outbreak! (ebola, sars, coronavirus, etc)

this winter storm slowing the pace of vaccinations in the US is very unfortunate (though those in Texas without water, that probably isn't the first thing on their mind atm).

re: lack of vaccine enthusiasm, I think a part of the issue is that people don't read cautionary news properly. when a healthcare professional says you having two shots of the vaccine doesn't mean you should go out clubbing again immediately or stop masking, they mean "we haven't determined yet if this actually stops or reduces transmission, and until then, to be on the safe side, we should continue as previously". the general public hears "this is a useless vaccine, because you can't merely resume your normal activities right after you get it". There was a meme circulating broadly saying exactly that a few weeks ago.

likewise, the moment news broke that it is possible that vaccines could be partially or fully neutralized by some or all of the variants, friends of mine began braying loudly that the vaccine didn't work against *any* variants...even the ones we now know it does work against with about the same success rate. any corrections or clarifications issued later are useless, the public often goes by what they heard first.

Even though they shouldn't have to, it really does mean folks like the CDC, WHO, and other public speakers have to strongly caveat what they're saying - "this is just a precaution, it doesn't mean the vaccine doesn't work, but we want to err on the side of caution until we have stronger data regarding its effect on transmissibility".

if the vaccine were owned by the federal government or just generally open for use, i daresay a lot of the issues we're running into regarding distribution would evaporate.

Fauci sounded confident yesterday that the storm delays wouldn't be trouble after a few days.

I’m assuming you mean distribution inside the US there. It’s takes four months to make a batch of mRNA vaccine. No supply chain problems will ever evaporate given that lead time. We’re dependent on decisions made months ago.

I'm wondering if the flip side of the storm delays is that it kept lots of people stuck inside and slowed down transmission

true

Fun fact: the covid crisis has produced over 1200 new words in German over the past year. Personal favourites are coronamüde (tired of covid) & Impfneid (envy of those who have been vaccinated).

— Liz Hicks (@LizHcks) February 21, 2021

Impfneid is the name of my nu metal band

ride the impfneid

Impfneid to say goodbye and I choke, try to walk away and I stumble

Incredible what Chile is achieving in their vaccination rollout.

Within the last three weeks Chile overtook all EU countries.
Now they are catching up to the US.

[all our @OurWorldInData data on all countries https://t.co/7lOyDamxxx] pic.twitter.com/Bh8xZTu28v

— Max Roser (@MaxCRoser) February 22, 2021

Just re-upping this since there’s a new strange doubling down on one side of the “schools” debate. Here we see that moving from safe schools (hybrid/distanced) to 100% in-person has not worked well. Schools can be safe if you try. Here’s the opposite of try https://t.co/nlK358haQq

— Eli Perencevich, MD MS🧼 😷 (@eliowa) February 23, 2021

That's an insanely misleading tweet. The order didn't even go into effect until February 15.

so you're saying ... it's going to go up more?

If you want to show that schools increase the spread, you would have to (1) compare children in school to children not in school and (2) compare numbers of children positive before school to after school. This is really basic shit. You'd also have to look at the level of precautions taken. And ideally you'd want to look at other districts that have gone hybrid. Oh wait, we already have tons of those!

My district has been hybrid since October. We haven't seen massive numbers of child cases and there are no confirmed examples of spread in school (one possible). No clusters in school either. We don't have particularly large spaces either -- the district was actually due to for expansion when COVID hit because of overcrowding. It's ridiculous to just say, without context "X children got COVID, therefore school is dangerous"

*have gone full in-person, not have gone hybrid

i think it's a fair criticism that tweet involves some sleight of hand.

but if cases are already not low (i.e. those numbers) and then you open schools to in person instruction without precautions (which is what they're doing in iowa to own the libs) then what do you think is going to happen? it doesn't require a double blind analysis with control groups to answer this question btw. and i'm not saying most schools should not be open in some form.

if cases are already not low (i.e. those numbers) and then you open schools to in person instruction without precautions (which is what they're doing in iowa to own the libs) then what do you think is going to happen?

Doing it without a mask mandate is very dumb. However, are you assuming all kids are currently being held in individual plastic bubbles? Because what's actually happening is they are being exposed via friends and relatives and at daycare centers and activities. At least in school you have a controlled environment. I wouldn't assume you're going to see massive spikes just because more kids go to school.

