities drifted away weeks ago. With current vaccines, there's no chance of vaccinating our way out of this, and I've faced that unfortunate reality long ago. There's no serious argument to the contrary.

Because ultimately with leftists, it's not about whether the vaccine works; it's about enforcing total conformity.

You're not wrong, but Christ on a bike, do we really need another g*dd*mned COVID/political thread...?!

Tell me again how pandemics aren't a threat to civilization.

not going to quote everything so just your last sentence (well almost). I have thought for many years before Covid that the Dark Ages were what they were because it was the longest period of time in which there were deadly plagues that did not have a lot of recovery time in between them.

We had plagues before but the roman road system and improved sea travel allowed us to spread them much quicker and did not allow for one group to go unaffected and gain an advantage of affected areas.

In the US, we have 90+% vaccination rates for MMR, polio, and chicken pox. The first two I believe used to be higher before the anti-vax crowd gained traction, and is a large reason why those disease were virtually (and in some cases, actually) eradicated in the U.S.

It would interesting to see how those diseases would be treated in the age of social media. We already have vaccine mandates as schools requires children to be vaccinated for certain diseases and order to naturalize as a US citizen, you must take certain vaccines. But because covid emerged in the age of IG/Facebook, all sorts of misinformation spreads and something that would gone largely without much protest has become this huge issue. If polio was a thing today, all sorts of conspiracy theories would emerge would explain why that kid isn't really walking (it's not polio, it's a govt experiment gone wrong!) and vaccination rates would stagger.

I find it humorous that leftists think that only the republican unwashed are not getting the vaccine when the data shows that whites/Asians have been vaccinated in higher proportions more than blacks/Hispanics almost everywhere.

The data on vaccination rate by race is pretty unreliable whenever I've dug into it. A lot of people are recorded as "mixed race/other", probably just reflecting that the vaccination site didn't record their race. I can believe that blacks have the lowest vaccination rate nationally, but I would be surprised if, say, blacks in NY have a lower rate than whites in Alabama. Or if black Democrats have a lower rate than white Republicans.

For what it's worth, Puerto Rico now has the highest vaccination rate in the country.

I have thought for many years before Covid that the Dark Ages were what they were because it was the longest period of time in which there were deadly plagues that did not have a lot of recovery time in between them

It seems that England had quite a string of them from the 14th cent. to Newton's time. Also India, China, and even Australia in recent times (like 1925) seems to have recurring outbreaks.

Not true, particularly when you adjust for the lack of signaling mechanism to stay home -- i.e., symptoms -- among the vaccinated. It's actually possible it's a complete wash, in aggregate. Net-net, it's more like the vaxxed are driving 55 in a 55; the unvaxxed are driving 75.

This is completely bonkers misinformation that I keep seeing repeated. The US is doing just as many tests as we were at the peak of the pandemic despite 57% of the population now being vaccinated. So you think unvaccinated people are getting tested much more often than they were before, even though these are the people who evidently care least about their own health and the health of others?

Vaccinated people are still getting tested in many settings (workplaces, schools, medical settings, for travel, when they have a known exposure, etc.) even when they don't have symptoms. Probably more often than unvaccinated people, because they actually care about not spreading the virus to others.

This is completely bonkers misinformation that I keep seeing repeated.

What part? I have no idea what you mean about unvaccinated people getting tested. Unvaccinated people are more likely to get symptomatic COVID -- that's the primary point of the vaccines -- and are therefore more likely to stay home or get hospitalized or die when they're a case and therefore less likely to go out with infection but no symptoms and spread it around. That's why we still have massive spread and big caseloads even among very vaxxed populations, and will until the vaccines actually start preventing infection.

The vaccines don't prevent infection and don't prevent asymptomatic spread and that right there is why we still have this much COVID with us to this day. The case numbers might be a touch lower if the unvaxxed all got vaxxed, but that's it. Anyone paying any objective attention has known this since the P-Town study which put the masks back on.

Vaccinated people are still getting tested in many settings (workplaces, schools, medical settings, for travel, when they have a known exposure, etc.) even when they don't have symptoms.

Huh? The vaccinated people going to MSG aren't getting COVID tests before they go to MSG to sit in a crowd with other vaccinated people. That's pure fantasyland.

If all that drives a person is "caring about people," that person will take a COVID test every single time before he/she goes out among people, or they'll become a shut-in. Short of that, they're a potential spreader, pure and simple. That's the science of it; anything other than that is not science, but something else.

