CDC: OK, You Can See Grandma if She Has Been Fully Vaccinated for Two Weeks
Edging towards sanity and normalcy:
Federal health officials released guidance Monday that gives fully vaccinated Americans more freedom to socialize and pursue routine daily activities, providing a pandemic-weary nation a first glimpse of what a new normal may look like in coming months.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said people who are two weeks past their final shot face little risk if they visit indoors with unvaccinated members of a single household at low risk of severe disease, without wearing masks or distancing. That would free many vaccinated grandparents who live near their unvaccinated children and grandchildren to gather for the first time in a year. Long-distance travel is still discouraged, however.
I’m not clear on why long-distance travel is discouraged. I suppose they are trying to get to the point where the virus is not spreading at all, or close to not at all. But if a certain percentage of people refuse to get vaccinated though they have the ability to do so, it’s either because they have severe autoimmune issues, in which case they are likely not getting on planes anyway, or because they are suspicious of the vaccine, in which case I’m not sure it’s others’ responsibility to refrain from traveling to protect them.
Still, grandparents seeing their grandkids is what people need to hear.
I’m still waiting to see any data on whether vaccinated people can still carry and spread Coronavirus, much as asymptomatic people can spread it. A vaccine that protects against serious cases and death is a wonderful thing, but if the vaccinated person can still contract the virus, then I’d assume that he or she can still spread it.
John B Boddie (d795fd) — 3/8/2021 @ 8:57 amI asked a doctor about that, John B Boddie. If the vaccine works, an exposed vaccinated person’s antibodies will not allow the virus to multiply enough to shed and infect other people. The concern is the 5% (or more?) vaccinated persons on whom the vaccine does not work. So that’s why they advise precautions, mask and distance, for vaccinated persons.
nk (1d9030) — 3/8/2021 @ 9:12 amEven for the unvaccinated, the infected person is not contagious for at least 24 and likely 48 hours, and maybe longer. The virus needs to multiply before it can spread.
nk (1d9030) — 3/8/2021 @ 9:18 amDefinitely good news. It’s going on two years since we last saw our grandchildren (not counting Zoom or Duo sessions, which don’t really engage young kids). I wonder if the caution about long-distance travel applies equally to driving and flying. It seems to me that they would not involve the same kinds of risks.
Roger (e34354) — 3/8/2021 @ 9:31 am9 times out of ten we just completely ignore the wildly risk adverse guidelines from public health officials; We eat meat that isn’t cooked to 165 degrees. People have been washing their hands wrong forever. Covid raised the stakes, but public health officials have been ridiculous for a long time.
Time123 (dba73f) — 3/8/2021 @ 9:42 am@5
Eh… I feel like the CDC gets a bad rap, and part of that is that they can be influenced politically.
I think right now, there’s serious pressure from the Biden folks for the CDC to not encourage “opening” the country up, despite what the numbers are telling us.
However, *this*, looks like the line staff at the CDC are finally flexing their credibility to mitigate unwanted political pressure.
*Note: at least where I live, the numbers are dramatically down… like, best case scenario and there’s a strong argument that we can “go back to normal” by mid-summer. The question will be, though, how the politician reacts to this.
whembly (3b5b58) — 3/8/2021 @ 9:56 amIt would appear the reason for discouraging long distance travel is because of the modes of transportation involved. Planes, trains and buses are enclosed spaces that may not have adequate ventilation. And travel time can be lengthy, also airports, train and bus stations are often crowded. I mean, it was mass transportation that allowed influenza to spread so rapidly in 1918-19, infecting and killing millions around the globe. More people died of the flu than were killed in WWI.
As more and more people receive vaccinations, the corona virus hopefully will recede, but that could take months. And no vaccine is 100% effective or without some complications. People can become infected and contagious after being vaccinated. Several dozen pregnant women have experienced miscarriages or stillbirths as a result of being vaccinated.
We’re a long way from returning to a resemblance of normalcy.
Gawain's Ghost (b25cd1) — 3/8/2021 @ 10:02 am#4
My brother and I have been visiting my 90 year old mother by driving. Since my brother is an infectious disease doctor, I figure this approach is OK. (Also, my Mom has now had both shots of the vaccine.)
