GaryPinC

Yep, it's certainly part of the problem. But so is that employee who didn't get vaccinated.

People with outstanding warrants. Seriously, Ohio kept it insanely simple. Name and email gets you a QR code. Scan code at appointment to receive shot. My wife was offered through her English class and they emphasized no ID needed and no immigration agents would be there.

That's if they accurately tracked vaccine recipients. Here in Ohio the ID requirements for getting a vaccine were minimal, as they purposely tried to keep it accessable for illegals and fugitives. Name, email address, zip code where you wanted the vaccine. Optional phone number. That was it. A lot of cracks for people to slip through.

There'll be a whole lot of noise for about a month but as long as deaths/hospitalizations stay down nobody's going to care by mid-summer. We can't even contact trace, how are they going to handle the ID logistics? Nobody's going to want to.

Yes and no. This was all new science that unfolded in real time, including medicine. Last spring doctors had no firm idea how to treat patients. CDC was trying to figure this out with very few published studies/data. They took a conservative viewpoint, but they have to. Their job is to give recommendations that keeps people safe. The message changed as the science became clearer.

I don't blame them either. But how many people refuse to believe masking and distancing make any difference? And how much harder does that make it for those trying to get through this as quickly as possible? Hold your hand 6-12 inches from your mouth and blow into it as hard as you can. Put a mask on. Repeat blowing into your hand. That's air being blocked. AIR. Conservatively around 1000 times smaller than a single covid virus on a sub-micromolar water particle. Having trouble hearing someone talk with a mask on? Air block. Young children understand this right away but how many adults can't because they're steeped in their own stubborness?

Ventilation, masks, and distancing. The hospital complex I work at is being replaced as the new one is completed next year. I can assure you they made no significant investment in ventilation, yet we had zero outbreaks at the primary level 1 trauma center in Cleveland. Ditto for my kids' schools. How much did people take precautions at home? Do "new case" curves directly measure mask efficiency or are they are result of a multitude of factors? Lockdowns simply reduce contact between large numbers of people (if they're properly followed). So is the lockdown to blame or the fact that people took few, if any, precautions at home?

Follow the science: Why were workplaces and schools safer than people's homes?

Definitely root for Fitz, Frank Reich with the Colts. I'll root for Darnold also as if he can turn himself around it'll be great for the game. Living in Cleveland, I root for them except for the Bills. Especially for my son who's a big fan. I was 10 years old in 1980 when the Bills first beat the Dolphins en route to a magical year. That was the first time in my entire life I was proud of my team. My son had to wait until this past year at the age of 14 years old to experience that feeling. Terrible. Brownies are the only franchise that has been through worse incompetence than us so I'll pull for them. And rust belt fans are all pretty much the same.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/internal-memo-to-beijing-chinas-competitive-advantage-against-america/ar-BB1gBoel?li=BBnbfcL I'm not sure if this article is legit, but I do believe China intends to challenge and displace us on the world stage so this article is really interesting and I find it to offer some really prescient insights.

Yep, but it just goes to illustrate how they beat it. QR code/cell phone tracking was crucial, I think. Easily enabled/enables contact tracing. And people there still manage to have fun in life, my wife did. But quality of life is still obviously lower. Connections to police and government are crucial. Definitely not my cup of tea for a society, my thing is what can the US do for a future occurrence to prevent or minimize societal shutdown and avoid this long-dragged out crap? We are currently ill-prepared for a pandemic. With global travel becoming easier and easier, novel viruses and bacteria become harder and harder to stop. I'm 51 and hopefully last time I have to deal with a pandemic but I'm not betting on it.

or careers. But yep, up to me and I'm not here to complain just compare.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/efficiency-over-privacy-how-trust-in-the-chinese-government-helped-contain-the-pandemic/ar-BB1gA7f8?li=BBnbfcL Interesting article in a lot of ways. My wife confirms it's a true picture of life in overcrowded cities. Lots of loudspeakers to keep things organized. Health QR codes definitely needed right now to use any public parks and services. Fills in more of a picture of how they beat Covid.

