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BTD,
I’m glad to see a more measured and better supported response.
Do you think that the media reports more on the karmic cases (people who openly resist / refuse preventative measures and get COVID) or report on the reverse (people who take every measure, but end up dying anyway)? My guess is that the media focuses more on the karmic cases than on the reverse, except in high profile cases (such as Jen Psaki, for example, but those stories go away quickly). I suspect that your anecdotal evidence is more evidence of media bias, rather than an accurate assessment of why cases continue to pile up.
Why do you think that advocating for natural immunity (i.e. Dennis Prager) is somehow wrong? Everything we know points to COVID-19 being the fifth endemic coronavirus. This is not a right / left thing.
https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2021/11/what-americas-covid-goal-now/620572/
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-00396-2
The science supports the idea that, if you are of an age / fitness level that you are likely to get a relatively mild infection and not require hospitalization or die, then if you get infected you are unlikely to create a burden on society. For example, science demonstrates that children’s immune systems respond quickly and efficiently to the virus, therefore they are asymptomatic or have very mild infections. This also means they are less likely to shed virus (and shed fewer viruses) than older people.
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanmic/article/PIIS2666-5247(20)30172-5/fulltext
Key part: Pooled mean SARS-CoV-2 shedding duration was positively associated with age (slope 0·304 [95% CI 0·115–0·493]; p=0·0016).
What level of “downplaying the virus” do you feel is a negative? Any downplaying of the risks? There’s the flip side, which is continuing to make policy based on fear / irrational assessments of risk that conservatives are pushing back on (especially re: kids). For example, the risk to children is very small, but Gov. Newsom wants them vaccinated with a vaccine that does not confer immunity. It’s like mandating the flu shot (versus true vaccination versus polio, whooping cough, etc., and even tetanus and other hazards). What about masking kids, closing the schools, etc., which has demonstrated severe psychological effects on children for little to no advantage?
Dear Blue Checks Trying to Figure Out How Parents Became Swing Voters,
Start here.
Kids in US lost more school than any other wealthy nation.
Losses were predominantly in Dem and purple regions.
Is it really any mystery why many see leaders differently?
Source: @unicef pic.twitter.com/Hs3OyqSbJx
— Karen Vaites (@karenvaites) November 2, 2021
A difficult slide from the CDC ACIP meeting today for 5-11 suicides as many -including @LeslieBienen and @JeanneNoble18 – were trying to get statistics on self-harm among children during CDC-supported US school closures. We wrote this piece about it. https://t.co/ljCkhEmfuh pic.twitter.com/KXU7v2t0TE
— Monica Gandhi MD, MPH (@MonicaGandhi9) November 2, 2021
That last tweet and op-ed are devastating re: child suicide. This is from Dr. Gandhi, who is pro-vaccinating children. For the record, I am not for mandating that children get vaccinated, but I am for whatever measures we can take to free them from masking and school closures. That’s also why the masks for thee, but not for me behavior of the political class is so galling to the rest of us. It’s performative, and virtue signaling, rather than effective. It’s also why I think the administration’s inconsistent messaging and constant retractions of guidance is so damaging, and why further efforts to characterize this as a Democrat / Republican issue is to make people feel better about themselves, rather than addressing the real issue. As for other, non-conservative communities that are against the vaccine mandates, bordering on “anti-vaxx,” according to the left’s definitions, please consider the following:
Protest against COVID vaccine mandate led by Inland Empire teachers and parents
That being said, one failing of both administrations has been the failure to develop a cheap, readily accessible rapid test. Rapid testing would be more effective in targeted isolation and effective contact tracing. Instead of locking down everyone, we can identify and isolate people who are likely to be carriers / who are shedding virus. Obviously these tests are available, but why weren’t they approved earlier, and why aren’t they being produced, subsidized and deployed on a mass scale?
We are not. Not that I’m an apologist for anything about how this administration handled this withdrawal, but two withdrawals from history were worse: the Macedonian withdrawal from the Afghan region and the 1842 withdrawal of British troops after the first Anglo-Afghan war.
