outbreak! (ebola, sars, coronavirus, etc)

I should probably say: over the past year

otoh maybe these people already suffer from chronic gum disease: https://www.scientificamerican.com/custom-media/healthy-mouth-healthy-body/chronic-gum-disease-may-harm-brain-joints-and-gut/

Re Tampa Bay article: this also means that vaccinated people who are infected are less likely to spread COVID overall, even if they are equally likely to spread it at peak viral load.

The key thing in all of this is that it's a matter of probabilities, which a lot of people struggle with. If the question is merely can a vaccinated person spread COVID, then the answer is obviously yes. And without a doubt, an infected person is infinitely more likely to spread COVID than someone who isn't infected, regardless of vaccination status. But these are not particularly helpful facts. The important question is what percentage risk reduction comes with vaccination. From what I can tell, vaccination provides significant risk reduction of infection, spread, hospitalization, and death, but that reduction is somewhat less with Delta, especially wrt infection and spread.

conservative parents have latched onto is the belief that masks cause gum disease.

lol, i've never heard this. but i would guess the line of reasoning went:

1. gum disease is going up
2. more people are wearing masks
3. masks cause gum disease

while ignoring the part where fewer people are going to the dentist because of covid (20%, i believe)

― Karl Malone, Tuesday, August 17, 2021 12:05 PM (fifty-nine minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

I wonder if telling conservatives that fluoride helps with gum disease will allay their fears.

http://www.cia.edu/files/cinematheques/films/detail/drstrangelove.jpg

that's what the contrails are for

is what i heard

xxposts: I guess the reasoning could be: what's the point of taking care of your teeth if nobody can see them? I bet lipstick sales are down too, for instance.

outta sight, outta altoids

A Florida school board is set to hold an emergency meeting this week to consider a mask mandate as more than 5,000 students and hundreds of employees in its district are in isolation or quarantine because of a surge in coronavirus cases and possible exposure.

Hillsborough County Public Schools, which includes Tampa, said Monday that 5,599 of the district’s students and 316 of its staff were either in isolation because of a positive test or in quarantine after coming into close contact with someone who tested positive.

The meeting Wednesday comes as the district’s case count, which stands at around 730, is nearly 20 times higher than it was at the same time last year.

“We’re at that place,” the board’s chair, Lynn Gray, told the Tampa Bay Times. “It’s unavoidable.”

roffles

Breaking: Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott has tested positive for COVID-19.

— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) August 17, 2021

a fox nation wonders: will he be tempted by the forces of darkness and government regulation during his great trial, or will he instead be like trump and return stronger than ever, ripping his mask off and posing in the balcony

A Florida school board is set to hold an emergency meeting this week to consider a mask mandate as more than 5,000 students and hundreds of employees in its district are in isolation or quarantine because of a surge in coronavirus cases and possible exposure.
Hillsborough County Public Schools, which includes Tampa, said Monday that 5,599 of the district’s students and 316 of its staff were either in isolation because of a positive test or in quarantine after coming into close contact with someone who tested positive.

I would guess a lot of school districts are gonna say "our current policy is messing up school completely as thousands of students are forced to be home because of positive tests triggering quarantine, so we have to regretfully drop the testing and quarantine requirements"

Abbott is not a fat fuck in his 70s like Trump and he was instantly put on hyperexpensive treatment, he is going to sail through with minimal symptoms and emerge even more convinced that it's fine for everybody else in Texas to get sick unblunted by vaccine

Did he take a vaccine?

Apparently, yes. Though he is in a wheelchair, but I don't think that puts him any more at risk for serious illness. Reported that he is in good health, asymptomatic and getting special treatment. But hey, maybe he'll just keep getting it!

me, dancing about the house, singing: I HOPE YOU DIE, GREG ABBOTT, I HOPE YOU DIE!!!

wife: He's vaccinated, he's not going to die.

me: DON'T GET IN THE WAY OF MY PRAYERS DIE, GREG ABBOTT, MOTHERFUCKER DIE!!!