Appalled (1a17de) — 3/8/2021 @ 10:10 amFat is bad. Fat is good. Bad fat is bad. Good fat is good. But only in moderation. Eggs are good. Eggs are bad. Bad cholesterol is bad. Good cholesterol is good. Your cholesterol ratio is more important than both.
Hoi Polloi (2f1acd) — 3/8/2021 @ 10:11 amwhy does it have to be autoimmune issues or suspiciousness re the vaccines? Why can’t a reasonably young, reasonably healthy individual look at the issue and the statistics and decide for themselves not to get the vaccine?
it would appear that reasonably young reasonably healthy individuals have a pretty slim chance of contracting Covid, and should they contract it, a pretty slim chance of having serious health effects from it (huge numbers report it as flu-like or no symptoms at all). And if the overall mortality rate in the US is less than 2%, then the risk of death for a reasonably young reasonably healthy individual is quite low.
Can’t those people choose for themselves whether to stick a virus into their body (twice) or choose not to? Reasonably, logically, make a different choice than you?
You want to get the vaccine, more power to you! go for it! You have to be the advocate for your own health. Make the choice that works best for you!
If I choose not to take it, that is my choice, for my situation, that only I get to make. Leave me alone.
You do you…
SmithLoco (7438e3) — 3/8/2021 @ 10:11 amYou leave us alone! Go live in a cave somewhere! Don’t come within sneezing distance of us with your Trumpkin cooties!
nk (1d9030) — 3/8/2021 @ 10:30 am@10
Because, even if you do get sick with Covid and survive… at some point you’re still a vector for the virus to spread to other people.
This is true for any vaccines.
Taking the vaccines, provided you react well to it, will give you either immunity or a strong response to the virus with minor symptoms. Taking the vaccines also takes you OUT of the disease spreading business, and thus actually protecting those who cannot take it.
In short, you take the vaccine not only for yourself, but to help factor in the herd immunity so that it doesn’t spread as easily in the community.
whembly (867f2f) — 3/8/2021 @ 10:31 am@2 Thank you, nk. This was very helpful.
John B Boddie (d795fd) — 3/8/2021 @ 10:35 am@11
OK nk. Heres’ the thing. I’m happy to live my own life and let you live yours. But you want to control how I live my life. No thanks.
You may be right in all your views, you may be wrong. But I’m pretty sure you don’t want to be forced to live your life according to my views. Why do you insist on me living my life according to yours?
You fancy yourself as my “better” my “nanny”. Again, no thanks.
SmithLoco (7438e3) — 3/8/2021 @ 10:58 amYou’re welcome, John B Boddie.
nk (1d9030) — 3/8/2021 @ 11:05 am> Why do you insist on me living my life according to yours?
Because your choices are imposing a life-threatening risk on people who are not able to make the choice to stay home.
Part of living in a society is that sometimes we have to curb our activities in order to protect the people around us. This is one of those times.
aphrael (4c4719) — 3/8/2021 @ 11:13 amI think that’s a different problem; People wanting to act on the best information in a field where we’re still learning things.
Time123 (36651d) — 3/8/2021 @ 11:31 amWe force people to live in a certain way all the time because of the impact their actions have on others. Traffic safety, open fire regulations, waste disposal regulations, rules about pets, not being able to go into stores with out shoes on are all examples of that. So we’re violating the principle of “your life your choice” a lot. If you want to argue that in this case your actions don’t impact others, or that the trade off isn’t worth it you’ll have to make that case explicitly.
Time123 (36651d) — 3/8/2021 @ 11:34 amOK nk. Heres’ the thing. I’m happy to live my own life and let you live yours. But you want to control how I live my life. No thanks.
Really? Feel free to run traffic lights.
DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 3/8/2021 @ 11:37 amMeet the GOP voters who could decide whether the U.S. reaches herd immunity
……..
While other groups have also been wary about the shots, for instance, communities of color, polling shows that hesitancy has started to wane while GOP resistance to the vaccines remains relatively high. A Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) poll released last month found that 28 percent of Republicans said they would “definitely not” get vaccinated, and another 18 percent said they would “wait and see” before getting a shot. As a result, millions of Republicans could remain unvaccinated, a potential roadblock to efforts to achieve the high levels of immunity needed to stop the virus in the United States — an irony that isn’t lost on Trump officials who worked to end the pandemic.