I have a bachelor's in biochemistry and work in cardiac research. I went this morning and looked at the teacher's salary for our school district of two teachers close to my age also with bachelor degrees. They are making mid to upper 80's and this data is two years old. That is significantly more than I make. And only working 9 months a year. 25% less working days. Not shedding a tear for their situation and they don't complain about it. I wonder if this study done by a pro-union think tank looks at weekly wages after retirement and union dues are pulled out? Because those lower take home wages significantly.

Happened to me too! Back when gas spiked like over $4 per gallon. Plus, I'm convinced some gas stations somehow set their pumps to normally stop $.01 over, necessitating trying again to hit .00!

And just how ineffective is it for "unhealthy" people? I would argue we're not "exceptionally" unhealthy. Statistical significance in a blinded, randomized, quality clinical trial is a difficult thing to attain. Of course you control with the most "healthy" people to clearly judge efficacy then follow through with the rest later. Especially in a pandemic when you are conducting shortened clinical trials to give society a rapid answer. The mRNA vaccines were taken to market in less than a year, each tested in over 30,000 people. Numbers are showing they greatly lower infection and transmission rates, they lower hospitalization and especially death rates. With a minimum of serious side effects in a previously unproven technology. They also modified the spike protein to more effectively train the immune system. The sum of that in less than a year qualifies as a miracle IMO, but you do you. It is common sense to assume the vaccines won't be as effective for those with underlying comorbidities. But it is not common sense to simply assume they are markedly less effective in this patient population. Do you have any published studies that quantify the loss of efficacy?

Do I think the US fudged their numbers? Yes, during lockdown at the hospital level, especially smaller hospitals. Do I think this "fudging" was frequent enough to overstate the severity of the pandemic? Nope. There's clearly a consistency of problem across the world with India and Brazil currently center stage. We did actually have a lockdown, at least here in Ohio and New York and I think in most other states in the US. I don't know how you argue we didn't. Businesses shuttered, stay-at-home orders, travel bans. Were they very effective compared to the Chinese? Nope, and they weren't strictly enforced because so many people refused to believe they were necessary. So lockdown to the point where extremists don't take us into anarchy. I understand where you're coming from on all the angles, but at some point you've got to apply some common sense with the big picture. Health systems were being quickly overwhelmed in Europe and China before Covid even got going here. That continues to this day. How are we not a thoughtful enough society to be proactive and participate fully to prevent that here? All this is just a ploy by politicians to control us? The largest authoritarian country in the world has been mask free for a full year and carrying on normally with their lives. How ######ed is the notion that free societies are being manipulated by our leaders using this pandemic for long term subjugation? But, more to the heart of the matter your post hints at, we had poor leadership at the federal level, including the CDC. There needed to be some leadership about what we know and what we don't know and how that was changing real time in addition to the recommendations for moving forward. I don't argue with Trump allowing governor leadership but he failed completely to rally the American people to pull together and beat this. Supposedly he hid the problem early on to avoid scaring people. We honestly needed a well-thought scare from him. Too many people needed to see images/videos of people dying horribly in the hospitals but the hospitals don't allow those images to be captured. Sadly, that is what it would have taken for so many to stop nit-picking, questioning and simply pull together.

Trump ignored plenty of the science, even mocked some of it. I can personally tell you Ohio followed the science. It appears most of the governors in this country did also. Right from the CDC. If you can rail on Trump but fail to see how the MSM has little to no journalistic integrity on political issues, then you are a larger problem than Trump. Mistrust in our media is shared by middle-of-the-road people such as myself and facilitated widespread acceptance of the alt right media. It's one of our largest challenges as a nation, and crucial for bringing us back together, IMO.

Trump didn't castrate anything. The science was very much a mess when lockdowns were initiated, science takes time and numbers then more time and repeat. He failed badly in setting a cohesive national response encouraging consistent precaution and civic duty. But then you had the left wing and MSM panic-***** every facet of this in a lecturing tone. Equally helpful.

