Shanghai Disneyland will close in effort to contain coronavirus

Okay, I really don't understand what your point is, Gonch. You concluded your post saying "Any step backwards is going to be a bigger mess" which, to me, implied that we should not reinstate mask mandates. Is that not the case you're making?

I haven't totally given up on convincing anti-vaxers - a lady in my church who regularly goes to MAGA rallies (they have those in the Bay Area apparently) finally got her shot, which I *think* brings our church up to 100% vaccination for eligible people, but I agree that it's mostly wasting breath. But it seems like your conclusion is then "so let's just stop trying to do stuff" even as vaccinated people are transmitting it to kids, immunocompromised, and unvaccinated. Why would that be the conclusion for all the priors? Why wouldn't we reinstate mask mandates when they clearly save lives and a non-trivial number of lives, at that? Especially with the school year right around the corner in which millions of not-eligible-for-vaccine kids will be crammed into small, enclosed spaces for 40 hours a week.

Or are you surprised that I responded to extremecoasterdad at all who didn't seem to have a point, but did want to make sure we know he thinks Fauci is a crook?

I am another who is just exhausted by the whole thing, the people suck argument sucks, and it just seems like nothing is going to get better.

But the reality is things are better. Looking at it realistically, everything is open, you can go to a bar with 200 of your closest friends, go to ball game, an amusement park, a gym, movie, and on and on and on. Everything you could (mostly) not do this time last year. Mitigation is mostly a rumor. Six inches is the new six feet. Is it the wisest course of action? Of course not. But it is what we have. There is no appetite for going back to where we were.

Yes, the caseload is horrible. 100,000 cases a day is not acceptable when there is a way to avoid it. But just imagine where we would be without the number of vaccinated people we now have. It would not be a stretch to imagine 500,000 cases a day under the same conditions we have now. 10,000 deaths a day? That may be low. The vaccines absolutely do work. That can't possibly be in dispute by any rational person.

I am not one to wear rose-colored glasses. I am fully vaxxed, but I still don't eat inside (I prefer outdoor eating anyway), still wear a mask indoors (never stopped), and flying is a hard no (I don't really need to fly that much anyway). I still practice caution even though I am protected. I am with LG on this point, you have your opportunity to protect yourself, if you don't want to take it, good luck to you. But I can't stop living life waiting for you to get your head out of your ass. I will take care of me, you do you. I will just try to avoid you.

Sure, there could be something down the road that sets us back to square one. Not likely, but the possibility is a non-zero number. I will deal with that when and if it comes. Until then, I have done everything I can do. Time to move on.

extremecoasterdad said:

It's all a moot point as there is no chance that normalcy will be returning. Not ever. bureaucracy to the bitter end.

We said over a year ago that the regulations wouldn’t go away, I think I might have said it, compared it to TSA as well if I recall correctly. I got told I was pushing a slippery slope argument and it was invalid.

ApolloAndy said:
This is independent of the fact that I’m mostly convinced that lying anti-vaxers are a large factor in the spread already.

how many people are actually anti vaxers? this term reminds me of the vocal minority who attempt to convince others to not do it. How many people are indifferent to it but don’t say anything or complain, are they anti vaxers? I know plenty of people who are vaccinated against all sorts of things but are in no rush to get a flu shot or a Covid shot.

RCMAC said:
If everyone had immediately jumped on the vax bandwagon we wouldn’t be in this new trouble.

everyone, read entire world, otherwise it just floats around from country to country. I don’t have faith that some country or organization is going to convince the world to get vaccinated.

So basically you crapped on the floor and then said, "See, we'll be picking up floor crap forever?" Congratulations on being right then, I guess.

ETA: Fine. Anti-vaxers may have been the wrong term. "People who willfully ignore all evidence pointing the safety, efficacy, and communal benefits of vaccines." Is that better? And even those people I have some very minute amount of sympathy for. But if you didn't get a vaccine, don't go into a place that requires masks for non-vaccinated people without a mask!

It seems easier for people to "move on" if they don't have kids. To be totally honest, if mine could be vaccinated, I might be in that same boat. Let them spread the Covid amongst themselves and roll the dice.

But here's another wrinkle, here in Covid Central. I can't get a definitive answer about when I can schedule a colonoscopy, a pretty typical, potentially life-saving screening that they now recommend for dudes over 45. So while the odds are fairly remote that I have colon cancer (but still higher risk because I have a history of lower GI issues), the lack of responsibility taken by fellow citizens, once again, changes my risk profile because the hospital system is apparently putting a pause on colonoscopies due to Covid risk. That's not freedom, especially caused by a bunch of crybabies triggered by being asked to get a shot.

^ Totally get that. If I had kids under 12 I would absolutely feel the same way.

Come back to Ohio. I had my scope last week. 😁

Colonoscopy prep > Rip Ride Rockit

At one point there was a lot of discussion about younger people avoiding getting the virus (even though they were much less likely to have severe case) so as not to bring it home to grandma. Now its flipped and we are looking at older people who are vaccinated (and thus less likely to get the virus and if they do, less likely to get seriously ill) not giving it to their under 12 grand kids (or to people who cannot get vaccinated versus just not getting a shot).