So you think unvaccinated people are getting tested much more often than they were before

A lot of workplaces been forcing these people to get tested on a regular basis. Plus there are lot of places (e.g., concert venues) are forcing you to either provide a vaccine card or a negative test to enter the premises.

What part? I have no idea what you mean about unvaccinated people getting tested. Unvaccinated people are more likely to get symptomatic COVID -- that's the primary point of the vaccines -- and are therefore more likely to stay home or get hospitalized or die when they're a case and therefore less likely to go out with infection but no symptoms and spread it around.

The bonkers part is thinking that the rate of COVID in the vaccinated population is just as high as the rate of COVID in the unvaccinated population, but that vaccinated people are just more likely to have asymptomatic cases and not know about it.

The rate of confirmed cases among unvaccinated people is 6.1x as high as among vaccinated people. Vaccinated people are still getting tested frequently, so there's no reason to think that there are more cases being missed than there used to be.

EDIT: Removed the last line which was a bit inflammatory.

The bonkers part is thinking that the rate of COVID in the vaccinated population is just as high as the rate of COVID in the unvaccinated population, but that vaccinated people are just more likely to have asymptomatic cases and not know about it.

Vaccinated people are far more likely to have asymptomatic infections than unvaxxed people. The vaccines prevent infections from becoming symptomatic disease. Seriously, this is like axiomatic stuff, not even debatable. I never said the rate of infection is as high in the two populations; it's somewhere on the order of 2-3x higher in the unvaxxed population. (You don't get to that number through pure case numbers, which are dependent on testing and therefore basically worthless; you get there through reading the scientific articles and literature. There's plenty of it out there. One of the more recent ones was in Nature, which found that after three months with Pfizer (*), a vaxxed with infection is as likely to spread the infection as an unvaxxed with infection.)

The rate of confirmed cases among unvaccinated people is 6.1x as high as among vaccinated people.

Because a case for an unvaxxed is way more likely to be symptomatic. There's no policy out there to test people to monitor the incidence of breakthrough infections per se; this is also pretty well known stuff at this point. The CDC decided against it. It's possible they changed that, but it was true for many months and is almost certainly still true today.

Vaccinated people are still getting tested frequently, so there's no reason to think that there are more cases being missed than there used to be.

See above and of course there's every reason to think that -- because of the vaccines, there are proportionately far more asymptomatic cases now than pre-vaccine. That's what the vaccines are supposed to do, and they do it very well.

(*) Pretty sure it was Pfizer only.

Vaccinated people are far more likely to have asymptomatic infections than unvaxxed people. The vaccines prevent infections from becoming symptomatic disease.

It's also important to note that while vaccinated people are just as likely to inhale covid as unvaccinated people, vaccinated people are much more likely to be asymptomatic because the vaccine provides sterilizing immunity (the response is so rapid that the infection stops before it starts and the individual is not infectious), although this changed a bit under Delta.

The vaccines prevent infections from becoming symptomatic disease.

They also reduce the incidence of actual infection.

I never said the rate of infection is as high in the two populations; it's somewhere on the order of 2-3x higher in the unvaxxed population.

Cite?

But yes, like I said, vaccinated people are less likely to contract COVID. And their cases don't last as long. (They're also more likely to be taking other precautions, like wearing masks and avoiding indoor crowds.) So they are less likely to be transmitting the virus.

They also reduce the incidence of actual infection.

They do, which is then offset to some degree by the fact that efficacy on that level wanes and that an asymptomatic person is way more likely to go out in public and then around three month after you get vaccinated, at least with Pfizer, you're just as likely to spread it if infected as an unvaxxed person.

So I'm happy with my earlier metaphor that one group is going 25 MPH over the speed limit; the other is following the speed limit. That's the right magnitude here or certainly in the ballpark. The right magnitude is nothing close to "this is a pandemic of the unvaxxed" or "the vaxxed need protection from the unvaxxed." Those things are so far from true that they actually harm the vaccination effort as well as public confidence generally.

OTOH, it's fair to say on the ethical front that the vaxxed got the vaccine hoping for more and intending for more and shouldn't be "blamed" for the fact that the more optimistic hopes didn't pan out. And that the unvaxxed badly shirked their duty by not jumping on that hope wagon at the same time. So as usual with these things, it's somewhere far less than the excesses of Tribe Left while at the same time Tribe Left isn't completely "wrong." But Tribe Left is still pretending like those optimistic hopes for the vaccine became the reality and they absolutely did not.

They do, which is then offset to some degree by the fact that efficacy on that level wanes and that an asymptomatic person is way more likely to go out in public and then around three month after you get vaccinated, at least with Pfizer, you're just as likely to spread it if infected as an unvaxxed person.

