March 1st, Everything Opens, Mask optional, No Restrictions!

[John74]

This data doesnt provide what John74 requested. I said there are younger people with comorbidities that put them in a greater risk. I also stated just because people live there are other hardships, health and financial, that they will have. The CDC charts just reaffirm what myself, john74 and everyone else knows. The older you are the more vulnerable you are. I'm saying there's more than just age that the CDC charts dont show. And in the case of financial burden or lingering problems the CDC cant give you that data

No, it isn’t the data I was looking for. And I wasn’t trying to be snarky, just hoping someone had the data. The risk of long term effects has been written about to great extent, especially early on. Most of the news stories though implicitly stated that it was an observation, not a scientific study. Then the frequency of those articles dropped dramatically.

It’s something that gets brought up still. And that is one of my biggest issues with the scientific community on this whole response. What is the frequency of long haulers? Is it better or worse than typical viral and bacterial infections? What was the treatment protocol of the long haulers? The data set is big enough and mature enough to be able to answer these questions. All I have ever been able to garnish is that during a nationwide outbreak of Covid, there were times visits to general practitioners was down as much as 90%. If there was truly a wide ranging issues with the lasting impacts of the disease, that extreme of a drop doesn’t seem to support that narrative.

And answering the question with data, not single case news articles, is what is needed to get through this thing. I had Covid and so has a large majority of my family and friends. Thankfully for all, it was pretty much a nothing-burger. So as everyone assesses the situation of getting back to normal and whether or not to get an emergency use vaccine, how do we navigate the risk decision without a true understanding of long term effects and future infections?

 

[John74]

There is a much better chance that you people will screw it up with your excessive fear. What is it Frank Herbert wrote "fear is the mind killer". And remember what FDR told us "all we have to fear is fear itself".

And it starts with your quoting a hugely exaggerated and out of context death number. And your obsessive fear of virus mutation is better left in horror films.

This reminds me of the scene in Dumb & Dumber where Lloyd is leaving the bar and sees the newspaper on the wall about the moon landing and he is in disbelief. The virus mutated? “No way!”

It’s a virus that got out of its initial start region and spread globally. The chance to stop it before it began to mutate to be more efficient was long gone way before anyone beyond China knew it existed. So guess what, we now have a new endemic disease that we have to find a way to live with. That will be with either natural or vaccine based herd immunity that has to stay one step ahead of the mutations. It’s not like measles and smallpox that stay pretty constant. Some mutations will spread more easily, some less. Some will impact younger people, some older. Some will cause a lot of sickness, some won’t.

Or do we just give up and never get back to normal?

 

[winbypin]

There are more views emerging on this issue than are expressed here. At a gas station fueling up yesterday I overheard two teachers with the following conversation.

Teacher 1 wearing a mask and strongly addressing the mask issue- " why aren't you wearing a mask, are you trying to kill me?

Teacher 2- "oh, I have been vaccinated so I'm good to go without a mask now, your safe".
Teacher 1- " No I'm not, I didn't get vaccinated ".
Teacher a bit indignant in her response- " so you want us to continue to wear these da$% mask because you wont get the vaccine?"

Teacher 1- "yes, I don't want the vaccine, but I don't want the virus either, i want people to continue to prevent the spread by wearing a mask and social distancing ".

Teacher 2- " for the rest of our lives?"
Teacher 1- "until the virus is gone".

So welcome to the category of I don't want the vaccine , but I do want the "protection " of mask and social distancing. We literally have people who have came to psychologically rely on masking as some sort of protection.

If I haven been vaccinated against covid AND the whole premise of the masks is they don't protect me but rather they protect you....I don't see a need for a vaccinated person to wear a mask any longer.

I am with teacher 2.

Do I know any of these teachers?

 

[John74]

TeaCher one is going to find a lack of sympathy for her viewpoint from pretty much every corner.

I think this very situation will play out a lot in the next few months. It’s easy to throw a mask on and feel you are being very virtuous and keeping everyone safe. It’s something different to put a needle in your arm. Vaccine uptake is not great. Depending on the age and race, as low as 40%. So we will go on in the near future with a jumbled up mess of people who are clamoring for the vaccine, people who will never take the vaccine, and people who think that you are literally killing grandparents if you don’t wear your daisy flowered mask as you walk through Walmart.