“It’s a little bit confounding,” said Paul Mango, who helped lead the Trump administration’s Operation Warp Speed initiative that sped coronavirus vaccines to market in less than a year. “I really don’t understand it, to tell you the truth. To me, this was the most spectacular medical development in our lifetimes.”
Some of that hesitancy is embodied by Trump himself, who spent years raising questions about vaccine safety, dismissed the value of flu shots while president and opted not to publicly disclose or televise that he was vaccinated against the coronavirus in January, shortly before leaving the White House.
……
It was Trump who most famously compared the coronavirus with seasonal influenza as the virus spread across the world, and public health officials decried his efforts to minimize the threat.
“This is a flu. This is like a flu,” Trump said on Feb. 26, 2020 — before more than 500,000 Americans would die after contracting the virus in subsequent months.
“I think the president set the tone early on by downplaying the coronavirus or comparing it to the flu,” said Robert Coon, a GOP consultant in Arkansas who’s conducted coronavirus-related surveys for clients. “For a lot of people, the first impression was that it’s not that big a deal, and it’s kind of hard to come back from that.”
…….
(Liz Hamel, who helps lead (the KFF’s polling on coronavirus), concurred that skepticism of government has grown among conservatives. She pointed to significant declines in Republicans’ trust of institutions like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and officials like Anthony S. Fauci, the government infectious-disease expert, that paralleled Trump’s own attacks on them last year.
For instance, about eight in 10 Democrats and Republicans told KFF in April 2020 that they trusted Fauci to provide reliable information about the coronavirus. But by September, KFF pollsters found, less than half of Republicans said they still trusted Fauci, while Democrats’ trust in the scientist had only increased.
“That shows a pretty clear relationship between the messaging coming out of the White House and the stance that Republicans were taking on trusted public health messengers,” Hamel said.
……
……Clarence Cooper, a 64-year-old retired mortician in Florida and loyal Trump supporter — “I voted for him the second time, I’d vote for him for the third time” — has yet to be infected, gets his coronavirus information mostly from talk radio, and doesn’t want to be vaccinated.
Trump’s recent exhortation to get the vaccine didn’t motivate Cooper because their situations are so different, he said. “He needs the vaccine — he’s been risque, not wearing masks,” Cooper said. “I’m kind of like a cave man … I don’t go out for 10, 11 days at a time … and when I do, I wear two or three masks, wash my hands, carry hand sanitizer, wipe the shopping carts.”
Cooper said he’s also heard conspiracy theories on talk radio about the vaccine’s development. “I don’t want to be a pin cushion,” he said.
Such resistance, multiplied by millions, could complicate the push to reach herd immunity. “I don’t think you’re going to end up with 70 percent adoption in some states, where you’re not going to have the majority of the biggest political party,” said Coon, the Arkansas-based consultant. The proportion of people who need to be immune to reach herd immunity with covid-19 isn’t known but experts estimate it between 70 to 85 percent.
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 3/8/2021 @ 11:37 am……..
John B Boddie (d795fd) — 3/8/2021 @ 8:57 am
The question is, can vaccinated people get an asymptomatic infection, (till it’s beaten back) especially if the infection is with a slightly different version of the virus to which the body takes a little bit more time to beat back.
They don;t have major data because in the trials, they didn’t test everyone who got the vaccine or the placebo every week or so but merely waited to see who came to the attention of doctors. If they had tested them the trials would have been both more expensive and time consuming to so do. So they on;ly know what percentage of people went into hospitals, or at most, who saw doctors or got tested.
Maybe somebody is doing a study now bt it will be months and months till it is published. There may be data npow, just not to a 95% confidence level.
They say the Johnson 7 Johnson vaccine does at least that. Not so the Astra Zeneca (also known as Oxford) vaccine (one of the two used in the UK) against the South African variant.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/07/world/africa/covid-vaccine-astrazeneca-south-africa.html
Boddie continued:
But probably, and this is what I’m saying, only give someone else another asypmtomatic case.
Until it runs through a few people maybe or you have a few asymptomatic people in the same place or one asymptomatic person spends a very long time with somebody else. A -> B -> C -> D where each letter of the alphabet is a more serious case.
So what they are saying now is that fully vaccinated people should still wear masks, until they sound the all clear. Because it’s no trouble at all to wear a mask. Because they got used to it in medical school at times.
