Pandemic Thread (CoronaVirus etc.)

[HondaKid86]

Of course Covid isn’t really THAT lethal to the point of wiping out the entire voting block…

Will it make a dent at least? I'm trying to find the golden lining here.

[neanderthal]

I don't think you're unnecessarily cynical, but I have a feeling they were more concerned with the stock market tanking on fears of new lockdowns from the delta variant than anything else.

They'd pin such an event on Biden.
I'm with Jason. The numbers are overwhelming; most of the people being hospitalised and dying are the unvaccinated. Charles Gaba, a healthcare wonk i follow on twitter, frequently shares a graph showing covid rates by city/ state/ whether they voted for Trump or Biden etc, and the numbers are irrefutable in terms of infections.

I think the GQP opliticians wised up; their voters are the most likely to be unvaccinated. 2022 is not that far. If the data is not ontheir side AND a few of their voters are dead, it's going to present very bad optics leading up to the elections.

[Crazed_Insanity]

Last year LA experienced a peak around July… come this July, we’re already beating last year’s record when it comes to daily new cases…

Hey, LA county should be pretty blue with high percentages of vaccinated people…

Maybe by the end of it, LA will become even bluer?

Anyway, I have some friends who are afraid of the vaccine not due to political reasons. Some just don’t trust govt and big pharma. I have to admit I felt the same way initially. I would never be the 1st to get Pfizer shot especially knowing it’s CEO sold stocks and didn’t take it himself… however, it should be clear that this emergency authorization is safe at this point? Anyway, I can understand there can people people more paranoid than me I suppose…

I also have another friend who rarely get sick and every time he takes a flu shot, he ends up in bed and unable to work for a week or two… so I can understand he’s not looking fwd to getting Covid vaccines…

Anyway, at least I don’t have any friends who are antimaskers. Well, other than a Facebook friend and my new neighbors in WA…

At this point, I’m giving up. People can do whatever they want and I’ll do whatever I want. That’s what a free country is all about.

[Tom Servo]

We're actually almost identical to last year at this time for new cases, only this time around we're basically completely open vs. in lockdown.

[Crazed_Insanity]

True.

Although I am not happy with US policy makers because of my selfish reason to protect my kid, the American way to constantly push to see what we can get away with has its benefits.

For example, how could drug makers test how effective their vaccines are in NZ if nobody got sick?

If we want to have new data, we pretty much need republicans as guinea pigs so that we can fight this virus effectively.

Further, when we have a huge # of healthcare workers not vaccinated by choice, how can we expect the general population to all get vaccinated? This is not just in US, but I heard in Taiwan too. Wonder how do NZ healthcare workers feel about vaccines.

So the American way is to just relax as long as hospitals can handle it… and then just lockdown when hospitals are squeezed.

In time, herd immunity will be reached by vaccines or by natural infections. We’ll learn a lot… and some will die. Oh well.

I hope at least US won’t be wasting anymore vaccines. Give them away before they expire!

[Tom Servo]

I can't tell if it's too early to judge this, but it seems like we're seeing some of what the UK has been reporting. It's a good six weeks since we re-opened, and our 7-day average of deaths is hovering around the lowest rate it's been since the start of the pandemic despite the significant (15x) climb in cases. You'd think it'd start to climb by now. I figure we'll know more in the next couple of weeks, but it feels like a promising sign.

[Cam]

Cases in SC are spiking again.

[Rare White Ape]

I went out to get groceries just now and with our current lockdown (with delta out in the wild) it feels like the early days last year when we were being super cautious and nobody went outside.

However from what I saw at the shopping centre half the shops were open, while half were closed. Clothing shops shut, but a toy store was fully open, while EB Games across the way had it's rollers shut and was doing contactless pickups only. Odd.

I wonder what defines 'essential' shopping. Food and supermarkets, sure. But toy shops?

[Rare White Ape]

Well, we got 17 new cases in our region yesterday. At least we aren't NSW, who got 233.

[Random]

I wonder what defines 'essential' shopping. Food and supermarkets, sure. But toy shops?

You clearly don't have kids at home.

Yah, you can buy MTG cards online, but it's a lot nicer to pop into the local card shop and do it there. Ditto for Legos, etc.