Gosh, you know, I really should have told my wife to stop having asthma in summer 2020. That would have been such a good idea, and magically have removed a co-morbidity of hers. Sitcom stereotype of an inattentive husband over here.

Ideally her T1 Diabetes would have cured itself too, but hey, now I'm just being greedy. That would have been a 2021 project.

And final edit: the approach of tackling obesity by telling people to go on a diet makes them, on average, over time . . . fatter.

Probably at least 400,000 USAmericans have died since the vaccines were widely accessible. Maybe 5 times that number got pretty seriously ill.

Covid could be more or less "just the flu" already, if virtually everyone were properly vaccinated. Instead, those who keep claiming it is just the flu are exactly the ones doing everything in their power to ensure it remains much, much worse for the foreseeable future.

I tried.

You did? I don't remember that, but maybe I missed it. What did you say?

This would not actually be helpful.

Oh, no -- since the Supreme Court has already rightly pointed out that the same principle that would support mandated or compulsory vaccination would also support mandated or compulsory sterilization, the position of vaccine mandate supporters is of immediate interest. So it would be helpful. What's your position? That would be helpful, too.

The first rule of the internet is: Don't feed the Trolls.

Just a reminder from a disinterested party.

.: The supreme court says Y justifies Z

everyone: I want X, not Y

.: Ergo, you are advocating Z

The first rule of the internet is: Don't feed the Trolls.

That's actually not a "rule," other than to nobodies. It's a attempted enforcement mechanism to try to achieve what the NYT writers noted in the story I referenced -- "cliques of the rigidly like-minded." As we've seen here on BTF, many people are far more comfortable in settings like that and thus they've proffered this so-called "rule."

I want X, not Y

"X" and "Y" here are far more similar than different. The differences are immaterial.

"X" and "Y" here are far more similar than different.

Everyone except you seems to understand the difference.

Everyone except you seems to understand the difference.

There is a difference. In this context, it's a meaningless difference. Which is why you'd no more favor mandated sterilization than compulsory sterilization.

Forced vaccinations took place in the early 1900s, courts upheld them,

FLTB gets it wrong again. Vaccination was compulsory but not forced.

David, there were a few instances of forced vaccinations. I don't think any court ever upheld that.

176. I don’t think you can have it both ways. Believe the facts and science when you want to beat up on the unvaxxed Limbaugh crowd but disbelieve the facts (a lower percentage of African-Americans) are getting vaccinated. It’s not quite,but almost, a 50 state phenomenon. Each state reports data differently. Are you saying 50 state bureaucracies doing reporting in 50 different ways are underreporting Black vaccination %? Anything is possible

177/180. The guidance on what works and doesn’t work has been all over the map. Such things as covid being spread via touch, masks work, mask don’t work, 6ft distancing, more than 6 ft, vaccines are the cure, oops - vaccines only keep you out of hospital, oops - now you need three, maybe four shots, kids don’t get covid, kids do get covid, kids don’t infect others, kids do infect others Etx etc. what role does natural immunity play? Certainly if you live through it, it has to help, right? Maybe you still get sick again, but not as sick? (Hey, that’s the new vaccine argument!). No consensus has been reached. I’m of the belief that it’s possible natural immunity is all you need but I didn’t want to take the chance. I’ve had the flu and hope that past history will make the next flu less bad, but I also get a flu shot. I don’t think people who believe they don’t also need the shot should be laughed at. They may be right.

I know that this board likes arguing over analytical stats like WAR. What we need for threads like this (and for the internet in general) is a new stat Stupidity Adjustment (SAD) which measures how much brain power was lost due to reading the thread.

That the SC made a bad decision a 100 years ago is not a good argument. Are you going to argue Plessy or Dred Scott supports your position next?

Are you going to argue Plessy or Dred Scott supports your position next?

Let me consult my lawyer.

177. Mefisto Posted: January 28, 2022 at 12:30 PM (#6062875)

..."Natural immunity" is as good as a vaccine. It's not -- that's why older folks get measles shots even though they had measles as a child

- natural immunity only works if

1 - you survive the infection in the first place
2 - the virus never mutates - like smallpox. covid mutates. a LOT and often
3 - your body doesn't lose the antibodies you made. this is what happens with RSV (maybe others - i don't know about anything but RSV. you can catch that over and over again. it's bad for people with asthma)

what older folks get measles shots?
it's not on the list of shots for older people (looking at kroger pharmacy list of shots). i see pneumonia shot and shingles shot

I did. The immunity wears off and I have grandkids who might either be exposed if I got them or give them to me if they got them before they were vaccinated.

and sugar bear

a LOT of people got no insurance and no doctor and can't afford to go to a clinic every month and pay hundreds of dollars every month for a prescription of blood pressure pills

we're not all rich like you

216. Mefisto Posted: January 28, 2022 at 10:44 PM (#6062964)
I did. The immunity wears off and I have grandkids who might either be exposed if I got them or give them to me if they got them before they were vaccinated.