The 1842 withdrawal is eerily similar: the local warlord was driven out, regrouped, began capturing materiel and then overran the garrison in Kabul. Sir Elphinstone “negotiated” a withdrawal and safe passage to India and set off with 16,000 men, women, and children (about 4,500 troops, and about 12,000 civilians, including the equivalent of translators and their families). One difference: they left in the middle of winter (January). According to some sources, the warlord who took over didn’t control the mountain passes the British were going to take to get to Jalalabad, similar to the whole “ISIS-K” debacle. One British surgeon survived (along with some Indian sepoys).
https://www.sacbee.com/news/local/education/article253866873.html
I-TEAM EXCLUSIVE: 3-year-old California boy stranded in Afghanistan https://t.co/0NrHXVrVt2 via @abc7newsbayarea
— Henry Rodgers (@henryrodgersdc) August 31, 2021
More and more of these are trickling out. There’s the group from El Cajon, too. Ridiculous messaging throughout. But they’re going to get away with it. Why? Because of this:
The same playbook is being used by Klain and others in the administration to distract from Americans being stranded in Afghanistan. https://t.co/lkZyhCw8UB pic.twitter.com/l85018WOJ2
— Cameron Cawthorne (@Cam_Cawthorne) August 31, 2021
What’s your point? I imagine I could put a similar graph up comparing population density and vaccination rates.
Read the last paragraph. In short, the originally posted “study” is a bunch of political scientists manipulating data to try to make people like BTD feel superior to others.
Notice they didn’t break it down by race. Vaccination rates among minorities (not including Asian-Americans) are low.
You want to talk about vaccines and politics? How about Kamala and the Democrats basically telling people the vaccine wasn’t coming, and wasn’t going to be safe on the campaign trail? What about this:
If you think he’s a politically neutral person without a political agenda, maybe he’s the source of the originally posted study, finding data to fit his internal narrative.
“Dr. Eric Topol, head of the Scripps Research Translational Institute, said the gaps in COVID-19 vaccination can be traced directly to political influences, particularly what he called ‘anti-science’ attitudes among Republican leaders.” https://t.co/OystgBsT2E
— Human Climate Genomics (@HumanClimateGen) May 21, 2021
Reminder: Most Americans got smaller tax refunds in 2019, thanks to Trump pic.twitter.com/qTgezBqzR7
— NowThis (@nowthisnews) October 29, 2020
Well, there’s this. The level of ignorance about basic personal finance is astounding. Of course Now This exploits this for political gain. Ridiculous.
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/10/28/wall-street-spends-74-million-to-support-joe-biden.html
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/10/25/us/politics/trump-biden-campaign-donations.html
This is why I yell at the screen when I see ads touting the Park Avenue / Wall Street versus Scranton “line.”
All Donald Trump can see from Park Avenue is Wall Street.
He thinks the economy is doing well if the Dow Jones is doing well.
Believe it or not, Mr. President, most Americans don't live off the stock market.
— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) October 23, 2020
Joe Biden is only interested in allowing Wall Street to take advantage of cheap overseas labor. Wall Street knows this. I’m normally a free trade advocate, but I’m on board with making sure China isn’t stealing our intellectual property, stops dumping cheap goods into the markets, trying to get them to stop manipulating their currency, and reducing American dependence on quasi-slave labor.
Biden’s COVID / economic plan is garbage. We’re in for a rough fall / winter because of COVID. BUT, death rates have held relatively steady (they are going up because cases are rising).
Probably the best way to see the declining severity of Covid (CFR) is the global daily case vs deaths graph.
Since April, daily cases have risen 5x while daily deaths have *fallen* pic.twitter.com/e3DxkIEaeH
— Chris Anderson (@chr1sa) October 28, 2020
Lockdowns do not work. Biden deciding to lock down the economy again would be a disaster. We’d lose an entire generation.
Just out: Depression among U.S. teen girls doubled from 2009 to 2019 and was up 74% among teen boys, according to just-released data from the gov't administered National Survey of Drug Use and Health. What does this mean? pic.twitter.com/H09Pmo7Bss
— Jean Twenge (@jean_twenge) October 29, 2020
The sad thing is, the younger generations will believe the media and blame the GOP / Trump. Oh well.
EXCLUSIVE: Treasury @SecYellen tells @cbsnews’s @nancycordes the president’s new $1.75 trillion spending bill will help drive inflation down. More tonight on the @CBSEveningNews. https://t.co/TNLD1fjYog
— Ed O'Keefe (@edokeefe) October 28, 2021
It’s almost as if these global accords don’t really have any effect, and countries can voluntarily adopt emissions reducing technologies without them.
