Originally published at: Anti-vax Washington state senator dies after coming down with Covid-19 | Boing Boing
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He was taken from us too late.
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Governor Inslee is far more gracious than I am.
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ETA: this is my by far highest liked comment ever? Congrats to Kristi Coulter, I suppose!
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Seems like this problem might just solve itself if we wait long enough.
EDIT: To be clear, since I’ve gotten several replies, this is a joke. I understand that this isn’t a viable solution, and that these assholes are causing all sorts of problems, even beyond just COVID.
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True enough, but the rest of us don’t want to become collateral damage. 
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So this guy.
This guy.
This guy is the one that sold services to third world dictatorships to “certify” their elections as valid… was a lobbyist for Cambodia, and was in El Salvador. He sells himself (or sold himself) as a “High Ranking Senator from Washington”, which is intentionally wrong but also technically correct.
He charges half a million for his services.
Or … charged.
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What else is left to say at this point except “good”? Anti-vaxxers have made it pretty clear that this is the only way they’ll ever contribute to ending the pandemic. Congratulations, Doug, you got what you fought so hard for. I hope it was worth it.
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Unfortunately it’s like solving the problem of a fire in a single room of the house by letting it continue to engulf that room. Yes, eventually the problem will end, but it’ll have too many effects beyond the initial problem for that to be a truly viable solution.
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Aw, that’s too bad.
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Except here’s the thing, hospitals are first come first serve.
Which means if you’re having a heart attack while these people are clogging up the ER and ICUs, well… I guess you just die. If your mom is undergoing chemo because she’s got stage 4b cancer, and has been successfully fighting it off, but now she can’t get Chemo because literally all the nurses in the hospital system are being retasked to covid mitigation… well… she dies. Even if she’s done the right thing.
If your appendix bursts, if you’re in a car accident, if you fall off your bike, if you stub your toe and it becomes massively infected. You now move a step closer to death because you’re literally not going to be able to be helped in a set time limit that decreases risk of harm.
This third wave is looking to be worse than everything else we’ve seen with covid, quite possibly combined. Even if you’re vaccinated, a break through case could send you to the hospital… and … statistically speaking, WILL send plenty of vaccinated boosted people.
So yeah. While the vast majority of vaccinated boosted people will experience a very different third wave than unvaccinated ones… we’re all going to pay for this.
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Digging into the details of the articles, it’s important to note that he tested positive upon arrival in El Salvador. Given the average 5 day incubation for COVID, it’s most likely that not only did he contract COVID while still in the US, he was probably contagious on his flights.
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This is a story that never gets old. By which I mean it’s going to keep happening again and again and again, for years to come because as long as we have significant vaccine hold-outs and covid deniers, covid isn’t going away.
Sadly, it won’t, though. I mean, in the long term, it might, but only because vaccine hold-outs provide a place for variants to arise, which eventually means a covid mortality rate that’s civilization-ending.* That would be an ultimate solution to the problem as a whole…
*It really wouldn’t take much. SARS-1 had a mortality rate upwards of 14%, and 50% for those over 64. Spreading through a population, unchecked, when the medical system is already collapsed? Yeah, we’re hosed.
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A couple things: First, historically plagues/pandemics tend to edge towards less lethal than more. So I wouldn’t worry about a variant being civilization ending. Second, even if all the vaccine holdouts were to magically be fully vaccinated today, there’s vaccine apartheid at play. This is the fact that the richest nations, (which, if you’re posting on boingboing, you’re likely a member of) have had vaccine access far longer and far more than the developing countries and poorer nations. There are significant parts of the world right now where fully vaccinated means ONE SINGLE SHOT and will mean that until availability is present for everyone. Currently world wide availability has only allowed 57.6% of the world to get a single dose at least, and 7.6% of developing nations peoples have gotten at least one dose. This isn’t vaccine hesitancy, it’s the fact that we’ve in the richer nation sucked up the second, and third doses… and then also took possession of a number of doses for children… and are even now looking into doses for age 2-5 (that will be diluted doses.)
SO. The variants aren’t going to happen because of anti-vaxxers in the US.
They’re going to happen because we’re going to be on our 4th and 5th doses sometime next year while much of the world isn’t even on dose 2.
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This is like Manchin from W Virginia today saying that he can’t vote for the Build Back Better plan because he can’t go back to the people of his home state and say he voted for it. What he means is that he can’t go back to his coal mine -owning buddies back home and say he voted for the US using less coal. Technically correct but intentionally wrong.
Remember that the GOP are projectionists. If the accuse someone of something, chances are high they are doing it themselves, now.
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