I believe the evidence is mixed up but delta has changed the calculus for spread among vaccinated individuals. Even if you're within 3 months (and I've heard different lengths for when Pfizes wanes), you may be just as likely to spread it.... or at least more likely to spread it than what scientists have previously estimated.

I've heard different lengths for when Pfizes wanes

I think there is a lot more data on Pfizer which is why we know more of when its' protection wanes. Israel, where a lot of our data comes from on this used pfiser way more until mid/late summer.

DONT. FEED. THE. TROLLS.

Because ultimately with leftists, it's not about whether the vaccine works; it's about enforcing total conformity.

I've been reading Joe Posnanski's "The Baseball 100," and this immediately reminds me of the hate mail Hank Aaron received during his march towards 714. "Sure, you might get in the record books, and the liberal sportswriters and the liberal media and liberals will love you and try to make everyone else think the same thing, but right-thinking Americans will know otherwise!" For literally my entire lifespan, the language from that sector of American culture hasn't changed one bit.

They do, which is then offset to some degree by the fact that efficacy on that level wanes and that an asymptomatic person is way more likely to go out in public and then around three month after you get vaccinated, at least with Pfizer, you're just as likely to spread it if infected as an unvaxxed person.

I will repeat, do you have a cite for the 2-3x statistic? Or just making it up?

He doesnt have a cite for the 25 mph over the speed limit analogy why would he have one for a statistic?

69. And now we have a mechanism to remove them from american society. Vaccine cards!!!! Can’t buy groceries, stay employed at any Corp, state or federal job, travel on an air plane or mix in any way with the cool people. It’s perfect. Now, if we can only take it to the next step and eliminate these people altogether like the Chinese are doing to the Uighers. We are only about three steps from where the Chinese are. This is where they started - making it hard for them to gather or travel, then they took away their ability to gather in church (sound familiar), then they just started rounding them up and killing them en masse which continues to this day. The left isn’t that far away - they rejoice when anti-Vaxxers die today. It’s not too far from passively liking someone dying to facilitating someone dying.

Just let people live their lives. If you are worried about Covid get a few shots. Voila, problem solved.

And now we have a mechanism to remove them from american society. Vaccine cards!!!!

Vaccine cards will cripple America the way smallpox and TB shot requirements crippled America.

The left isn’t that far away - they rejoice when anti-Vaxxers die today. It’s not too far from passively liking someone dying to facilitating someone dying.

The lack of self-awareness it takes to type those two sentences back to back is spectacular.

As a vaccinated person, I have no idea why I should care if anyone else is. The vaccine works, right?

You that ignorant on most things?

When people don't stick to baseball you can see who thinks logically and who doesn't. This thread has been an eye opener.

It's also helpful to see who lives in pure fantasyland. Like the guy who thinks you're not allowed to buy groceries without a vaccine card.

When people don't stick to baseball you can see who thinks logically and who doesn't. This thread has been an eye opener.

Yes, the logical people got the vaccine (or got infected and survived), and then stopped worrying about COVID.

You guys have made SBB the voice of reason. Congrats!

Another thing we haven't brought up is if I'm vaccinated and protected, but have a heart attack, or a stroke, or a major car accident, and I can't get a spot in the hospital because it's filled with COVID patients. There's more to it than, "I've got a vaccine so everything is fine."

69. And now we have a mechanism to remove them from american society. Vaccine cards!!!! Can’t buy groceries, stay employed at any Corp, state or federal job, travel on an air plane or mix in any way with the cool people. It’s perfect. Now, if we can only take it to the next step and eliminate these people altogether like the Chinese are doing to the Uighers. We are only about three steps from where the Chinese are. This is where they started - making it hard for them to gather or travel, then they took away their ability to gather in church (sound familiar), then they just started rounding them up and killing them en masse which continues to this day. The left isn’t that far away - they rejoice when anti-Vaxxers die today. It’s not too far from passively liking someone dying to facilitating someone dying.

looks like someone has a case of the mondays.


that is some incel #### right there.

that is some incel #### right there.

Labeling your opponents to avoid confronting their ideas is a clear sign you have no argument. Anyone who would rather take a 1 in 1,000 chance of dying rather than become a shut-in, or getting a vaccine is an incel. Bravo.

He's an incel because he's making up conspiracies about how he's being isolated and persecuted (not allowed to buy groceries without a vaccine card? In what universe?). Not because of his lack of vaccine. And you still have a 1,000-to-1 chance of dying without a vaccine? Can you cite that figure, please?

