possibly bc some or many ppl realize that those we elect are not in charge of shit, and the real government is a bunch of psychopaths and financial predators with the stated goal of mass genocide, hence fluoride in our water to “help” us, just like those mercury-laced vaccines. But i do wish you the best of luck. Public school? Ha, and i guess you’re gonna need it then

just tried again, fail

seems covered well enough by “ignore” eh

so, they make us codependent, and then rely on our codependence to “we’re all in this together” bs, when wadr the immunocompromised can take care of themselves, right? they can isolate, wear masks, or even improve their immunity, should they so desire.

Were i compromised, i might be doing those things myself; but i would not imagine for a second that i should be able to mix with the gp unprotected, visit hospitals, etc, without consequences. No, i will not isolate myself from the herd bacteria/viruses and compromise my immunity so that someone else who has been so irresponsible as to allow theirs to deteriorate to, what, continue life as usual? When they supposedly have to wear a mask too anyway? Its madness ok

so what is happening is, we are being (further) divided by a flu virus that has taken slightly less infinitesimal casualties than normal, even allowing the vaccinated to not wear masks, when a vaccination makes one no less contagious at all of course, just (hopefully) asymptotic.

see how that works? we are being played, iow

“ People have a right to choose, but if that comes with a cost to them, I have a perfect right to withhold help and say, pay the cost”

to which i agree completely, but notice that it doesnt work the other way around; i am obligated to pay the cost of other’s vaccinations, even though i have no interest in them. So Big Pharma gets my money whether i like it or not!

@bbyrd009 The cost here in the UK was trivial, especialy when compared to the other costs of the virus. If you Americans got ripped off, ( Which given the competence of your then leader seems likely. )that is your concern, and does not affect the big picture, especially as we are here talking about France.

@Fernapple any idea what the cost is there? Im having trouble finding any cost estimates for here, ty

france i love mostly bc they have the balls to snicker snack some state heads when they get too far out of line lol, france will be fine imo. Unfortunately i guess the real heads won't roll just yet, but ppl get wise eventually, i hope

however about 99.96% or so of them are going to live, and do just fine. so see how you are being polarized over a ghost, basically, a phantom? oh ps and in the meantime, we are an extra TEN TRILLION DOLLARS or so in debt

so iow they have discovered the perfect way to finish hollowing out the nation, just holler “virus” in a crowded theatre lol

@bbyrd009 The next pandemic will take care of some more and money will be useless in the climate change world. The movie was shitty, anyways.

@rainmanjr i don't think they are after american dollars, so much as attempting/accomplishing crashing the dollar, like they have done in so many other places, so that they can foment chaos and take advantage, like they always do, with the help of the public, as a rule

and fwiw this “pandemic” has about a .04% mortality, so it seems to work much better as a fear inducer

@bbyrd009 Ah, the old Goldfinger strategy. Eh? You may be right about that but you miss my point: Money will soon be irrelevant to survival. The chaos will not come from China but nature. As for the .04% blow off you can go tell that .04% of families how irrelevant they are.

@rainmanjr yes, i get that a virus doing its natural job is maybe not so pleasant for the victims, and i would hope that they might take steps to improve their immunity, which near as i can tell no one is pushing at all, right. Why do that when they can just publish the raw mortality numbers, which in a pop of 7 billion are naturally going to sound high, and then get rich off of everyone’s fears?

Anyone paying any attention to what’s happening with child and teen suicide rates now, though? no. its damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead eh. fine.

@powder

Easy fix: get vaccinated.

Though I've gotten the vaccine and strongly support vaccination there are some people who simply cannot get the vaccine due to health reasons. I think vaccination should be mandatory (unless health reasons prevent it) for all healthcare workers, first responders, teachers, and childcare workers as well as anyone working with the elderly.

But, I don't think it will get to the point of becoming a witch hunt in the U.S. against those who have not been vaccinated. We only tend to see that sort of extremist behavior in conservatives, who are the primary anti-vaxxers here.

@Charles1971 so, purely by way of argument, although ive declined to vaccinate so that my immune system will be intentionally exposed to the virus so that i might assimilate it, being as how no one can outrun a “corona” virus anyway, i am not overly objecting to my posterity paying (out the nose, surely) for your vaccination, should you decide to do so, even though i prolly should on moral grounds; any idea what those “free” vaccinations are costing our grandkids?

i say grandkids bc our kids can never repay all the debt “we” have already incurred. So i gotta ask, how many trillions of dollars is it worth to allow the .04% or so of the immunocompromised who miht have died from the virus to remain in the gene pool, iyo?

@skado same q to you, i mean surely you realize that they arent free right? How much is my posterity paying for that shot of koolaid? any idea? Its the biggest wealth transfer in history i bet, even bigger than 911 or the Big Short!

@bbyrd009
To me, the biology looks like this (correct me where I’m wrong). For starters... if this bug just happened to be one that killed everyone it touched, or say, 80% at total random, no one would be the least bit concerned about what it cost to eradicate it. Right?

