COVID-19

[SlickAg]

We are putting millions of shots into arms every day. All those people are people are not going to experience "the inevitable" if we can just hold our shit together for another month or two.

So “just wait two more weeks!!” has now become “just wait four (or maybe eight?) more weeks!!”? Except now it’s not two more weeks until Armageddon, it’s four (or eight) more weeks until Utopia?

Also, what exactly defines “holding our shit together”? Our hospital system didn’t get overwhelmed in 2020. That was the whole reason for the lockdowns to begin with, remember? To “flatten the curve”? Do you now agree that there was indeed massive goalpost moving?

P.S. as far as Michigan goes, Governor Whitmer travelled to Florida before she was vaccinated. After she warned her state’s residents about traveling to Florida for Spring Break. And no, she was not yet vaccinated.

“Officials earlier confirmed that Whitmer's chief executive officer, Tricia Foster, traveled to Florida with her daughter during spring break, at a time Whitmer had specifically expressed concern about spring break travel to that state. Elizabeth Hertel, the director of the Department of Health and Human Services, the agency that issues Michigan's coronavirus restrictions, recently traveled with her family to the Gulf Coast of Alabama when her department was cautioning against such travel and while cases in Michigan were surging.”

Spokeswoman: Gov. Gretchen Whitmer traveled to visit her ill father, Richard Whitmer

News of Whitmer's trip to see Richard Whitmer brought more charges of hypocrisy from Republicans who have opposed the governor's restrictions

www.freep.com

 

[taxi1]

Also, what exactly defines “holding our shit together”?

Avoiding another surge. Keeping the downward trend going downward.

We're in a race against the rising of new variants, which are deadlier than the old. If you haven't already been sick or vaccinated, you're at higher risk.

It'd be a bummer to die when in sight of the pandemic finish line.

Our hospital system didn’t get overwhelmed in 2020.

Say what? Yes it did in plenty of places. Turning away patients who should have been admitted. Rationing O2. Google on "hospitals overwhelmed covid". Throw in a "Texas" for your own state.

 

[ABMD]

“I mean, we’ve got some of the strongest protocols in the country, and yet this virus has come raging back.”
- Gov Whitmer

So at what point do we consider that maybe, just maybe, the protocols either 1) aren’t actually that strong or 2) just plain don’t work. Also, the anchor laughing there at the end is throwing out strong VP Harris vibes.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1382850413154668551

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1382759548688035841

I like how she blames the country for her states failures, always shifting the blame.

 

[Jim123]

A few parts of Texas did get overwhelmed for a while, down towards the border in the river valley. They managed it by transferring patients, paying more for traveling nurses, and other mitigations. It's a logistics and economics problem, just like a lot of disaster management plans- a really big deal if you're in the middle of it and a lot of work if your job is to handle it, a people problem about real people and our fellow citizens, but it's also a numbers problem in the end.

 

[ABMD]

Our hospital system didn’t get overwhelmed in 2020. That was the whole reason for the lockdowns to begin with, remember? To “flatten the curve”? Do you now agree that there was indeed massive goalpost moving?

Spokeswoman: Gov. Gretchen Whitmer traveled to visit her ill father, Richard Whitmer

News of Whitmer's trip to see Richard Whitmer brought more charges of hypocrisy from Republicans who have opposed the governor's restrictions

www.freep.com

I'd have to agree with @taxi1 on this one. I'd say this is regionalized. Having a spouse that works in the medical field she has see first hand or spoken to doctors that have seen the rise, fall and meteoric rise of covid positive patients at not one, but several hospitals in the area. My county, at present, has the highest positivity rate in the state and the highest since last March. Several of these hospitals are at or near max (Covid) capacity (highest since this whole things began). Also, the overwhelming number of these patients are in the younger age brackets, <35.

 

[SlickAg]

So we we acted a National policy to solve a regional/localized issue? Wyoming locked down to make sure hospitals didn’t overflow in Massachusetts?

