Vaxracism!

9/23/21 Daily Wire:

"Chivona Newsome, an organizer with Black Lives Matter of Greater New York, led a protest on Monday at Carmine’s Italian Restaurant in New York City after a hostess denied entry to three black women last week because they would not provide proof of vaccination. The women, tourists from Texas, allegedly attacked the hostess and were arrested on charges of assault and criminal mischief."

Of course it is not racism.  Black refusal to get vaccinated is not because of racism.  Black mistrust of government healthcare is not entirely without reason.  But guess what?  Lots of conservatives are similarly mistrustful of the government and this is not okay?

The Good News

Idaho's running seven day new cases average is 1210 and falling compared to the 1639 peak on December 10.

Our running average for daily deaths (18) is also falling and below the dec. 15 peak of 20.

Why Are So Many Americans Vaccine-Hesitant?

9/9/21 Knoxville News article lists all the last year seemingly authoritative reasons to not trust the vaccines, many of which boil down to Trump Derangement Syndrome.  "This is Trump's witchcraft so I'm against it."

The Left needs to introspect a little and stop assuming this is all ignorant deplorables. 

You may ask, "Why would Trump voters refuse it, then?"  People already skeptical of vaccines and government mandates are easily spooked.  As I mentioned a few days ago, PhDs and professional degrees are the most vaxcine-hesitant and that does not seem a Trump-voting demographic.

Biden using his executive order to require it is not helping.  The businesses above 100 employees seems like the limit used for the Civil Rights Act of 1964. But that required Congressional passage.

Do You Wonder Why People Are Reluctant to Get Vaccinated?

Because the same media pushing for everyone to get Because the same media screeching that we all need to get vaccinated are carrying stories about ivermectin ODs straining ERs quoting hospitals that say the claims are just false.

First, it was Russia! Russia! Russia!  Then it was Trump is a rapist!  Kavanagh is a rapist!  Then if we do not fully lockdown our hospitals will fill up (and where they did lockdown they still filled up). Now this set of lies.  The left wonders why no one believes them?  I wonder why?

Fear Addiction

A lot of why so many people run in circles, scream, and shout in response to whatever the latest authoritative announcement is (vaccination is the only way out of having to wear masks; no they really will not help with the Delta variant; why are so many people refusing to get vaccinated?) Is that some people live their lives in enormous fear.  If they can get others just as afraid they can feel "normal" and at the same time, superior to the ignorant sorts who are not terrified.   

I was concerned about COVID-19, enough to get vaccinated, both because I am in a high risk group (self-interest) and to reduce the risk of exposing others to it (altruistic).  But I refused to be terrified to the point of unreason by a disease that even for someone like me, was only likely to be miserable and hospitalizing.  

Do not let fear rule your life! Fear of a low mortality disease, fear of traffic accident, fear of crime, fear of meteor strikes. Do sensible things to reduce risk.  Vaccinated.  Drive carefully and soberly.   Move out of high crime areas.  Live in concrete bunkers for meteors.  (Okay that is going a bit far relative to the risk.)

Requiring Masking

6/29/21 AP:

"Nearly all COVID-19 deaths in the U.S. now are in people who weren’t vaccinated, a staggering demonstration of how effective the shots have been and an indication that deaths per day — now down to under 300 — could be practically zero if everyone eligible got the vaccine."

There is no reason for the government to resume masking for the vaccinated.   If you really do not want to be vaccinated, for reasons good or bad, "your body, your choice." The rest of us are pretty much safe.  The vaccinated have more to fear from a traffic accident.

If you are suffering Karen-itis and want everyone back in masks because some people are not convinced that they need it, you are not concerned about anyone but what you think are the stupids.

Reading CNN Stories Like This

Makes me wonder if vaccination did anything at all.  

The Delta variant is so transmissible that even the vaccinated can get it and transmit it.  Maybe it is time to just order everyone to live 50 miles apart.

As I read this story, those who got vaccinated did not benefit from it and even 100% vaccination would have solved nothing.  All that money and whining about antivaxxers and it does not appear to have done anything.

Of course CNN is not a very trustworthy source so CDC says:

• If you are fully vaccinated, you can participate in many of the activities that you did before the pandemic.
• To maximize protection from the Delta variant and prevent possibly spreading it to others, wear a mask indoors in public if you are in an area of substantial or high transmission.

Gee what does this mean? I am vaccinated but I can still get and transmit the Delta variant.  What was the point of all that whining about getting everyone vaccinated?  I hate to see this as a Big Pharma thing but the taxpayers paid a huge amount of money for vaccine that CDC does not trust.  Why should I believe anything they tell us?