So the point, as I understand it, of vaccination instead of just relying on natural immunity (besides the fact that it is completely heartless to old folks and the otherwise immuno-compromised) is that...
v i r u s e s m u t a t e when allowed to run rampant in large populations. This is a new one that we know virtually nothing about. If allowed to freely mutate, it, for all we know, may well indeed become one that kills more of us than we are willing to dismiss as useless cannon fodder.

@skado i would say that in reality no virus is ever 80% lethal, although i agree with your assessment at para 1, sure. Even 50%, black plague numbers, sure. but we are at .04%, roughly?

at para 2, i defintely sympathize-not empathize-with thiose who have not taken care of their immune systems, and older people, who usually isolate themselves from the herd, thus compromising their immunity, but by that i mean i defintely would not use retirement homes to house the infected, as our leaders have done? without consequences? wt actual f is that, anyway? how do we allow these clowns to get away with that stuff?

para 3 sure viruses mutate, i live right next to mesa county colorado a couple days a week, delta county, pretty sure my 80 year old mom just caught the latest—delta?—variant, and exposed me too, felt funky for a day, minorly…but even in the midst of that, our hospital counts are crashing, even in mesa county, deaths from it were at zero last time i looked…and all i can find at the moment is propaganda, imo

but could a mutation be even more severe? i don't know. has a mutation ever been more severe in the past? also dk. i know mesa county is having music festivals and shit, no one seems to be too worried there?

@powder
yeah, but I’m not giving my away. You’ll have to get yours from your local health dept.

@powder
My advice is not shut up and comply. It's bark all you like and seek wisdom.
Best of luck to you.

@powder
Humans are definitely weird. On that we agree!
I also think generally people have the right to say what goes into their body, but you'll notice no one is even talking about forced vaccination. All they're doing is trying to put reasonable incentives (not unreasonable ones like blocking grocery stores ) in place to encourage volunteer vaccination. Herd immunity doesn't require 100% ; only about 70 or 80.

@bbyrd009 First of all, you are wrong that no virus has a mortality rate above 80%. Quite a few do actually including rabies, AIDS, ebola, marsburg and many others.

But in response to your reply directed toward me... vaccination in the U.S. has eliminated or greatly reduced illness and deaths due to polio, tetanus, rubella, measles, whooping cough, rotavirus, mumps, chickenpox, diphtheria, smallpox, and other diseases. So, I don't know what the price of vaccinating many millions of people but the price of NOT vaccinating is the lives of people, especially children.

At the height of covid just in the U.S. we had more than 3000 deaths from covid per day and altogether we've had over 600,000 deaths from covid. If not for vaccination that would have continued for years. But now daily deaths from covid are around 300.

And your argument is the cost of the vaccine? But what of the financial cost of an economy crippled by shutdowns and people unable to work due to illness (their own illness or that of family members) and the deaths of hundreds of thousands of workers? Economists already estimated the cost to be in the trillions for the U.S.

So... what exactly is your reason for not being vaccinated? Sounds like nonsense to me.

@Charles1971 well, the “economy” has been shut down for a year and a half, so i dunno. Vaccines are historically introduced after the worst is over anyway, i think. But i welcome people who respond differently than me, and don't expect everyone to believe like i do. Yes, some viruses are quite lethal, but also quite a bit harder to catch, right.

to answer your last q, my reason for not getting vaccinated is that my immunity is more than strong enough to handle a coronavirus, and hospitals are no friend of mine so i don't too much give a shit about flattening any curve anyway, which lets admit we are waaay beyond that now anyway.

another q that won't get answered i guess, since it crashes your whole position, do you know how long it takes for a coronavirus to spread around the whole planet? Way less than a year and a half, ok? We have been frozen in place for a year and a half so the .1% could rob us blind, while child suicide rates have gone apeshit, imo, and we are now pretty much actively participating in our own demise, imo.

Any idea what covid mortality rates are among amish/mennonites? Our convo sounds like from a different planet to them, ok? How come, iyo? One of us is prolly nuts, see? Which one? And i can go hang with them…if i have to.

best of luck to you, whatever you decide to do, ok. Ill pass on the “free” government vaccinations though, ty

@bbyrd009 So... you have had your immune system tested by doctors and they have stated that your immune system is strong enough to fight off covid? That's really amazing though a bit hard to believe.

Nevertheless, you can contract covid, have no symptoms, and still spread it to others who might have poor immune systems.

[politifact.com]

But that's not your problem.

Yes, I know that covid spreads fast. I was alive when it literally spread from one side of the world to the other in a matter of months. Nothing you've said has crashed my position.

No clue what child suicide rates has to do with this. Just something random you're throwing in.

The Amish were not magically spared from covid and it hit them pretty hard.

[bioengineer.org]

And I think most everyone is aware that the "free" vaccine did indeed cost money. No one is really questioning/arguing that point. It's irrelevant at this point since the money is already spent and the vaccine is already made and widely distributed.

