Shanghai Disneyland will close in effort to contain coronavirus

But if the vaccine ensures all 217 of those people don't get anything beyond annoying mild flu like symptoms, that's a victory.

I think its a victory even if it doesn't.

There are people who get a flu vaccine but who still get serious cases of the flu. I don't think that takes away from the benefit of the flu vaccine. Even if some people who are fully vaccinated against covid still develop serious cases of covid, I think the vaccines are still very beneficial. And for some people "serious cases" will be in the eyes of the beholder to a certain degree.

Yeah, cases and deaths are two different things. The vaccine is meant to stop death and reduce cases. People will still get sick - but if vaccination stops hospitalization/death, then we're good. We've reduced the threat to less than the flu. (or at least similar to it)

That's exactly what that Vox video I posted is spelling out for people. Vaccinated people getting COVID is not a loss. Vaccinated people not being hospitalized or dying is the win we're after...and the vaccine is exceptional at this.

And 217 of more than 1.6 million is about 13.5 cases per 100,000 which is well below what Ohio is using as its threshold for lifting covid health orders.

The VOX video is fine, and for anyone honestly not getting the vaccine because they don't know about anything it addresses, I can see it being helpful. Hope it pushes some people to get it, because we need every arm we can get.

At this point, the people I know who are not getting the vaccine are not getting it because of entirely different reasons; with some being a part of that bizarre "this is a deep state operation" cult that honestly believes this is some kind of conspiracy.

The latest video I got from a family friend was this:

https://www.facebook.com/ash.arditi.16/posts/283297699841900

Let that soak in if you can stand to watch it all the way through. This is what millions of our fellow Americans earnestly believe.

This is a 70-something-year-old Vietnam Vet who just sends me random stuff like this every once in awhile. That said, his wife, his two 40-something daughters and their kids are all of the same mindset. For them, something like this VOX video is a complete non-starter. There is literally nothing that you can show them or talk to them about, in this case because VOX is a form of the media (so it's evil and part of the machine) and its science (so it's evil and part of the machine) .

I hope two things: 1) that these folks are in enough of a minority that it makes little to no difference, or that 2) social pressure eventually kicks in and they choose to get vaccinated.

On NPR today they talked about a recent poll that said there are a lot of groups of people who are currently saying they will not get the vaccine. A lot.

Here is a Forbes link to what they were talking about:

Here are the groups who won't get the vaccine...

Like I said above, though, I hope these folks are in the minority. Getting the vaccine is something that should unite us, like GI Joe and Cobra uniting against a common foe.

I lasted about 45 seconds. Long enough to wonder why Ash feels all that bleach and hair dye are ok while a life saving vaccine isn’t.
I also squinted through one eye at the comments. If I had a nickle for every “hurt and broken heart” because an elderly relative chose the shot...
I’d like to take each of those people to sit down with someone I know who has a genuine broken heart over losing a loved one to covid.

Egad.

It's the same old story. Peop--er, you know what I am going to say, so I won't say it.

The fact is, 100% of the people who get any of the COVID vaccines *will die*.

But the probability of that death being because of COVID-19 is reduced to nearly zero, and the probability of that death being caused by the vaccine is vanishingly small.

Without the vaccine, your odds of becoming infected appear to be between 9% and 30%. If you become infected, your odds of dying are right around 1%. Your odds of having a miserable experience are about 10%.

Either way, we're talking about preventable injury and heartbreak. Taking the vaccine introduces a hazard of some serious damage done by the vaccine. It also incompletely eliminates the hazard of serious damage done by the virus. What people simply do not understand is that the probability of suffering from the virus is low, but still orders of magnitude larger than the probability of being injured by the vaccine in any meaningful way. Likewise, the consequences of an injury from the vaccine are much lower than the consequences of an injury from the virus.

I can only think of one reason why most people would not consider the alternatives and opt for the vaccine...and I already promised I wouldn't say it in this post.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

****. That's a box of stupid. This is why we can't have nice things.

It's basically the same thing as not wearing a seat belt because you're worried about it trapping you if you get stuck underwater. "Something, something, risk management, something."