“daycare centers and activities” are currently very much not happening in the uk fwiw

However, are you assuming all kids are currently being held in individual plastic bubbles? Because what's actually happening is they are being exposed via friends and relatives and at daycare centers and activities.

A modest proposal: every teacher in America should be vaccinated as a priority and schools should make that easy by having the ability to commandeer x-amount of vaccine, then offer cash incentivization with federal-sourced bonuses and anyone who can't/won't has to support hybrid learning.
Get your teachers both jabs and wait two weeks and put everybody who can be back in class with mandatory masks. Presto, schools are open no later than April.
I do not understand why this is not happening. Or rather I do understand why (unions, lack of infrastructure, no one's job to do it, lack of trust in the system and the science) but find it nuts.

Not sure how daycares are relevant here. Are you saying they are following different procedures and school age kids are getting it from younger siblings in daycare?
― 𝔠𝔞𝔢𝔨 (caek), Tuesday, February 23, 2021 3:25 PM (thirty minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

School aged kids get sent to childcare centers because their parents have to work. I know families who do this. It's not only the normal daycare aged kids.

and those are allowed to be open?? wtf!

doesn’t that defeat the point? it’s okay as long as they’re not learning any curriculum??

yeah i guess nurses' and grocery store workers' kids should just stay home by themselves

typically they do remote school from them

are schools in the us not open for children of key workers?

I don't know of any school where a distinction is made in schools for kids based on their parents' jobs.

Sorry, didn't mean that to be snarky at all! But no, as far as I know, schools don't make distinctions like that, which is why child care during COVID is an even bigger mess.

welp

My sister in law works at a daycare and she's been back working full time since.. July? August? They've had to close down five times so far, I think, to quarantine, but they keep opening back up because parents are being forced to work.

havent followed this whole thread, has anyone itt already dunked on man alive, lawyer with nanny, being voice 4 the working class when working class families routinely favor keeping their kids home, esp in comparison to wealthier families?

god forbid I want the same thing for other kids I want for my own kids

except... they don't want what you want

A modest proposal: every teacher in America should be vaccinated as a priority...

The problem here is that the pandemic, by definition, disrupts and endangers every single facet of society and every individual. This means there are too many priorities to be able to satisfy them all as quickly as people desire.

This battle royale of different social groups for priority in the queue was foreseeable, but could only have been forestalled by a strong, central command and control that planned all this out in advance and was impervious to external pressure. This approach was rejected in the USA by the Trump administration. So we have a chaotic process and no one is happy with their lot.

Incredible what Chile is achieving in their vaccination rollout.

Within the last three weeks Chile overtook all EU countries.
Now they are catching up to the US.

[all our @OurWorldInData data on all countries https://t.co/7lOyDamxxx] pic.twitter.com/Bh8xZTu28v
— Max Roser (@MaxCRoser) February 22, 2021
― xyzzzz__, Tuesday, February 23, 2021 8:22 AM (five hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

happy about this but not happy that it might help Piñera in November's election.

they're using the chinese vaccine (china is chile's main trading partner), don't know how efficacious it is. but it doesn't require any special storage so easier to disseminate than moderna and pfizer (though astra zeneca is similar in that respect iirc)

A modest proposal: every teacher in America should be vaccinated as a priority and schools should make that easy by having the ability to commandeer x-amount of vaccine, then offer cash incentivization with federal-sourced bonuses and anyone who can't/won't has to support hybrid learning.
Get your teachers both jabs and wait two weeks and put everybody who can be back in class with mandatory masks. Presto, schools are open no later than April.
I do not understand why this is not happening. Or rather I do understand why (unions, lack of infrastructure, no one's job to do it, lack of trust in the system and the science) but find it nuts.

― That's not really my scene (I'm 41) (forksclovetofu), Tuesday, February 23, 2021 3:40 PM (forty-eight minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

FWIW, I would fully support this (should include staff, not just teachers, but I assume that's what you mean), as long as the goalposts don't then shift to "actually, all the kids need to be vaccinated too." But if you want to know why it's not already happening everywhere, it's in part because we have to first prioritize people who are higher risk, e.g. the people in the categories that are actually much likelier to die or be hospitalized (older people, people with severe health conditions) and the people who face much greater exposure (healthcare workers). But in NY state, at least, teachers are in the group that can currently be vaccinated.

except... they don't want what you want

― Überschadenfreude (sleeve), Tuesday, February 23, 2021 4:29 PM (two minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

I haven't seen a breakdown of what kind of school people currently want by income? I have seen surveys that show the majority of parents prefer either full in person or hybrid over remote school.

