COVID-19 Coronavirus Containment Efforts

[russ_watters]

Another data point - I was at the grocery store yesterday and for the first time in weeks, there wasn't a huge scrum of non-socially-distanced people waiting for shots. I asked the pharmacist and she said they were out of vaccine.

I think your point is that you still believe that lack of supply(properly distributed) may be contributing to the cratering of the vaccination rate. Did you ask the pharmacist if they had a line the last day they had a supply? As I've said before, I find the logic in your view on that thin at best, but the bigger issue is the near total lack of evidence that such an issue exists. But since we're talking in anecdotes, the Walmart in my new favorite town of Russellville, AL(pop 9,800) has appointments available tomorrow morning. I didn't check the other six locations in town that Google says do vaccinations.

Maybe more to the point, statistics on vaccination uptake show that the uptake is lagging in cities, which opposes your hypothesis.
[edit]
More specifically, PA has county-by-county stats:
https://www.health.pa.gov/topics/disease/coronavirus/Vaccine/Pages/Dashboard.aspx

The overall state is 46% fully vaccinated. The worst county is Fulton, with 24% fully vaccinated. (I think these are of total population). Fulton County has a population of 14,500 and an area of 438 square miles. It's close to a rectangle, around 30x15 miles. There are 3 vaccination sites, but they are clustered in one town, near the middle. At worst, a person would need a 20 mile drive to get vaccinated. I couldn't verify availability in the county, but the Rite Aid just outside the county (and still about 25 miles from everywhere in it) has appointments available for tomorrow.

If Fulton were an average PA town, it would swing the state rate by 0.002%.

Unfortunately, Philadelphia's vaccinations were federally run, and the stats don't line up. It has 48% of adults vaccinated vs 56% for the state as a whole as of a week ago. If it had an average rate, it would account for a 1% increase in the state average.

So not only does it not look to me like this sample rural area has an access problem, even if it did it would pale in comparison with the uptake problem in Philly because it is so much smaller.

 

[atyy]

. . . viruses are known to compete in order to be the one that causes an infection.

The team at the Centre for Virus Research in Glasgow used a replica of the lining of our airways, made out of the same types of cells, and infected it with Sars-CoV-2 and rhinovirus, which is one of the most widespread infections in people, and a cause of the common cold.

If rhinovirus and Sars-CoV-2 were released at the same time, only rhinovirus is successful. If rhinovirus had a 24-hour head start then Sars-CoV-2 does not get a look in. And even when Sars-CoV-2 had 24-hours to get started, rhinovirus boots it out.

https://www.bbc.com/news/health-56483445

_______________________________________________________

- so, the unprecedented social distancing might have disabled the natural "vaccine" (the rhinovirus) - thus creating this unprecedented pandemic??

Probably not. We saw what in Wuhan, Italy and New York City what sorts of things might happen without the safe distancing. The rhinovirus is not a vaccine. While being infected by rhinovirus might temporarily prevent infection by SARS-CoV-2, one could still be infected by SARS-CoV-2 after the rhinovirus infection has passed, which would likely still have all the age-dependent risk.

 

[Rive]

- so, the unprecedented social distancing might have disabled the natural "vaccine" (the rhinovirus) - thus creating this unprecedented pandemic??

Immunity against rhinovirus also exist, so only part (few percent, at most) of the population is 'protected' by this cold at any given time. The rest still susceptible to covid.
Also, once you are done with the rhino, you are vulnerable to Covid again.

So this won't work. Maybe it can be discussed as a temporary 'fight fire with fire' type first aid, but I think in general sense it's more interesting than useful.

Also, once you are done with the rhino, you are vulnerable to Covid again.

On second thought, I'm not sure. The immune system kind of expected to react to both viruses.
Maybe.

 

[atyy]

Another article about what @AlexCaledin mentioned : https://theconversation.com/the-common-cold-might-protect-you-from-coronavirus-heres-how-158461

Here's the paper.
https://academic.oup.com/jid/advance-article/doi/10.1093/infdis/jiab147/6179975
Human Rhinovirus Infection Blocks Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 Replication Within the Respiratory Epithelium: Implications for COVID-19 Epidemiology
Kieran Dee, Daniel M Goldfarb, Joanne Haney, Julien A R Amat, Vanessa Herder, Meredith Stewart, Agnieszka M Szemiel, Marc Baguelin, Pablo R Murcia
The Journal of Infectious Diseases, jiab147, https://doi.org/10.1093/infdis/jiab147

 

[Astronuc]

Houston Methodist has performed eight double lung transplants on COVID-19 patients, and has several more patients who are on life support awaiting transplant, Huang said.

https://abcnews.go.com/Health/texas...9-vaccine-speaks-undergoing/story?id=78321152

Houston Methodist continues to see patients with severe illness from COVID-19, many of whom have not been vaccinated, Huang said. It's difficult to say for sure, but Huang believes that had Garza gotten the vaccine when he was able to, "it's likely that we would have never gotten to this point."