To be fair to Sec. Yellen, she was saying it’s under consideration. Apparently being pushed by Sen. Wyden. That being said, as a formerly serious economist, she shouldn’t even be mentioning it with a straight face. This is more evidence of the leftist “war on savings” whose end goal is to make everyone dependent on the government for their retirement.
On another note, Sec. Yellen is the second “moderate and respected” member of the administration that I am disappointed in, because they have taken a hard left turn. AG Garland, I’m looking at you.
https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/lectures-from-limousine-liberals
A great read (in addition to the NYT op-ed I linked yesterday) about why the rhetoric that the unvaccinated are morally or otherwise inferior / a danger to you isn’t having the effect you may think.
BTD
Ugh.
“I did observe your comment about antibodies, but I took it to mean you had been infected with COVID since most folks who receive a vaccination wouldn’t otherwise get a subsequent blood test to verify antibodies in their blood.”
How much clearer could I have been? “My blood tests distinguish between my vaccine antibodies and natural antibodies.” The problem with your argument and your evidence in general is that it all depends on mind reading and misinterpreting clear data and language. You created, out of nothing, a scenario where people only get blood tested to confirm natural antibodies? We’re at a point where labs test blood donations (my “blood tests,” plural), and your doctors routine labs for antibodies, in addition to voluntary blood tests for academic studies.
What is the problem that we’re talking about? The raw number of COVID deaths, right? Mick pointed out that there have now been more under Biden than under Trump, an objective truth, and made a comment about Psaki. You tried to say that it’s conservatives/Republicans’ fault because they’re the great unvaccinated. I pointed out that vaccination rates are a complex issue, and the best, most robust explanations aren’t the politically divisive ones, but complex race, age, education, and income ones. I further pointed out that the Biden / Harris administration’s messaging isn’t uniting, it’s divisive, and it isn’t effective. Then you continued to push the “it’s conservatives’ fault” media / DNC narrative. Then I cited evidence showing that it’s a complex problem, and both sides’ messaging is to blame, including early left-wing media as late as January. Then you came back with the main-stream media’s two favorite excuses: the bad stuff our side does lacks context, and it’s really Fox News’ fault.
“The context: they were saying they wouldn’t simply trust the word of Trump – the guy who suggested injecting bleach – but said they would be happy to get vaccinated if there was a scientific consensus that the vaccines were safe.”
You think this is a dunk? You have, yet again, trotted out another media-created lie that has been debunked over and over. The media made up the whole bleach thing. Show me where Trump used the word bleach? Where did that originate? Journalists. It was a complete fabrication and journalists made it up. The transcript shows he said “disinfectant,” and he meant UV light because he talked about the UV presentation just before it and mentioned “the light” during his ramble. Even Politico half-heartedly admits that “swallow bleach” was a media-generated smear. But you swallow the bleach (figuratively) whole and then regurgitate it to try to… justify what Joy Reid, Rachel Maddow, Don Lemon, Joe Biden, and Kamala Harris themselves said? Just shows (again) that you’re unusually susceptible to propaganda and simply repeating MSNBC talking points.
Did you watch your Fox News mashup? Most of it was regarding forcing people to get the vaccine. Newsmax clips? Seriously, CNN? I guess I should just post Keith Olbermann clips to prove my points from now on.
Then Brianna Kehler cites a statistic that no people in L.A. County had been hospitalized who was fully vaccinated? Was that even true at the time? Let’s be clear. The COVID shot is very much like the flu shot. It’s not a vaccine in the traditional sense (dead virus shells, triggering an accurate antibody response that prevents infection). It greatly reduces the risk of hospitalization and death (and that’s great), but it isn’t the magic bullet the CNN talking heads are trying to sell to make themselves seem virtuous after eighteen months of lying to us.
There were 3,000 new cases of COVID-19 in San Diego this past week.
– 1,591 breakthrough cases
– 1,334 cases among the not fully vaccinated.