I'm don't know how much, if at all, China fudged their numbers. I believe they did with the Wuhan outbreak. I just feel strongly that they did beat it as it would be impossible to hide at this point. Strict lockdown? Well, studying China's methodology would be valuable. I have no expertise, just some snippets I heard. Isolating infected cities, villages, neighborhoods from travel in or out, aggressive contact tracing and isolation of contacts and Covid positives in large indoor public buildings (arenas, theaters, etc) with medical personnel for observation/medical care. My in-laws weren't allowed to leave their condo and neighborhood area for nearly 1 1/2 months except one person to shop once a day. If someone in your building tested positive, the entire building was restricted to their homes and mandatory Covid testing until all negative. Strict penalties for precaution violations when out of house. Mandated testing by the government if deemed necessary.

Sure, but in a free country I wish we had more wisdom and foresight to recognize a pandemic and step up to do what's needed to eliminate it quickly rather than having it forced. Sadly a communist government was the only one to succeed. Keep in mind this is not over yet. Asymptomatic spread with the wrong mutations can change everything. You take a chance leaving it in circulation hoping natural immunity will prevail. It will in time, but normally very deadly mutations burn themselves out because it can't spread easily when the symptomatic host is quickly dead. But the asymptomatic spread truly worries me.

Well, my wife's Chinese with family still there and the mutual friend who introduced us is back in China also. We talk to both regularly. They have been full normal since April 2020, over the summer my friend said they require masks on public transportation but nowhere else. I haven't yet asked him since then if they require masks at all now. They still have infrequent cases, according to the NY Times tracker. As in, a breakout is 30 to 100 new 24 hr cases for the entire 1.3 billion people. They immediately contact trace and lock that area down. To those who might suggest China is fudging/hiding numbers I would simply say you can't hide a pandemic for long in a nation with that size and population density. Especially with few precautions. They beat it. 2 months of true lockdowns and aggressive contact tracings and they beat it. Compare that to our situation now. Which is preferable? I would argue the 2 months of strict lockdowns with aggressive contact tracings. But many there don't trust Chinese science and haven't gotten their vaccines. They're hoping for the Western vaccines. 😂

Yes, I agree completely. We lost the ability to stop the spread in the first two months on when we had no solid infrastructure or cohesive response to contract trace. For as bad as lockdowns were, we didn't take them far enough, China did though. But, even if the majority of citizens had been receptive to this, I doubt we could have done the rapid contact tracing necessary. Again, many people fantasize that masks and distancing are going to knock this thing out but that's simply fallacy. They do offer good protection though. Even today this virus is still showing in India and Brazil the ability to overwhelm health systems. That's what it all was really about and why the numbers even out over time. You can't ask people to take these precautions forever, it's coming to an end, hopefully enough get vaccinated and natural immunity can control Covid. Vaccination is up to the task if everyone would just get it done. Plus, large vaccination should greatly reduce viral mutation.

Ohio has about 11 million people. Oregon has about 4, and has had some of the strictest quarantine rules, on a level with NY, maybe more (I have a buddy outside of Portland). Their worst outbreak (fall) topped out at 1,500 new cases. Ohio's worst (fall) topped out around 11,000. Oregon had far less cases than the population difference can account for. New cases, hospitalizations and death numbers are only partly affected by precautions. Show me the numbers on compliance, unprecautioned house parties, gatherings, apathy, etc and maybe we could draw some larger conclusions. The efficacy of masks and distancing are readily apparent to those of us who have kids attending schools or work in hospitals. While some people fantasize the precautions can squash this, we would have to replicate what the Chinese enforced. Since we aren't, it's simply about slowing spread. It always has been. Sad that politics hides that reality.

Good article on Pfizer's production process: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/health/pfizer-coronavirus-vaccine.html?smid=tw-nytimes&smtyp=cur