Sammy Finkelman (09d1ac) — 3/8/2021 @ 11:38 am@18. Loco has the right to wander crazy-free, buck naked- amidst sub-zero temps in a raging winter blizzard. And to be neighborly, taxpayers will pick up the tab on body recovery– before the spring thaw.
DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 3/8/2021 @ 11:42 amActually, it sounds from that New York Times report that the Astra Zeneca one dose vaccine, geared to the old version of SARS-CoV-2 does protect against serious cases and death from the South African variant, but doesn’t eliminate mild or moderate cases.
There’s another thing; The Eli Lilly antibody doesn’t work against the South African variant and the Regeneron only works half as well (one of the two antibodies in the cocktail doesn’t work.)
Of course all this could be remedied fairly quickly if you didn’t have to go through so many steps, and indeed the FDA now wants to cut corners, which they think is OK to do because Trump is no longer president, so people won’t be skeptical.
They could try giving a second dose of Astra Zeneca or modify the virus or the antibody cocktails somewhat – and they know what to do – but that would be acting like a doctor instead of like a scientist.
Sammy Finkelman (09d1ac) — 3/8/2021 @ 11:49 amnk (1d9030) — 3/8/2021 @ 9:18 am
and in asymptomatic people – they even wanted to say presymptomatic people – it hasn’t spread enough. An asymptomatic person can infect someone else only if within another day or two they are going to develop noticeable symptoms. If they don;t, it means they didn’t infect anyone else in the past.
And what i’m saying is, if they do or did infect someone, that person, in all probability is only going to get another asymptomatic case – except that that person can start a third person at a higher level of viral load. That has to be the way it works.
Wehn you get to a serious case – I’ll call it Level D – that person can do two things: Infect a few people close to him with a serious case, and infect a lot of people far away with asymptomatic or mild to moderate cases.
Now prolonged contact with a level B case or two, can, say, lead to a Level D case. Or exposure to 3 or 4 A’s, pr the air they breathed out, can lead to one D. And things depend on the immune system. This is all just for illustration of my idea.
I think it is possible the first person infected in a family which lives together doesn’t usually get the most serious case.
https://www.wpr.org/study-once-someone-your-household-has-covid-19-risk-secondary-infection-high
What this report doesn’t say is:
Who gets the most serious case?
I would bet it’s not the person who brings it into the household.
Look at even the example cited here.
From the unventilated air! 8 feet is not enough. Masks are not enough enough, and besides he sometimes took off the mask while on the next floor. His daughter probably got exposed to a large dose of virus at the same time.
Her immune system did not have enough time to gear up before she lost her sense of smell.
She had a worse case because she started out with a larger exposure. I mean you can;t argue that her father;s immune system reacted faster and better. (assuming anyway that it came from him)
Her case was still was maybe a B or C case.
Sammy Finkelman (09d1ac) — 3/8/2021 @ 12:13 pmFat people, or people living in countries with a higher level of obesity, seem to get more Covid (probably because their immune system doesn’t work as well because of higher glucose levels I would guess)
People in India get it less (even adjusting for poor reporting because the overall mortality statistics in India are considered good)
Could this be because they were more exposed to coronavirus cold viruses?
There’s been some dispute about whether exposure to and immunity to the common cold coronavirus helps
Sammy Finkelman (09d1ac) — 3/8/2021 @ 12:31 pmDepends on your age. For children, flu was in fact worse. For adults Covid was worse because so many adults had some level of immunity to the flu. Covid was also more insidious.
Sammy Finkelman (09d1ac) — 3/8/2021 @ 12:35 pmwhemley @12. A real infection almost always gives stronger immunity than a vaccine. hey also determined that anyone who recovered from a Covid infection does not benefit at all from a second dose of the Pfizer vaccine. The second dose is the booster shot, and a second booster shot within that time frame does nothing.
I also read that the level of antibodies from someone who take the vaccine after having been infected is about five times the level of someone who got two shots and was not infected.
Sammy Finkelman (09d1ac) — 3/8/2021 @ 12:49 pm6. whembly (3b5b58) — 3/8/2021 @ 9:56 am
I think tat’s when it comes to schools.
When it comes to detention centers for minors, just the opposite.
And remember how the CDC said it was OK to vote in person on Election Day?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/11/03/cdc-covid-19-vote-election
What does that have to do with their recommendations? Their recommendations don’t have the force of law, anyway.
More;
However, *this*, looks like the line staff at the CDC are finally flexing their credibility to mitigate unwanted political pressure.
