Mein Fuhrer

[whag]

As I thought, has nothing to do with Biden's quote (threat) against governors, which is why I asked for an exact quote so I could see how out of context it would be.

Yeah, like that quote wouldn’t have ruffled your feathers if anyone but a Republican said it.

[Juvenal]

Yeah he mentioned 25% unvaccinated. If that were true, then what's the emergency? That's a lot of people who are vaccinated. What happened to "herd immunity" when we get to 70-80%?

The delta variant happened.

The Delta Variant Isn't As Contagious As Chickenpox. But It's Still Highly Contagious

.
"For the delta variant, the R0 is now calculated at between six and seven," Wenseleers says. So it's two- to three-times as contagious as the original version of SARS-CoV-2 (R0 = 2 to 3) but less contagious than the chickenpox (R0 = 9 to 10).

So why did the CDC say the delta variant was "just as transmissible as" the chickenpox?

For one, the leaked document underestimated the R0 for chickenpox and overestimated the R0 for the delta variant. "The R0 values for delta were preliminary and calculated from data taken from a rather small sample size," a federal official told NPR. The value for the chickenpox (and other R0s in the slideshow) came from a graphic from The New York Times, which wasn't completely accurate.

When a new variant emerges, if it's less contagious than the original, it vanishes. But if it's more contagious, it overtakes the less contagious variant like a faster runner entering an endless race. Every variant that's replaced the original was more contagious, and the delta variant is the most contagious so far.

At R0 = 2.5, it has to be reduced by 1.5 / 2.5, and herd immunity was 60 percent.
At R0 = 6.5, it has to be reduced by 5.5 / 6.5, and herd immunity is 85 percent.

Those are estimates. R0, even for exhaustively studied diseases like measles, is notoriously difficult to calculate.

I haven't been able to find good numbers on how many Americans have been infected or how many previously infected Americans have been vaccinated. Without reasonably accurate estimates on those figures, I can't approximate how close we are to herd immunity overall. We know that 41 million cases and 659 thousand deaths have been recorded, and we know that both are undercounts.

There are also those like Bill who are unvaccinated but have some immunity from prior infection. That population contributes to herd immunity, but it should also be noted that breakthrough cases, both among the vaccinated and those previously infected, can also be infectious, and that proportion, while relatively small, must be subtracted when calculating herd immunity.

And it bears repeating that vaccination further reduces their risk of being infected and spreading infection if their protection fails. I'm relieved to hear that Bill is fully telecommuting, but I'd rest easier knowing he, like all my friends and not-so-friends here on TWeb was vaccinated as well.

Don't die of Covid, y'all.

You'd rob me of my chance to tell ya I told ya so.

Note that the 25 percent figure counts only those who haven't received a single dose, not those who are not yet fully immunized, and that there are many areas of the country where the entirely unvaccinated percentage is much higher and are that much further from herd immunity.

And if the vaccinated are protected from ending up in the hospital, then why does it matter if some people don't want to be vaccinated? It's their lives and their risks. It shouldn't affect those who are vaccinated.

They're better protected from infection, hospitalization, and dying, but they're still being infected, hospitalized, and dying, just far less often than those who are unvaccinated. My chair received her second Pfizer dose a week before me and is currently recovering from a "mild" case of breakthrough Covid. A mild case is still butt-kicking. Her wife told me last Friday that just taking a shower was exhausting her.

It's just possible that she was infected by someone who was also vaccinated, but the odds are that it was someone who was unvaccinated who put her at risk. There are also collateral risks. Many locations are reporting they're running out of ICU beds, and that affects non-Covid patients as well.

[tabibito]

They're better protected from infection, hospitalization, and dying, but they're still being infected, hospitalized, and dying, just far less often than those who are unvaccinated. My chair received her second Pfizer dose a week before me and is currently recovering from a "mild" case of breakthrough Covid. A mild case is still butt-kicking. Her wife told me last Friday that just taking a shower was exhausting her.

It's just possible that she was infected by someone who was also vaccinated, but the odds are that it was someone who was unvaccinated who put her at risk. There are also collateral risks. Many locations are reporting they're running out of ICU beds, and that affects non-Covid patients as well.

It also should not pass without mention that there are members of the community who cannot be vaccinated, including the very young. "It's all about me and my rights" floats like a lead colander.

[rogue06]

"When somebody is the president of the United States, the authority is total. And that's the way it's got to be."

Like you don’t know Trump said weird, authoritarian things. SMH

https://www.businessinsider.com/coro...s-total-2020-4

So you are going to compare an off-hand remark with an actual unconstitutional power grab

[Mountain Man]

My chair received her second Pfizer dose a week before me and is currently recovering from a "mild" case of breakthrough Covid. A mild case is still butt-kicking. Her wife told me last Friday that just taking a shower was exhausting her.

Meanwhile, my daughter recently tested positive for the China flu and had a low fever for half a day, a mild headache for a day and a half, and that was it. I suspect I caught it from her because I had a mild sore throat and felt unusually fatigued for a few days, but honestly, I've had worse colds. Neither of us have taken the experimental vaccines.

There are far too many variables, and far too many unknowns to make blanket statements about any of this.