"happy about this but not happy that it might help Piñera in November's election."

Tories to hit 50% by July

I haven't seen the results with my own eyes, as a caveat, but in speaking with two different people who have seen the surveys for our district and refer to them frequently - the results have been very clear and very consistent that the higher the income, the more likely they are to want a return to full time, in person learning.

happened in nisd, too (sa's largest district with >100k students covering a pretty economically diverse area)

https://www.the74million.org/article/educators-wanted-vulnerable-students-to-return-first-for-in-person-learning-but-a-racial-divide-spoiled-their-plans/

in NY state, at least, teachers are in the group that can currently be vaccinated.

Aimless otm that the feds role in this should have been to prioritize and hand down edicts based on a comprehensive reopening plan but the prior administration simply did not care if america lived or died and the current one is mostly making this shit up as quickly as possible... though not fast enough to address low hanging fruit of this variety which is how you end up with movie theaters opening before schools. wheeeeeeeeeeeeeee it is all horribly fucked but the upside is that vaccines appear to actually WORK which is amazing and will hopefully ultimately mitigate everything else, though a bunch of people are gonna get sick and die and 99% of the US will continue to suffer something between serious inconvenience and sophie's choice decisions for no reason except mismanagement in the meantime.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2021/02/23/vaccine-distribution-pfizer-moderna/

i should prob post this in the other thread but i've had a week of MODERNA COVID ARM which i wasn't aware was a thing but actually is a thing. for me it has presented as a raised red welt surrounding the injection site that is sore and sorta itchy. didn't show up until 10 days after the shot! fwiw it has been annoying but not a big deal. My partner's GP prescribed amoxycillin assuming it was an infection and as soon as she got off the antibiotic, she promptly had a red and swollen face and a rash of raised welts all over her body. She took benadryl for three days and took a steroid and it disappeared but it was a weird reaction to an injection she had taken two and a half weeks ago.

neither of us are having any second thoughts about the second shot but i wouldn't blame someone who is not search savvy or able to readily see a doctor if they did after that.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2021/01/27/covid-arm-moderna-vaccine-rash-harmless-side-effect-doctors-say/4277725001/

the important word there is "can," NY teachers (and yes i do mean administrators, lunch ladies, what have you) have to go through the same byzantine "sign up on the internet at 4 in the morning when the new shoes drop" bullshit as everyone else. Not every teacher has hi-speed internet and strangely a lot of them don't have the time to blow on this and still show up for their zoom classes. I'm arguing that the board of ed should have worked to have a separate system with their own supply rather than just throwing them in with everyone else and then pretending that the problem's been solved.

I mean, ok, but you can get it. Lots of teachers I know, including my own wife, were able to do it without that much trouble - yes, it took waking up early, and it was postponed once, but not by very long. Why *shouldn't* teachers have to go through "the same bullshit" as everyone else? Some of that "everyone else" is actually at a proven much higher risk for COVID complications, hospitalization and death than the median teacher.

It's nice to say in theory "let's create a separate priority system for teachers" but that might have literally meant making it take longer for a 65-year-old person with heart disease to get the shot.

didn't you suggest months ago that restricting the vaccine to just specific age groups was a bad thing?

and those are allowed to be open?? wtf!

― Li'l Brexit (Tracer Hand), Tuesday, February 23, 2021 8:59 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

My roommate teaches music at a private religious pre-school in Brooklyn that hasn't closed at all this whole time. Her employer did get all their on-site ppl on the vax list though so she's had both shots now. -___-

Lots of teachers I know, including my own wife, were able to do it without that much trouble

Why *shouldn't* teachers have to go through "the same bullshit" as everyone else?

that might have literally meant making it take longer for a 65-year-old person with heart disease to get the shot.

Why *shouldn't* teachers have to go through "the same bullshit" as everyone else?

This is some race to the bottom bullshit. "We made it terrible for some people, why not make it terrible for ALL people!" "Err, do we have the ability to make it not terrible?" "Sure, but why bother!"

It literally is an "either or" - there are x number of vaccines to distribute, you have to decide how to distribute them, and I prefer people in the categories who make up the vast majority of deaths in this country get them first.