And you still have a 1,000-to-1 chance of dying without a vaccine? Can you cite that figure, please?

US has been running about 350,000 deaths per year. That's roughly 1 in 1,000. If you're under 75, it's much lower. The younger you are, the less risk. Less than 50,000 people under age 50 have died from COVID in the U.S. So, an unvaccinated person under 75, probably has odds around 1 in 1000.

People over 75 should definitely get vaccinated. People over 50 probably should. If they don't, they take their chances. People under 50 should do what they want. There's no justification for vaccinating children; the disease is a minor nuisance for them.

Again, these levels of deaths are far lower than deaths from cancer and heart disease. There's no reason they should shut down normal life.

If cancer and heart disease were communicable you can damn sure bet we'd be changing our "normal" lives.

And that's not remotely what anyone means when they talk about the death rate of a disease and you know it. I guess untreated rabies has a microscopic fatality rate too considering how relatively few people actually die of it.

Labeling your opponents to avoid confronting their ideas is a clear sign you have no argument.

When someone's comparing vaccine cards to genocide, there's no argument to be had. They're voluntarily crazy, and reasonable argument is wasted on them.

People under 50 should do what they want. There's no justification for vaccinating children; the disease is a minor nuisance for them.

Federal data show Covid-19 deaths among people under 55 have roughly matched highs near 1,800 a week set during last winter’s surge. These data show weekly tallies for overall Covid-19 deaths, meanwhile, remain well under half of the pandemic peak near 26,000 reached in January. (WSJ)

1800 deaths/week in the treacherous 50-55 range, you say, Snaps?

When people don't stick to baseball you can see who thinks logically and who doesn't. This thread has been an eye opener.

New here? It's literally the same four or five guys as it always is.

Another thing we haven't brought up is if I'm vaccinated and protected, but have a heart attack, or a stroke, or a major car accident, and I can't get a spot in the hospital because it's filled with COVID patients. There's more to it than, "I've got a vaccine so everything is fine."

This is a point conveniently overlooked by the "people should be able to choose whether or not they get vaccinated" crowd. Health care facilities in areas with low vaccination rates were absolutely slammed over the last couple of months. Turns out people who #### all over science are suddenly OK with taking up a hospital bed when they can't get a good breath in.

Labeling your opponents to avoid confronting their ideas is a clear sign you have no argument. Anyone who would rather take a 1 in 1,000 chance of dying rather than become a shut-in, or getting a vaccine is an incel. Bravo.

yes, there truly is no difference at all between run of the mill vaccine skepticism (which is also contemptible, to be clear) and whatever the #### [72] was.

US has been running about 350,000 deaths per year.

? It's been more like 600-700k per year if you're talking about COVID deaths. Reported COVID deaths since the beginning of March 2020 have been ~750k, and excess deaths are probably closer to 900k by now, especially when you factor in the reporting lag.

People over 75 should definitely get vaccinated. People over 50 probably should. If they don't, they take their chances. People under 50 should do what they want. There's no justification for vaccinating children; the disease is a minor nuisance for them.

Some people still don't understand how infectious diseases work, apparently. Posts like this are the best arguments for vaccine mandates I've seen.

then around three month after you get vaccinated, at least with Pfizer, you're just as likely to spread it if infected as an unvaxxed person.

yeah, you'll need to cite a legitimate source for this one mate because that's not what I've read.

People under 50 should do what they want. There's no justification for vaccinating children; the disease is a minor nuisance for them.

And another one, where do you guys get this stuff? Anyone under 50 who isn't in perfect health can get this thing in a pretty bad way, kids included. If you haven't noticed, there are lots and lots of kids these days with things like asthma, etc. that can be a real concern when they get Covid. It can be pretty wicked. Or does 9 and 16 year old kids getting really ill just fall under your, oh well, we all gotta die sometime mantra? Seriously, WTF is wrong with you?

Vaccines work...it's pretty simple. They prevent you from getting really sick if you get Covid, they cut down your chance of both getting it and spreading it if you happen to randomly get it. This is pretty simple stuff.

Seriously, WTF is wrong with you?

We aren't talking about fetuses so if they die, they die?

We are only about three steps from where the Chinese are.

And TrumpWorld, of which you are a part, is about one step away from the Reichstag fire.

yeah, you'll need to cite a legitimate source for this one

/spit-take gif

Some people still don't understand how infectious diseases work, apparently. Posts like this are the best arguments for vaccine mandates I've seen.

Or people who thinkin digesting horse dewormer is a good idea is a pretty reason for vaccine mandates.