 

[TrueEagle]

There will always be more variants and we will always be stuck with covid. Every year we are going to have rona shots just like we do flu shots. Hiding away isn’t going to make any of that not happen.

Once those who wish to have a vax can get one it’s time to move on.

The flu killed 50,000 pr so a year. COVID killed 500,000. Stop comparing to the flu.

 

[lotr10]

The flu killed 50,000 pr so a year. COVID killed 500,000. Stop comparing to the flu.

A better reason for not comparing flu and covid deaths is that the methodology for counting the deaths is COMPLETELY DIFFERENT. You know the old saying about comparing apples and oranges.

 

[TrueEagle]

If I haven been vaccinated against covid AND the whole premise of the masks is they don't protect me but rather they protect you....I don't see a need for a vaccinated person to wear a mask any longer.

I am with teacher 2.

Do I know any of these teachers?

Medical scientists still aren’t sure if you can get the vaccine, not get sick, but carry the virus and possibly pass it to someone. It’s looking like that won’t happen. Just not completely sure yet. Also, there is the variant question. Will our vaccine work on the variant possibilities? Still not sure. Why risk it until they know. This whole, “They’re taking away my freedom”, is about as ignorant as you can be. THEY ARE TRYING TO SAVE LIVES.

 

[lotr10]

No, it isn’t the data I was looking for. And I wasn’t trying to be snarky, just hoping someone had the data. The risk of long term effects has been written about to great extent, especially early on. Most of the news stories though implicitly stated that it was an observation, not a scientific study. Then the frequency of those articles dropped dramatically.

It’s something that gets brought up still. And that is one of my biggest issues with the scientific community on this whole response. What is the frequency of long haulers? Is it better or worse than typical viral and bacterial infections? What was the treatment protocol of the long haulers? The data set is big enough and mature enough to be able to answer these questions. All I have ever been able to garnish is that during a nationwide outbreak of Covid, there were times visits to general practitioners was down as much as 90%. If there was truly a wide ranging issues with the lasting impacts of the disease, that extreme of a drop doesn’t seem to support that narrative.

And answering the question with data, not single case news articles, is what is needed to get through this thing. I had Covid and so has a large majority of my family and friends. Thankfully for all, it was pretty much a nothing-burger. So as everyone assesses the situation of getting back to normal and whether or not to get an emergency use vaccine, how do we navigate the risk decision without a true understanding of long term effects and future infections?

So far the little I've seen on the long lasting effects of covid infection is that they're not expected to be much different then the flu. For most people there won't be any.

I completely misunderstood nupanther's question but I would reiterate that by far the worst SHORT & LONG TERM damage of the covid to young people will be the effects of the lock downs. Direct covid effects will be like a pea on an elephants back in comparison.

 

[lotr10]

Medical scientists still aren’t sure if you can get the vaccine, not get sick, but carry the virus and possibly pass it to someone. It’s looking like that won’t happen. Just not completely sure yet. Also, there is the variant question. Will our vaccine work on the variant possibilities? Still not sure. Why risk it until they know. This whole, “They’re taking away my freedom”, is about as ignorant as you can be. THEY ARE TRYING TO SAVE LIVES.

Do you know how many people have died because of these kinds of efforts? Talk about the road to hell being paved with good intentions.

Here's a suggestion. If you really want to save lives then argue for a national speed limit of 25 mph. Now that will bring down the death totals.

 

[winbypin]

Medical scientists still aren’t sure if you can get the vaccine, not get sick, but carry the virus and possibly pass it to someone. It’s looking like that won’t happen. Just not completely sure yet. Also, there is the variant question. Will our vaccine work on the variant possibilities? Still not sure. Why risk it until they know. This whole, “They’re taking away my freedom”, is about as ignorant as you can be. THEY ARE TRYING TO SAVE LIVES.

Variant boogeyman.

 

[D4fan]

If I haven been vaccinated against covid AND the whole premise of the masks is they don't protect me but rather they protect you....I don't see a need for a vaccinated person to wear a mask any longer.

I am with teacher 2.

Do I know any of these teachers?

I was agreeing with teacher 2 as well.

Bethel Local teachers.