*Note: at least where I live, the numbers are dramatically down… like, best case scenario and there’s a strong argument that we can “go back to normal” by mid-summer. The question will be, though, how the politician reacts to this.
Sammy Finkelman (09d1ac) — 3/8/2021 @ 12:55 pmAlso the messaging from Fox. My Fox-listening neighbor, who is considerably older than I am, said last week that she won’t get the vaccine because “This is all about hurting Trump. It’s to help the Democrats.” After Trump is already out of office?
I said that Trump had gotten a Covid vaccine.
“No he didn’t! He just got the special thing they gave him.” Apparently Fox hadn’t reported that Trump got a vaccination, but my neighbor couldn’t deny that he had been treated for Covid, because he said so himself.
She insisted that “they” were counting seasonal flu as Covid to inflate the numbers. I mentioned the elevated death rates this year. She didn’t believe it.
At the same time, she maintained that Trump was totally on top of Covid from the beginning: “He got the masks and the ventilators!” I noted that some people who worked in the administration said he had dithered when prompt action could have slowed the spread. She replied: “There were a lot of rats in the administration!”
Then she asked: “Do you believe the election was fair?”
Me: “Even Bill Barr said it was.”
She: “He was never trustworthy!”
That’s what a steady diet of Fox News does. Or maybe she has switched to Newsmax.
I’ve never gotten a flu shot because I haven’t had the flu since junior high, but I haven’t had any doubts about getting a Covid vaccine when I can. I just read about a 36-year-old woman who died of Covid, and a 9-month-old infant in the hospital, and earlier a 19-year-old with no prior health problems who died. I don’t assume that I’m immune.
The people who say “My body, my choice” could be passing the virus to someone who will die much too young from it. And they don’t care.
Radegunda (f4d5c0) — 3/8/2021 @ 1:21 pmI had a conversation the other day with someone who just is unable to decide. Never mind that the risk of serious injury or death from the virus is 1-3% and the risk of same from the vaccine is 0.00001%. She just said she’d read “all these stories” about people having bad reactions.
The press has been incredibly irresponsible with their above-the-fold stores about someone who is allergic to damn near everything being allergic to this too. The right-brained people of the world cannot do the math, and they think is right up there with their chances of being hit by lightning or maulled by a polar bear. When it is nowhere that high.
Of course, this has led to providers being paranoid as well, since if they have a problem they are not prepared for the lawyers will line up to the left. When I had my shot at an “event” site, they asked me if I had ever had any allergies (yes), ever had an anaphylactic reaction (yes, an antibiotic), so they had me wait for 30 minutes instead of 15. I asked what support they might have, and they said “a full medical team.” No problem for me, though.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 3/8/2021 @ 1:33 pmKevin’s rule for deniers: Refuse a shot when offered, go to the back of the line. Is that harsh?
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 3/8/2021 @ 1:35 pmthink right now, there’s serious pressure from the Biden folks for the CDC to not encourage “opening” the country up, despite what the numbers are telling us.
Never let a crisis go to waste, and never let it go too soon, either. They’ve got taxes to double still.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 3/8/2021 @ 1:36 pmThe concern is the 5% (or more?) vaccinated persons on whom the vaccine does not work. So that’s why they advise precautions, mask and distance, for vaccinated persons.
People with compromised immune systems, mostly. Vaccinations need a working immune system to operate well. The vaccine is still a good idea for these folks — it gives some immune response and the vaccine itself is incapable of producing the illness itself, as there is no virus in it.
That last part is really important to get out these, as much of the fear involves getting sick from the shot.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 3/8/2021 @ 1:39 pmWhy do you insist on me living my life according to yours?
“Your right to swing your fist ends where my nose begins”
–variously attributed
But OK. Assuming that you don’t mind if we all join together and get “vaccinated” stamped on our IDs, and those without that are denied entry to enclosed places, fine. Be free.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 3/8/2021 @ 1:42 pmOf course, the Supreme Court might be OK with taxing everyone who doesn’t get vaccinated.
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 3/8/2021 @ 1:43 pmIf we’re going to mandate masks, we might as well mandate vaccination. There is stronger scientific evidence for the efficacy of the latter.
norcal (01e272) — 3/8/2021 @ 2:51 pmThere is stronger scientific evidence for the efficacy of the latter.