For Garza, he's sharing his story in hopes of helping prevent others from experiencing what we went through.

"If I knew what I know now," he said, "I would have definitely went through with the vaccination."

That's somewhat like saying one shouldn't have driven so fast after losing control and wrecking one's car. One in theory knows not to drive so fast as to lose control and wreck one's car, but one does anyway.

 

[Vanadium 50]

I think your point is that you still believe that lack of supply(properly distributed) may be contributing to the cratering of the vaccination rate.

I'm not sure I have a point other than "this is what I observe". I recognize that it is different than what you observe, but from this I'm not saying "I am right and Russ is wrong", but more like "there is substantial geographic variation out there" and I would probably guess its not bracketed by our two experiences.

A few things I looked up in the meantime:

• This county has the highest vaccination rate in the state. It's almost 80% of the 12+ population. I don't think I am surprised that the place that's giving the most runs out soonest. I wouldn't be surprised if we were talking about pickles or apples - why would it be different with vaccines.
• This county has the second lowest CCVI in the state (and the lowest is a very small county 1/30 the size). So, ironically, it's at the least statistical risk. I don't think this is a factor in vaccine distribution, but maybe it should be.

It was jammed a few days before. I don't know what it was like on the exact day before.

Also, the counties with low vaccination rates are in the hinterlands, as we discussed, but you know what else? They have a low incidence of Covid already. The county with the lowest vaccination rate hasn't seen a fatality since late February. I can understand the lack of urgency, even if I don't agree with it.

 

[russ_watters]

I'm not sure I have a point other than "this is what I observe". I recognize that it is different than what you observe, but from this I'm not saying "I am right and Russ is wrong", but more like "there is substantial geographic variation out there" and I would probably guess its not bracketed by our two experiences.

Well, fair enough, but I think I'd rather be wrong than be discussing data with no point that explains why we're even discussing it. Seems...pointless. There's a problem here to be solved, and I'd like to try to find the cause, which may point toward a solution.

...and yes, I know this is just talk - we can't actually solve it ourselves.

Also, the counties with low vaccination rates are in the hinterlands, as we discussed...

Not all of them. It appears to me there are three groups, not two:
1. Rural areas with low vaccination rates.
2. Suburban areas with high vaccination rates.
3. Urban areas with low vaccination rates.

This follows from the observation that there are two basic causes/forms of hesitancy, which are near complete opposites of each other: right-leaning politics and racial distrust.

 

[jack action]

I am indeed extending that to a next step of assuming you believe that people can be trusted to make "The Right Choice?" if we let them. Are you instead arguing that we should be be giving the choice even if they make "The Wrong Choice"?

I cannot answer that without knowing what are the definitions of "The Right Choice" and "The Wrong Choice". But no matter what are your definitions, I highly doubt there is only one that is valid and that it is the same one for everyone.

If so, given that we are discussing this issue over 600,000 American deaths alone, I have to self-censor how I feel about that view. The stakes here are really, really, really high.

Really high? Really, really, really? That sounds serious. For all of us out there who have a life outside the US, the actual death toll is now 3.9 million worldwide (over a 15-16 months period). Knowing that there are about 60 million deaths and 140 million birth each year, that puts things in perspective. Knowing that 80% of these deaths were going to happen within the next 5 years at most, also put things into perspective. But I shouldn't be so cold, we're talking about human lives, right? Comparing it with the deaths due to hunger (for at least a decade now):

Children are the most visible victims of undernutrition. It is estimated that undernutrition—including stunting, wasting, deficiencies of vitamin A and zinc, and fetal growth restriction (when a baby does not grow to its normal weight before birth)—is a cause of 3·1 million child deaths annually or 45 percent of all child deaths in 2011 (UNICEF, World Health Organization [WHO], & The World Bank, 2018). Undernutrition magnifies the effect of every disease, including measles and malaria. The estimated proportions of deaths in which undernutrition is an underlying cause are roughly similar for diarrhea (61%), malaria (57%), pneumonia (52%), and measles (45%) (Black 2003, Bryce 2005). Undernutrition can also be caused by diseases, such as those that cause diarrhea, by reducing the body’s ability to convert food into usable nutrients.