[tabibito]

So you are going to compare an off-hand remark with an actual unconstitutional power grab

Near as I can tell, Trump's claim can be accepted as "true as any sweeping generalisation needs to be."

[seanD]

So you are going to compare an off-hand remark with an actual unconstitutional power grab

And from a guy that hasn't been potus for 8 months now. That was one of the worst whataboutism deflections I've seen on here yet, which tells me even pro-Biden supporters recognize Biden's obvious tyrannical threat against governors.

[Starlight]

Meanwhile, my daughter recently tested positive for the China flu and had a low fever for half a day, a mild headache for a day and a half, and that was it. I suspect I caught it from her because I had a mild sore throat and felt unusually fatigued for a few days, but honestly, I've had worse colds. Neither of us have taken the experimental vaccines.

It's pretty amazing how all the people who were previously saying Covid was an experimental Chinese bioweapon, have now changed their position to be that it's fine to subject yourself and your loved ones to that bioweapon, even though the medical professionals are saying there can be serious consequences from exposure, apart from, y'know, death:

Covid harms.jpg

And furthermore, those same people who are now advocating exposure to the experimental bioweapon they previously feared, are saying that the thing you want to avoid is a safe medical treatment that significantly reduces your risk of exposure to the experimental Chinese bioweapon. And, meanwhile, they often peddle a wide variety of quack cures that have no effect on the virus and themselves can be quite dangerous.

Yet vaccines, which have been around for more than 200 years, and which are regarded by the medical establishment as far safer than normal drugs, with the result that there is a much more streamlined approval process for them than ordinary medications because it is known they don't carry the same risks as medications, and have been developed for for hundreds of conditions, and more than 5 billion doses have now been given against Covid and the side effects tracked and found to be absolutely tiny compared to the side effects of actually getting covid... those are supposed to be the things we should fear?

The crazies have somehow gone from fearing the Chinese experimental bioweapon to endorsing letting it get them. It's wack.

George Washington ordered his troops to be vaccinated against smallpox. But now we're supposed to believe that Biden mandating vaccinations is supposed to be like Hitler?

[Mountain Man]

It's pretty amazing how all the people [blah blah blah conspiracy theory blah blah blah non-sequitur blah blah blah random insults blah blah...]

[Mountain Man]

Yet vaccines, which have been around for more than 200 years, and which are regarded by the medical establishment as far safer than normal drugs...

That might be true in general, but it is not necessarily true in every instance. For example, vaccines using experimental technology and that were rushed to market in less than a year after inadequate testing, are not guaranteed to be as safe and effective as vaccines that were studied for years and have been in use for decades.

[Mountain Man]

In other news, Joe defends democracy and denounces Xi Jinping and Vladimer Putin of being autocrats, this after Joe made the autocratic decision to threaten the livelihoods of every US citizen who dares to exercise his right not to be subjected to the experiment China flu vaccines. Of course the media immediately challenged him and demanded he justify his blatant hypocrisy -- or at least they would have if they were anything more than a mouthpiece for the Democrat party.

https://theconservativetreehouse.com...ies-autocracy/

[Terraceth]

George Washington ordered his troops to be vaccinated against smallpox. But now we're supposed to believe that Biden mandating vaccinations is supposed to be like Hitler?

A minor point, but Washington didn't order his troops to be vaccinated, because vaccination did not yet exist at that time. He ordered them to undergo variolation, which was sort of a precursor to vaccination (and more dangerous, which is why vaccination replaced it).

However, I don't think it's an applicable comparison. Washington only ordered his troops, not the general population. The analogous situation would be the federal government requiring everyone in the military to get the vaccine--which they did, in fact, and from what I recall there was little fuss raised about it. The fuss here is about a federal requirement on the general population, which has never been done before. Previous vaccination mandates were state or locality based.

[Starlight]

It's amusing that's your response when your views are shown to be bogus. Yet you turn around and pretend what you say is worthy of anyone's time.

[Starlight]

That might be true in general, but it is not necessarily true in every instance. For example, vaccines using experimental technology and that were rushed to market in less than a year after inadequate testing, are not guaranteed to be as safe and effective as vaccines that were studied for years and have been in use for decades.

The technology was expected to be better and safer than previous vaccine technology, which is why it was being developed in the first place, and it was thoroughly tested. Now, 5 billion shots later, and after extensive analysis of the effects in scores of countries, we can absolutely say for sure that it meets the standard safety criteria for vaccines, hence why countries are moving out of the 'emergency approval' classification and into the 'fully approved' classification. And we can also say for sure that actually getting Covid is super-dangerous, with numerous potential long-term ill-effects.

[Mountain Man]

The technology was expected to be better and safer than previous vaccine technology, which is why it was being developed in the first place, and it was thoroughly tested. Now, 5 billion shots later, and after extensive analysis of the effects in scores of countries, we can absolutely say for sure that it meets the standard safety criteria for vaccines, hence why countries are moving out of the 'emergency approval' classification and into the 'fully approved' classification. And we can also say for sure that actually getting Covid is super-dangerous, with numerous potential long-term ill-effects.

You can say that for certain only if you ignore all the data to the contrary. But that wouldn't be scientific.