aTm wrote: ↑Wed Sep 22, 2021 7:39 pm
Unfortunately, as months and months pass, the post I made back in February when the new vaccines were the big hope, appears more true all of the time. There are a few places in the world, looking at you New Zealand, in particular, that have smugly and arrogantly looked at the rest of the world claiming how amazing and smart their response has been, but sooner or later they are going to realize that they have no exit plan, no return to normalcy plan. At some point, as soon as normality returns, COVID-19 is going to burn through their entire population no matter how long they continue to put it off. Australia it seems is possibly already on the brink of widespread civil unrest, which may end up being even worse than the virus would have been (which is obviously itself pretty bad).
Everything at this point relating to COVID is all just mostly a show. It's just "do something, do something, show them you're doing something." There is really nothing to be done except try to mitigate the total quantity of people who have it at any one time and hope someone eventually develops treatment that makes it harmless. The only real effective way to limit the spread is to simply keep people worried about getting it, the moment they aren't worried about it, they will go back to living their normal lives with normal interactions.
In my expectation, we will know elderly people that die from this (and unfortunately, potentially some of us on this board) for the rest of our lifetimes. The vast majority of people are currently waiting for an obvious moment where we can go "Aha now it is time for everything to go back to normal!" but that moment is never going to happen.
COVID will go on indefinitely. The human population and the virus will only adapt very slowly to dealing with each other over a period of many years until it's finally basically no big deal maybe decades from now, but that will happen very gradually. The idea that the vaccines will confer true long term immunity is really just a hope and a prayer. And the virus that causes COVID is so widespread that it will now be endemic in human population and can NEVER be eliminated altogether, and therefore it will always be a risk to flare up and eventually will be something that is in constant circulation.
Maybe (hopefully!) the vaccines will be able to give us some real resistance for a few solid years, but that really just means that the virus will just mostly slumber for a while but then in the future will start noticeably causing problems in regions by flaring up on a time period of like like every other year as vaccinations wane depending on when the majority of those people lose resistance depending on whatever particular version of the vaccine they received and when they got it.
We are now just waiting for people to realize one of two potential end games. The first is that this new lower level of activity (including economic activity) and interaction and "the public safety show" is just how we live now forever. Or, secondly, for everyone to finally get fed up and demand to live normal lives, risk-be-damned, until SARS-Coronavirus-2 is basically just another cold germ decades from now.
I don't think there is any argument the vaccines have helped, but the problem is its a global issue. If some shit variant pops up in some heavily populated poor nation, with our lax "give us your poor...." liberal wonks wanting to keep our borders porous, we're going to get it here. I think people now realize that the idea of a Covid free environment is possibly 2 or 3 years away if ever. As perhaps as misguided as Trumps immigration policies were, had people allowed him to enforce them - build a wall, increase border patrols, lock down flights - Covid might be under control in the sense that we wouldn't see the onslaught of variants here. His policies would be considered forward thinking instead of xenophobic.
We'll mostly likely have to live with it and hope that there is treatment available that prevents severe reactions to it that can lead to death.
10AC is the fourth person I know now that has died of this in the last 2 months. He was the only one that was vaccinated. He did everything he was supposed to do I assume, and is still a victim on this. Up to that point I knew of one person who died of it, and he died because he trashed his lungs with a cleaning solvent, then caught Covid in the hospital while being treated.
If this was some fairly benign virus that was souped up in a lab, then the people involved with it - all the way up to funding it should pay. Lifetime imprisonment doesn't seem enough punishment.
Yet we won't do a damn thing about it, while people we know die and suffer from this.
Re: Florida State Seminoles
Posted: Thu Sep 23, 2021 8:25 am
by aTm
Vaccines, are obviously great, though they do have some negatives, potentially. Most people likely still believe that once everyone is vaccinated it goes away forever, because in their mind that’s a vaccine and what it does. At some point many of these people are going to start believing they are being lied to (much of the population already does).
The vaccines have performed worse than even I hoped, people are getting it and dying in less than a year. Vaccinated people are clearly spreading the virus also. The only thing they offer is better clinical outcomes (which is not nothing, but not the best outcome either)
Re: Florida State Seminoles
Posted: Thu Sep 23, 2021 8:37 am
by aTm
Within the next year or two, what will happen is that they will realize they just need to start ignoring COVID-19, they will likely change the name of the disease from COVID-19 and it’s associated vaccines to something more benign sounding and they will just pretend the problem has gone away, and we’ll have this “new” thing that “old and fat people get and die from that I probably don’t need to worry about!”