Knowing the cure for hunger is food (which we have plenty of for everyone), I wonder why there is all this hype about COVID now? Oh yeah, it has hit the Western World. The stakes are now really, really, really high.

Sorry for the dark sarcasm, but my actions shouldn't be dictated by someone else's fears. "The stakes here are really, really, really high" is not a fact that can be based on science in any sort of way. Emotionlessly, there are even more arguments against that statement. It is just a personal opinion based on fear (whether one thinks it is justified or not).

But we're talking about why people choose to trust a nameless facebook post instead

Actually, it started with this:

Okay, here is a majority opinion, which is represented by a hundred scientists. But then there are these two scientists who argue the opposite.

and at one point the 2 scientists became crackpots.

-- which is not fine, it's dumb. And these people sure don't act like they know they aren't doctors.

Yesterday on the news, there was a woman who found out she had cancer last year. She was self-employed and - confinement not helping - she lost everything. The worst news for her: she has between 3 months and a year to live. There are no more medical treatments for her; science has spoken. She was on the news to raise money because she wants to try every alternative medicine and every diet she can possibly can, anything that she thinks might affect the outcomes. She even stated that she will do them all at once because she can't afford not to, time-wise.

Is she dumb? We all know being gluten-free will not cure her terminal cancer. Deep down she knows it too. But she will still "waste" time and money because she needs the hope it will provide. She's not dumb.

In her case, the doctor gave up on her (probably rightfully, scientifically speaking). With the people we are discussing, THEY gave up on doctors (or scientists). But the end result is still the same: they need hope to go on. They still need to find someone they trust. So at the very least, the message they are sending is: "Make me trust you." And when you answer: "You don't have a choice, I'm the only one. You are dumb if you don't choose me", it is insulting and they will retaliate by following anyone who claims not to be you. Just out of spite.

The scientific community must regain these people's trust. It is extremely hard to regain lost trust. And saying they are dumb is not helping. It's only putting oil on the fire. So is forcing them to do what you want.

there's a frighteningly high fraction of people who are behaving like idiots these days. Maybe that fraction isn't unusual, but what is unusual is that a whole lot more people than usual have died because of it.

And here's the lesson one should learn from that experience: You didn't care about these "idiots" when you didn't need them. Now you need them and you expect them to follow you blindly because you make "The Right Choice". Trust doesn't work that way.

If the scientific community thinks COVID deaths are higher due to people not listening to them, they certainly share responsibility for that because they didn't use good communication skills over the last decades.

But anyone is free to use the simpler "I'm right, they're wrong" attitude and go to war over it. Decades of fun are to be expected.

 

[Vanadium 50]

This follows from the observation that there are two basic causes/forms of hesitancy, which are near complete opposites of each other: right-leaning politics and racial distrust

You're going to have a hard time convincing me that politics is the cause of much of anything. People's politics follows their core beliefs, not the other way around. Further, we know from surveys that both Republicans and Democrats overestimate the risks by more than an order of magnitude, but that Democrats do so to a larger degree. (Interestingly, the correlation appears to be strongest not with political affiliation, but with where one gets their news: MSNBC, NYT, the Atlantic viewers and readers conclude that Covid is more dangerous than the viewers o readers of Fox, the NY Post, or the WSJ. But that's a subject for another message) A rational actor will take more precautions with a larger perceived risk.

And yes, I realize I am perilously close to argue that it's a good thing that people overestimate the risks because it leads to the right behavior. I don't want to go there.

Anyway, here are some plots I made to better understand what's going on here. Each point is a state or DC.

#1. Fully vaxed vs. at least one dose.

This is highly correlated, as expected.

#2. Vaccination rate vs. Actual Covid Rate

Here Covid rate means fatalities per 100K population, as of Match 7th. That way, any impact on fatalities due to vaccinations does not impact this plot.

This is a plot of actuals, not perceptions, and I don't see much of a correlation at all.

#3. Covid Vaccination rate vs. MMR Vaccination Rate

I was thinking there would be a correlation between willingness to be vaccinated for Covid vs. willingness to be vaccinatged (or have your child vaccinated) for childhood illnesses. If there is a correlation, it's pretty weak.
.
#4. Covid Vaccination rate vs. Flu Vaccination Rate

Here there is a correlation. I don't understand why it appears here and not in MMR.

#5. Flu Vaccination rate vs. MMR Vaccination Rate

The correlation is here as well (it kind of has to be).

