Universal Studios Hollywood reinstates mask requirement for indoor areas

In the United States that I am familiar with, it is not part of the culture to be concerned with the safety, health, and well-being of your fellow citizens. I want to think we are all one people who stick together when times are tough, but that seems like a distant utopian dream at this point.

So you can't really have "liberty" without potentially reducing someone else's. I mostly distill this down to, "Don't be an inconsiderate dick."

This is a nice idealistic theory. But, pragmatically speaking, millions still smoke, won't get vaccines, etc. Large swaths of souls that could presumably be considered "inconsiderate dicks" via collective definition.

"Inconsiderate dicks" have rights too. The right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness here in the United States.

The "common good" is such a difficult concept to define and govern. We couldn't begin to get those of us in this country to agree on which facets of the "common good" should take hierarchical importance.

Does Joe's right to breathe freely supersede Gina's right to control what she puts in her body? Maybe Joe and Gina are both "inconsiderate dicks...?" Or maybe Joe and Gina are decent human beings with differing opinions about how to best contribute to their personal definition of the 'common good'...?

The whole discussion is probably moot if these "breakthrough" cases keep growing in the context of understanding some 16 months later; we don't have a definition for acceptable risk...

It's not idealistic, it's a choice. You make the same arguments that anyone who doesn't want to be held accountable as a part of something bigger. Worse, it's predicated on this idea that all opinions and actions are morally equivalent. They are not.

You can choose for yourself. You can’t choose for the millions who will not take the vaccine no matter what. Decision makers will eventually need to concede that there is a limit to controlling the behavior of human beings.

I’m not personally concerned of being held “accountable as a part of something bigger.” I just realize the debate between collectivism and individualism is as old as time…

We live in a country founded on the latter, but trending toward the former.

You're making excuses, not an argument.

That's some circular logic there, Aamilj. It seems to me that your argument is "people will always resist caring about the collective, so we shouldn't try to make them care about the collective."

There's been nary a word said about effort. Public service announcements are a good thing that will get you so far. Then there's the reality that millions won't follow. Absent a willingness and legal authority to force a needle in people's arms physically...there are no options left.

Explanation and excuse are easily confused.

If you look at this from a strict herd immunity perspective... At the rate the Delta variant is currently spreading, everyone will have the antibodies in short order. Thus, Delta could prove to be a much more effective prophylactic campaign than anything we've tried previously.

There are no good/correct answers. Just the reality that a virus will run its course, and the masses will not universally comply with orders.

The vaccine seemed the easy way to me. But if someone wants to go the Delta route…? It is readily apparent that there are millions willing to risk it…

You're offering conjecture, and because people are people, that's that, and there's nothing anyone can do about it. That's why we can't have nice things.

Conjecture is an opinion or conclusion formed on the basis of incomplete information.

My observation/explanation is based on the FACT that millions of people, despite having the opportunity to easily obtain a vaccination, have chosen NOT to do so.

I’m not even sure where there is room to disagree. I’m simply stating the truth.

Conjecture would be opining that if we just shamed/educated/persuaded the “unvaccinated” a little more…then they might behave the way we want them to. It isn’t that I disagree with this ideal. It’s that the ideal doesn’t fit reality.

You can't factually state that you know people will never be convinced.

Gonch said on October 6, 2020:

At some point, maybe the problem isn't that people (as a whole) won't lockdown/mask up long term, but rather that we expect them to and adopt such a sanctimonious tone when they don't?

I mean, it's just not happening at large. At what point are you fighting a losing battle?

Still feels relevant 9 months later.

Perhaps it's frustrating because you're expecting something to happen that just isn't going to? Let me know when you've talked Joe Bob Sixpack into getting his shot(s).

After reading the comments on this Fox News article about a 12 year old who had an extreme reaction to the vaccine during the Pfizer trials, I can factually state that people will never be convinced to get vaccinated.

Lord Gonchar said:

Perhaps it's frustrating because...

What I've noticed anecdotally is that the people who get sanctimonious about this (guilty as charged) are those of us who have kids that aren't eligible to get vaccinated. It's a hell of a lot easier to be all "welp, whaddaya gonna do?" when you're able to substantially reduce the risk for you and especially your kids by everyone getting vaccinated.

I care less that there are some mouth-breathing, selectively anti-science morons who are refusing to get vaccinated than I do that those people won't practice social distancing when necessary, since that jackassery severely limits what the socially responsible can safely do.

And if there was any doubt about the factuality, I offer this guy as further evidence.

Wow. Natural selection in action. He's also an example of how individual actions affect others. He exposes others to the disease, and marginally increases the cost of insurance for whatever risk pool he's a part of. All on some self-righteous, frankly stupid, ideal.

djDaemon said:
What I've noticed anecdotally is that the people who get sanctimonious about this (guilty as charged) are those of us who have kids that aren't eligible to get vaccinated. It's a hell of a lot easier to be all "welp, whaddaya gonna do?" when you're able to substantially reduce the risk for you and especially your kids by everyone getting vaccinated.

