Shanghai Disneyland will close in effort to contain coronavirus

No, but he wore a mask.

No word on if he'll get the vaccine or not.

Just the tip? (of the vaccine?)

Lord Gonchar said:

Not once did any of us (who I would generally give more credit than average) seem to cite, acknowledge or even apparently know the existence of, that information. Hell, the last couple of your arguments regarding finish lines and moving forward were heavily based around the idea that the risk is still 5%. And in technical terms, the risk of getting infected is 5% - but the spirit of the situation is lost. The risk of severe infection appears to be reduced to .003%!

This is true, and it will certainly affect my decision to go to Disney World as soon as I get vaccinated (non-teacher kids and wife can suck it).

But, to play the semantics game because "Coasterbuzz," when you get a flu shot, do you think, "Oh. When they say X% effective, that means 100-X% of people will be hospitalized." or "Oh. When they say X% effective, that means that 100-X% of people will still contract the flu and may have to sleep it off for an afternoon or miss a day of work." I have always understood it as the latter and I don't see why the Covid vaccine would be different.

ApolloAndy said:

But, to play the semantics game because "Coasterbuzz," when you get a flu shot...

Deep breath.

*opening the same can of worms that the seat belt discussion currently resides*

I've never had a flu shot in my life.

(please, let's skip the discussion)

But more to the point:

I have always understood it as the latter and I don't see why the Covid vaccine would be different.

But COVID isn't the flu. (or so I've been told roughly one hundred billion gazillion jillion times)

There's a real risk of death and I think (again, in the spirit of the whole thing) that's what people (maybe I'm projecting?) see the vaccine as an answer to.

I'm not at all worried about getting sick. I'd like to not die.

No one really reports on how many people missed work because they were sick each winter in any mainstream signifcant way. They do report the number of COVID deaths every day. If people were just getting sick and missing work, this would just be another strain of the flu. The mortality rate is what makes it anything in the first place.

Normally I'd be against doing it this early, but I really, really want to add Andy's wife 95% ****ing her coworker Steve at Chili's to the meme thread.

Lord Gonchar said:

It's akin to your wife going to Chili's with a coworker and then ****ing him in the car before they go back to work and then when you ask about her day, she's like, "Nothing big. I had lunch at Chili's with Steve."

95% ****ing Steve over lunch in the Chili’s parking lot < Rip Ridin’ Rocket

...or so I’ve been told by people who know.

Well to be fair, riding Steve could be called rip Ridin’ rocket. Or maybe that could be the name of a sex toy and I’m getting it confused.

Lord Gonchar said:

The mortality rate is what makes it anything in the first place.

And lung transplants

Don’t forget refrigeration trucks.

Also, I wonder where the “can still transmit it” rates fall with regard to the 5% or .003%. Because ultimately that’s probably the number we collectively should be most interested in.

Edit: I know the data doesn’t exist but if we’re really interested in “how much will this vaccine affect our ability to get back to normal,” that’s the number that matters.

ApolloAndy said:

I know the data doesn’t exist but if we’re really interested in “how much will this vaccine affect our ability to get back to normal,” that’s the number that matters.

That sort of goes back to my questioning the conditions we need to achieve to resume dry humping.

I mean, we could go back to 'normal' tomorrow. People will die.

Or we could decide that we can't go back to 'normal' until the risk of death (infection? both?) is practically zero for everybody. That will be a long, long time.

Where do we want to put the slider?

Even if that entire 5% is contagious (and why wouldn't they be?), if the vaccine really reduces the chance of severe infection (inferring chance of death here) to .003%, then spread is a nonfactor as far as I'm concerned. We're well within what I would call safe parameters. At that point, you've reduced transmission by 95% and, on top of that, mortality by a factor of 500...among the inoculated, of course.

Article about how we do not need to completely stop transmission to contain Covid.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/vaccines-need-not-comple...pandemic1/

Lord Gonchar said:

I've never had a flu shot in my life.

(please, let's skip the discussion)

Well, the SARS-CoV2 vaccine is not a flu shot. The flu shot is typically <50% effective as the people who prepare it routinely get the strain wrong. So it's a choice between "get the shot and be sick for a day with !flu" or "don't get the shot and probably still don't get the flu". With the SARS-CoV2 vaccine it's a choice between "get the shot and reduce your odds of getting COVID-19 by 99.994%" and "don't get the shot and deal with the very high probability of getting the virus if in contact with the 1% of the population currently infected".

As for the "can't transmit it" rate for vaccinated people...as I understand it, the vaccine works by causing the body to attack the spike protein so that the virus itself cannot infect the cells. If the virus can't infect the cells, it can't replicate, and if it can't replicate, you can't transmit it, full stop. If the vaccine prevents infection, it prevents spread, period. Either that, or the virus works in a way completely unlike any other virus anywhere. Of course, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, so we have no *real* way to know that vaccinated people have a 95% likelihood of not being able to transmit the virus. And our leadership are now in a position of wanting to over-emphasize that uncertainty because if they don't, all of the mitigation strategies will collapse: while it's "perfectly safe" to let vaccinated people remove their masks and go back to dry humping and licking doorknobs, we already know there are enough...'doorknobs'?...out there who will be perfectly willing to *pretend* to be vaccinated just because they want to get back to their old habits. And obviously we can't have that with only ...checks... 4.12% of the population with even a start of an immunization.

My fear is that once the combination of immunization and natural immunity reaches some critical mass and the infection rate truly *is* under control (which, by the way, daily numbers actually suggest might be happening...slowly...already) it might be hard to walk back that uncertainty, which could delay recovery efforts.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

Well said, Dave. I'm with you on all of that.