So it's not clear to me why Covid vaccination rates correlated with Flu vaccination rates, but not MMR.

 

[mfb]

the actual death toll is now 3.9 million worldwide

By official confirmed cases. It's estimated that ~10 million died. Far more than that will have long-term health impacts, possibly for the rest of their lives. How many more died or were harmed because hospitals were unable to treat them properly, or based on the economic downturn? Yes, that likely includes more children dying from hunger.
We will probably never have a good estimate for these indirect side effects.

The scientific community must regain these people's trust.

they certainly share responsibility for that because they didn't use good communication skills over the last decades.

What's your proposal to change that? How do we reach people who prefer nonsense from Facebook?

 

[atyy]

What's your proposal to change that? How do we reach people who prefer nonsense from Facebook?

 

[pinball1970]

View attachment 284690

I will use that one with my battles with the internet. Edit Reminds me of House MD

 

[AlexCaledin]

The city of Moscow, although well vaccinated (60 per cent), is having unprecedented infection rate, 9 thousand daily. The virus is Indian variant.

 

[atyy]

I don't think it's so useful to think of the point of the vaccine as being to prevent infection (although it may do that to some degree). The point of the vaccine is to prevent severe disease if one gets infected.,

 

[Astronuc]

The city of Moscow, although well vaccinated (60 per cent), is having unprecedented infection rate, 9 thousand daily. The virus is Indian variant.

Moscow (Москва) has a population estimated at 12.4 million residents within the city limits, with over 17 million residents in the urban area, and over 20 million residents in the metropolitan area. Even if the population in the city proper is 60% vaccinated, that would still leave about 5 million unvaccinated, as well as 50 to 60% or more outside the city, but who would enter the city on a daily basis for work, or would transit the city, or otherwise interact with inhabitants of the city who travel outside the city.

In the NY City metropolitan region, people commuting daily, or visiting friends outside the city, transmitted the virus to nearby regions, within NY state, but also New Jersey and Connecticut, and even further.

The point of the vaccine is to prevent severe disease if one gets infected.,

, if it the vaccine does not prevent a significant infection, which depends upon the immune response.

 

[jack action]

It's estimated that ~10 million died.

I know, but I have to rely on the given numbers. I even found a value of 9 million people dying of hunger annually from a source that I couldn't judge its reliability. I didn't want to look like I was exaggerating. I assume the ratio of the official numbers should compare, even if the actual ones are higher in both cases.

What's your proposal to change that? How do we reach people who prefer nonsense from Facebook?

It's really a problem too complex for me to give a simple solution. It's like asking me what is my proposal for bringing peace in the Middle East. But denying that there is a communication problem from both sides is certainly not the right thing to do.

 

[Astronuc]

So it's not clear to me why Covid vaccination rates correlated with Flu vaccination rates, but not MMR.

One raises some interesting points. Perhaps the correlation or lack thereof has a dependency on the population, or rather, which age groups within the population, as well as the novelty of the Covid vaccine as compared to the well-established vaccines for influenza and MMR. I got the MMR vaccine and booster decades ago.

The 'elderly' population tends to get flu vaccines, although when that starts varies considerably, because they are particularly vulnerable to the flu. My wife started getting the flu vaccine because she would take her mother to get one, and she wanted to protect her mother and herself, and eventually, I started getting it to protect my family members and myself.

There is also situations where organizations (e.g., my employer) encourage staff to get flu vaccine and now Covid vaccine, since they have an interested in ensuring staff not become severely ill; the policy is not mandatory. I've received a flu vaccine the last 6 or 7 years, and the one year I didn't get the vaccine, I got the flu (fortunately treated with Tamiflu, but missed 4 days of work isolated at home).

And of course, there is the portion of the population (includes a neighbor and separately a coworker) who do not believe in vaccines. Interestingly, the neighbor only applies that to himself, but would encourage his children to get vaccinated, while I know of adults that apply their rejection of vaccinations to their children as well as themselves.

Edit/update: I have a colleague who gets the flu vaccine religously (annually), because he doesn't what to become ill (and miss work), but he so far has not chosen to get the Covid vaccine and expressed his inclination not to do so, because it's no worse than the flu or common cold!

 

[Vanadium 50]

Perhaps the correlation or lack thereof has a dependency on the population, or rather, which age groups within the population

I have median age. However, I don't see any smoking guns:

Maybe there is a little correlation in MMR and Covid with age. The flu, not so much. It's not "retirees live in Florida and don't have to worry about it." The oldest states are, in order, ME, VT, WV, FL (finally!), CT, DE, PA and MT.