Re: Florida State Seminoles
Posted: Thu Sep 23, 2021 8:39 am
by hedge
Damn, I hate that about 10ac. I'm glad we kinda buried the hatchet (or at least came to a temporary detente) by way of sardines. RIP, dude...
Re: Florida State Seminoles
Posted: Thu Sep 23, 2021 8:48 am
by hedge
This is the closest to home a covid death has come to me. Some guy who ran a local BBQ joint died the other day but he was older than me and I had never spoken to him. Not saying me and 10ac were best buds (far from it) but you interact with somebody for 20 years, however casually or infrequently, to me that's a lot closer than some dude in my own community who I just knew the name of but nothing else...
Re: Florida State Seminoles
Posted: Thu Sep 23, 2021 8:49 am
by hedge
Looks like 10ac had a rich life. 14 grandchildren and 6 great-grandchildren. Goddamn. Good for him...
Re: Florida State Seminoles
Posted: Thu Sep 23, 2021 8:55 am
by eCat
aTm wrote: ↑Thu Sep 23, 2021 8:25 am
Vaccines, are obviously great, though they do have some negatives, potentially. Most people likely still believe that once everyone is vaccinated it goes away forever, because in their mind that’s a vaccine and what it does. At some point many of these people are going to start believing they are being lied to (much of the population already does).
The vaccines have performed worse than even I hoped, people are getting it and dying in less than a year. Vaccinated people are clearly spreading the virus also. The only thing they offer is better clinical outcomes (which is not nothing, but not the best outcome either)
I don't think you can blame anyone for thinking a vaccine is completely preventative.
We don't know anyone with measles, small pox, polio etc, from childhood immunizations and they were effectively wiped out in industrialized countries.
In this case, once again "science" led us down this path of redefining what a vaccine is - the CDC actually changed the definition of a virus on their site. At the same time Fauci and company set a number to what herd immunity was and when it became obvious that number wasn't realistic they changed it again.
Its unfortunate there is such a stigma around these vaccines, and its equally unfortunate that they lose their effectiveness in a very short period of time, yet the CDC is saying a booster shot is premature and we should evaluate the effects of additional mass vaccination before allowing it. That doesn't exactly produce a vote of confidence in the eyes of the public on the booster.
I started reading up on all the times the CDC has been wrong - in the last decade they have changed their position on of all things, salt consumption, the FDA came out and had to tell the public that the CDC's position on Tamiflu was not founded on real data, their instructions to doctors exposed to Ebola was wrong and they have a wrong recommendation on CS/MFE treatment (I don't know what CS/MFE is) that lead to instances of it making patients worse, not better.
There is no way they should be pushing a vaccine as hard as they have , and in turn , completely dismissing alternative treatments when the vaccine loses potency in as little as 6 months. Its just irresponsible of them to not pursue other avenues of treatment.
Re: Florida State Seminoles
Posted: Thu Sep 23, 2021 9:04 am
by aTm
Yeah, but Moderna (MRNA) stock is up 2216% since 1/1/2020
Re: Florida State Seminoles
Posted: Thu Sep 23, 2021 9:07 am
by eCat
to be clear though
all things considered, if I knew then, when it was time to get the vaccine what I know now, I would still get the vaccine.
Until there is evidence the vaccine is going to cause harm to me or someone in my family, then I will continue to think that.
My brother got the J&J shot. About 3 months later he got a blood clot that made him lose vision in his eye temporarily, but turns out that was actually an indicator of a larger problem where his body was producing too many platelets. That is actually an indicator of many possible things, most commonly is lung cancer, which thankfully he did not have. He is part of the 20% of people who have this condition that their body does it without any specific reason (such as fighting an infection). He had a doctor tell him point blank it was because of that vaccine . He isn't fully convinced that's the reason but he can't rule it out, and now he has to decide if he is going to take a very powerful drug with potentially severe side effects for the rest of this life or likely to suffer a disabling stroke in the near future.
Re: Florida State Seminoles
Posted: Thu Sep 23, 2021 9:08 am
by eCat
aTm wrote: ↑Thu Sep 23, 2021 9:04 am
Yeah, but Moderna (MRNA) stock is up 2216% since 1/1/2020
prior to this pandemic, Moderna was putting their solvency into the creation of a miracle vaccine. They were in a serious cash crunch because they had invested heavily in a drug that failed.
