outbreak! (ebola, sars, coronavirus, etc)

meh

i am definitely getting one, cases are going up where i am and i keep hearing breakthrough stories

Got mine yesterday!

If you work in an office or from home, I can understand the lack of urgency. If you've been jabbed for more than two months and deal with the public, I suggest you do.

two = six

I'm tentatively planning to get one in January, but will change plans if clearer guidance comes out

I need to make an appointment for my booster now that I've got my kid's appointments locked in.

I'm waiting for an appointment with my oncologist next week, but sort of want to get one earlier. I should message him.

it will be. https://www.gov.ca.gov/2021/10/01/california-becomes-first-state-in-nation-to-announce-covid-19-vaccine-requirements-for-schools/

― 𝔠𝔞𝔢𝔨 (caek), Tuesday, November 9, 2021 12:40 PM (four hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

i posted that link last time you were saying no kids were going to get vaccinated.

― 𝔠𝔞𝔢𝔨 (caek), Tuesday, November 9, 2021 12:40 PM (four hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

Oh I know what California is doing! But I'm not really aware of other places that have required vaccination for high school students, even places which have been quite vigilant with mask-wearing and vaccination mandates for staff; and all high school students have been vax-eligible since last spring. It seems like most places chose not to do it for high school this fall, and I don't really understand what the difference between this fall and next fall is.

Just a wild ass assumption on my part, but I imagined most districts were/are probably waiting until full approval for all school age kids to incorporate the vaxx into their requirements at once, rather than trying to piecemeal it in for the various age groups.

correct.

xp Could be, we'll see! I mean, assuming endemicity as seems safe it's hard to see why it doesn't eventually go in the rotation with all the rest.

xxp is your point "i don't think schools are going to mandate vaccinations because if they were, they would have done so already?" or are you really asking why they haven't done so already?

It was the first, but I think jvchi2.0's proposed explanation is certainly plausible.

going to say it:

i don't think mask mandates make a ton of sense in public health terms or are very sustainable politically once kids are eligible for vaccination AND basically everything is open at capacity.

neither of those things are true yet, but they're coming.

you can argue that everything should not be open at capacity, but once you take that step, masking is kind of beside the point in public health terms.

(might ask a mod to delete this post, depending on how the winter goes.)

― 𝔠𝔞𝔢𝔨 (caek), Wednesday, November 3, 2021 10:08 AM (six days ago) bookmarkflaglink

tend to agree with this myself, tbh

i got my booster (healthcare worker, pfizer) and it definitely made me feel a little crummy (moreso than the first two) but not too bad. my elderly mom just got hers and bopped over to the UK, so please keep an eye on her thx

xp. right. waiting for the EUA to become legit is reasonable, and then waiting for the start of the subsequent academic year after that is probably simpler as a practical/administrative matter. and that's how you end up with "no later than summer 2022" in CA.

in any case, a lot of school districts (and especially those more likely to enforce vaccine mandates) were closed when the vaccine started rolling out to teenagers around april.

Vax clinic tonight was a rousing success. I worked it for about five hours, every slot filled with 5-11 year olds, all troopers. And Pawfficer Howie, the service dog, was there, too.

Christ

My dad died of COVID on Friday, just as I warned he would. My fury over his refusal of the vaccine is hammered by a sorrow drawn thicker by this fact: my brother did not take him to the hospital. Blames our father's death on "you vaxxed ppl & your "shedding."

— Rachel McKibbens (@RachelMcKibbens) October 27, 2021

My brother died of COVID on Monday. I've learned he left the hospital early, against doctor's recommendation. He never told me that part. He let me think he was getting better. For 9 days, I did what I could to help him. In the end, he died alone. I'm on another planet now. https://t.co/sPLMSKTlzW

— Rachel McKibbens (@RachelMcKibbens) November 11, 2021

Then you have these people

https://news.yahoo.com/covid-vaccine-holdouts-caving-mandates-110008317.html

Just got boosted in a Rite Aid that has not yet updated its design and looks straight out of 1995. Very surreal.

this is starting to hit home a bit now. over the last week I've heard of like a dozen cases among people close to us, including a co-worker in an induced coma (most likely, she will not make it out...out of curiosity I looked her up on FB and yes, her PFP has "I don't care if you're vaccinated" on it), and my 91-year old grandma, who is vaccinated but hasn't had the booster.

so I decided to schedule the booster for yesterday. didn't feel any side effects the first time but I'm definitely a little off from it this morning. unless one 16oz Coors Lite gives me a hangover these days :)

i'm sorry to hear about your grandmother, frogbs, and i hope that the first vaccination is enough to help her.