 

[atyy]

Tweet by Vincent Rancaniello
"One of the co-signers of the letter to Science asking for more investigation into the origins of #SARSCoV2 - Pamela Bjorkman - realized that the letter was a mistake. Read her letter to #TWiV at https://bit.ly/3zzX0AD - could not agree with her more."

Here is the text of the letter by Pamela Bjorkman to TWiV "This Week in Virology".

Hello,

As one of the co-signers of the letter to Science asking for increased investigation into the origins of SARS-CoV-2, I want to make two points: first, thanks very much for the two episodes of TWiV when you met with the WHO committee and with Robert Garry. These episodes are doing a great service for all to clarify these issues. Second, as a co-signer or the letter to Science, I’d like to explain my motivation for adding my name: namely, I thought the letter would have the effect of prompting more funding for searching for natural viruses in animal reservoirs, which I personally have always assumed represent the origin of SARS-CoV-2 infections in humans. Perhaps naively, I did not anticipate that the letter would be used to promote the lab origin hypothesis. Looking back on the wording of the letter, however, I now think that I should have realized this would happen and should have been more proactive — either not signed the letter at all or else requested more wording changes to make my position clear.

Thanks for everything you’re doing on TWiV. I listen to every episode and have learned a lot.Pamela Bjorkman

 

[PeterDonis]

When you go to a doctor (or mechanic, for that matter), you know at the very least that they are educated and certified to have the expertise you are paying them for. That should at least prime you to start off giving them the benefit of the doubt and trusting them.

That's not how I would put it. I would put it that you should start off listening to what they say. Whereas with someone who has no knowledge, education, certification, etc. in the subject at all, you should start off not even trying to listen to what they say. You wouldn't ask your mechanic for medical advice any more than you would ask your doctor for advice on how to fix your car.

However, listening to what they say is not the same as trusting them. Experts are supposed to give you information and advice, which you can choose to follow or not follow; they are not supposed to tell you what to do and you just blindly do it. Sometimes, even if the person is an expert, you might have good reasons not to take their advice. That doesn't mean you didn't listen to them; what they tell you might still provide you with plenty of usable information. You're just not taking their advice.

Unfortunately, many experts in our society do not view their role that way. They do not view their job as giving people the most accurate information they can, giving them advice if they think it's warranted, and then stopping there and letting people make their own decisions. They view their jobs as telling people what to do. But that view has two serious problems.

First, for an expert to give good advice, they have to know the specifics of a particular person's case. There is no such thing as general advice that always works for everyone. That's why doctors want to examine the particular patient before they make a diagnosis and give any advice on treatment. That's why mechanics want to look at your car before they tell you want they think is wrong with it and what needs to be done to fix it. So if we have experts giving blanket instructions for everyone in the whole country to follow, that's already not good, since of course they can't possibly know the particular circumstances of more than 300 million people.

Second, once you set yourself up as an authority, giving instructions and not just information and advice, sooner or later you're going to say something that turns out to be wrong. And as soon as you do, people will stop believing you, even if the next time you give instructions they are actually good ones. No human being is smart enough or wise enough to carry the burden of judging what's right for more than 300 million people.

there's a frighteningly high fraction of people who are behaving like idiots these days

I'm actually not sure whether the percentage has gone up over my lifetime. There will always be idiots, and the more our society shelters people from really adverse consequences of idiocy, the more idiots we will have.

Unfortunately, I don't think the problem of idiocy is something that can be solved by government fiat, or by experts making pronouncements. Personally, I just try to not interact with idiots.

 

[PeterDonis]

I don't think it's so useful to think of the point of the vaccine as being to prevent infection

The point of the vaccine is to achieve herd immunity by some means other than a sufficient fraction of the population getting infected. That means the point of the vaccine is to prevent infection--or, if you want to be precise, to drive the replication rate down well below 1, so the virus will go extinct. This is not just true of the COVID vaccine but of all vaccines.

I agree the COVID vaccine can also lessen the risk of severe side effects if one does get infected, but I don't think that's its primary purpose.

 

[atyy]

The point of the vaccine is to achieve herd immunity by some means other than a sufficient fraction of the population getting infected. That means the point of the vaccine is to prevent infection--or, if you want to be precise, to drive the replication rate down well below 1, so the virus will go extinct. This is not just true of the COVID vaccine but of all vaccines.

I agree the COVID vaccine can also lessen the risk of severe side effects if one does get infected, but I don't think that's its primary purpose.