Ya think?
Kevin M (ab1c11) — 3/8/2021 @ 2:58 pmIt’s very hard to *mandate* as a matter of law that someone *allow someone else to inject something into their bodies*. The infringement on personal autonomy and liberty is substantially greater than with a mandate that they wear a particular article of clothing.
Even with traditional vaccines, while they may be mandated for certain contexts (public schools), there’s no universal mandate applicable to the public.
In this case, I’d support the use of vaccine passports as a requirement for doing certain things (giant music festivals, giant crowds at athletic events, possibly schools, possibly border crossing), but a universal mandate strikes me as being an overreach.
aphrael (4c4719) — 3/8/2021 @ 3:03 pmEach day is a gift; make the effort- and make the most of it – for that day of days will inevitably come when they’re gone.
DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 3/8/2021 @ 3:34 pmWhy do you insist on me living my life according to yours?
“Insist?”
You may eat all your peas with a knife if you choose- but we “insist” you not poop in the street.
DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 3/8/2021 @ 3:38 pm31.Kevin’s rule for deniers: Refuse a shot when offered, go to the back of the line. Is that harsh?
Swallow this; wait for the pill 😉
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/11630128/coronavirus-vaccine-pill-ready-next-year/
DCSCA (f4c5e5) — 3/8/2021 @ 3:43 pm@38 I don’t know. If the government can proscribe what I put into my body, why can’t it prescribe?
norcal (72c45c) — 3/8/2021 @ 5:33 pm29. Radegunda (f4d5c0) — 3/8/2021 @ 1:21 pm
Anything about the electon not being fair would have come much more from talk radio (or possibly the Internet in some way) than Fox News. The fact that she asked you indicates she’s uncertain about the truth – maybe because who is not saying it.
Trump getting a vaccine came out only about a week or two ago and did not make headlines. He probably got it too soon, but had to get it before he stopped being president. It may not work for him because he has too many artificial antibodies circulating in his bloodstream attacking the spike protein which is all the vaccine gets circulating n the body. Melania, who recovered on her own probably will get an advantage from it.
Trump boasted about ventilators but ventilators were mostly a mistake that increased the risk of death.
That Covid deaths were exaggerated I think is more Trump than Fox News.
The people who say “My body, my choice” could be passing the virus to someone who will die much too young from it. And they don’t care.
Sammy Finkelman (09d1ac) — 3/8/2021 @ 7:28 pmSammy, I know that my neighbor watches a lot of Fox, and she doesn’t have Internet. She’s an older woman, and she is temperamentally inclined to be very sure of her views, and to believe that I can’t possibly have learned something true about current events that she doesn’t know. She thought it couldn’t be true that Trump had gotten the vaccine because she hadn’t heard it. (She claims to do “research,” and she believes that her son really knows what’s going on because he has a high position in a police department.)
She was definitely not asking about the election because she was uncertain. Her question was essentially “You don’t believe it was fair, do you?” And she concluded that Barr must not be “reliable” because he didn’t support Trump’s claims about a stolen election. That’s a typical Trumpist response: Trump alone is trustworthy, and any deviation from Trump exposes someone as a “rat.”
My comment wasn’t meant to say that she is influenced by Fox and NOT by Trump. She has absorbed the Trumpian view of things, partly (or mostly) through Fox. Trump and Fox together made her a Covid-skeptic, believing it’s a plot to “hurt Trump.” But at the same time, she believes that he worked valiantly to save us from it, because he must always be right in every action. Her views are representative of the Trumpist GOP.
She actually began as a Rubio fan, but as soon as Trump clinched the nomination she became totally, uncritically Trumpist. Weirdly, she said, “I don’t even like him,” but she gets angry when she hears criticism of him. We hadn’t talked about politics for a long time, until she asked me if I got flu shots, and said no but I will get a Covid shot, and she said she won’t because “this is all to hurt Trump.” It wasn’t just Trump himself who promoted that notion.
Radegunda (f4d5c0) — 3/8/2021 @ 8:48 pmshe asked me if I got flu shots, and I said no but …
Radegunda (f4d5c0) — 3/8/2021 @ 8:50 pmShe actually began as a Rubio fan, but as soon as Trump clinched the nomination she became totally, uncritically Trumpist. Weirdly, she said, “I don’t even like him,”
One of my best buddies followed this exact path, and said the same thing about not liking Trump. Strange!
norcal (01e272) — 3/8/2021 @ 8:54 pm44. Radegunda (f4d5c0) — 3/8/2021 @ 8:48 pm
does she have a cellphone? Most cellphones are now smartphones, and connect to the Internet. People get alerts or mailing lists.
