outbreak! (ebola, sars, coronavirus, etc)

We already know all this in the UK btw.

sorry, the American way is that nothing counts until we personally experience it ourselves

No comment.

not only that, but I grew up in Missouri - "the show me state". we were taught this dogmatic shit in elementary school

We're that Zillow commercial.

ME
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Is the Aussie zero covid policy collapsing

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/jul/21/australias-pm-defends-covid-vaccine-rollout-as-half-of-population-awakes-in-lockdown

"I guess it's possible that COVID deaths are being massively underreported everywhere in Africa except Namibia."

Yeah the biggest problem with these graphs are the variance on data collection.

Worth a read.

https://www.al.com/news/2021/07/im-sorry-but-its-too-late-alabama-doctor-on-treating-unvaccinated-dying-covid-patients.html

“One of the last things they do before they’re intubated is beg me for the vaccine. I hold their hand and tell them that I’m sorry, but it’s too late.”

Film this scene for a PSA. Don't hold any punches.

“They cry. And they tell me they didn’t know. They thought it was a hoax. They thought it was political. They thought because they had a certain blood type or a certain skin color they wouldn’t get as sick. They thought it was ‘just the flu’. But they were wrong. And they wish they could go back. But they can’t. So they thank me and they go get the vaccine. And I go back to my office, write their death note, and say a small prayer that this loss will save more lives.”

Film this scene for a PSA. Don't hold any punches.

Shown before every movies, inserted into every streaming ad. Remember at the start of the pandemic when all the streaming sites were getting safety tips and CDC screens? That, but with this.

Make sure this PSA has a voice track comprised of the gasps and wheezes of COVID patients asphyxiating.

Maybe a Herman Cain hologram should deliver the message.

do they actually think the vaccine will go and start attacking the virus that's already in their body?

Yes?

Yes, because this is what happens when critical thinking skills have been utterly sledgehammered.

I mean these people being described have basically just completely given up on thinking for themselves on any meaningful level. They read a thing on Facebook and it becomes insta-tattooed on their brains as knowledge.

I just sent this article to an unvaccinated friend in Florida. This was her response. She's going to be another person killed by Trump and GOP lies. pic.twitter.com/Z3rQiJWGjv

— Trump & GOP murdered 623,000 + 🇺🇸 🌊 (@KatCapps) July 21, 2021

Hope you're ready for your soul to move to a new temple pretty soon.

I mean obviously I know they think that, the question was more one of feigned incredulity at how dumb people are to think "well if COVID isn't a hoax, I guess I can just get the vaccine last minute and be ok". it's the whole Protestant "I can beg forgiveness on my deathbed" belief.

the hilarious thing is how it doesn't make sense for Trumpers to actually actively bash the vaccine as Trump went out of his way to try and take full credit for Operation Warp Speed, which we talked about the other day when Fox talking heads started asking people to take it seriously.

like the vaccine is harmful, but your President claims he helped develop it and singlehandedly brought it to market himself, so...you're saying he's poisoning you? or that liberals messed with the vaccine he created and are now killing us? or there's no virus, or that the virus is

malfunction malfunction

1 0 0 1 0 0 1 S O S

*shutdown*

it's the whole Protestant "I can beg forgiveness on my deathbed" belief.

even then, though, it can be complicated. even when patients get put on ventilators and ECMO, there's this denial that runs through everything. "oh, it's just for an afternoon because he had a bad reaction to some of those tranquilizers from earlier." then a week passes and the patient is still unconscious

xp Shock horror scenes in PSAs are ki d of notoriously bad at changing behavior--they tend to create denial, instead.

i think a common but rarely voiced belief among white evangelicals is that they believe the virus is god's punishment in some way, and that they will be spared because they're true believers. like the final plague in Exodus, the one the true believers were spared from because they smeared lamb blood (or whatever) above their doors. or the great flood, when noah was spared and the non-believers were not. or sodom and gomorrah.

i think my dad and many other racist evangelicals probably also had similar thoughts during the AIDS epidemic, and there's certainly a long line of southern preachers who have filled up many a sunday morning with warnings about how god is punishing various enormous groups of people for their wickedness. it's in the blood. white christians grow up with this shit, and by the time they're 70 years old, they're the ones passing it on to new generations

would accept that blood if it came with prime rib

oh man, if i ran a novelty crucifixion restaurant, the special would definitely be christ's punctured prime rib, served rare

Salmon served over rice pilate

There’s pretty strong evidence that the vaccines help with long covid, so it’s not actually that crazy to think it might help someone with the disease. (Seems like they don’t, but it’s not nuts to wonder.)