It would be nice if the vaccine can help achieve herd immunity, but this may not be achievable in this case. The originally reported effectiveness of the Pfizer vaccine of about 95% was for symptomatic infection. However, asymptomatic infection can also transmit. Hence one needs to know the effectiveness of the vaccine at reducing all infection. When asymptomatic infections are included, vaccine effectiveness estimates ranged from about 70-90%. At the lower end of the range, it is unclear if herd immunity can be achieved, even with 100% vaccination rates. Those numbers are before new variants inevitably arise (as long as there are infections in some part of the world), which will lower the ability of the vaccine to prevent infection even more. So what I'm saying is that even though herd immunity is probably not achievable, it is still important - in fact, even more important, for every individual in vulnerable groups to get vaccinated - since they will have reduced protection from herd immunity and similar effects.

A similar view is expressed in this tweet by Christian Drosten.

Edit: I edited the ranges for asymptomatic infection, but the point remains the same. CDC has an amazing summary of lots of studies: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/science/science-briefs/fully-vaccinated-people.html

Edit 2: Here's a study where protection by the Pfizer vaccine against B.1.351 infection is about 70%, while protection against severe disease is more than 90%: https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc2104974

 

[PeterDonis]

At the lower end of the range, it is unclear if herd immunity can be achieved, even with 100% vaccination rates. Those numbers are before new variants inevitably arise (as long as there are infections in some part of the world), which will lower the ability of the vaccine to prevent infection even more.

If this is true, it means that the average replication rate over time will not be driven below 1--maybe it will be for a time, but not long enough for the virus to die out (or more precisely, not long enough given how far below 1 the replication rate can be driven) before new variants raise the replication rate back above 1 again.

Which in turn means we are in for an indefinite period of new vaccines every year (or whatever time period proves to be necessary) to combat new variants, like we have now with flu vaccines, because we will never be able to eradicate the virus.

 

[atyy]

If this is true, it means that the average replication rate over time will not be driven below 1--maybe it will be for a time, but not long enough for the virus to die out (or more precisely, not long enough given how far below 1 the replication rate can be driven) before new variants raise the replication rate back above 1 again.

Which in turn means we are in for an indefinite period of new vaccines every year (or whatever time period proves to be necessary) to combat new variants, like we have now with flu vaccines, because we will never be able to eradicate the virus.

I slightly edited the numbers in my post and gave a link to a CDC which has an amazing summary of lots of studies (but the point remains the same). Yes, it may be that many will need booster shots. It's not yet clear if it will be every year, or just a couple of years. I just saw an interesting news report about current thinking about booster possibilities in the UK (and yes, I know it's an unfortunate reality that people in rich countries are talking about a third dose, when many in the world will not have had even one dose): https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-57548796.

Edit: There is a possibility that even if the virus becomes endemic, boosters might not be needed, if the two doses are enough to almost completely protect against severe disease despite virus variants. However, I think most people think that it's quite likely that at least people in the vulnerable groups will have a booster recommended.

 

[russ_watters]

I cannot answer that without knowing what are the definitions of "The Right Choice" and "The Wrong Choice". But no matter what are your definitions, I highly doubt there is only one that is valid and that it is the same one for everyone.

Yeah, your answer definitely implies the latter, of rejecting the idea of collective, "Correct" actions. But I'll be specific, as the the main issues on this front, that we've been dealing with for many months:
1. Wear a mask when asked.
2. Get vaccinated when eligible and able (make an effort to).

To me, these are civic duties along the same level of importance as paying taxes and voting, with the personal sacrifice impact of not throwing your trash out the window of your car. They are really odd Hills to [literally] Die On for an extreme civil liberties argument. It's not a big ask.

Really high? Really, really, really? That sounds serious.

Yep, and it's disingenuous to argue that it isn't. It's really, really serious and you have to be aware of that. Not believing the US death toll of 600,000 (26,000 Canadian, 3.4 M [reported, at least]) is really, really serious is a full-throttle crackpot position.

For all of us out there who have a life outside the US...worldwide

Your profile says you are Canadian. I'm American so I focus on the US. But the numbers are big. Major war big, even for Canada.

Knowing the cure for hunger is food (which we have plenty of for everyone), I wonder why there is all this hype about COVID now? Oh yeah, it has hit the Western World. The stakes are now really, really, really high.

Sorry for the dark sarcasm, but my actions shouldn't be dictated by someone else's fears. "The stakes here are really, really, really high" is not a fact that can be based on science in any sort of way. Emotionlessly, there are even more arguments against that statement. It is just a personal opinion based on fear (whether one thinks it is justified or not).