Teacher one wants to be afraid of the virus and the fix for the virus and wants society to continue to bend her way.

I never saw such mindset coming but am not surprised and doubt she is only one who thinks this way.

 

[TrueEagle]

There is a much better chance that you people will screw it up with your excessive fear. What is it Frank Herbert wrote "fear is the mind killer". And remember what FDR told us "all we have to fear is fear itself".

And it starts with your quoting a hugely exaggerated and out of context death number. And your obsessive fear of virus mutation is better left in horror films.

It’s not fear. It’s prudence. It’s being cautious when faced with a real danger to the American people. It’s the opposite of the stupidity of Trump when he was in a position to make a difference.

 

[OldSoulon]

I was agreeing with teacher 2 as well.

Bethel Local teachers.

Teacher one wants to be afraid of the virus and the fix for the virus and wants society to continue to bend her way.

I never saw such mindset coming but am not surprised and doubt she is only one who thinks this way.

Being a teacher and being an intelligent person don't always coexist, unfortunately.

 

[OldSoulon]

The problem with your argument is that the virus will keep mutating it’s what viruses do. We are going to continually have new variants. Are we supposed to sit around in perpetual fear of the inevitable next variant?

Whats going to happen is that scientists will tweak vaccines yearly just like they do the flu shot. They’ll adjust them to the new strands and away we go. In fact I’d be surprised if we didn’t have booster shots this winter. The MRNA vaccine technology is going to change medicine forever. They are already experimenting with an aids vax from mRNA and are on the verge of a malaria vax. Really exciting time to be alive in this reguard

The flu vaccine is correct about 50% of the time.

 

[OldSoulon]

Which is enough to take the heat off doctors and hospitals. Booster shots from MRNA vaccines would provide significantly better protection than the standard flu vaccine.

Scientists are also working to adapt mRNA technology to flu. An MRNA flu shot would have a significantly higher success rate than current methods.

Why weren't the MRNA COVID vaccines tested on animals like all other vaccines have been?

What are the possible long term side effects with these vaccines?

 

[John74]

Which is enough to take the heat off doctors and hospitals. Booster shots from MRNA vaccines would provide significantly better protection than the standard flu vaccine.

Scientists are also working to adapt mRNA technology to flu. An MRNA flu shot would have a significantly higher success rate than current methods.

That is a point that I feel gets lost in all the back-and-forth. Provide that they prove safe long term, the success of the mRNA vaccines is an absolute game changer. We could have very easy have failed miserably and had no vaccine for years or one that was marginally effective. Anyone that looks at where we are now and laments that we have failed badly isn’t looking at the big picture.

 

[OldSoulon]

They were tested on


They were tested on both mice and macaques at the same time initial trials were going on. There were no issues in animal trials for the vaccines.

Did you even bother to look and see if that claim was true or did you just whole sale buy that animal testing was bypassed?

So we understand the long term effects after a few months?

 

[gneiss rocks]

Everyone in the scientific and medical community knows this this is by definition a experiment when it comes to long term effects....there is simply no possible way of knowing for years, no matter WHO says they know.

 

[OldSoulon]

All available evidence and research suggests that there are no long term effects. If that’s not enough for you I suggest you take the J&J vax which is based off a more traditional vax platform. However I know you won’t take one at all so I might as well just stop.

Oh I will probably take the J&J version.
And no one knows the long term effects of MRNA vaccines, since these are the first.

I find it interesting that about half of the healthcare industry is not getting vaccinated.

Why is that?

 

[lotr10]

It’s not fear. It’s prudence. It’s being cautious when faced with a real danger to the American people. It’s the opposite of the stupidity of Trump when he was in a position to make a difference.

It is fear. It's an irrational fear that is causing great harm to the economy and our society.

And can you enlighten us on how Trump was stupid in handling covid?

* He flowed federal resources to the states hardest hit - remember that HUGE hospital ship in NYC? It wasn't Trump's fault that Democrat Mayors & Governors CHOSE not to use those resources in order to politically damage Trump.

* He organized a program to develop covid vaccine ASAP and he eliminated regulatory restrictions to speed the process up. The result was that THREE safe & effective covide vaccines have been developed and deployed in less then a year.