@Charles1971 “ So... you have had your immune system tested by doctors and they have stated that your immune system is strong enough to fight off covid?”
what? how do you test an immune system? no, i don't go to doctors, i just fast every now and then, eat right, and don't worry about coronaviruses, even deliberately get exposed in order to assimilate them, which i don't expect you to do

“Nevertheless, you can contract covid, have no symptoms, and still spread it to others who might have poor immune systems”
ah well so can the vaccinated, so i say let those who have neglected their health wear masks, go to doctors, get vaccinated, or whatever they choose to do, and best of luck to them. But ive yet to see a single blurb telling people how they might (easily) improve their natural immunity, how bout you? But you can ignore that question as well as the others, if you like

“ No clue what child suicide rates has to do with this. Just something random you're throwing in”
so then continue the shutdown and let them keep suiciding over it, in ever increasing numbers. Fuck em, right, its “random”

“ The Amish were not magically spared from covid and it hit them pretty hard.

[bioengineer.org]”
so, their “excess” deaths have risen 125% in the very worst month, but we get no actual numbers, so as far as you know it has gone from 4 to 9 or something, in the worst month, which was likely the only one that was “bad”

The article is fear-mongering shit imo, sorry, that is obv praying you won't ask the hard questions, that would reveal the truth. I but my groceries from them, never seen one with a mask, or worried about covid, even a year ago. Mennonites though i guess, fwiw

“ And I think most everyone is aware that the "free" vaccine did indeed cost money. No one is really questioning/arguing that point. It's irrelevant at this point since the money is already spent and the vaccine is already made and widely distributed”

as we are already seeing (or not seeing, i guess) the money cost—which is bad enough—will be far outstripped by the societal cost, the isolation, suicides, and related problems, on top of the fact that vaccines are by their nature always available only after the damage has been done and the virus has mostly run its course, like in small pox or any other vaccine to date.

but i mean where do you suppose the umpty-ump trillions of dollars is going to come from, anyway? Maybe we should pick this back up when it takes 100% of our gdp just to finance our debt? So, talk to you more tomorrow, ok, when bread is $500 a loaf or whatever, and your kids are dead, or hate your guts for what they have been put through

@bbyrd009 There are indeed tests and indicators to show if someone has a weak immune system. But fasting and eating right does not magically prevent you from getting a virus. A person's individual health is much more complicated than that.

And yes, a person can catch covid from someone who is infected that also received the vaccine. But since I'm vaccinated and you are not, your chances of contracting covid are much higher than mine and if I do get infected chances are my symptoms will be less and my recovery will be quicker. The difference is, I actually care about other people. I got the vaccine so that I don't contract it and unknowingly spread it to others. Because taking an hour out of my life to get the vaccine is a small price to pay rather than being selfish and caring only about myself.

And as for suicide rates due to the shutdowns... one of us actually did something that helped reduce the spread of covid which in turn helps to end the shutdowns.. and one of us did nothing.

And as for the cost of the vaccine... I suppose money is more important than the many millions of deaths it would have cost if left unchecked. And yes, vaccines are usually available after a lot of deaths because it takes time to research, manufacture, distribute, and dispense vaccinations to an entire country (and planet). And now that vaccination has become widespread in the U.S. we've seen a huge drop in covid deaths. The vast majority of current covid cases are among people who have NOT been vaccinated.

@Charles1971 “I got the vaccine so that I don't contract it and unknowingly spread it to others”
“And yes, a person can catch covid from someone who is infected that also received the vaccine”

gnosticism, huh?
but fwiw @ covid19 i really have no idea, and i know you don't either, so suffice it to say that whatever path you choose to take, i hope it works out well for you, ok

@skado you do know there are people that can't get any vaccine because it would kill them .. Right?

@Ravenwolfcasey
Yep. I recommend they use other means. Epidemiology is not about individuals or outliers. It's about how viruses behave in large groups of the host species. Everybody who is medically able should get vaccinated as soon as possible.

@powder
Are you sure? The article says "...test to gain entry to bars, restaurants and cinemas...". It doesn't mention grocery stores.

@powder
That could be a possibility, but I can see other possibilities. The other ones seem more plausible to me. In my experience, people who are always on about "control" read that into everything they see, which preempts any further curiosity about actual evidence. Public officials whose responsibility it is to safeguard public health have a tough job, and they understandably have to make some compromises. Any reduction in spread is desirable. Slowing the spread is at least possible, whereas stopping it totally is obviously not. Choosing to restrict elective venues while not restricting vital ones like grocery stores seems like the obvious reasonable compromise to me. If it were malicious and random one might expect them to restrict grocery stores but not theaters, etc. or to restrict everything Nazi-style. The French approach looks like a science-based approach to me. I only wish the US were as astute.

@powder
I really admire Australia and New Zealand's firm approach. I wish my country was mature enough to do that.

"Any immunity rapidly diminishes after months"

I haven't read about that. Do you have a reference I could read up on that? I try to keep up with these developments, but I missed that one. Thanks.

@powder
Thanks. Looks like a good article, and a reliable source.
I don't really see how it supports your claim that the vaccines provide no meaningful long term immunity. The point of a vaccine is that you can get another each year, or whatever the period of effectiveness is, and have continuous immunity (without ever having to suffer the illness) whereas, if you depend on natural immunity, when it runs out, you have to get sick again to become immune again, each time risking death.