No, I like sarcasm when it punctuates a point. But here your point seems to be that since we're not taking hunger more seriously we shouldn't consider COVID serious. And you're mixing and matching world vs local actions in a way that doesn't fit logically. If you set logical criteria and did some ranking, you'd come to a more logical conclusion too.

Hunger is not a significant local problem in Canada, but COVID is. Hunger is at face value an easy problem to solve locally or globally (give people food), but in reality is really difficult geopolitically to solve globally. COVID is an easy problem to solve locally by today, and in point of fact the West is starting to go to extraordinary lengths to try to solve it globally.

And again, the ask here is easy. 26,000 Canadians have died, and all we ask is that you wear a mask and get a free vaccine. The extreme contrast is part of what makes this so stark.

Actually, it started with this:

and at one point the 2 scientists became crackpots.

The example given of 2 dissenting scientists is too generous of a characterization of the opposites sides. That's why I changed it. And besides, given the exchange we've been having, it doesn't sound like it matters to you: you think people should have the freedom to choose to believe the two doctors or even the Russian spambot, and act accordingly.

Yesterday on the news, there was a woman who found out she had cancer last year...

There are no more medical treatments for her; science has spoken. She was on the news to raise money because she wants to try every alternative medicine and every diet she can possibly can...

Is she dumb? We all know being gluten-free will not cure her terminal cancer.

No, that scenario isn't anywhere close to what's at issue with COVID. Again, it seems you are creating opposite scenarios. Maybe it's trying to do a false dichotomy, but instead they are just irrelevant/pointless. With COVID, we *do* have preventative measures. Her scenario would be close to the COVID scenario if she had a very treatable form of cancer and chose alternative medicine anyway. That does happen and yes, people die because of it, and yes, it's dumb.

The scientific community must regain these people's trust. It is extremely hard to regain lost trust. And saying they are dumb is not helping. It's only putting oil on the fire. So is forcing them to do what you want.

At this point, I don't care about re-building trust. I care about ending COVID. So, yep, I think we should be forcing vaccinations(or the other side of the coin; [self-]excluding those who aren't vaccinated from society) and if that means people end up angry - but alive - that's a win.

COVID "lockdowns" are ending, so we're largely past the need for voluntary cooperation.

And here's the lesson one should learn from that experience: You didn't care about these "idiots" when you didn't need them.

No, I didn't care about those idiots because their ability to kill me, my parents, my friends, my fellow countrymen, and fellow humans was limited much more limited. And because they didn't broadcast their idiocy quite so loudly.

Now you need them and you expect them to follow you blindly because you make "The Right Choice". Trust doesn't work that way.

Not blindly. It's really easy: all they have to do is not be selfish idiots and jerks. The science here is solid.

But anyone is free to use the simpler "I'm right, they're wrong" attitude and go to war over it. Decades of fun are to be expected.

Where this goes next is that businesses and schools are starting to exclude people who aren't vaccinated. The refusers are starting to go to war over it, but they are losing badly. They are self-ostracizing from society, and don't even recognize it's the choice they are making.

 

[PeterDonis]

Where this goes next is that businesses and schools are starting to exclude people who aren't vaccinated.

It's worth noting that, even on an extreme libertarian view of society, businesses and schools have a perfect right to do this. Businesses are private entities (and in an ideal libertarian society, all schools would be too), and they own their premises, and as owners, they get to decide who can come onto their premises and on what terms.

As a libertarian myself, I don't like the government trying to impose such restrictions by force on everyone; but I recognize that private entities have a perfect right to impose them by their own choice on the premises that they own. It's no different from a homeowner having the right to decide who gets to come into their home and on what terms.

 

[russ_watters]

And because they didn't broadcast their idiocy quite so loudly.

Two quick anecdotes:

I went out to dinner in Philly last weekend with my girlfriend. Philly has lifted all their COVID restrictions/mask mandates. We walked into a restaurant and were stopped by the little teenage girl hostess and asked to put masks on, despite there not being a government mandate. We both had them in our pockets just in case they were needed, so we put them on, walked the 10 feet to our table, sat down and took them off. Boring story, right?

My parents' former best friends self-ostracized from the friends group over COVID, while falsely claiming they were being excluded. They refuse to wear masks and refused work-arounds (such as zoom calls and internet bridge games). A week or so ago the wife was at the post office and the clerk behind the counter said; "Oh, are you Bob's wife? He's a real jerk!" Evidently, though the state mandate had ended by then, there was still a federal mandate, and masks were required in the post office. Bob had previously gotten into a memorable altercation with the clerk when asked to wear a mask.