54% of cases in San Diego were from fully vaccinated individuals.— Justin Hart (@justin_hart) October 17, 2021
Again, the COVID shots work. Full-stop. They dramatically reduce the chances of hospitalization and death. But they aren’t a cure-all / true vaccine, and COVID-zero isn’t an achievable goal. Stop trying to send a different message re: vaccinated versus unvaccinated and who is a danger to who. It’s not working as a message. We need to work on convincing the unvaccinated to get vaccinated, not by political party, but based on what the data actually shows. Pushing the “it’s conservatives’ fault” narrative, or that the vaccinated / unvaccinated divide is the only reason why life hasn’t returned to normal isn’t only incorrect and divisive, it’s counter-productive.
This op-ed (with cites to evidence!) makes my point. This is a complex problem, and attempting to paint it as a one-variable political problem isn’t helping.
That being said, one-size fits all vaccine mandates aren’t helping either. So there. That’s two concrete examples of Biden / Harris policies / messaging that are garbage and not helping. I cited another example, the Biden administration’s lies about Ron Desantis being anti-vax (he’s been pro vaccine for the elderly, then the obese / those with co-morbidities, then those with other issues since the beginning of the rollout), and trying to demonize his policies. Then they took away Florida’s allotment of monoclonal antibodies for political reasons, when Florida began experiencing better outcomes than a state with the number of infections it was reporting.
Don’t get me started on masking / vaccinating kids. That’s idiotic policy being dictated by the teachers’ unions. And of course Gavin Newsom mandates vaccinations for kids as retribution for the recall effort.
Many of us said in March 2020 that overreacting to the pandemic would cause massive suffering.
We were right.
These stories are from just the past 10 days: pic.twitter.com/rnroDjUBg1
— The Robber Baron (@Robber_Baron_) October 19, 2021
Have you, perchance, heard of Doggerland?
[quote quote=5387]rodgepodge: I suppose you should ask Mick why he chose to politicize it. I was responding to him when he implied it was Biden’s fault that cases had risen and made a snide comment about Psaki. You think this post from Mick wasn’t political?
I didn’t say a word about Covid for months until he posted this. You don’t like my KFF numbers, but I also cited Gallup. The latest Pew poll has similar results. And anecdotally I’ve seen many clips and heard of many conservative talking heads pushing an anti vax agenda. I haven’t come across that on the left, except for some fringe folks. I mean your own post finished by explaining how vaccinations aren’t so important for many people… So yes, I believe the ~90% number. And I also believe the much lower number for conservatives. If you don’t want to get vaccinated, don’t. Good luck to you.[/quote]
Huh. Calling the President to account for bad COVID policy means that what, we start the blame game? AND you’re saying it’s a one variable problem? Quit pushing a narrative that 1) isn’t solving the problem, and 2) only demonstrates that you’re unusually susceptible to accepting political polarization and blame, rather than looking at the underlying data for a complex problem and trying to find a solution.
You keep citing survey results, but the actual data on who is vaccinated tells a different story that is correlated with political affiliation, but significantly more strongly correlated with other factors. Then you throw out the “cherry picking” argument? Are you serious?
No leftist vaccine hesitancy? You mean this:
Here’s a mashup of VACCINE MISINFORMATION from Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.
Does Jen Psaki want Big Tech to CENSOR this?pic.twitter.com/vqnucmZjnj
— Kyle Martinsen (@KyleMartinsen_) July 16, 2021
or this (reinforcing my point about the overeducated):
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/09/what-do-lefty-anti-vaxxers-do-now/620092/
Also, don’t indulge in the Orwellian conflation of “anti-vax” and being against vaccine mandates.
“If you don’t want to get vaccinated, don’t. Good luck to you.”
Nice ad hominem, so I’ll return the favor. You clearly lack reading comprehension. I said in my post I have vaccine antibodies as confirmed by blood tests. If your defense is oh, I meant everybody, not you, then why do you care to try to blame conservatives? My point is that we need to quit using divisive language (political or otherwise) and enact good COVID policy to get people vaccinated, to protect the people who need to be protected, and get life back to normal. We don’t need to trample on civil liberties and the Constitution to do it.