- it wears off???

it is not on the recommended adult vaccine list unless you have some kind of condition sez the CDC. just flu, covid, pneumonia, shingles and tetanus

- can i ask what state you live in (i thought you are in cal)? i went with my daddy to his last doctor visit and i looked at everything and he never got the measles vaccine since he turned 65. did your doctor test you for measles antibodies or just give you a shot?

176. I don’t think you can have it both ways. Believe the facts and science when you want to beat up on the unvaxxed Limbaugh crowd but disbelieve the facts (a lower percentage of African-Americans) are getting vaccinated. It’s not quite,but almost, a 50 state phenomenon. Each state reports data differently. Are you saying 50 state bureaucracies doing reporting in 50 different ways are underreporting Black vaccination %? Anything is possible


I don't know what data you're looking at, but based on the CDC's tracker, blacks have a 46% vaccination rate, whites have a 51% vaccination rate, and ""Multiple/Other, Non-Hispanic" have a 146% vaccination rate (Latinos, Asians, Asians, and Hawaiians/Pacific Islanders all have significantly higher vaccination rates than both whites and blacks according to this same data, FWIW.) They only have racial information on 74.3% of the vaccinated population to begin with, and there are number of other footnotes about the incompleteness of the data and assumptions being used. I wouldn't be surprised if the rate among blacks was lower than whites (the black population is younger on average, and vax rates are lower among younger age groups), but I think there's enough issues with the data that it's very difficult to make definitive statements about vaccination rates by race.

I am a broken record on this point in the normal COVID thread, but we simply do not track the data in this country in a very comprehensive way (and even when it's tracked, it's often not made public). The media media often gets things wrong because of this, or fails to acknowledge the degree of uncertainty, and social media is even worse. You can't just pull up a spreadsheet, divide column A by column B and think you have the answers without understanding how the data you're using was gathered and what assumptions went into it. This isn't just about the vaccination data or the demographic data, it gets to the very heart of questions like what percentage of the population has had COVID, what the fatality rate of this disease is, etc.

I have tried to take a critical eye to this stuff where the data is available. I was very vocal about the fact that the CDC was underestimating the COVID IFR early on (their website said 0.26% for several months. Then one day they quietly increased it to 0.65%.)

I live in CA. To be honest, I did it because my daughter told me to (she's the one who said it could wear off) and I trusted her to know.

edit: poor reading skills

Adding for bbc: I looked at the link and it shows 1-2 doses lifetime through age 64. I never had measles so a second dose wouldn't hurt. That's probably what my daughter was thinking.

it might be helpful if for your last four or five posts, you substituted "sterilized" for "vaccinated" and then report whether your opinion would be the same.

No one in the entire universe thinks sterilization and vaccination are reasonable analogs. And no, a hundred-year-old SC ruling using one to justify the other doesn't count. Of course, no one thinks a vaccine mandate (you must be vaccinated to join the military) is a near-perfect analog for forced (or compulsory) vaccinations.

Not even SBB is dumb enough to believe either of those things. Close, but not even him.

Nope.

Anti-Vax Cop Who Told Guv to ‘Kiss My Ass’ Dies After Battle With COVID

A former Washington State trooper who was fired for refusing to get the COVID vaccine—and then went viral in a video in which he told the governor to “kiss my ass”—has died after being infected with the coronavirus, two people close to his family confirmed to The Daily Beast.

Robert LaMay, 50, became a hero to anti-vaxxers in October when he defied the state mandate and became one of dozens of troopers to lose their job over it.

From his cruiser, LaMay filmed his final signoff, saying, “This will be the last time you hear me in a state patrol car. And Jay Inslee can kiss my ass.”

If only Governor Inslee hadn’t been such a bully…

Anyway there’s a link to his gofundme page in the link above if anyone wants to contribute.

I just want to note that all of the Republicans saying “why didn’t you just encourage people to lose weight” are full of ####. They spent years ridiculing, opposing and then repealing things like school lunch nutritional guidelines that actually would have encouraged healthier eating habits, using the same arguments they subsequently used to oppose COVID mitigation measures.

I wouldn't be surprised if the rate among blacks was lower than whites (the black population is younger on average, and vax rates are lower among younger age groups), but I think there's enough issues with the data that it's very difficult to make definitive statements about vaccination rates by race.

The data purporting to show the race of those vaccinated may be of uneven reliability (some decline to self-report, or make questionable claims). However, vaccination rates by locality do appear to confirm the lower vaccination rate for blacks. For example, majority-black Baltimore City (57.08) & Prince George’s County (58.2%) lag the Maryland statewide vaccination rate (67.4%). That seems to be the pattern elsewhere, too, although I haven’t seen much effort to comprehensively analyze the data.