* He led the effort with Congress to send stimulus money out to business & individuals.

If you're still struggling to identify anything that Trump did that was stupid here's one for you - Trump never should have listened to Fauci and closed the country down.

 

[OldSoulon]

The owners of a restaurant in suburban Geneva have secured a court order forcing the administration of Gov. JB Pritzker to produce scientific evidence he has claimed supported his decisions to order statewide shutdowns of indoor restaurant dining in the name of fighting COVID-19.

On Feb. 17, Sangamon County Judge Raylene Grischow gave Pritzker’s administration until March 3 to begin disclosing to attorneys for the FoxFire restaurant “responsive information and documents” FoxFire had demanded as part of discovery in its lawsuit against the governor.

If Pritzker’s team continues to resist or slow-walk the rollout of that information, the judge indicated she would consider imposing sanctions on the state of Illinois, potentially including requiring the state to pay the legal bills the restaurant has racked up trying to persuade Pritzker to turn over the information.

The decision comes as the latest step in a lengthy court fight initiated by the owners of FoxFire last fall, when Pritzker again ordered indoor dining and drinking shut down at restaurants and taverns throughout Illinois.

The renewed shutdown orders came amid a resurgence of COVID-19 infections across the state and the nation. However, as COVID activity continued to decline in January, Pritzker eased back those restrictions.

According to Illinois state public health data, Illinois hit its COVID activity peak in early November, before Pritzker issued the most recent restaurant and bar closure orders. COVID activity in the state has continued to decline ever since, shrinking at February’s close to the lowest levels recorded in Illinois since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic one year ago.

 

[TrueEagle]

It is fear. It's an irrational fear that is causing great harm to the economy and our society.

And can you enlighten us on how Trump was stupid in handling covid?

* He flowed federal resources to the states hardest hit - remember that HUGE hospital ship in NYC? It wasn't Trump's fault that Democrat Mayors & Governors CHOSE not to use those resources in order to politically damage Trump.

* He organized a program to develop covid vaccine ASAP and he eliminated regulatory restrictions to speed the process up. The result was that THREE safe & effective covide vaccines have been developed and deployed in less then a year.

* He led the effort with Congress to send stimulus money out to business & individuals.

If you're still struggling to identify anything that Trump did that was stupid here's one for you - Trump never should have listened to Fauci and closed the country down.

Trump lied continually about COVID. It was no more harmful than the flu. It would be gone by Easter. It would be gone miraculously when the summer arrived. It would cause no more than 40,000 deaths. How many lives were lost because of his lies? Instead of managing the short supply of PPE and ventilators, he caused states to bid against each other for them, driving up costs and leading to hoarding and shortages. A real leader would have taken over the supplies and made sure they got to where they were needed most. Remember, he claimed to be a war time President. Is that how a war time President handles the supply chain? The moron argued with the medical scientific community instead of letting them do their job. Like he was some kind of intellectual equal. He lied about masks (probably still does), and set a very poor example of taking precautions to keep people safe. In fact, recent information suggests he would be dead right now if he hadn’t been given life saving drugs that regular Americans had no access to like monoclonal antibodies. He turned the White House into a high risk COVID zone. How many of his inner circle also got COVID? He advised the American people to drink hand sanitizer and take hydroxychloroquine. He continually fought testing. Do you remember this gem, “the more we test, the more cases we will have” and “testing will cause our numbers to go up”. What a fool! You want to give him credit for the development of the vaccine? What the hell would he know about that? Encouraging the quick development of the vaccine is something any President would have done. That was a no brainer. It certainly wasn’t some ingenious idea. Then he lies about when the vaccine would be ready, and has no plan for getting it to the American people. When the Biden administration took over they were shocked at the lack of planning for implementation of the vaccine under Trump. Trump said 35 million people would be vaccinated before he left office. He vaccinated a little over 13 million. Biden promised a million a day for the first hundred days he was in office. Currently we are vaccinating about 1.6 million each day, and, although slowed by the weather, that number is increasing almost daily. Trump underfunded economic relief to the American people and the business community. That’s why we are being forced to do it again just a few months later. Under Trump we became the hardest hit country in the world by COVID. One fifth of all the deaths in the world from COVID have occurred here! In the US, the wealthiest country in the history of the world! NO ONE tries to defend that hole on his handling of COVID anymore. He could not have done a worse job! He performance killed tens of thousands of Americans. We really have only ourselves to blame for electing the bone spur bankruptcy filing coward and grifter to office.