Perhaps the solution is to end international air travel.  Come by ship and the dead can be buried at sea.

UPDATE: already changed.  The first paragraph is now gone.

Ivermectin

ZeroHedge is reporting on BigTech/Lamestream Media suppressing news of ivermectin and its astonishing success in treating COVID-19.

I used to discount the claim that Big Pharma actively withholds treatment that saves lives.  The alternative is that the public health sorts do not want this to end.

Masking

Most businesses we have visited the last few days have either taken down mask requirements or only require them for the unvaccinated.  A few still have masked employees (perhaps not fully vaccinated yet).

Of course, everyone is hiring.  One Dollar Tree has closed because they could not hire workers. 

New York Times Article About Why Europe is Lagging Behind the U.S. and U.K. in COVID19 Vaccinations

4/12/21 New York Times credits the Trump Administration deep in the article, because Trump put vaccination ahead of theory about free markets:

Vaccine salvation remains, for now, still tantalizingly out of reach. Only about 10 percent of Europeans have received a first dose, compared with 23 percent in the United States and 39 percent in Britain.

There is no single culprit. Rather, a cascade of small decisions have led to increasingly long delays. The bloc was comparatively slow to negotiate contracts with drugmakers. Its regulators were cautious and deliberative in approving some vaccines. Europe also bet on vaccines that did not pan out or, significantly, had supply disruptions. And national governments snarled local efforts in red tape.

The United States basically went into business with the drugmakers, spending much more heavily to accelerate vaccine development, testing and production.

“They assumed that simply contracting to acquire doses would be enough,” recalled Dr. Slaoui, whom President Donald J. Trump hired to speed the vaccine development. “In fact what was very important was to be a full, active partner in the development and the manufacturing of the vaccine. And to do so very early.”

The European Union trailed the United States and Britain from the start.

Washington had already spent billions on clinical trials and manufacturing by the time Europe decided to pool its resources and negotiate as a bloc. In mid-June, the European Commission, the bloc’s executive branch, announced a joint vaccine purchase with a $3.2 billion pot.

In Washington, Operation Warp Speed, the Trump administration’s vaccine program, had a $10 billion budget. European officials say it’s unfair to compare the two figures because neither amount is a complete picture of all the money spent on vaccines. But there is no dispute that in Washington, officials had decided that money was no object if vaccines could avert the economic cost of a lockdown. Europe, on the other hand, was on a tight budget, so its negotiators chased cheaper doses.

Good News

A few people who are >=14 days after second vaccination get infected.  In this group of residents of Skilled Nursing Facilities (I would guess almost entirely older and very sick people):

"Two thirds of persons were asymptomatic. A minority of persons with breakthrough infection experienced mild to moderate COVID-19–like symptoms; two COVID-19–related hospitalizations and one death occurred. No facility-associated secondary transmission was identified."

If this level of risk is involved for people who are at high risk, it sounds like vaccination is a big win. 

Good News From CDC

The paranoia about scrubbing every surface with alcohol seems to make little sense.  4/5/21 CDC:

Findings of these studies suggest that the risk of SARS-CoV-2 infection via the fomite transmission route is low, and generally less than 1 in 10,000, which means that each contact with a contaminated surface has less than a 1 in 10,000 chance of causing an infection ^7, 8, 9. 

So even if the surface is contaminated the risk is extremely low.  And unless someone with COVID has touched or coughed on that surface there is no risk at all. 

The principal mode by which people are infected with SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes COVID-19) is through exposure to respiratory droplets carrying infectious virus. It is possible for people to be infected through contact with contaminated surfaces or objects (fomites), but the risk is generally considered to be low.

Good COVID News

16% of the U.S. is fully vaccinated.  28.5% have received the first dose. 

New confirmed cases in Idaho has been below 500 since Jan. 26.

Won't the left be furious once they lose excuses to control us so tightly. 

Because... Science

From where the six foot rule come?  I do not doubt that distance will reduce aerosol dispersion of the virus.  But why six feet?  Why not two meters.  I am sure that if six feet is good, 50 feet would be better, and 50 meters would reduce the risk to a lot of zeroes before the significant digit.  So how, exactly, was six feet picked?  Was there a study on this, or was someone at CDC spitballing?  