Best of thoughts for your grandmother, frogbs.

I’m really sorry frogbs, hoping for the best for your grandma

Thanks - I should mention she is in a home, so there’s an outbreak within. I guess a bunch of the residents have it and the admin is pulling 16 hour shifts right now. So far no news so I guess that’s good. Funny thing is I felt kinda guilty cuz I didn’t visit her last week, guess I dodged a bullet

if anybody wants to talk to real people on twitter (for real - not being sarcastic), check the replies to that McKibbens tweet. so much of twitter is full of covid-denier idiots. it's nice to just see real people in the replies

McKibben has limited who can view her tweets, so I guess that the wrong people found it soon enough.

wow. up until just a few minutes ago, i was in there replying and actually getting to interact with people in similar situations! it was really nice

Would rather have some clarity but this is better than the status quo I guess

All California residents 18 and over are now eligible for booster coronavirus vaccine shots. "If you’re interested in getting a booster, go ahead and get one," the state’s secretary of health and human services said. https://t.co/StoSp9LbJh

— The New York Times (@nytimes) November 12, 2021

I’ve been saying

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/nov/12/covid-cases-surging-europe-america-denial

That brings us to the United States, sitting in the zone of denial for the fourth time during the pandemic, thinking that in some way we will be “immune” to what is happening in Europe.

Other than in the usual zombie circles, is this happening in the United States? Serious question.

That somehow the magical combination of mRNA vaccines with only 58% of the population fully vaccinated, a relatively low proportion of booster shot uptake, a start to vaccinating teens and children, and a lot of prior Covid, and little in the way of mitigation, will spare us.

If "us" is the people who are vaccinated and boosted, then ... I think it actually might?

And if "us" means everybody, as it ought to, then how are things like "mass distribute medical quality masks and rapid home testing kits at no cost" or "Promote primary vaccination and boosters like there’s no tomorrow" (what do they think we have been doing?) are going to have much effect. Which unvaccinated people are out there who would start wearing KN95s to the store if only they were free?

thinking that in some way we will be “immune” to what is happening in Europe

On the contrary, it's more that people in Europe thinking that in some way they'll be "immune" to what already happened to us. And why not? Belgium has a caseload per capita way higher than ours but its COVID deaths are still below ours, and we are coming down from our quite recent big surge point. Presumably the Belgians are hoping that their high vaccination rate will keep them from suffering what the United States went through a month ago and it's not obvious they're wrong.

_That brings us to the United States, sitting in the zone of denial for the fourth time during the pandemic, thinking that in some way we will be “immune” to what is happening in Europe._

Other than in the usual zombie circles, is this happening in the United States? Serious question.

I don’t mean to pick on people in this thread though. I’m talking about national and state government, and not the crazy states and crazy people. It’s like the rest of the world doesn’t exist and the best we can do is guess what’s going to happen if we do X.

I skimmed that article and it largely seemed like another one of those "this is a problem with the unvaccinated, but for the unvaccinated" stories. Vaccination still keeps you pretty safe from hospitalization and death, and here at least boosters (and vaccine in general) are increasingly available to anyone that wants them. So if almost two years into a pandemic an unvaxxed person won't get a shot, or another shot, or a third shot, or wear a mask or do anything, that's ... their problem, right? I don't know anyone that doesn't take Covid seriously, and those same people are vaxxed to the max, and still wear masks, etc. And the people that don't take Covid seriously? I don't take *them* seriously. They're gambling on themselves.