Regionally, some hospitals may have had issues. But as far as our nationwide healthcare system, the reason why we did a nationwide “two weeks to flatten the curve”, it did not happen. So maybe states and or other regions could have managed it without needlessly jumping the nation’s economy off a cliff.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1380540596100603905

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1380657171654791170

 

[ABMD]

So we we acted a National policy to solve a regional/localized issue? Wyoming locked down to make sure hospitals didn’t overflow in Massachusetts?

Regionally, some hospitals may have had issues. But as far as our nationwide healthcare system, the reason why we did a nationwide “two weeks to flatten the curve”, it did not happen. So maybe states and or other regions could have managed it without needlessly jumping the nation’s economy off a cliff.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1380540596100603905

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1380657171654791170

I'm not disagreeing with you, just giving my anecdotal experience.

 

[SlickAg]

I'm not disagreeing with you, just giving my anecdotal experience.

I’m also curious how many staffing shortages at hospitals this spring were caused by school closures and the resulting impact on working parents. I’m fairly certain this existed, but hasn’t really been reported on.

 

[HAL Pilot]

in sight of the pandemic finish line.

I'm still waiting for the end of the 14 days to flatten the curve to end. It's been a long two weeks and seems like it's been a lot longer than that but obviously we are experiencing a time warp or something....

 

[taxi1]

I'm still waiting for the end of the 14 days to lower the curve. It's seems like it's been a lot longer than that but obviously we are experiencing a time warp or something....

So you don’t think the vaccines are going to work?

 

[Spekkio]

So you don’t think the vaccines are going to work?

I think you're missing his point, which is that the federal government's messaging has been wholly inconsistent, and the strategy for returning to a normal lifestyle non-existent.

It really doesn't matter whether HAL, or you, or me thinks that vaccines are going to work; Biden and Fauci are showing the public they don't work by continuing to wear masks and take the same "social distancing" precautions after they've been vaccinated. Their actions are significantly more impactful to public opinion than anyone on an internet forum.

Perhaps Biden and Fauci are trying to set an example of being careful even when vaccinated, but they have lost sight of the fact that they need to reach across the aisle. Prominent figures wearing masks and calling for social distancing measures after getting vaccinated are not going to win the hearts and minds of those who are skeptical about it; it's just going to make those people think "why should I bother" and then make the people on the far end of the spectrum dig in their heels. On a military end, there's been no official policy released that people who are vaccinated can enjoy more freedoms than those who don't. The only things that have been released are that vaccinated servicemembers don't have to ROM in conjunction with travel for PCS, and that those who are vaccinated don't have to ROM if they've had close contact with an individual who's tested positive for COVID-19. Big.fucking.whoop.

At any rate, I think this is the time where HAL posts some meme that only boomers understand.

PS: This idiocy spans two administrations on multiple sides of the aisle, because Trump's assertion that COVID-19 is fake news and battling with his SMEs in public was equally not helpful.

 

[Python]

 

[HAL Pilot]

So you don’t think the vaccines are going to work?

Sarcasm is obviously lost on you.

I think that 2 weeks is going to turn into two years, ruined lives and ruined economy for bullshit reasons that seemed to change constantly.

I think the restrictions on personal freedoms and businesses are bullshit.

I think masks are a fucking pacifier for idiots.

I think personal responsibility and accountability should rule, not government mandates. Done punish the whole nation. If you’re at risk, then isolate or face the consequences of your personal choice.

I think these shutdowns and restrictions should never have happened.

I think Fauci is a political hack to whomever is in power and has no spine. He’s the “expert” because of his job title. When was he last in the field actually practicing medicine instead of reading about it in reports (that all contradict each other).

I think if you’re going to “science”, schools would be open, businesses would be open, social distancing would be 3 feet, vaccinated people can get rid of masks, there would be no quarantines/testing/restrictions when traveling (i.e. Hawaii). The science says life should be back to normal for vaccinated.

 

[SlickAg]

View attachment 30587

 

[taxi1]

I think personal responsibility and accountability should rule

So you go to the grocery store, and you don't wear a mask because it is your god-given right to share your potentially virus-laden respiratory aerosols with the rest of the citizenry, and that guy who is immune-compromised but has to eat to live too is there, and he catches your virus.

What's your personal responsibility and what accountability should you be held to?