Which seems pretty reasonable to me. Understanding that hospitalization is a lagging indicator, Florida's case count is as high as it was in January, and so is the hospitalization rate. The reason local officials are freaking out, even if the governor is not, is because you don't have to be good at the maths to understand where it's going with a variant that's exponentially more contagious. We saw a 5x increase in hospitalization in four weeks, where last time we only had a 1.5x increase in four weeks. That's not great.

He's too busy picking a fight with Ben and Jerry's.

TheMillenniumRider said:

how many people are actually anti vaxers?

...

I know plenty of people who are vaccinated against all sorts of things but are in no rush to get a flu shot or a Covid shot.

Excluding flu and COVID vaccines, aren't pretty much all other vaccines given before the age of 6? And in many cases mandatory to attend public school? By that measure anyone who has met the birth-to-age 6 vaccine schedule, but refuses to get a flu or COVID shot is absolutely, 100% an anti-vaxxer.

People aren't born anti-science, they are taught it. And in the US, whether or not you learn to be anti-science depends mostly on your politics.

People are born a blank slate, not anti science, but not pro science either. People try to attach explanation and meaning to what they see.

It started with religious beliefs, we didn’t have the science in place to explain things so a higher power was easy to attribute things to. Scientific discovery challenged this, some people changed their beliefs, some did not.

It is a case of SSDD, and we are just repeating the process of discovery, some people move forward, some do not. People are influenced and guided by their surroundings. The Amish typically breed Amish, the anti vaxers typically breed anti vaxers, and then you always have your outliers who break out of the cycle.

I wouldn’t label them all anti vaxers as some are just indifferent or fed up with all the uncertainties.

By that measure anyone who has met the birth-to-age 6 vaccine schedule, but refuses to get a flu or COVID shot is absolutely, 100% an anti-vaxxer.

Not sure that labels are very helpful. Prior to last fall I had never gotten a flu shot. Did I refuse one? Certainly declined numerous offers to get one. Work has scheduled onsite, free clinics for one for 15 years or so. Never got one. Drug stores flag you in from the parking lot during flu season. Never got one prior to last fall. Never viewed myself as anti-vax but by your definition I would 100% be so.

Went 15 years in my 20s/early 30s without seeing a doctor. Does that make me anti-doc?

That seems like a semantic argument, admittedly made possible by my misuse of "or" when I should have used "and."

The point, which I thought was obvious, is that someone having gotten a measles vaccine when they were in diapers doesn't qualify them as not an anti-vaxxer if they're refusing vaccines in all other scenarios as an adult.

What if I made sure my kids got all the suggested vaccinations of childhood from birth through college, but have never gotten a flu shot myself?

Which I think, for the sake of this game, is a better indicator. Those are all adult decisions.

I think you'd be making a strawman argument, because flu is not as deadly, and apparently less contagious than the Delta variant. I mean, you're the guy who likes sliding scales, right?

Per usual, Coasterbuzz is already talking about what's "hot" before it's hot.

The Offspring just kicked their drummer out of the band, and all the headlines use the word REFUSAL, when according to him he has a long history of problems with vaccines (dating back to childhood) due to Guillain-Barre Syndrome. (According to the CDC, it's safe for people with a history of GBS to get the shot, but his own doctor advised against it).

Does his doctor know that the mRNA vaccine does not work like the vaccines he got when he was 4?

Choices = Consequences.

Jeff said:

...because flu is not as deadly, and apparently less contagious than the Delta variant. I mean, you're the guy who likes sliding scales, right?

I think maybe that's exactly my point.

At the very least, I don't feel the slightest bit anti-vax because of the fact that I've never once in my life gotten a flu shot...and I was mostly questioning Brandon's assesment that one who doesn't get a flu shot is actively anti-vax.

Do I need to bring out the "semantic argument" meme?

TheMillenniumRider said:

some are just indifferent or fed up with all the uncertainties.

As has become a trend, I was totally with you up 'til this last thought.

I think it's totally reasonable to be hesitant to accept new data and corresponding conclusions. I would even encourage it. BUT most people aren't resistant because they've seen the data and have questions about the analysis. Most hesitant people are indifferent and/or fed up with uncertainties (this is actually quite generous. I think most people who are hesitant are taking a political position). "Fed up with uncertainty" is (a) not how science works and (b) not a luxury we have right now. New data is gathered, new conclusions are drawn, and the current science overwhelmingly supports one position. Might there be exceptions down the road? Yes. But in the same way that general relativity does not invalidate Newtonian mechanics, there's very little uncertainty about whether mask mandates and vaccines benefits you and the people around you.

As Jeff points out every other page, beliefs are not equivalent. Beliefs based on misinformation or willful ignorance are less correct than beliefs based on data. And this is from a guy who's devoted his life to spirituality and religion.