Indoor mask mandate reinstated for Chicago effective Fri. And we're not getting hit nearly as hard as some of these places where people are all COME AT ME, COV' (and then dropping dead).

its nice that the vaccines greatly reduce the risk of death but it sucks that it also means the people you really want to die probably wont

is that true though? is that really true?

lol I didn't know until this moment that Abbot suffered a spinal fracture or whatever

massive brain damage too, or I assume so

xpost Yeah, iirc a tree fell on him. Act of god, etc.

Made his fortune with a lawsuit and then his political career with tort reform

Dickhead reportedly got a third shot, too.

Made his fortune with a lawsuit and then his political career with tort reform

the american dream

I understand the schafenfreude, but the majority of people in this thread will probably get COVID sooner or later

No one in this thread is signing laws banning mask mandates though.

I get the schadenfreude and I actively want people in power who are banning mask mandates to die choking on lungfuls of mucus, sorry if that makes me a bad person

Old Lunch always otm

Made his fortune with a lawsuit

Greg Abbot looks like some sort of cursed horror movie character where he's on the verge of crying and thick black liquid is going to flow out of his weirdly sclera-less eyes

this is how you do a headline

Come With Vax Proof or Get Shot On-Site: Raiders Set COVID Rules for Fans https://t.co/x3YDmE39DM

— NBC Los Angeles (@NBCLA) August 17, 2021

looooool

things are really escalating here in the U.S. lately

finally someone is taking appropriate action against antivaxxers

who is ready to get boosted?!

The Biden administration will begin offering coronavirus booster shots Sept. 20, top health officials announced Wednesday, after concluding that a third shot is needed to fight off waning immunity.

In a joint statement from top public-health and medical experts, the administration confirmed that it is developing plans to begin offering the booster shots after reviewing a wide array of data. The plan, which applies only to the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines, calls for Americans to get a booster shot eight months after receiving their second doses. The officials said they expect that a booster shot will be needed for people who received the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, but they are still reviewing data and will announce plans at a later date.

“The available data make very clear that protection against SARS-CoV-2 infection begins to decrease over time following the initial doses of vaccination, and in association with the dominance of the Delta variant, we are starting to see evidence of reduced protection against mild and moderate disease,” the statement says.

8-months after the second dose, for pfizer and moderna, which puts me at the end of November. they're still working on the J&J timeline

reading comprehension/political double-speak challenge!!

first, take a look at this press release by Arizona governor Ducey:

https://azgovernor.gov/governor/news/2021/08/governor-ducey-announces-163-million-increase-pupil-funding-schools

Governor Ducey Announces $163 Million To Increase Per Pupil Funding In Schools

PHOENIX — Governor Doug Ducey today announced district and charter schools following all state laws and remaining open for in-person instruction will be eligible for $163 million in grant funding aimed at boosting per pupil spending.

“Parents have worked tirelessly over the past year and a half to keep their kids on track," said Governor Ducey. "Parents are in the driver’s seat, and it’s their right to make decisions that best fit the needs of their children. Safety recommendations are welcomed and encouraged — mandates that place more stress on students and families aren’t. These grants acknowledge efforts by schools and educators that are following state laws and keeping their classroom doors open for Arizona’s students. My thanks to legislative leadership for working collaboratively over the last couple of months to put more money into K-12 education and ensure schools are in compliance with state law.”

The $163 million, made available through the federal American Rescue Plan, will be distributed through the Education Plus Up Grant program to district and charter schools following all state laws and remaining open for in-person instruction as of August 27 and throughout the remainder of the school year. In response to the pandemic, the federal government provided additional funding to schools in need; however, the federal allocation methodology resulted in significant disparities across schools. The goal of the Education Plus Up Grant Program is to give every K-12 public and charter school the opportunity to receive up to $1,800 per pupil funding.

In order to close the federal per pupil funding gap, the Governor’s new grant program will provide supplemental dollars to schools that did not receive as much federal funding. Education Plus Up Grant funding is contingent on being in full compliance with state law, including Laws 2021, Chapter 404, the FY 2022 K-12 Budget Reconciliation Bill for the entirety of the 2021-2022 school year.