Maybe, but I still stand by most of what I said in the big Coronavirus thread - age matters. And while it was overwhelmingly disproportionately older people dying, it was also overwhelming disporportionately kids being fine.

More children are hospitalized for influenza during a normal flu season than for COVID-19 – 32 to 92 hospitalizations per 100,000 flu cases, compared with 22 hospitalizations per 100,00 COVID-19 cases. There are fewer deaths from the flu. A normal flu season has 110 to 192 influenza deaths in children, whereas more than 300 children have died from COVID-19. (source)

So in almost 18 months, a little more than 300 kids have died from COVID, but each flu season half of that dies from the flu. The risk to children is literally less than the flu...and we've had flu vaccinations all along. The COVID deaths include a long period of no protection for anyone.

And we're not even factoring the overall number of cases. (which is almost certainly very very high in children compared to other age groups)

It's not empathy (as some of you guys keep insisting) it's weighing the same facts you guys do and determining that the risk is acceptable.

If I'm being really honest with y'all, at this point the extreme lingering fear for the children is as foreign to me as not wanting to be vaccinated.

But that's all mostly opinion and personal decision. "Acceptable risk" is not a cold, hard factual thing. I don't think it's bad that different people have different levels of risk. That is the definition of the collective outcome. Getting angry or frustrated that other's acceptable risk is in a different place than yours feels like an excercise in futility. Instead of lamenting their decisions, figure out how to best live with them. You can't change what you can't change. Pick your battles.

Sure, people always look at the effect on kids in isolation, but I don't know how many different ways we can express that pandemics don't happen in isolation. Kids are vectors, and more community spread among kids is more community spread among everyone, including the most vulnerable. There's no one thing that beats a pandemic (even if some controls help more than others). We all know this, because we just lived through a year of masks and social distancing and prohibiting gatherings and remote learning and relatively recently, vaccination.

Lord Gonchar said:

I don't think it's bad that different people have different levels of risk.

...other's acceptable risk...

But it's not their level of risk acceptance that I'm bothered by, it's the level of risk they're forcing us to accept. I understand that there is a collective outcome, but parents are being asked to accept a collective outcome roughly equivalent to the number of kids killed by drunk drivers every year.

And death isn't the only unfavorable outcome.

...figure out how to best live with them.

By keeping them out of in-person school for another year or two? Or should we take Aamilj's sage "advice," and expose our kids to the Delta variant?

djDaemon said:

But it's not their level of risk acceptance that I'm bothered by, it's the level of risk they're forcing us to accept.

But you forcing your preferred actions to reduce risk to your acceptable level is ok? You're not right (or wrong) any more than anyone else. It's just the other side of the same coin.

(cue terrible moral argument)

By keeping them out of in-person school for another year or two? Or should we take Aamilj's sage "advice," and expose our kids to the Delta variant?

Yes?

I don't know what to say.

I'm with you guys on the vaccination thing. Why on earth wouldn't you at this point? But I'm not (and never was) looking for the next worst case scenario until all my expectations of others are satisfied while bitching that they're not comforming to those expectations and, in turn, expecting me to conform to theirs.

Everyone is not doing everything you think they should. The problem is thinking they would. (which has been my point all along in this conversation)

Plenty of news today from international to local.
First, the NFL announced they will level pretty stiff penalties against those who remain unvaccinated then test positive, leading to delay or forfeiture of games. Punishment includes suspension, and loss of pay for both teams. And of course, there’s plenty of criticism especially amongst players of color. As one might imagine, there’s also discussion around the use of this sort of extortion by employers to get employees to vaccinate.
Other news- The White House noted an uptick in vaccinations in the three states that scored the lowest percentage of residents who got the shots, and as a result are currently experiencing the highest surge in new cases, especially the variant variety. Those states are Florida, Texas, and Missouri. Many cities in other states have reinstated or are considering mask mandates, especially for indoors. New Orleans is one that I recall off hand.
International- It looks like Tokyo is set to go for the Olympics in spite of the rise of positive tests among athletes. Dr. Jill arrived today and will lead the US contingent but this time around the games will be free of fans. I haven’t talked to a person who is 100% convinced the games won’t be cancelled. Opening ceremony is tomorrow.
And locally- Columbus city schools announced that when school resumes this fall all attendees, students and faculty, will be required to wear masks.
So it’s clear the worst may not be behind us after all. I wonder along with most everyone here why someone wouldn’t get their shot. And reading about that smug jackass who’d rather lay in the hospital than risk a vaccine is so disheartening. I don’t have the source right now but I also read about the nurse in a hospital who’s faced with the heart-wrenching job of informing patients and their families that their efforts to comply have come too late. She cited case after case where the unvaccinated who are dying have that sudden change of heart and beg and plead for the vaccine, but it won’t be enough to save them now.