They didn’t isolate vaccination status as a variable in the study, so they are guessing.
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Yeah, that’s more an expression of my ongoing frustration.
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Does that seem to tie in to the latest mRNA vaccines?
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Per the article, there’s a lot of uncertainty on the cause of the decline and several possible reasons (or combination of reasons).
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I’m with you. So many simple steps that could have been taken to help, that no one stepped up to do. Things as simple as mandating that employers provide sufficient sick days, and incentivizing people to not show up to work/school sick. That’s just common sense, and would be a good thing forever and ever, not just a temporary thing.
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As the Spanish ambassador to the U.S., Santiago Cabanas, told the Washington Post in March 2020, “there is a temptation to use war terms. We don’t need weapons, we don’t need bombs. We need solidarity and compassion.”
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I had a Dr’s appointment last week and they asked the same thing. I said I’ve been on jury duty the past two days and I’m one of 13 people out of 60 people who are wearing a mask (one of 5 using a K95). So your guess is as good as mine.
(Slightly OT: One juror was worried about facial recognition giving her identity away to the defendant during voir dire. A couple of hours later, she actually had the balls to ask me why I was wearing a mask. I told her if she wore a mask, she wouldn’t have to worry about facial recognition. She was not amused, but I was.)
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I got a second at 6 months. No problems scheduling at CVS.
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My like is for sharing this, but I don’t agree with author’s conclusions. Terms aren’t the real issue, especially when government organizations are attempting to maintain order and prevent chaos in emergency situations. To me, making it clear that we’re in a battle for our survival is important. Solidarity and compassion might be what we need, but we don’t get that when we’re not facing any threats at all. Due to overreactions from citizens of countries that never even came close to the kind of lockdowns put in place in European countries and China, we’re now in a worse place strategically.
Those overreactions leading to more gun purchases aren’t surprising. We have a lot of groups who use any excuse to exclaim that the end is near, so they must prepare to defend themselves. They do the same thing when pols or the MSM report increases in crime, claim that those who hate guns are about to take office, declare UFO sightings have increased, warn asteroids are approaching Earth, etc. During the pandemic restrictions they made wild claims about martial law that never happened. In the name of freedumb, as well as the liberty to ignore a problem and ensure the right to infect others at will, emergency powers were removed from government in multiple US states.
When there’s another threat requiring immediate action, lockdowns won’t be possible here. So all the fearmongering about violations of human rights by the government will mean there will be fewer humans - period. Folks here will be free to act however they choose during the next pandemic, including violating other people’s rights* and complaining if they get caught. Based on what we’ve already experienced in the US because of a toxic stew of selfishness and greed, no matter what terms they choose to describe a fight against a similar virus in the future, that virus is gonna win - unless there is a massive change in attitude and behavior.
This also reminds me of an exchange in the movie Aliens, when the marines are in hostile territory but told they cannot use all of their weapons. They still have to fight the enemy, though, so…
Lieutenant Gorman : [to Apone over the radio] Look, uh, Apone.
[Apone snaps his fingers, bringing his troops to a halt]
Lieutenant Gorman : Look, we can’t have any firing in there. I, uh… I want you to collect magazines from everybody.
Private Hudson : Is he fuckin’ crazy?
Private Frost : What the hell are we supposed to use, man, harsh language?
from
We’ve had to endure attacks on science, logic, common sense, and common decency. Now, we’re getting complaints about harsh language. 
Language is one of the tools we use to get people thinking about a situation like the threat that it is. If the language of war is too divisive, too uncomfortable, or too threatening to be effective, I’d like to hear successful alternatives that got people working together (in the short and long term) for the greater good without the government suspending any of their liberties and rights. I mean examples from elsewhere of course, considering how long it sometimes takes the US to get involved in actual wars (looking at you and smh, WWII).
* Like those cases of deliberate attempts to infect others.
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Point taken, I share some of your reservations about that discussion of martial language; I agree one must somehow couch an emergency in terms that drive home the severity of the threat. I suspect the article is part of the national conversation we seem to be having in 
about trauma and compassion, apparently spurred on by Gabor Maté’s new book, “The Myth of Normal”.
Unfortunately, the only successful, comparable epidemic control examples I can think of (Ebola? SARS) involve cases where the threat didn’t get out of hand in the first place. Except for (in spite of?) the available technology, the response, politics and timeline in this pandemic seems to be a strong echo of the Spanish Flu of a century ago.
When as mistrust reigns and governments are prepared to let threats spread in the name of not suffering alone, when agreements are ignored, and science thwarted early on, then I don’t have an answer.
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There is literally no hope in this going away.
We have a couple long standing office cleaning jobs that we only keep as a convenience to bigger customers. We normally do those on Sunday’s when no one is around.
Today we’re cleaning one of the restrooms and there was a covid test in the trash.
I know someone who works in the office, I asked who suspected they had covid and still came to work.
An employee wasn’t feeling well, he asked his supervisor how does he know if he has covid, go get a test. He got the test, came back to work to test and then went in the office to show the positive result, no mask.
After the positive test he said he didn’t think it was covid and just the flu. Okay, even if it’s just the flu, GTFO. This is not a case of needing the money either. I really could understand if they needed the money but then wear a mask and stay away from co workers. That wasn’t the case so we’re back to GTFO.
And then people wonder why I still wear a mask. I wear a mask around our older friends and my mom, they ask why, because I have no idea what kind of idiots you or I have been in contact with and I really don’t want to get you sick.
Sheesh.
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eh? Sure, like we’ve got nothing better to do than plot the end of the world… 
…yeah, right after we finish shoveling the snow and maybe after 
. Buddy probably just saw this and figgered we were in cahoots with the beavers in some sort of secret bio-lab plot… 
If I could be bothered long enough to put down my 
I’d tweet that 
MP the picture just to see if makes PM’s questions at Westminster…
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Informed by whom? Is he in the practice of considering madmen raving in the street reliable sources of information?
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You think this will matter to that idiot?
U.S. health agencies have sent a letter to Florida’s surgeon general, warning him that his claims about COVID-19 vaccine risks are harmful to the public.
The letter from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was sent Friday to Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo. It was a response to a letter Ladapo had written the agencies last month, expressing concerns about what he described as adverse effects from mRNA COVID-19 vaccines.
Part of the letter.
As the leading public health official in state, you are likely aware that seniors in Florida are
under-vaccinated, with just 29% of seniors having received an updated bivalent vaccine, compared to the national average of 41% coverage in seniors. It is the job of public health officials around the country to protect the lives of the populations they serve, particularly the vulnerable. Fueling vaccine hesitancy undermines this effort.
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As of today, Japan is officially leaving the decision on whether or not to wear a mask indoors up to personal discretion. For the record, Japan never had a mask mandate. It was always guidelines, and the guidelines changed today.
I did see more people going maskless than usual today, but the vast majority was still wearing masks, and that’s outdoors.
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They’ll just say that he didn’t take enough ivermectin.
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