“We're making historic, targeted investments to ensure all students across Arizona have access to new opportunities, help adult students connect with jobs, strengthen literacy education in K-12 schools, enhance professional development for teachers, and expand access to high quality education,” the Governor added. “Students continue to excel in and out of the classroom as they recover from the effects of the pandemic and distance learning, and we will continue to put our resources toward helping them succeed."

did you catch what they're doing? click the spoiler thing below for a two-sentence translation

in Arizona, Ducey and his fellow murderers decided to ban mask mandates for schools. to reward those school districts that also like to murder people, he is willing to fork out some of the $163M in Covid funding from the federal government.

of course, all Arizona school districts are VERY well funded!

(thinking of Abbbottt's school district, which I believe is in AZ - she recently had to do a instagram fundraiser to help buy school supplies for her students)

all you have to do get the extra money is follow "all state laws", how hard could it be?

Dropping a Ducey on public health.

new red state governor initiative: if you just want to fucking kill yourself, we'll give you $2000! it'll be like families that died in afghanistan

I get the schadenfreude and I actively want people in power who are banning mask mandates to die choking on lungfuls of mucus, sorry if that makes me a bad person

― Marty J. Bilge (Old Lunch)

special shout out for Cardinal Raymond Leo Burke, https://www.cbsnews.com/news/raymond-leo-cardinal-burke-catholic-ventilator-covid-19-misinformation/

St Louis Cardinal Raymond Leo Burke:

The cardinal also repeated a conspiracy theory that falsely claims vaccines could used to implant microchips. "There is a certain movement to insist that now everyone must be vaccinated against the coronavirus COVID-19, and even that a kind of microchip needs to be placed under the skin of every person, so that at any moment, he or she can be controlled regarding health and regarding other matters, which we can only imagine as a possible object of control by the state," he said.

first of all, willie mcgee is shaking his damn head at Burke. "that's no cardinal, he say". secondly, i was hoping the whole conspiratorial overload thing would be mostly confined to white evangelicals, but i shouldn't be surprised to see that catholic leaders also have an interest in making sure their followers are completely misinformed and take the wrong stance on everything, absolutely fucking everything

*
"that's no cardinal", willie mcgee says.

Hell of a read.

https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2021-08-17/vaccinated-covid-doctor-shot

Hell of a read.

By now there must be more than a hundred very similar stories that have been presented in the media in the past couple of months, though maybe not so blunt and well written. Vaccination rates have budged up a little, but on the whole none of this seems to be getting through to multitudes.

I can forgive the unvaccinated who live so near the fringes of society, sometimes non-English-speaking, poor or homeless, living hand to mouth, who can barely make it though the day, let alone take decisive steps to seek out vaccination. Plain fools like that patient in the LA Times story, who had every chance to learn, every chance to get the vaccine, deserve no particular sympathy. It's like seeing someone get their foot stuck in a bucket and then not figuring out how to get the bucket off so they just clomp around with it on their foot until they die.

Related:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2021/08/18/alabama-doctor-unvaccinated-patients-valentine/

Tangential but tragic:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/08/18/texas-couple-declined-covid-19-vaccine-died-orphans/

Let me know if anyone wants/needs the stories cut and pasted.

The Biden administration, escalating its fight with Republican governors who are blocking local school districts from requiring masks to protect against the coronavirus, will use the Department of Education’s civil rights enforcement authority to deter states from banning universal masking in classrooms, Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona said Wednesday.

The move puts the department at the center of bitter local debates over how to mitigate against the coronavirus in schools, just as the highly infectious Delta variant is fueling a spike in pediatric cases. Mr. Cardona said he was acting at the direction of President Biden, who is scheduled to speak about the pandemic later Wednesday and to instruct the department to use all of its powers to ensure a safe return to in-person learning this fall.

“The president is appalled, as I am, that there are adults who are blind to their blindness, that there are people who are putting policies in place that are putting students and staff at risk,” Dr. Cardona said in an interview on Wednesday, referring to bans on mandatory masks in schools in more than half a dozen states.

“At the end of the day,” he said, “we shouldn’t be having this conversation. What we’re dealing with now is negligence.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/18/us/politics/biden-masks-schools-civil-rights.html

Next thing you know, the Republicans will be calling for the dissolution of the Department of Education.

hence why I stocked up a few days ago on ketchup, my favorite vegetable.

wasn't the dept of education one of rick perry's infamous "2 out of 3" list of agencies he wanted to dismantle?

"Commerce, Education, and the … what's the third one there? Let's see."

(EPA)