10AC had the moderna shot
Me, My daughter and my son had it. My wife had Pfizer.
Re: Florida State Seminoles
Posted: Thu Sep 23, 2021 9:26 am
by eCat
on that same note, this is Dr. Lee Merritt. She isn't a quack
At one time she was president of Association of American Physicians and Surgeons.
She comes out and says that the side effects of the vaccine will kill more military people than Covid 19 and has the numbers to back it up. Now of course the military is comprised of people mostly in the best shape of their lives and in the lowest mortality percentage of people if infected with Covid. Still, its a powerful 2 minutes
Re: Florida State Seminoles
Posted: Thu Sep 23, 2021 9:55 am
by Jungle Rat
THE WALL OF STEEL
Re: Florida State Seminoles
Posted: Thu Sep 23, 2021 10:32 am
by aTm
They dont want people to “have a decision to make”
If young kids, healthy adults, athletes, the military are better off not getting it, it’s irrelevant. Letting them have that choice allows some 55 year olds who think they are invincible to believe they dont need it either and the government believes that getting to that guy is more beneficial to public health than whether a soldier is allowed to make the best decision for themselves.
Re: Florida State Seminoles
Posted: Thu Sep 23, 2021 10:36 am
by aTm
They have essentially decided that certain groups should be forced into the slightly suboptimal path for the positive propaganda effects it will have toward the greater good.
Re: Florida State Seminoles
Posted: Thu Sep 23, 2021 10:57 am
by hedge
aTm wrote: ↑Thu Sep 23, 2021 9:04 am
Yeah, but Moderna (MRNA) stock is up 2216% since 1/1/2020
Look at NVAX over that same period, and they haven't even been approved yet (due, some say, to meddling by Pfizer and Moderna)...
Re: Florida State Seminoles
Posted: Thu Sep 23, 2021 11:06 am
by hedge
"Letting them have that choice allows some 55 year olds who think they are invincible to believe they dont need it either"
Or, in my case, as of yesterday, 56. I didn't get the vaccine until about 6 weeks ago (Moderna) and second one a couple weeks ago. I am mostly quarantined anyway. Not really, but I don't really come into contact with many people at work, don't go out much and take a handful of vitamins and a shot of garlic every morning. The MIF isn't vaccinated and doesn't want to be, nor do the majority of her coworkers at the local health dept. I guess it only takes one exposure, but I have to say my life has not changed hardly at all since this all began, which is probably an indication of how bad my life sucks, but whenever I hear somebody talking about "getting back to normal life," I'm like "what's changed?"
Re: Florida State Seminoles
Posted: Thu Sep 23, 2021 12:26 pm
by Jungle Rat
Loser
Re: Florida State Seminoles
Posted: Thu Sep 23, 2021 1:09 pm
by sardis
The closest people I've had to die of Covid was my 60 year old cousin who was a diabetic and wouldn't vaccinate and a friend from Charlotte who didn't get vaccinated and died in her forties, left three young children. I got the Moderna in May after nagging from my wife, but now I'm glad I did. I'm not worried about side effects because what is going to kill me is probably already there. I do think that younger folks need to think real hard before getting it, but there is so much pressure from employer and nutjob family members like my sister-in-law who guilt them into doing it. My two oldest have gotten it because they work for international companies and you are a dirty dog if you don't get it. Plus their aunt wouldn't let them any where near their grandmother unless they were vaxed. My youngest loves the avoidance of humans by being unvaccinated.
Re: Florida State Seminoles
Posted: Thu Sep 23, 2021 1:23 pm
by Jungle Rat
I was just looking back on here and boy did hedge dislike 10ac. Hedge was so mean. Guess he'll have to live with that. I didn't realize he was 72. I didn't realize much about him though. I didn't really pay attention. Was he otherwise healthy? He said he was vaxxed so I guess he was but the obit is vague. Sucks he's gone. He had some great one liners on here. I guess I'll spot him a touchdown this weekend.
Re: Florida State Seminoles
Posted: Thu Sep 23, 2021 1:47 pm
by hedge
Our relationship was fraught, but sardines bonded us in the end. I'm glad he got to enjoy some real high quality sardines before his untimely demise...