I preseume she doesn’t get any newspapers, daily or weekly, (not that there might be any good ones available) and maybe not magazines. But she probably listens to talk radio – and many of them say virtuallly the same things. Of course someone could also listen to NPR.
Not too many people did. It was a short, minor one day story. I heard it on the CBS Evening news. I don’t believe it was in a newspaper. You probably heard it from a “liberal” source, which wanted to criticize Trump about it.
So that’s another source of information But all he would know, besides what’s he listens to or reads or discusses, is what s going on with crime or the municipal or county budget – and a lot of that is probably opinion
Well, a person could try that, until one day it falls apart.
Not also talk radio, or her son?
I’ll tell you what happpened this morning. someone shows me a “Breaking News” alert on his cellphone. It said that 90% of all Covid tests are false. I couldn’t explain what I thought to him because you’d have to page alot down maybe to see what this is talking about. I didn’t recognize the source. It claimed that 90% of all positive tests are false and that Trump had known this and quoted him – a real quote I know – that the more you test the more cases you get. Of course that doesn’t mean that most tests are false positives.
What is true is that most positive tests don’t indicate something serious for the person with the positive test. It doesn’t mean they are not genuine cases of Covid.
The real issue is false negatives from the rapid tests, but, on the other hand, that may not matter much because at levels below what these tests may pick up, it’s probably not infectious, or at least not serious (for the first generation after that person) and you might as well miss them because we’re not going to be able to construct an exhaustive family tree showing who infected whom. You could more or less do that with SARS or MERS, but not with this. It passes through unknown people, and almost certainly through people not in close contact with each other, and there’s far too many of them for anyone to keep track of this.
They tried to halt the progress of the virus it with lockdowns of almost everybody but the lockdowns never went far enough for that, nor could they, really. Although of course that reduced R0, and if R0 drops below 1.0, the number of new cases declines. Of course I should say the tip of the iceberg drops below 1.0 because that’s all you’re seeing. Many many people get mild or almost asymptomatic cases.
The PCR tests pick up anything and maybe too much, because they detect viral remnants but that’s not the same thing as a false positive.
The idea is, I think, that Trump ended it, and nothing more is necessary, except that can’t be true. Anything done after Trump reflects on the job Trump did.
Because even without desktop Internet, somebody’s propaganda is getting to her.
She probably thinks it is not sincere and an attempt to fool her, and some of it is.
Trump isn’t doing that at all – I mean saying no one needs to take a vaccine because it is all over now. Trump’s actually being quoted misleadingly.
Sammy Finkelman (3997eb) — 3/9/2021 @ 7:29 amHere’s the New York Times story about Donald trump and his wife Melania getting a vaccine:
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/01/us/politics/donald-trump-melania-coronavirus-vaccine.html
Posted online March 1, 2021, 3:41 p.m. ET which means it probably appeared in last Tuesday’s newspaper.
Maggie Haberman suspects Trump had political reasons for doing this without making any announcement:
I south american countries top officials got shots of a Chinese vaccine in secret ahead of everybody else.
I think Trump didn’t announce it because he, or at least his wife, qualified under special rules. If it was because he was president, an objection could be made that he’s going to leave office right now.
Sammy Finkelman (3997eb) — 3/9/2021 @ 7:40 amIf anyone wants to pick their vaccine, and find out where many are being given, you can go to:
https://vaccinefinder.org/search
A place to go to get opportunities for getting vaccines on standby is:
https://hidrb.com
You have to register your cellphone and then get text messages when one is available nearby on short notice.
Pharmacies and other places can text your cellphone (with priority being given in the way your state prioritizes vaccinations) whenever they have a few extra vaccines that they already took out of the storage and must inject or dispose of.
They get extra from people cancelling or not showing up for appointments (maybe because they overbooked or because they don’t want the second dose or forgot) or being medically rejected because they have since gotten a positive Covid test or were in contact the last 14 days with someone who did so that they are supposed to quarantine.
Sammy Finkelman (d9efdf) — 3/10/2021 @ 11:39 am