"this is his body. and this is his blood. hot sauce is by the napkins, and i'll be back in a bit to see you how that bloody mary is treating you!"

xp Shock horror scenes in PSAs are ki d of notoriously bad at changing behavior--they tend to create denial, instead.

Doubt it could make the denialism about COVID and vaccines any worse than it already is so...

Tbh I've been warning people to stay out of FL for years

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/delta-variant-doctor-cautions-americans-about-traveling-to-florida-145905680.html

If only Gillum had won

I posted that tweet because it seems obvious to me that gory PSAs would simply be perceived as propaganda...which would be literally true!

Might be worth it anyway to catch the fence-sitters though idk, these people are inscrutable to me

Sorta lucky that Miami-Dade's at 72% jabs.

fauci told rand paul he had no idea what he was talking about, the other day, in a senate hearing. he's said that several times before, but indirectly. this time he just told him he had absolutely no idea what he was talking about.

U.S. Senator Rand Paul will make a criminal referral to the U.S. Department of Justice against Dr. Anthony Fauci, the head of the infectious diseases department at NIH. Paul’s threat was first announced on Sean Hannity’s Fox News show on Tuesday night and came after Fauci pushed back against the senator’s aggressive questioning during a senate committee hearing in Washington D.C.

“I will be sending a letter to the Department of Justice asking for a criminal referral because he has lied to Congress,” Senator Paul told Sean Hannity.

Might be worth it anyway to catch the fence-sitters though idk, these people are inscrutable to me

― rob, Wednesday, July 21, 2021 11:07 AM (fifty-four seconds ago) bookmarkflaglink

It's like they sit around all day every day with a cocked and loaded gun in their mouths just waiting for some external force to pull the trigger for them.

i want to swing rand paul around by his ankles like a stomach-turning carnival ride that won't stop

XxXpost We're at like 53% I think.

Kind of expected to be higher

xp

they do! the best thing that can happen to them is to die via non-suicide. suicide = hell, so you have to die in a way that's not intentional. but you can also be a martyr and die. there's a loophole. a covid martyr, against the sign of the beast. or whatever. backdoor into heaven before the concert starts!

when Rand Paul gets sick and goes to the hospital, he should only have one choice of doctor, the doctor who was approved by his own independent licensing and oversight board, not the one all other doctors use.

ladies and gentleman, Dr Old Lunch

I think I just got a dopamine rush from that hypothetical scenario.

AND HOW ARE WE TODAY, RAAAAAAAND?
https://t4.ftcdn.net/jpg/02/81/18/39/360_F_281183906_vpaIAacYDmBumBfjtxdMiuZ2owz67Xbs.jpg

"that they didn't reach their quota"

I think this is the most frustrating part of it, I think people are fundamentally driven by the idea that what's important is keeping Biden from getting a "win" -- if Biden announced a national goal of zero perforated colons a lot of these people would be sitting on the nearest sharp stick immediately

or the great flood, when noah was spared and the non-believers were not

you mean the thing God explicitly promises he is never doing again, right

I never before wondered what the offspring of James Murphy and Bobby Moynihan would look like, but now I know!

i don't know that there are many times in modern US history where lockdowns and preventive measures would have gone over well, or where we'd get 75% of the country vaccines, but it certainly *feels* like we would have had at least better progress on this 20+ years ago, pre-9/11.

Yeah, sometime prior to irredeemable shitbaggery becoming such a widespread aspirational state.

xp standard Christian answer is “promised he wouldn’t destroy everyone again via a great flood, you mean! Which is why global warming is a hoax, because rising sea water isn’t going to destroy us again, god’s word, and because I think climate change is only about sea levels I guess!?”

meanwhile, I think Macron is announcing something big? I saw a mistranslation of the French a while back, waiting for actual French translator

God said he wouldn't flood the entire world again, just the places where there are libs

meanwhile, I think Macron is announcing something big?

"Pizza for everybody."