I wish that rather than pretending that the degree to which we implement mitigation strategies is a tradeoff between sickness/death and the economy, we could reframe the whole thing as an attempt to reduce overall suffering caused by the pandemic. People are suffering because they or their loved ones are getting sick and dying, but people are also suffering because they've lost their livelihoods and are now struggling to put food on the table and pay the rent. People are suffering because of loneliness and lack of human interaction as well. I'm just concerned that the urge to hedge all bets regarding the effectiveness of the vaccine at both preventing sickness and transmission, however well-intentioned and understandable the urge is (under-sell, over-deliver, I get it), may result in a population that's hesitant to return to normal, which in turn leads to a slower economic recovery and prolonged suffering for those that have been most impacted by the downturn.

I haven't read every post in this godforsaken thread, but I've read a lot of them, and it seems to me that the compassion and sympathy being expressed for those suffering from the pandemic is weighted far more on the sickness/death side than it is on the job loss side, and while this is fair to some extent--after all, one's health is more important than how much money one has--it still strikes me as disproportionate.

Lord Gonchar said:

Even if that entire 5% is contagious (and why wouldn't they be?), if the vaccine really reduces the chance of severe infection (inferring chance of death here) to .003%, then spread is a nonfactor as far as I'm concerned. We're well within what I would call safe parameters. At that point, you've reduced transmission by 95% and, on top of that, mortality by a factor of 500...among the inoculated, of course.

Yeah, this gets back to that whole "shared resources" thing.

From the individual standpoint, as soon as I get the vaccine I can go about my life as normal. I can dry hump, lick randos, and go to Disney World and from one perspective, I should now push really hard for everything back to normal. After all, from my POV, any restrictions are unneccesary to keeping me healthy and are just obstacles to me living life normally. "Masks off, tits out" or something.

But, there remain people who can't/won't get the vaccine and transmission will dictate how many of those people take up ICU beds that I might need when I pick a fight with Steve and he kicks my butt. If we just open the flood gates at 50% vaccination rate because "people who want to have gotten it," even though half the people won't be transmitting in a meaningful way there's nothing preventing the healthcare system from being overwhelmed by the exponential growth through the unvaccinated half. Granted, this is a much more distant connection than "I breathe in the air that you breath out" but it's still a connection. And from my comfortable home earning a large share of my pre-pandemic income, I'd rather wait for the threat of running out of ICU beds to be negligible first. I don't think there's ever a point where we can just say, "Alright, you had your chance. Now you're on your own." <Cue seat belt discussion>

I mean, I suppose that point has to exist, because some people just aren't going to do it, but I'd rather mandate it (see seat belts) than just pick up the pieces from people who don't want to do the proven and obvious thing. The added benefit is then we completely sidestep the slider of risk/normalcy.

Cleveland Clinic sent a letter to employees Tuesday saying in effect "get a shot or move to the back of the line."

https://www.news5cleveland.com/news/continuing-coverage/coronavirus...o-patients

57% of their Ohio employees got the vaccine. At one point about 40% of the nursing home employees got vaccines. Large portions of those employees who didn't get vaccinated chose not to do so. That really complicates the logistics. Do you keep the supply available or push them to the back of the line? Move to the next priority level and you likely have too many people looking to get vaccinated compared to your supply of doses.

My dad is in current eligible group in Ohio (85+). His mychart had a message on Saturday saying he was now eligible but there wasn't a supply. Then yesterday he received a message saying he could schedule an appointment. Gave him 48 hours to schedule or he would go to general population group. At this point given the logistical issues and the limited supplies, I think that approach makes sense. But you will have people missing their windows because they do not check their online portal (or do not use one) every day/other day. Though I got a text as well a couple hours later stating the same: Signup for mychart and schedule, sign in and schedule, call to schedule or decline.

Process was very efficient. At main campus in Intercontinental Hotel ballroom. They had two lines running. One for patients and one for staff (many of the staff were receiving their second doses). Multiple stations set up administering vaccines. Then had you move to an area with 40-50 chairs set up spaced apart. Gave you a timer and you had to sit there for 15 minutes to see if any allergic reactions. My dad accidentily paused his timer so we ended up waiting 20 minutes or so. Had someone walking around scheduling you for the second dose (in 3 weeks for Pfizer but would have been 4 weeks had he gotten Moderna). Nurse said many of the staff were getting Moderna so they were giving both vaccines. Now just hope there is supply in 3 weeks for the second dose. I know in some states appointments are being canceled because there are not sufficient doses available.

ApolloAndy said:

But, there remain people who can't/won't get the vaccine and transmission will dictate how many of those people take up ICU beds...

...even though half the people won't be transmitting in a meaningful way there's nothing preventing the healthcare system from being overwhelmed by the exponential growth through the unvaccinated half.

...I'd rather mandate it (see seat belts) than just pick up the pieces from people who don't want to do the proven and obvious thing.

I'm barely being facetious when I suggest this.

Here's your mandate:

If you refused a vaccine, you can get bumped from the ICU if capacity becomes an issue. Vaccinated folks have priority regardless of reason for being admitted.

Done.

(And yes, I realize we probably wouldn't [couldn't?] do this by any stretch, but the math checks out 🙂 - Gonch for supreme leader running on a platform of personal responsibility for your actions. Our party symbol is the middle finger.)

ApolloAndy said:

"Masks off, tits out"

I need this on a t-shirt.

If someone does not want the vaccine, simply bumping them to the end of the line is not going to have any impact on them whatsoever. In their mind there is no line. It only helps people who do want the vaccine as there are not doses being held back for no reason.

I am struggling with how you make this vaccine mandatory but others not? While the flu vaccine isn't perfect it is still, I believe, better than nothing. Why isn't that mandatory? Granted only 30-60K people die from it every year so who cares right? What about the shingles vaccine and who knows what others are out there?