They spent years ridiculing, opposing and then repealing things like school lunch nutritional guidelines that actually would have encouraged healthier eating habits . . .

I think the criticism was that there was little point in serving food that many students wouldn’t eat, just so it could be thrown out while adhering to some bureaucratic requirement to satisfy a nutritional checklist. Giving kids food they’ll actually eat isn’t a bad idea.

.

I think the criticism was that there was little point in serving food that many students wouldn’t eat, just so it could be thrown out while adhering to some bureaucratic requirement to satisfy a nutritional checklist. Giving kids food they’ll actually eat isn’t a bad idea.

So... did that happen?

[things we've said] in the normal COVID thread

Will THIS THREAD now become the next wave of covid discussion?
Point of Order: The MLB, union stopped blood testing for HGH due to pandemic thread is now closed to commenting.
(Unless Jose wants to re-open it, like the NHL thread, but that doesn't seem worth the effort.)
Motion: Here now?
Will someone second the motion?

No. This thread is too political and too trolley. I'd save the other. Let this one die and/or fade away.

I submitted another thread yesterday for regular Covid-19 but who knows if or when it would get approved.

The data purporting to show the race of those vaccinated may be of uneven reliability (some decline to self-report, or make questionable claims). However, vaccination rates by locality do appear to confirm the lower vaccination rate for blacks. For example, majority-black Baltimore City (57.08) & Prince George’s County (58.2%) lag the Maryland statewide vaccination rate (67.4%). That seems to be the pattern elsewhere, too, although I haven’t seen much effort to comprehensively analyze the data.

You've literally just done the exact thing I was saying not to do, and used another data set that has the very same issues -- Maryland doesn't have residence data for about 371k vaccinated people (about 8.5% of the state's vaccinated population), so nearly *every* county comes in below the state average. Baltimore City and Prince George's are right in the middle of the pack amongst Maryland counties on this basis. Or look look here for an easier-to-find visualization using slightly different data from the state of MD.

(Furthermore, I don't think that comparing majority black counties against the rest of very blue Maryland has any bearing on the original point I was responding to, which was that low vaccination rates amongst African Americans somehow showed that there wasn't a partisan divide on vaccination.

I suspect that yes, African Americans have lower vaccination rates than whites once you control for geography. It might even be true nationally. However, I think you would find that vaccination rates among blacks overall are higher than those among white Republicans and lower than those among white Democrats.)

A helpful rule of thumb is, any time you find data that you think proves or supports your point, try to poke holes in it, because that's usually when you will have blind spots as to its weaknesses or limitations. Very few people do this.

re: #234, It’s not like Baltimore & Prince Georges County are the only two data points. The same pattern appears in many jurisdictions. To take an interesting example, Washington, DC shows a notably lesser vaccination rate for blacks in all age groups, until the age-40 and up groups where there is little difference.

I third the motion to start another regular C19 thread. This thread is OTP-CVD.

I activated the other thread that Greg submitted.

I submitted another thread yesterday for regular Covid-19 but who knows if or when it would get approved.

It's here. I went to approve it and saw that it had already been done. It's not yet in Hot Topics because nobody has posted in it.

re: #234, It’s not like Baltimore & Prince Georges County are the only two data points. The same pattern appears in many jurisdictions. To take an interesting example, Washington, DC shows a notably lesser vaccination rate for blacks in all age groups, until the age-40 and up groups where there is little difference.


Not interested in playing whack-a-mole with datasets and not really sure what you think this proves vis-a-vis the original point. White people in DC also tend to vote Democratic, so even if blacks in DC have a lower vaccination rate, it hardly shows that vaccination isn’t a partisan issue.

For what it’s worth, self-reporting is also tricky, but this survey supports what I was saying earlier.

Of Americans surveyed from Sept. 13-22, 72% of adults 18 and older had been vaccinated, including 71% of white Americans, 70% of Black Americans, and 73% of Hispanics. Contrast these converging figures with disparities based on politics: 90% of Democrats had been vaccinated, compared with 68% of Independents and just 58% of Republicans.

A Gallup survey released on Sept. 29 confirmed the KFF findings. As of mid-September, 75% of adult Americans have been vaccinated, including 73% of non-Hispanic white adults and 78% of non-whites. Along party lines, however, the breakdown was 92% of Democrats, 68% of Independents, and 56% of Republicans.

Not interested in playing whack-a-mole with datasets and not really sure what you think this proves vis-a-vis the original point.

Yes, you had thoroughly addressed his point before he made it.

Meanwhile our government has poopy data on vaccine uptake, apparently because the toddlers were whining about vaccine passports back in the day. I don't see the obvious D/R line of contention here, so it will go largely unnoticed, but it seems like a big ####### problem when the government can only guess who has and hasn't been vaccinated.