 

[winbypin]

Trump lied continually about COVID. It was no more harmful than the flu. It would be gone by Easter. It would be gone miraculously when the summer arrived. It would cause no more than 40,000 deaths. How many lives were lost because of his lies? Instead of managing the short supply of PPE and ventilators, he caused states to bid against each other for them, driving up costs and leading to hoarding and shortages. A real leader would have taken over the supplies and made sure they got to where they were needed most. Remember, he claimed to be a war time President. Is that how a war time President handles the supply chain? The moron argued with the medical scientific community instead of letting them do their job. Like he was some kind of intellectual equal. He lied about masks (probably still does), and set a very poor example of taking precautions to keep people safe. In fact, recent information suggests he would be dead right now if he hadn’t been given life saving drugs that regular Americans had no access to like monoclonal antibodies. He turned the White House into a high risk COVID zone. How many of his inner circle also got COVID? He advised the American people to drink hand sanitizer and take hydroxychloroquine. He continually fought testing. Do you remember this gem, “the more we test, the more cases we will have” and “testing will cause our numbers to go up”. What a fool! You want to give him credit for the development of the vaccine? What the hell would he know about that? Encouraging the quick development of the vaccine is something any President would have done. That was a no brainer. It certainly wasn’t some ingenious idea. Then he lies about when the vaccine would be ready, and has no plan for getting it to the American people. When the Biden administration took over they were shocked at the lack of planning for implementation of the vaccine under Trump. Trump said 35 million people would be vaccinated before he left office. He vaccinated a little over 13 million. Biden promised a million a day for the first hundred days he was in office. Currently we are vaccinating about 1.6 million each day, and, although slowed by the weather, that number is increasing almost daily. Trump underfunded economic relief to the American people and the business community. That’s why we are being forced to do it again just a few months later. Under Trump we became the hardest hit country in the world by COVID. One fifth of all the deaths in the world from COVID have occurred here! In the US, the wealthiest country in the history of the world! NO ONE tries to defend that hole on his handling of COVID anymore. He could not have done a worse job! He performance killed tens of thousands of Americans. We really have only ourselves to blame for electing the bone spur bankruptcy filing coward and grifter to office.

Feel better?

He didn't tell anyone to drink hand sanitizer btw. Only liars and idiots say that. Which group do you fall into?

 

[lotr10]

Trump lied continually about COVID. It was no more harmful than the flu. It would be gone by Easter. It would be gone miraculously when the summer arrived. It would cause no more than 40,000 deaths. How many lives were lost because of his lies? Instead of managing the short supply of PPE and ventilators, he caused states to bid against each other for them, driving up costs and leading to hoarding and shortages. A real leader would have taken over the supplies and made sure they got to where they were needed most. Remember, he claimed to be a war time President. Is that how a war time President handles the supply chain? The moron argued with the medical scientific community instead of letting them do their job. Like he was some kind of intellectual equal. He lied about masks (probably still does), and set a very poor example of taking precautions to keep people safe. In fact, recent information suggests he would be dead right now if he hadn’t been given life saving drugs that regular Americans had no access to like monoclonal antibodies. He turned the White House into a high risk COVID zone. How many of his inner circle also got COVID? He advised the American people to drink hand sanitizer and take hydroxychloroquine. He continually fought testing. Do you remember this gem, “the more we test, the more cases we will have” and “testing will cause our numbers to go up”. What a fool! You want to give him credit for the development of the vaccine? What the hell would he know about that? Encouraging the quick development of the vaccine is something any President would have done. That was a no brainer. It certainly wasn’t some ingenious idea. Then he lies about when the vaccine would be ready, and has no plan for getting it to the American people. When the Biden administration took over they were shocked at the lack of planning for implementation of the vaccine under Trump. Trump said 35 million people would be vaccinated before he left office. He vaccinated a little over 13 million. Biden promised a million a day for the first hundred days he was in office. Currently we are vaccinating about 1.6 million each day, and, although slowed by the weather, that number is increasing almost daily. Trump underfunded economic relief to the American people and the business community. That’s why we are being forced to do it again just a few months later. Under Trump we became the hardest hit country in the world by COVID. One fifth of all the deaths in the world from COVID have occurred here! In the US, the wealthiest country in the history of the world! NO ONE tries to defend that hole on his handling of COVID anymore. He could not have done a worse job! He performance killed tens of thousands of Americans. We really have only ourselves to blame for electing the bone spur bankruptcy filing coward and grifter to office.