Semi-related, I've mentioned I've been participating in a long term antibody study. To be fair, they started the study pre-vaccine, but here's my wonky timeline: test reactive to the two antibody tests c. June 2020, continue to test double-reactive for several months, and then begin testing reactive on one of the two and non-reactive on the other, indicating some of my antibodies may have faded. Would they have bumped up again if I was re-exposed? Dunno. Get vaccinated in April 2021 and test reactive to both antibody tests again, then eventually, months later, again reactive on one but not the other, so ... same thing, maybe they faded, maybe they're just lying in wait. My most recent test was a few weeks ago, and yesterday I get a call that I was reactive twice again (!). Which was a surprise. I ask what they think changed, and they of course don't really know. But they did apparently change one of tests, so maybe it was just more sensitive and my antibodies hadn't really faded at all. Or maybe, she suggested, I had been re-exposed to Covid and the antibody levels spiked. Who knows? And we may never know because I guess the study is ending this December. I do get one more test done at the beginning of December, and I've had my booster, so I assume my antibodies will be robust.

To be clear, I don’t think his recommendations for what we do about this situation are particularly fully formed or realistic. But his description of the situation is correct.

Cases are flying up here but with c.90% vaccination in >18 yr olds hospitalisation, ICU numbers and deaths are not so im not sure where the useful info to be gleaned thru comparison is

the magical thinking goes "things are going to be better here than they are in X" where X is a place with a higher vaccination rate or more equitable access to healthcare. or "we're nearly done" when places with higher vaccination rates are demonstrably not done (this one happened in early summer 2021).

I think there is somethong to the idea that locations with higher vaccination rates are seeing more prolonged or delayed case spikes, but with far fewer deaths, while low vaccination spots in the US had very dramatic spikes with high deaths, but then equally dramatic drops in case rates as the virus ran out of places to go.

We are eventually going to need to let go of the idea that "cases" alone is a significant metric.

the magical thinking goes "things are going to be better here than they are in X" where X is a place with a higher vaccination rate or more equitable access to healthcare. or "we're nearly done" when places with higher vaccination rates are demonstrably not done (this one happened in early summer 2021).

― 𝔠𝔞𝔢𝔨 (caek), Saturday, November 13, 2021 5:25 PM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

There's no magical thinking. People who are vaccinated and in high vaccination areas are going to do better than people who are vaccinated and in low vaccination areas, and people who are vaccinated in low vaccination areas are still going to do better than people who are unvaccinated. There's no magical thinking in assuming the vaccine will protect YOU and YOUR vaccinated loved ones, and I don't think people really care as much if an abstract geographic location has a "spike," they care about the people in their lives. To that extent, I'm "done." Especially now that my kids will be fully vaccinated in several weeks. If there are still vaccine holdouts in my area, I can't expend much energy worrying about them anymore.

The US has had over 1000 deaths per day since august, more per capita than anywhere in Europe all summer (by 2-10x) and we know this number is about to start rising again because … cases are rising, again.

You don’t live in a high vaccination area. You live in a high vaccination area relative only to a bunch of people you apparently don’t care about, but relative to whats actually needed to keep your community safe, and what’s being achieved elsewhere, you don’t live in a high vaccination area.

I’m not trying to tell you you should be more worried. And by all means stop worrying about other people.

I’m saying that politicians and public health officials keep being surprised when things that have happened in other countries happen here. And that doesn’t fill me with optimism about the next six months.

What does "keep my community safe" mean? People who want to be vaccinated in my community are vaccinated by now. I can't expend any more energy worrying about those who refuse. "My community" is made up of people who think it makes sense to get vaccinated. I know almost no one who still refuses. If someone I loved refused, I would worry about them. I don't have extra empathy to spare for people I don't know who insist on not being vaccinated, any more than people who refuse to wear seatbelts or drive drunk.

For what it's worth, my county is 70% fully vaccinated. And my county is geographically very large, and I would guarantee you the area of my county I live in is significantly higher, probably more like 80%. And I would bet my town is higher than that.

Are you a public health official? If not, I’m not talking about you. Do whatever you like.

Actually the state apparently tracks by zip code, and I just learned that mine is 82% fully vaccinated and 97% at least one dose. Not completely clear on whether that includes age groups that only just became eligible, I'd guess not but who knows.

So, in other words, I do in fact live in a high vaccination area.