I ask because 3/19/21 AP reports that CDC says:

Students can safely sit just 3 feet apart in the classroom as long as they wear masks but should be kept the usual 6 feet away from one another at sporting events, assemblies, lunch or chorus practice, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Friday in relaxing its COVID-19 guidelines.

How many schools shut down because six feet made classrooms impractical?

I am not disputing that caution was appropriate when no one knew.  But can the six foot bubble be safely reduced for adults in public as well?  If not, what is the science that says this?

My First Selfie

For those requesting it, I went back to Thursday and stepped through a wormhole to get the picture the right direction. 

Not as bad as my last flu vaccination. 

9 hours later. Just like my last flu vaccination.   Hurts but not terrible. 

Tomorrow is First Shot

11:00 AM.  From all that friends,  families,  and readers have told me,  this should be arm soreness for a couple days.  The second shot is apparently the one that causes sort of mini-COVID.  So do not be  worried for me if things get quiet for a day or two.

To Those Who Think This is a Hoax

Even if the 334,000 more deaths in 2020 compared to 2019 are bogus, why didn't Trump inform us during the campaign that it was a hoax?  He could have coasted to an easy victory. 

Vaccination Panic

I am seeing a lot of antivaxxers sending around stuff that is seriously problematic.   Yes, the method,  using messenger RNA, is new.  There have been a number of adverse reactions and some deaths.  And yes, vaccination will allow us to get on with normal lives.  Even CDC thinks so. 

I have a number of friends and relatives who have had one or both shots.  First shot has been sore arm for a day or two (like other vaccines).  The second shot is a day or two of fatigue and fever. 

One person I know had a stroke two days later.  Coincidence?  Maybe.  She was not old, nor was she particularly young.  In my stroke support group is a 29 year old triathlete.  I find coincidence a plausible explanation. 

On the other hand, while several family and friends have had pretty mild cases of COVID19, some have been hospitalized.  One will be on oxygen for the rest of his life.  I have two comorbidities that put me at high risk if I get it.  The risk of vaccination is less than the risk of COVID. 

Is it real?  A friend is a nurse back East. He has lost more patients to COVID-19 in these last few months than all the rest of his career.

My wife and I are scheduled for Mar. 18. I am going to try and get in sooner.  If both of us are miserable at the same time, we will have to rely on the dogs to help us through it.  That seems a questionable support system.  Getting your face licked is no substitute for a meal.

 

Antivaxxers are another form of conspiracy theory.  WE have knowledge that makes us special and oh so clever compared to you ignorant sheep.  Over the years I have found conspiracy sorts to be smart people with less than awesome educations who are consequently lower on the socioeconomic ladder than they they think they deserve, and with their generally higher intelligence, they are right.  But this leads to a belief that people at the top are very smart and up to elaborate conspiracies, when in fact the elite of Western Civilization are not all that smart,  just privileged.  If you have ever worked with a group of coworkers trying to decide where to have lunch, try to imagine a bunch of egomaniacs trying to conspire against us.  In the age of photocopies it was impossible to keep secrets.  In the age of email,  no conspiracy would last two hours.

Just to upset the antivaxxer conspiracy crowd, I want a "I've been chipped" button!

Fauci's Paper About Masks

Article of faith: Fauci published a paper blaming flu deaths on masks. Here is that paper.   There is no mention of masks. The paper is about how many of the deaths were bacterial pneumonia,  not flu.  Flu opened people up for pneumonia.

Do Not Treat This As Unserious

A friend whose writing many of you know is a nurse back East and had seen more COVID19 deaths of his patients since this started than the previous several years deaths combined. 

The good news is that I know a fair number of people now that have come through this.   A close relative lost his sense of smell and taste, and tested positive.   But other than a few days of malaise,  he has fully recovered.  Worst of all, he was scheduled to get vaccinated the day he lost his sense of taste.

My physical therapist and his family got it and recovered.   Even months later, however,  he is still easily fatigued.  He was a runner so this suggests that the long term effects are serious.

A student last semester and his whole family got it.  They were over it in a week.  "Like a bad flu."

Another acquaintance got it and said it was not as bad as flu.

Another acquaintance will be on oxygen for the rest of his life.  The lung damage was substantial. 

For many people this is a few days of misery.  For some it is a life changing (and not for the better) experience.   For a few percent this is a slow and unpleasant death by asphyxiation. 

Stay masked in public.  The published work shows it reduces risk of infection. The sooner we get past this, the sooner the Fascists will lose their excuses to oppress us.

Article of faith: Fauci blamed masks for flu deaths in 1918.  Here is the paper.  There is no mention of masks.