A long list of lies and half truths taken out of context.

As an aside I recommend that you read up on this cool innovation in the written English language called the paragraph.

 

[Indiandad]

It’s not fear. It’s prudence. It’s being cautious when faced with a real danger to the American people. It’s the opposite of the stupidity of Trump when he was in a position to make a difference.

No, it's definitely fear.

 

[Indiandad]

Trump lied continually about COVID. It was no more harmful than the flu. It would be gone by Easter. It would be gone miraculously when the summer arrived. It would cause no more than 40,000 deaths. How many lives were lost because of his lies? Instead of managing the short supply of PPE and ventilators, he caused states to bid against each other for them, driving up costs and leading to hoarding and shortages. A real leader would have taken over the supplies and made sure they got to where they were needed most. Remember, he claimed to be a war time President. Is that how a war time President handles the supply chain? The moron argued with the medical scientific community instead of letting them do their job. Like he was some kind of intellectual equal. He lied about masks (probably still does), and set a very poor example of taking precautions to keep people safe. In fact, recent information suggests he would be dead right now if he hadn’t been given life saving drugs that regular Americans had no access to like monoclonal antibodies. He turned the White House into a high risk COVID zone. How many of his inner circle also got COVID? He advised the American people to drink hand sanitizer and take hydroxychloroquine. He continually fought testing. Do you remember this gem, “the more we test, the more cases we will have” and “testing will cause our numbers to go up”. What a fool! You want to give him credit for the development of the vaccine? What the hell would he know about that? Encouraging the quick development of the vaccine is something any President would have done. That was a no brainer. It certainly wasn’t some ingenious idea. Then he lies about when the vaccine would be ready, and has no plan for getting it to the American people. When the Biden administration took over they were shocked at the lack of planning for implementation of the vaccine under Trump. Trump said 35 million people would be vaccinated before he left office. He vaccinated a little over 13 million. Biden promised a million a day for the first hundred days he was in office. Currently we are vaccinating about 1.6 million each day, and, although slowed by the weather, that number is increasing almost daily. Trump underfunded economic relief to the American people and the business community. That’s why we are being forced to do it again just a few months later. Under Trump we became the hardest hit country in the world by COVID. One fifth of all the deaths in the world from COVID have occurred here! In the US, the wealthiest country in the history of the world! NO ONE tries to defend that hole on his handling of COVID anymore. He could not have done a worse job! He performance killed tens of thousands of Americans. We really have only ourselves to blame for electing the bone spur bankruptcy filing coward and grifter to office.

Good grief. Reality eludes you.

 

[TrueEagle]

Feel better?

He didn't tell anyone to drink hand sanitizer btw. Only liars and idiots say that. Which group do you fall into?

Once again, cherry picking something minor instead of addressing the facts. Yeah, I poked a little fun at his suggestion about hand sanitizer, but he said it and you know it. Much of what he said the last four years is indefensible, so you comeback is always such bull$hit. lotr10 asked me to enlighten him about Trump’s COVID performance. So I did, and you can’t refute anything I said.

 

[TrueEagle]

A long list of lies and half truths taken out of context.

Exactly what isn’t true? Keep defending his dumb.

As an aside I recommend that you read up on this cool innovation in the written English language called the paragraph.

 

[TrueEagle]

Good grief. Reality eludes you.

Great comeback. Everything I said is true.

 

[winbypin]

Once again, cherry picking something minor instead of addressing the facts. Yeah, I poked a little fun at his suggestion about hand sanitizer, but he said it and you know it. Much of what he said the last four years is indefensible, so you comeback is always such bull$hit. lotr10 asked me to enlighten him about Trump’s COVID performance. So I did, and you can’t refute anything I said.

But he didn't say it. Therefore I have refuted it.