This is where we are at as a society? This is what we want for liberty? Seriously?

 

[PeterDonis]

It's worth noting that, even on an extreme libertarian view of society, businesses and schools have a perfect right to do this.

I should note, however, that rather than just exclude people who aren't vaccinated, I think the more reasonable thing to do would be to require anyone who isn't vaccinated to wear a mask. (And to wear it properly--I see many people out in public who don't.)

Of course, that then raises the question of how you tell who is vaccinated and who isn't.

 

[russ_watters]

You're going to have a hard time convincing me that politics is the cause of much of anything. People's politics follows their core beliefs, not the other way around.

Ehh, I'll give you one side of that, but not the other. For COVID it appeared to me that the sides were largely chosen after a couple of months of jockying-for position. But it's possible that as a moderate Republican that's just me rejecting the extreme side of the party. Anyway, I don't want to go too political with this. The groups are what they are, and regardless of the exact reason for the beliefs, the impact is what I'm interested in.

I was thinking there would be a correlation between willingness to be vaccinated for Covid vs. willingness to be vaccinatged (or have your child vaccinated) for childhood illnesses. If there is a correlation, it's pretty weak.

Here there is a correlation. I don't understand why it appears here and not in MMR.

So it's not clear to me why Covid vaccination rates correlated with Flu vaccination rates, but not MMR.

Flu vaccination is mostly voluntary, MMR is essentially mandatory. And for those who pay attention to risk (admittedly it could be a small proportion), the flu vaccine isn't very effective.

 

[russ_watters]

By official confirmed cases. It's estimated that ~10 million died.

I'll go further to say I'm highly skeptical of confirmed/official counts especially in the countries most responsible for global statistics, China and India. And even if China's are accurate, they directly oppose @jack action 's point: whatever success China had came because of extremely harsh and mandatory mitigation efforts/lockdowns.

 

[russ_watters]

It's worth noting that, even on an extreme libertarian view of society, businesses and schools have a perfect right to do this.

As a libertarian myself, I don't like the government trying to impose such restrictions by force on everyone...

So, yeah, it will be interesting to see if governments are going to do it as well (e.g., for public schools). Perhaps not.

 

[PeterDonis]

So, yeah, it will be interesting to see if governments are going to do it as well (e.g., for public schools). Perhaps not.

AFAIK public schools already require kids to have the standard vaccinations that have been around for decades (MMR, polio, etc.). One roadblock right now to adding COVID vaccine to the list might be the fact that the COVID vaccines aren't fully approved yet; what is being done right now is still a clinical trial (being done under emergency use authorization) which just happens to be using the entire population of the country (or at least everyone who chooses to get vaccinated) as the sample.

 

[PeroK]

I'll go further to say I'm highly skeptical of confirmed/official counts especially in the countries most responsible for global statistics, China and India. And even if China's are accurate, they directly oppose @jack action 's point: whatever success China had came because of extremely harsh and mandatory mitigation efforts/lockdowns.

I watched a BBC news item about how the Delta variant got to the UK. The figures that were quoted were that 6% of arrivals from Pakistan and 5% of arrivals from India (in late March and early April) tested postive. Those are extraordinary and terrible numbers. But, at the same time, Pakistan was not reporting any large number of cases. It's anybody's guess what's happening in countries like that.

Those figures are given just after 2 mins into the piece.

 

[PeroK]

AFAIK public schools already require kids to have the standard vaccinations that have been around for decades (MMR, polio, etc.). One roadblock right now to adding COVID vaccine to the list might be the fact that the COVID vaccines aren't fully approved yet; what is being done right now is still a clinical trial (being done under emergency use authorization) which just happens to be using the entire population of the country (or at least everyone who chooses to get vaccinated) as the sample.

The UK has just reached 80% of the adult population who have had at least one jab (and nearly 60% have had two jabs). So, yes, it's one hell of a trial!

 

[atyy]

I should note, however, that rather than just exclude people who aren't vaccinated, I think the more reasonable thing to do would be to require anyone who isn't vaccinated to wear a mask. (And to wear it properly--I see many people out in public who don't.)

Of course, that then raises the question of how you tell who is vaccinated and who isn't.

What is the reason behind asking people who aren't vaccinated to wear a mask? Are they harming anyone apart from themselves (assuming everyone has already had the opportunity to be vaccinated)?