When Trump was President, the media would post things like, “X number of deaths under Trump.” Or COVID has now caused “X number of 9/11s.” I didn’t see you being critical when that was happening. Now that the parties have shifted, now you don’t like the casualty counting? Have you watched Psaki struggle / deflect lately? You never made a snarky comment about Kaleigh McEnany (who to her credit at least was well prepared). Maybe you have buyer’s remorse because you (and the American people) were sold vague solutions to a complex problem, and now that it turns out even with three vaccines and better therapeutics, the administration hasn’t “shut down the virus,” and in fact things have gotten arguably worse?
in other news, keep in mind this investigation is into WFT, not jon gruden. no telling what else is gonna come out.
here's what i'm curious about: what comes up in that file of emails when you search for "robert griffin?"
— bomani (@bomani_jones) October 12, 2021
The NFL got Gruden out with the leaks; mission accomplished.
But the public/fans/media is going to want to know more about these 650,000 emails.
Wasn't this case about the toxic workplace of the Washington Football Club?
This feels like this is just the beginning, not the end.— Andrew Brandt (@AndrewBrandt) October 12, 2021
Someone from the NFL took these e-mails and leaked them. Not sure if there’s a protective order (there should have been). I guess in this day and age, there aren’t going to be any repercussions from taking something produced pursuant to an internal investigation into sexual harassment / misconduct by the WFT and turned against someone who wasn’t working for them at the time (and hasn’t been accused of sexual harassment / misconduct). There are 650,000 e-mails, as the two commenters have said. I wonder who else’s e-mails will get leaked. Anyhow, Jon Gruden should be on the phone to a lawyer.
BTD, why don’t you quit pushing the political aspect of vaccination and work on what will actually get people vaccinated? If it was truly a political issue, you’d see 90-10 splits both ways, not a majority of Republicans vaccinated.
The Kaiser Family Foundation? Who has been pushing this political polarizing angle despite knowing that the correlation was garbage compared to age, income, education level (both ends), and other factors? You mean these guys?
https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs//totals?id=D000039180&cycle=A
Also, have you seen the non-KFF data (instead of survey numbers) for the young, the uneducated (and overeducated), union members, and minority communities (other than Asians)? Compared the R coefficients to political party? And, given your understanding of how these majority unvaccinated groups voted, do you really believe the 90+ number? You know what Democrats are really good at? Virtue signaling to strangers in a survey.
The messaging from the governments has been counterproductive garbage. Trying to get minorities vaccinated with animated raps and celebrities? Telling people the unvaccinated are a danger to the vaccinated? What does that tell the unvaccinated? That the vaccine doesn’t work. And then the vaccinated who believe that the unvaccinated are a danger to them… well, then the vaccinated are a danger to them, as are their kids, as are… everyone (except undocumented migrants). All stick and no carrot isn’t getting the unvaccinated vaccinated. The messaging has to be clear, the vaccines reduce the chances of hospitalization and death. You and your family get vaccinated, you can go places without a mask. Is it 100%? No. But will it allow you and your family to have Thanksgiving and Christmas together. Also, quit listening to Fauci. His ego (and Disney+) is writing checks his brain can’t cash.
You going to bring up science? Then why mandate that people with natural antibodies get vaccinated? There’s no scientific basis for trying to trigger an immune response in people who have superior protections for… no reason? The only logical reason for mandating vaccines and not accounting for natural antibodies is because they want to eliminate the control. Also, we can test for natural antibodies, so it can’t be faked. (My blood tests distinguish between my vaccine antibodies and natural antibodies). So why not exempt the already infected from the vaccine? (By your logic, by the way, more Republicans got infected / died pre-vaccine, anyway).
The known side-effects are treatable, with the proper monitoring and are better than the cytokine storm that leads to hospitalization and death. We have better therapeutics, and know more than before. Things are looking up, and will improve with your help.
Don’t forget the Afghans, brought over here because they were let out of Bagram’s prison or the Kabul prison, and managed to push SIV holders and real translators out of the way. No vetting, just chaos.
BREAKING: Gen. McKenzie, head of U.S. Central Command, to announce no ISIS-K fighters killed in U.S. drone strike in Kabul Aug 29. 10 civilians killed, including 7 children in Toyota. No disciplinary action expected, officials say. US military stands by intel leading to strike.
— Lucas Tomlinson (@LucasFoxNews) September 17, 2021
No discipline expected. Stands by… getting fed back a target by the Taliban, possibly stolen from the biometric database…. Grand.