And I say that with some amount of eyerolling, but also a large amount of sadness that, as a math teacher, we haven’t educated ourselves well enough to understand the relative risks.

RCMAC said:

I lasted about 45 seconds. Long enough to wonder why Ash feels all that bleach and hair dye are ok while a life saving vaccine isn’t.

If you muster up the courage, the proverbial S#@! really hits the fan from 8:10 - 10:10....that's when the token retired military expert explains why we're all doomed.

mmmm... nope. I’m hafta take your word for it. Seriously, stuff like that makes me upset to the point of unwellness.
And they think and say the same thing, I reckon. This constant “I’m right”/“no, I’m right” thing is exhausting and there’s no foreseeable end to it.

The no-vaccine crowd exists on a slider (if you don't have bingo yet--multiple times--you should stop playing). On one end you have people who are the conspiracy theory/irrational processing people. You won't likely have much luck moving them off the sidelines. On the other end you have people who are just hesitant but who can be persuaded. And everywhere in the middle.

My wife works in a special needs classroom at an area school. When it was announced that people working in schools would be given priority, my wife was the only adult in her classroom (of 6 adults) who planned to get the vaccine. Between that time and the time to schedule for shots, my wife (a retired pharmacist) had convinced 4 of the other 5 people to get the vaccine. The other person was just a lost cause.

I think its best not to waste time with people at or near that first end of the slider. Not worth the time and worse you give them more of a voice by engaging with them. Spend time with people who can be convinced.

As there are more tangible benefits (beyond not getting sick/dying or getting other people sick which is more than enough for most people). Its the vaccine passport concepts for travel, admission to certain venues/activities, etc that likely will create more willing arms. Require vaccines to attend Nascar events and you likely will greatly reduce many groups on the Forbes list.

Continuing side note; just heard from the kid in Paris.

Confinement extended to the entire country and all schools moving to full remote classes.

So basically, they're still trying to get off of square one.

This article says they're running about 40,000 cases per day...with a population that's 1/5th of ours. That'd be like 200k per day here. (which is where we went during the peak of the last peak right after New Year's)

It also says, "...the number of patients in intensive care units surpassing 5,000 on Tuesday – exceeding the peak during the second lockdown last autumn."

So yeah, some countries are doing it much more wronger than we have.

Government scientist in Germany has said their current wave there could result in 100,000 cases/day. Would be almost 400k in the US.

Some question whether the US is heading there. Current CDC director says right now she is scared.

Do they not have the rate of vaccinations that we do? Are they not available? Is there reluctance? Are there breakthrough cases? What’s going on there?

The EU hasn't done a great job with distribution, from what I've read. And Europe's population density is obviously still dense, so as a whole they're more prone to outbreaks if they get too lax in mitigation. I would imagine if they're having pandemic fatigue, the consequences are greater.

The US change in case counts is up 20% in two weeks, and we're seeing the usual lag in deaths, which are still decreasing. I think the CDC's concern is valid because if the leading indicator is case counts, followed by hospitalization, the latter has leveled off or gotten worse in some states. I know our ICU's around here have still been averaging 90% utilization, though I don't know what the baseline should be.

RCMAC said:

Do they not have the rate of vaccinations that we do? Are they not available? Is there reluctance? Are there breakthrough cases? What’s going on there?

My kid's take:

1. General ****ty French attitudes towards everything creating much non-compliance (it's a stereotype for a reason)
2. Bureacratic inefficiency - it takes forever to make things happen
3. A general anti-medicine (especially anti-vax) attitude in the country.

This link says they've administered almost 11 million shots, which is enough to fully vaccinate about 8% of the population. But it also says they're only averaging 242,000 shots per day. (For comparison, the same source says the US has administered over 147 million shots and is averaging 2.6 million per day)

Orange County ICU beds = 417. 375 are filled, of which only 37 are covid.

With a very large % of the >65 population being vaccinated we have to start seeing deaths and hospitalizations continue to decrease even if cases continue to rise.

Gonch’, I feel bad for your daughter!

My wife and I are getting vaccinated while we’re in Florida for the month. Just got the first dose.

Universal has changed some things. They are now loading one party per row on Transformers and Spider-Man, concessions seem much better now when compared to December so I think they must have staffed up.